Schwarzenegger laments steroids in his own contest

SAN FRANCISCO, March 3 (Reuters) Some contestants in the largest annual celebration of bodybuilding which started yesterday will likely be on steroids, highlighting how hard it is to keep performance-enhancing drugs out of sport, Arnold Schwarzenegger said of the contest that bears his name.

''The question always is if random testing ... really works 100 percent,'' Schwarzenegger said in an interview on Thursday.

''I believe they can slip through it. I believe that we have athletes on the stage that are taking things.'' ''Every single year I feel uncomfortable when we have the competition,'' said Schwarzenegger, the actor-turned-California-governor, who has acknowledged using steroids during his own bodybuilding days.

After becoming the most famous bodybuilder in the sport's history, Schwarzenegger set up the annual Arnold Classic in Columbus, Ohio, in 1989. He remains the star of the three-day event.

''Just the way some of the athletes look -- it is just an instinctive thing. I've been around the field enough to know there is a certain puffiness and a certain size of the necks and this and that,'' he told Reuters.

Professional sports including baseball and track and field have struggled to root out steroids in recent years and arrests this week in a suspected steroid ring in Florida, New York and Texas highlighted the issue anew.

''With a cyclist, you just don't know,'' said Schwarzenegger, 59, who is recovering from a broken leg and using a cane. ''In bodybuilding or in lifting, you can see the look of the people, and to me the look today is different than with some of the athletes from the days when I was competing.'' FIGHTING FOR YEARS The Austrian-born Schwarzenegger has spoken out against steroids in recent years.

''I have been fighting this battle for an endless amount of years. As a matter of fact, I was the first one to have actual drug testing at the competition,'' he said.

The former Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe said he wanted to test competitors an hour before the contest but faced resistance from the International Federation of Bodybuilding&Fitness.

''They are not willing to do that. They say that there will be lawsuits, that it will be illegal to do that to ask for the urine test,'' he said.

The best-known distributor of steroids in recent years, BALCO head Victor Conte, said drugs in sport mirrored society's wider interest in chemical fixes.

''From plastic surgery to Prozac to Viagra, we have essentially become a performance-enhanced society,'' Conte, who was released from prison last year, told Reuters this week. ''A more important question than who's cheating in sports is who isn't cheating to gain a competitive edge in their pursuit of the American Dream?'' ''Before we judge the athletes who are basically forced into using drugs to be competitive, we need to look at our reflections in the mirror and take an inventory of what's in our own medicine cabinets.'' REUTERS PDM RK0900