Australia's leading anti-doping expert wants the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to start testing competitors as soon as they set up house in the Olympic village ahead of the Sydney 2000 Games.
"The IOC have been saying we don't have authority over these athletes until the Games start but in actual fact we do," IOC medical commission member Dr Ken Fitch told a conference in Sydney.
"Once the village opens they have to comply with village rules and it makes no sense to me that we can't test."
The IOC stopped pre-Olympic testing after the 1976 Montreal Games and attempts to reintroduce the tests for the 1996 Atlanta Games failed.
Fitch said he planned to push his case at the next IOC Commission meeting.
He also said he expected the IOC would have a reliable test for the drug erythropoietin, commonly known as EPO, in time for Sydney but doubted whether a reliable test for human growth hormones would be ready.
