In keeping with our drugs interest, a little history is sometimes an eye-opener. In East Germany 2000 athletes a year were drugged during the 1970s, although only about 100 of these were potential Olympic medallists.

The legacy of that included liver damage, genital changes, ovarian cysts, cancer and handicapped children. Heidi Krieger, who won the 1986 European shot putt title, is now Andreas Krieger, the result of a sex change after years of injections with male hormones.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics no East German won a swimming gold medal. Four years later in Montreal they won 11. Montreal represented a sinister peak. The battle to head the Olympic medals table after World War Two had up to that time been a straight contest between the US and the Soviet Union. In Montreal it was East Germany, a country of 17 million people, who supplanted the Americans to take second place behind their political masters.