Olympic medal haul by Jamaican sprinters should increase visit by drug testers, says IOC member Dick Pound

Dick Pound has rarely met an athlete he doesn't think might be dirty.

So it's not surprising the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency says Jamaican sprint athletes leaving London with a load of Olympic Games medals should expect more visits by drug testers.

"I think they can expect, with the extraordinary results that they have had, that they will be on everybody's radar,'' Pound, who is an International Olympic Committee member, told Reuters Television.

The Montreal tax lawyer also isn't happy with the way Jamaica has tested its athletes.

"No, they are one of the groups that are hard to test,'' he said. "It is (hard) to get in and find them and so forth.''

One-third of the 12 medals Jamaica won at the Games were gold. Usain Bolt led the haul, repeating as the 100 and 200-metre champion and leading the 4x100-metre relay team to victory. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce also won gold in the women's 100 metres.

Yohan Blake was part of the gold-medal relay team and was second to Bolt in the 100 and 200 metres. Warren Weir took the bronze for a Jamaican sweep of the 200 metres.

Veronica Campbell-Brown also took bronze in the women's 100 metres.

There were 11 athletes expelled from the Games since July 16, which Pound said shows the IOC is still not winning it's battle against performance-enhancing drugs.

"I think we are gaining and getting better at science,'' Pound said. "There is a long way to go yet. In Churchillian terms, it is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.''

Victor Conte, owner of the now-defunct BALCO laboratory, said earlier this week that 60 per cent of athletes at the Games are on drugs. Conte served time in prison in 2005 for a drug scandal that involved high-profile Olympic athletes like Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

"He is probably more likely to know than we are,'' said Pound. "I hope it is not 60 per cent, but it is certainly a lot more than we are catching.''

The IOC will run more than 5,000 tests at the Games, which end Sunday. More than 100 athletes were also caught using banned substances in the months leading up to the Games through increased testing by national and international anti-doping agencies.

Pound said smart athletes don't get caught for drugs at the Olympics.

"The drug testing that will be done here is first class,'' he said. "I would not expect many cases at the Olympics because if you test positive here you fail not a drugs test, but an IQ test."