SYDNEY, May 1: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has said a new test for detecting human growth hormones will make it more difficult for athletes to cheat at this year’s Beijing Olympics.

HGH, undetectable for most of the past 20 years, is believed to be one of the most-abused drugs in sport.

Anti-doping authorities have been working on a reliable test for more than a decade but it is only now being widely introduced, after limited programmes were conducted at the 2004 Athens Olympics and Turin Winter Games in 2006.

WADA Director General David Howman said every country with an accredited laboratory would receive the HGH-testing kits within months.

But Howman would not say exactly when the testing would begin because he did not want to inform drug cheats.

“Growth hormone is a big issue. It’s being taken with impunity in some countries,” Howman told reporters on Wednesday, a day before a WADA meeting here to improve cooperation between anti-doping and law enforcement agencies.

Scientists, specialising in blood doping, have shown that athletes can take regular low doses of the blood-boosting hormone erythropoietin (EPO) in combination with insulin growth factor or HGH.

The combination, they have found, accelerates the impact of EPO but enables the user to escape detection for the smaller dose of EPO.

Howman said athletes using this method would now face a problem, as there would be a test for HGH at Beijing after difficulties with the HGH testing kits had been resolved.

Howman said WADA was also alert to the latest designer steroids, similar to tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), which was used by the BALCO clients such as disgraced American sprinter Marion Jones and Britain’s Dwain Chambers.

WADA President John Fahey said the new technology was more effective than previous tests, which could only detect HGH within 24 hours of it being taken.

“There is certain news about certain drugs that allowed athletes to believe that if they cut it out in the days or the weeks leading up to the Games they could get away with it,” Fahey said. “They shouldn’t be sure of that any more.”

Fahey added the laboratories could detect growth hormone taken “many days before” and that several hundred blood tests for HGH would be conducted in Beijing.

According to a report On Wednesday, WADA urged China to ensure its standards for intercepting banned substances matches its testing facilities for drug cheats at the Beijing Olympics.

WADA officials have asked Chinese authorities to increase customs and immigration checks to prevent performance-enhancing drugs reaching the Games.

Howman said cases like that of disgraced sprinter Marion Jones — uncovered by investigations — showed anti-doping enforcement should extend beyond testing.

Fahey said he was impressed by the “advanced state of readiness” of the Beijing laboratory to conduct more tests on a wider range of banned substances than ever before on Olympic athletes.—Agencies