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7-Aug-2008 : Could a little blue pill be enough to help athletes rise to the occasion on the biggest stage in sports?

According to some, Viagra is more than just a performance enhancer under the sheets.

Officials acknowledge use of erectile dysfunction drugs are becoming the rage among some athletes looking for an edge. Double entendre aside, it's becoming a sexy story as the Beijing Olympics prepare to unfold this weekend.

"Some view (Viagra) as a performance enhancer and there's certainly some reason to see why that might be," Dr. Robert McCormack, the chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic team, said in an interview here on Wednesday.

"It extends the blood vessels and in that sense it could be of some benefit. It is clearly something athletes are trying for a variety of reasons. Athletes are looking for any margin to improve, something that can help them go a little faster or be a little stronger."

As cheeky as it is and fodder for a nice punchline, Viagra is the least of the doping issues facing the IOC, because as of now its use is legal, though the World Anti Doping Agency is aggressively monitoring its potential benefits.

Drug testing and its results will be a big story throughout these Games. Despite the chemists' way of staying a step ahead of the testers, predictions are improved WADA methods will yield a record number of positives, eclipsing the 26 set four years ago in Athens.

In the past several weeks, some 45 Beijing-bound athletes from around the globe have been banned for a variety of transgressions, which surely has would-be dopers on edge.

There have been reports of an emergence of the new fourth generation of the blood enhancer EPO, this after testers recently found a way to detect the previously in vogue version. There is talk of laughing gas and a technique to tattoo steroids under an athlete's skin, a method which supposedly allows the dope to spread faster.

There is nothing like the Olympics to bring out experimentation, however. McCormack cites a survey done prior to the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles when a sampling of athletes was asked whether they would take a legal drug that would knock five years from their life yet guarantee them a gold medal. The result: 50 per cent said yes.

"They are an extremely focused and competitive group," McCormack said of the would-be cheats. "For one, they have the gladiator mentality and believe they are invincible to certain things and secondly, they believe 'nothing is going to happen to me.' "

McCormack said Canadian officials have been working closely with athletes to prepare them to compete clean and at least avoid inadvertent positives. That process began four months before the Games and includes a review when athletes shows up there.

"We've advised them on all sorts of medications -- from creams to ointments to supplements," McCormack said. "Anything you can take, ingest or apply."

While McCormack is confident Canadians won't get caught in the web, he believes that with 4,500 tests expected to be administered during the course of the Games, dozens of dopers will be nailed.

"I would be surprised if there were not (an increase in violations)," McCormack said. "There could easily be dozens of positive tests."

Drug talk wasn't far from the surface Wednesday.

At a press conference designed as a love-in for U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps and his 41-year-old teammate Dara Torres, talk turned to cheats. Torres, who has fended off those skeptical of her ability to compete at an advanced age for her sport, became annoyed when asked to respond to allegations from an Australian swimmer who said the sport is still rife with drug use.

"I've answered this question at least a thousand times and I think it's getting a little old," Torres said. "Unfortunately that's just the way the world is today and it's too bad that some athletes don't have a conscience and think it's OK.

"So, for those of us who have a conscience, we know we're doing it the right way and there's nothing you can do."

It's naive to think it's going to end any time soon, no matter the colour of the pill.