There is only one agency with both the funds and the vested interest to operate an effective drugs-detection programme. That is the International Olympic Committee, and it is to them that Sebastian Coe must travel to create a body with sufficient muscle to tackle drugs in athletics (Coe reaches highest podium in athletics, 20 August). However, if the IOC is unwilling to exclude rogue nations from membership, no amount of testing will make much difference. That is the bullet which must be bitten. Alas, nothing in the history of international governing bodies reveals any desire to cast off member nations, regardless of the depths of their calumnies. Witness state-supported athletes, Nazi repression of Jewish sportsmen, and 20 years of communist-bloc drug-programmes. All passed without a whimper.
Tom McNab
St Albans, Hertfordshire
