'The idea is to put some pressure on all the athletes to prepare to be clean' There will be no automatic drug tests for medal-winners when the East Asian Games gets under way in Macau on Saturday, organisers have announced. The games will adopt a policy of random, unannounced testing to keep all athletes on their guard. The anti-doping procedure will be under the supervision of the chairman of the East Asian Games Association (EAGA) medical committee, Guilherme Wong Wai-lap, who said urine tests would be carried out at competition venues only, and there would be no out-of-competition checks. 'For the first time in the history of the games, the fourth East Asian Games will comply fully with the international standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency [Wada],' said Wong. 'The samples will be sent to the Wada-approved Beijing Doping Control Centre for analysis, and the results will be communicated to the East Asian Games Association medical committee within 24 hours. 'The banned substance list for 2005 issued by Wada has been sent to all nine competing National Olympic Committees, and they have adopted the anti-doping rules.' Wong said medal winners would not be tested automatically, as this would be a huge financial burden on the organisers with 234 gold medals at stake in 17 sports over nine days to November 6. 'It will not always be the medallists,' he said. 'The idea is to put some pressure on all the athletes, and they have to prepare themselves to be clean. 'At the last East Asian Games in Osaka in 2001 there were no positive cases, and I hope this time we can keep it a clean games.' Wong said any ban for a positive test would be automatically recognised by Wada and would apply to all international competition. The doping control also includes a therapeutic-use exemption committee, to which athletes can apply 21 days in advance when taking medication on the banned list, most commonly to treat asthma 'There is also an 'abbreviated' format of application with no deadline before competition, but the names submitted to the therapeutic use exemption committee will remain confidential. The EAGA medical committee will host a symposium tomorrow and Thursday involving over 100 people to share experiences and strategies to combat doping worldwide. With the games starting on Saturday, some 70 per cent of the 400,000 tickets available for the 17 sports, the opening ceremony and closing ceremony on November 6, have been sold. Only five per cent of the tickets for the opening ceremony remain unsold. 'As we stand now, the public is quite slow in showing their emotion, but they may be more enthusiastic to buy tickets during the games,' said organising committee director Peter Ung Hoi Ian.