A former Olympic champion, Shane Gould, said it could be a forerunner of a compulsory system in which only athletes with clean passports could compete in top events. Speaking at the start of National Science Week, she said the introduction of passports was a practical way of creating an open and honest system transparent to sports officials, administrations and sponsors. Everyone wants the Olympics to be run cleanly and honestly. It's a disappointment when our athletes are brought down. Ms Kapernick said for the passports proposal to succeed it needed support from those at the centre of the controversy - athletes.
All athletes feel tainted by allegations of drug cheating.
We are giving them a chance to say enough is enough. Ms Gould said the idea of athletes having a document or passport to record details of drug tests in competition or random unannounced tests would go a long way to stamping out cheats. The passport would need to be filled in with a required number of drug tests and stamped by an accredited doctor. But she said privacy and legal issues threatened to sabotage the passport plan, as they had in the past when athletes had challenged and successfully overturned sports bans and fines using their country's civil laws. A similar passport proposal by athletes' representatives has been presented to the World Anti-Doping Agency, which last month asked the International Olympic Committee Athletes' Commission to consider it further.