The Olympic swimming champion, Michelle Smith de Bruin, was a victim of an insidious system, according to the drugs tester, Mr Al Guy.
He said he could sympathise and empathise with Michelle and her husband, Erik. "They are in many ways a victim," he said. "Each and everyone involved in something like this is a victim of an insidious system. If the rewards weren't there, if the temptations weren't there, if the products weren't there, then this would not happen. But sadly they are."
Mr Guy and his wife, Kay, carried out the urine test at the swimmer's home in Kilkenny in January 1998, which she was accused of tampering with. On Monday the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, upheld a four-year ban on Ms de Bruin, imposed by FINA, the sport's governing body.
Speaking yesterday on the RTE radio programme Liveline, Mr Guy said there was a certain relief that the pressure was gone following the verdict. He said he felt a mixture of sadness and "a realisation that the testing is beginning to catch up with the cheats".
The issue to address now was the prevalence of drugs in sport and the necessity to deal with the problem in Ireland "realising that we do have the problem. We're no different from any other country in the world. We're no different from any other situation except that we're probably 20 years behind in dealing with the problem."
Mr Guy, who works for International Drug Testing Management, said: "Quite frankly I absolutely abhor the idea of the introduction of substances of this nature into any area".
He did not see that anyone who wanted to get to the top in sport should "pump themselves up with pharmaceutical products which may ultimately destroy them".
He said Ms de Bruin might be the author of her own misfortunes but "without the outside influences and the availability of them she wouldn't have gone that way. Society as a whole has a duty to cut out these things as much as possible."
He said a pharmacist on the Vincent Browne radio show had said that athletes should be allowed to use these substances. Pharmacists would make money out of it and athletes would be the guinea pigs, he added.
Drug addicts were dying bereft of any human dignity, he said. "In the sport area they are in history, dying with horrific ailments sometimes brought on by the abuse of substances."