Kiwi David Howman cleaning up sport's drug-tarnished image

David Howman

Sitting at home in his Texan ranch with his rock-star fiancee, Lance Armstrong might be a little worried about what world drugs supremo David Howman has to say.

Then again, the seven-time Tour de France winner has managed to emerge from drugs accusations in the past with his reputation largely intact, largely because he never failed a drugs test.

That was, according to leading French paper L'Equipe, until he reportedly failed six retrospective urine tests for EPO taken from the 1999 Tour. Armstrong has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and says he's the victim of a "set-up" in a long-standing feud with the French media but Howman is not prepared to let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak.

"We are investigating it [Armstrong's case] right now," said Howman, a former sports lawyer and New Zealand Tennis president who is now the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) - one of the world's most powerful sports bodies.

"It's reasonably obvious he's concerned about it. He didn't sue the newspaper that published it, and that's significant. He has a history of suing everyone who has upset him in the past so something is going on there.

"We can request to test that sample. The results from the French laboratory showed that a big number of those who competed in 1999 were on EPO."

It's a moot point whether Armstrong would face sanction anyway - even if WADA tests show Armstrong's sample positive for EPO. That's because athletes can be declared to have a drugs violation only after both the A and B samples test positive - and Armstrong's A samples have already been destroyed. However, it would be another significant scalp for WADA's anti-drugs campaign.

Last year they added big fish like former 100m world record holder Tim Montgomery, top 10 tennis player Mariano Puerta and four-time Tour of Spain winner Roberto Heras to an increasingly larger pond of athletes who have sunken into the murky depths of drug taking. Marion Jones and baseball superstar Barry Bonds could soon be added to the catch because of their alleged involvement with BALCO - a laboratory that supplied performance-enhancing substances to athletes. And then there's Armstrong.

"Other big names will undoubtedly be exposed soon," Howman promised while taking a break from watching the ASB Classic last week. "You will be pleasantly surprised what will happen in the next few years. Big heads are rolling and will continue to roll. Some athletes will be looking in the mirror at night and wondering when they will be caught."

Call it a crusade, if you like. He might even see himself as something of a sheriff but Howman is determined to help clean up and restore some credibility to sport and knows catching the cheats will send out a message to youngsters trying to make it in the big, bad world of sport.

Progress is being made in the war against drugs, largely because of the creation of WADA in 1999 to take over from the likes of the IOC and sporting organisations which, Howman said, were "making a mess of it and hiding test results of high-profile" athletes. Since the start of 2004, every sport except for football has come under WADA's jurisdiction ("we will get them in the next two to three months") and every government is also expected to fall in line by the end of 2006.

What has made WADA so successful is that it now has a team of scientists to rival those being employed by athletes. "The issue has become a scientific battle and who has the best scientists," Howman explained. "Now we have our scientists thinking like cheats. It might be a terrible thing to say but if they are thinking like cheats then we can anticipate what's going on.

"We've located three or four designer drugs in the making rather than in use, so that's significant. We have also found a lot of athletes now using drugs that were around in the 1980s, so they are going backwards rather than forwards."

What has also given Howman optimism for the future is what he sees as a return to more traditional values - the Olympic ethos of higher, faster and stronger without the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

"It's a return to good values in sport because no one condones cheating," he said. "Everyone wants to work within the rules. I think you will find that attitude prominent among 95 per cent of world athletes. People don't want athletes to be human chemical stockpiles and I certainly don't want my grandchildren to die because they've been enticed to take something to beef up."

Even though Howman describes himself as a cynic - it helps him deal with the realities of the job - there'd be more than a few who might dispute his assertion that only five per cent of athletes use drugs.

Disgraced former BALCO head Victor Conte, who was sentenced to jail for his part in the scandal, paints a different picture considering he believes 50 per cent of athletes in sports are on steroids and 80 per cent use some kind of stimulant.

Although New Zealand has had its share of misdemeanours, Howman believes this country is relatively clean. "New Zealand has a history of being pretty darned clean," he enthused. "You can't hide in New Zealand so if you get caught you're hung up as public enemy No 1."

As far as some athletes and coaches are concerned, Howman is the enemy. But that's fine with the Kiwi on a mission. After all, it will mean he and WADA are on the right track and kids will once again have designs on being a top athlete, rather than doing it with the aid of drugs.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY