Some of the most outstanding scientists in the world involved in anti-doping testing and research for international sport events -- including the Olympic Games -- can be found in an unpretentious five-story white building in a quiet area of the northeastern section of the China National Olympic Sports Center in Beijing.

The only outward sign to indicate the scope of the work within the China Anti-doping Test Center: The five circles of the logo of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) painted on the center's heavy glass automatic doors.

"Our test center has the best professionals among the first class centers around the world," Zhang Changjiu, head of the Medical Research Institute of the Sport Science of the State Physical Culture Administration and an unquestioned authority in anti-doping testing, said in a recent interview.

Take Wu Moutian, for example. Wu is one of six International Olympic Committee Medical Commission experts who have the power to decide and renew the IOC's list of banned drugs. Zhang and Wu are among some 18 Chinese researchers whose work advances international knowledge in the field while ensuring that Chinese sport remains clean and honest. About one-third of the 17 researchers are doctors in their majors and the rest have senior professional titles.

The International Olympic Committee Medical Commission of which Wu is a member also is in charge of the annual examination of laboratories all over the world that are carrying out testing and research in the anti-doping field. So far, 27 anti-doping test centers have been certified with five located in Asia: Thailand, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Japan and China. Authorized test centers do not have perpetual membership, but are subjected to annual exams. If disqualified, a center will be removed from the list but can make a comeback if it passes the next year's examination.

The China Anti-doping Test Center, officially set up in October 1987 and approved by the International Olympic Committee at the end of 1989, has created a record of passing the examination of the IOC for the past 12 years continuously.

Today the China Anti-doping Test Center owns more than 20 kinds of test equipment and instruments valued at more than 200 million yuan (US$24 million), most imported from the United States. Among them, the high-resolution mass spectrometer and isotope mass spectrometer are available. Each is worth 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million), equal to ten luxury Buick sedans. All expenses for importing these instruments were paid by a special fund allocated by the Ministry of Finance under the application of the State Physical Culture Administration.

The high-resolution mass spectrometer improves the ability to detect banned drugs from 10 nanograms to two nonograms, almost four times better than before. This means even if you dissolve 0.035 ounce of sugar into a swimming pool of standard size (54 x 27 yards), you will get a quick report on the sugar volume in the water through analysis of just five milliliters of the pool water.

Of course, the value of the experienced professionals who operate the state-of-art instruments can hardly be measured by money.

Before the opening of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the China Anti-doping Test Center in cooperation with Canada, Australia, and Norway made a breakthrough in EPO (erythropoietin) testing with the method of blood-urine combination test. EPO is a synthetic hormone that increases the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, of particular benefit to distance runners. China Anti-doping Test Center's contribution to this achievement was its providing five blood parameters of Asian people.

Zhang Changjiu, who started his specialized career in 1987, expressed every confidence in the reliability of test results produced by his Center. The China Anti-doping Test Center has worked out a set of security rules with detailed regulations on every test steps to ensure no cheating in a doping test.

"All the test procedures are conducted by two researchers and all the final test reports must be signed by two researchers," he said.

China Anti-doping Test Center avoids any direct contact with people who are being tested. A department in the State Physical Culture Administration selects the athletes to be tested and collects their blood or urine samples. Then the samples are marked with serial numbers and sent to the Center. After receiving the samples, leaders of the Center renumber the samples before they hand them out to laboratories for test. In this way, the people doing the testing have no idea about whose samples they are testing.

Zhang Changjiu recalled that when he began his anti-doping career 14 years ago, only about 60 kinds of medicine were banned in sports events. But today, a total of 138 kinds of drugs are on the banned list of the IOC.

Zhang and his colleagues have started preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Though he is reluctant to give details about his research direction, he said "certainly" the Center will be developing new testing methods to meet future challenges.

Today if an athlete is tested two weeks after he has used a banned drug, the possibility of the drug's being detected is minimal because the residue is too small to be traced. Zhang and his colleagues are trying to use all their efforts to find ways of detecting traces of banned drugs take two weeks -- or even a month or longer -- before.

Because doping is fundamentally against the spirit of fair play at the Olympic Games and harmful to the health of athletes, causing both short and long term damage, the China Anti-doping Test Center will continue to make every effort best to punish those who take risks in doping, Zhang said.

(People's Daily, translated for china.org.cn by James Liu, February 11, 2002)