Drug cloud hangs over Athens Olympics

Hopes of another record-breaking Olympics games are starting to fade, The Rockall Times can reveal. Traditionally, each Olympics sees many records tumble as athletes are able to take advantage of the latest performance-enhancing drugs. This time around, however, it seems that the dope cheats have finally been thwarted by by a relentless campaign of hi-tech drugs tests. Despite some frantic last-minute experimentation it seems they will not be able to come up with the goods in time for the start of the games.

This has potentially devastating consequences for the future of the Olympics. We spoke to one anonymous sports commentator — known simply as "Des" — who felt the outlook was bleak: "People expect to see records fall at Olympic Games but what they don’t realise is the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to make this happen. The doping suppliers work 24 hours a day to come up with a substance that beats the test — only to find the IOC has moved the goal posts.

"If this sort of thing carries on then it's possible that the dopers may pull out of the sport altogether. This will mean times increasing year-on-year. How long before we see the first five-minute mile?" he asked glumly.

The Rockall Times also spoke to one of the scientists struggling to meet this tight deadline.

"We're up against it this time," he explained. "The main problem is the introduction of blood testing. When we first heard the IOC was to stop taking the piss, we completely misunderstood what they meant and now we're playing catch-up. We're working round the clock to come up with something that will beat the new tests but quite frankly it's not looking good.

"We did have some encouraging results involving mixing athletes genes with genes from appropriate animals but it's still early days. For example we tried introducing salmon genes into some swimmers' DNA. While they showed impressive initial speed across the pool, they unfortunately mated immediately upon completion of the race and then dropped dead in the shallow end."

Previously

• Athens Olympics embrace terrorism
• Saddam fronts French Olympic bid
• British Olympian shoots up drug theory