Athletes who compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics face the danger of a positive drugs test if they dine out and eat some of China's chemical-laden foods, a top Chinese doping expert has warned.

Chinese food is contaminated with banned drugs like anabolic steroids to such an extent that the possibility is real, said Yang Shumin, the former head of China's Olympic doping control centre and an expert on anabolic steroids.

"Concern about it goes to the top of the Chinese Government," Yang, now a researcher at the doping control centre who also advises the government on food safety, said.

Athletes caught doping rarely admit their guilt, and most come up with dubious stories about spiked food and drink or medicine that turned out to contain banned substances.

"Those stories could be true in 2008," Yang said.

In China, food safety is a major issue for the entire population, not just for the more than 10,000 athletes who will arrive here in August 2008 to take part in the Olympics.

Many of the hundreds of millions of China's farmers buy anabolic steroids for their livestock and antibiotics for their fowl from salesmen who promise better prices for bigger pigs and healthier ducks.

Dangerous pesticides, fertilizers and chemical additives to make the produce more attractive also combine with heavy metals washed into the food chain through contaminated rivers and streams.

Add to that poor hygiene and food handling, and the recipe for regular outbreaks of mass food-poisoning is complete.

In one recent case that raised Olympic alarm bells, 336 people fell sick in Shanghai in September after eating pork contaminated with anabolic steroids.

Sales of turbot, a popular flatfish, were also this month banned in parts of eastern China after they were found to contain carcinogens from antibiotics.

Other food scares have centered on duck eggs dyed with dangerous chemicals and snails infested by parasites that sent about 90 Beijing diners to hospital suffering from meningitis.

Although it is aware of the wider problem, the Chinese leadership has made the Olympics its focus, staking its prestige on staging a great, doping-free Games.

"The Chinese Government cares. They don't want to lose face because of doping. And that does not just apply to Chinese athletes. It applies to all athletes," said Yang. "So we are doing our best to prevent any drugs getting into athletes' systems."

The government has issued what is calls a "dead order" - one that must be obeyed at all costs - on food safety at the Olympic village where most of the athletes will stay during the August 8-24 games.

Any Chinese official found responsible for a lapse in food security can expect no mercy.

A high-tech surveillance system will be used to trace the entire food supply chain for the athletes, from production and processing to delivery at the village. But the problems deepen once athletes step beyond the sanitized borders of the village.

Chinese officials were stunned to hear that athletes taking part in the World Junior Championships in Beijing in August went looking to eat raw meat on the streets.

"This is very dangerous," he said. "Top athletes are very clear about this. They won't buy anything they are not sure of."

(China Daily 11/30/2006 page1)