USADA's pursuit of Lance Armstrong was vigorous - but here's their testing figures across all sports

USADA's investigation into Lance Armstrong left him with nowhere to hide and he eventually admitted to doping during a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, above. However, the agency appears to carry out very few tests in many sports where the performance gain drugs could give and the financial rewards on offer must give rise to serious temptation.

When Lance Armstrong was exposed earlier this year as a massive user of performance enhancing drugs throughout his career and as a senior figure who groomed others to take drugs to further his and his team's objectives, it was the United States Anti Doping Agency (USADA) that brought him down.

The Government body's pursuit of Armstrong was vigorous and comprehensive and rightly succeeded in laying bare his lies and rotten the culture within his team. It also raised very significant questions about the culture in cycling and the role of the UCI world governing body within that culture.

Those questions about the UCI have not yet been answered following the collapse of an independent process intended to interrogate the agency's activities - some say inactivity - as they related to Armstrong and the wider doping issue.

However, while USADA was praised for having, once and for all, exposed Armstrong via a wide and comprehensive investigation, its reach into other sports appears very limited, according to its own testing figures for all of last year and the first quarter of 2013 (below).

It carries out its own tests in the US and is also invited by sports to carry out tests on behalf of those codes. It means the figures below capture the level of testing USADA performs for itself/of its own volition, and also the extent to which other sports do, or quite clearly don't, invite USADA in to test their athletes.

For example - and it is just one example - there were just 29 tests carried out in tennis in all of last year, despite the grueling schedule in tournaments where matches that can last for hours must be played day after day, with financial rewards for the successful that dwarf almost anything in cycling.

Exactly the same number of tests were carried out on Paralympic cyclists in the same period. And in both tennis and Paralympic cycling, all of the tests were out of competition, with no in-competition tests carried out by the agency during 2012 in either code - and for many others.

We have decided to publish the figures below, not in any way to distract from the seriousness of the drugs issue in cycling, but to highlight what appears to be, to put it mildly, an imbalance in the number of tests carried out across a large number of sports.

The first set of figures below are for the first quarter of this year, while the second set relates to 2012 in full. The second set of figures is very significant in that it captures USADA's testing of many Olympic sports in an Olympic year.

The figures are unedited and come from USADA, accompanied with the following brief explanatory note: "This list includes all tests executed by USADA. That includes those tests initiated, or planned as part of USADA's US Olympic, Paralympic and Pan American movements testing program as well as those tests completed by USADA at the request of other sport and anti-doping federations, events, and organizations."

Testing Numbers By Sport - January 1st to March 31st (2013)

Testing Numbers By Sport - Full year 2012

Sport	Out of Competition	In Competition	Totals
Archery	8	32	40
Australian Rules Football	48	0	48
Badminton	5	4	9
Baseball	6	0	6
Basketball	75	Related News Lara Gillespie attacks Dolomite stage as Giro hits high mountains Video - Ireland's Meehan climbs with best on brutal Alpine terrain 0	75
Biathlon	24	4	28
Bobsled & Skeleton	172	30	202
Bowling	3	0	3
Boxing	43	13	56
Canoe & Kayak	36	24	60
Cheerleading	0	10	10
Climbing	0	4	4
Curling	14	12	26
Cycling	663	373	1036
Dance Sport	0	8	8
Diving	14	30	44
Dragon Boat	0	0	0
Equestrian	24	8	32
Fencing	23	8	31
Field Hockey	26	0	26
Figure Skating	29	58	87
Football	6	24	30
Golf	0	2	2
Gymnastics	33	39	72
Ice Hockey	21	28	49
Judo	58	42	100
Karate	9	10	19
Latin Dance Sport	0	0	0
Luge	43	12	55
Modern Pentathlon	7	20	27
Professional Boxing	92	21	113
Racquetball	8	0	8
Roller Sports	5	8	13
Rowing	141	10	151
Rugby	90	20	110
Sailing	33	0	33
Shooting	33	37	70
Skateboarding	0	0	0
Skiing & Snowboarding	253	105	358
Soccer	30	0	30
Softball	4	0	4
Speedskating	261	94	355
Squash	2	0	2
Supercross	0	0	0
Surfing	1	0	1
Swimming	488	343	831
Synchronized Swimming	6	0	6
Table Tennis	5	11	16
Taekwondo	12	32	44
Team Handball	4	0	4
Tennis	29	0	29
Track & Field	1581	698	2279
Triathlon	551	230	781
Volleyball	80	9	89
Water Polo	44	6	50
Water Skiing	13	0	13
Weightlifting	136	114	250
Wrestling	125	147	272
Paralympic Alpine Skiing	6	4	10
Paralympic Archery	5	6	11
Paralympic Basketball	28	0	28
Paralympic Boccia	4	0	4
Paralympic Curling	2	0	2
Paralympic Cycling	29	0	29
Paralympic Equestrian	8	0	8
Paralympic Fencing	7	0	7
Paralympic Goalball	10	0	10
Paralympic Judo	8	0	8
Paralympic Nordic Skiing	3	5	8
Paralympic Powerlifting	2	4	6
Paralympic Rowing	10	0	10
Paralympic Rugby	21	0	21
Paralympic Sailing	9	0	9
Paralympic Shooting	4	0	4
Paralympic Sled Hockey	10	0	10
Paralympic Soccer	27	0	27
Paralympic Swimming	26	22	48
Paralympic Table Tennis	4	0	4
Paralympic Tennis	14	0	14
Paralympic Track & Field	39	55	94
Paralympic Volleyball	21	0	21
TOTALS	5,714	2,776	8,490