World Anti-Doping Agency president John Fahey has acknowledged Australia's world-first move to introduce legislation targeting cheating athletes but has called on sporting bodies to do more.
In the wake of the Australian Crime Commission's (ACC) damning revelations of widespread corruption and use of illicit performance-enhancing substances by athletes, former NSW premier and Howard government minister, Fahey has faced the world's media in London.
He said the fall from grace of cyclist Lance Armstrong represented the "most systematic and widespread of doping frauds in the history of sport", and went some way to showing the widening divide between cheating in sport and in other areas of society.
Moving forward, Fahey said anti-doping authorities must focus on more than just blood and urine testing.
The ACC report prompted the federal government to make moves to strengthen the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's (ASADA) investigative powers and resources, introducing a bill which would give them police-like enforcement to compel suspect athletes and others to turn up for questioning and hand over documents on request.
"Following recent revelations, Australia wasted little time introducing a bill into its parliament giving the Sports Anti-Doping Authority the authority to call witnesses and to demand information," Fahey said.
"And when this bill is passed through parliament, it will be a first for the national anti-doping agencies.
"But it is not only governments that need to raise their game in terms of anti-doping. Sport too needs to stop procrastinating and to make a very real stand against this continuing trend to cheat.
"I have no qualms in saying that sport has to take more responsibility for what's going on in its boundaries and the Armstrong case has shown this with particular clarity.
"Sport needs to recognise that every time there is an inept response from the sports administrators to doping ... the reputation of sport across the world suffers."
As NRL and AFL clubs begin to admit having been contacted by the ACC in relation to investigations, Fahey said sports corruption seemed destined to continue.
"Whenever there are significant sums of money to be won, glory to be gained, there will always be those willing to come up with new, more cunning ways to cheat," Fahey said.
