Britain’s Olympic competitors face being tested for human growth hormone, the previously undetectable ‘wonder drug’ used by thousands of athletes, including disgraced sprinters Ben Johnson and Marion Jones. When a new programme begins shortly, it will be the first time that tests for the drug have ever been done in Britain. Competitors will not be warned that they are being carried out.

Up to 100 members of Britain’s team for Beijing will be targeted for testing, especially those in the explosive and strength events where foreign competitors in a variety of sports, including athletics, weightlifting, swimming, cycling, American football and baseball have been linked with taking HGH. Originally it had to be extracted from cadavers, hence its nickname 'dead man’s drug’ but recently it has been extensively manufactured, particularly in China.

HGH has been used in the past to maintain physical gains for major events because it was impossible to detect whether it had been artificially taken since it is a naturally occurring substance in the human body. This ended with the first testing at the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2006 Winter Games. However, now testing is about to be carried out in several countries, including Britain, in the run-up to Beijing.

Russell Langley, the spokesman on drugs for UK Sport, the quango which will oversee the 1,500 tests on all British competitors at this year’s Olympics and Paralympics, said yesterday: ”This is the largest pre-Olympic programme we have ever done and the testing for HGH is to be rolled out as part of that work. Most of the testing, including that for HGH, will be on a ‘no-notice, out-of-competition’ basis. We have not warned competitors that they may be tested for HGH, which is already a banned substance.” All the analysis will be conducted at King’s College, London University, the laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Langley said: ”There are two reasons for this testing before the Games. The first is that we want to ensure that we have a ‘clean’ team representing Britain in Beijing and we will give competitors short, sharp sessions on drug education so that they don’t take any banned substances, contained in medication, by mistake, as happened with the skier Alain Baxter at the 2002 Olympics. The second is that we want to reassure the public that the performances they will be seeing at the Games from our team is from ‘clean’ athletes.” The annual drug-testing budget in Britain is about £4 million.

HGH has been used in sport and body-building since the early 1980s, often as a cocktail with anabolic steroids, with extensive references to it in the ‘Underground Steroid Handbook’. In 1989, Dr Jamie Astaphan admitted under oath that he had given HGH to the Canadian coach Charlie Francis for the use of his squad of sprinters, including Ben Johnson, who lost his 1988 Olympic 100m title and world record when he tested positive for an anabolic steroid.

Taking excessive quantities of HGH has been linked with severe physical and psychological disorders including the death at the age of 43 of Lyle Alzado, the celebrated defensive end in the NFL, who blamed his physical deterioration on taking drugs including HGH. The need for a validated test became more acute in 1983 with the Balco affair, when Victor Conte, the owner of the San Francisco laboratory, claimed he had provided HGH to several track and field athletes, American footballers and baseball stars.

Two research teams working independently have provided their findings to the Wada, which has accepted the one of the German group in Berlin, led by Prof Christian Strasburger. This is the one which will be used in Britain. The other team, which has also been funded by the Wada, is based at Southampton University led by Prof Peter Sonksen, who says that their method can pick up some people up to 14 days after they have taken HGH, supposedly much longer than the German method. This has yet to be validated by the Wada, much to Prof Sonksen’s annoyance, but the Wada eventually wants to combine the two tests. Both tests involve blood analysis.

A German company has now manufactured thousands of kits for the testing and these are being distributed to several countries including Britain as part of the continuing struggle against the scourge of modern sport