I TRY to remain objective about doping issues but I was delighted to see Christine Ohuruogu overcome the consequences of an unfair antidoping situation to produce the performance of a lifetime. Anyone with real knowledge of the way antidoping systems operate will know Ohuruogu’s situation is an example of system failure. There is no doubt that she was foolish, that she should not have missed tests, that she should have kept her information about her whereabouts accurate. But before onlookers cast judgment, they should understand the detail of the system she was subject to and her circumstances.

Testing is meant to be a deterrent, a reinforcement of the rule. In the 1980s, out-of-competition testing was introduced as a response to the misuse of drugs in training, which cleared the body before a competition where testing took place. So if you couldn’t fix the test or who was selected, you had to be careful about clearance times to compete. Out-of-competition testing then required athletes to provide “whereabouts” information to enable testing to be carried out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at no notice. The principle was sound.

Unfortunately, the willingness of the sports authorities to enforce this system left gaping holes in the credibility of sport. Athletes trained overseas outside the regular grasp of testing. Limited budgets ensured limited testing. For a world-leading system the UK did not manage to catch many athletes at home – Dwain Chambers and Linford Christie are two examples of this.

These are past problems but they do inform the future. Since 2003 the brave new world of antidoping introduced World AntiDoping Code compliance at internationally agreed standards across sports and countries in most areas of antidoping. However, the new code regime allowed antidoping bodies to introduce their own version of whereabouts information and missed tests “based on reasonable rules”. Not all sports or all countries operate in the same way. For Ohuruogu this means that IAAF requirements are different and that her competitors abide by different national rules.

Changes introduced in the UK in 2005 moved away from nonotice testing to athletes scheduling their availability for one hour a day for five days in a week. They were told that requiring information 24/7 was an unrealistic expectation. Testing programmes are intended to test athletes. Instead, one-hour slots for athletes without regular facilities and dedicated coaches prove a real challenge. Simply providing her home address may have helped Ohuruogu to avoid missing tests, but living with her parents and six siblings in a house with one bathroom, she chose to respect her family’s needs. Testing officers calling late at night or early in the morning would have been intrusive. One wonders about the inclusiveness of sport.

Perhaps the tests could have been carried out if Ohuruogu had been able to advise the testing officer where she was, but UK rules now require nonotice tests only. How unlike the USA, where the testing officer has the authority to visit alternative addresses, to convert a nonotice test to a short-notice test and the chance to counsel the athlete to improve their whereabouts information.

Missed tests create innuendo. My previous criticisms of a possible 64-hour gap between scheduled tests – which could have allowed athletes to take short-acting drugs – has at least prompted authorities to seek unannounced tests outside the scheduled times, but these are not regarded as missed tests. Some sports review the report of a missed test, consider an athlete’s explanation and some of those tests are discounted. For missing tests, some British athletes receive a warning, some three months or six months suspension; Ohuruogu was banned for a year.

What could Ohuruogu have done to avoid missing tests? In October 2005, when her training schedule changed from Mile End stadium to the Olympic Medical Institute at Northwick Park, she should have advised someone of this change. In June 2006, when her schedule changed just hours before she was due to train at Northwick Park, yes she should have advised somebody of that change. But couldn’t the system have been flexible enough to allow the testing officer to wait for her to get to that venue?

It is a sad indictment of the antidoping system that it fails to provide us with proof that athletes are drug-free.

Other ways must be found to improve the quality of testing. Surely we could do better for athletes like Ohuruogu?

Michele Verroken is former head of antidoping at UK Sport and the founding director of sports business consultancy Sporting Integrity