The International Olympic Committee took over anti-doping yesterday for the duration of the 2008 Games.

It was when IOC policing of the system kicked in four years ago in Athens that the serial test evaders, Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, came to grief. The sprinters were obliged to withdraw, and an alleged faked motorbike accident, designed to escape yet another anti-doping analysis, has yet to come to court.

IOC rules have now tightened dramatically. The movement must be told the whereabouts of every single competitor - more than 10,000 of them from over 200 countries - for the duration of their stay. Details have to be sent to the IOC in Beijing. And any changes in athletes' schedules must be notified.

The man responsible for making this work for Britain is Mike Hay, deputy director of the British Olympic Association training camp in Macau. Some 300 Team GB athletes and coaches will pass through while they train and acclimatise en route to Beijing. A total of 115 will be here by today.

Scotland's former international curler and Olympic performance coach, son of a Perthshire farmer, confirmed details of the logistics, the scale of which can be guaged from the fact that the British Olympic Association has enlisted two lawyers to operate the system.

"A change in transport arrangements of one hour, or a switch of training venue, has to be notified," said Hay. "If it's pouring rain - and boy can it rain here - and a hockey training session has to be switched to the indoor Dome, or a weight-training session substituted, that has to be notified. A half-hour change is acceptable, but an hour change calls for an e-mail to be sent to Beijing.

"We have one lawyer here, and another in Beijing."

The lawyer based in Macau was part of the team representing the BOA during the Dwain Chambers doping saga. If Chambers had won his High Court appeal, he would have had the unenviable duty of welcoming him to the team training camp.

It may prove a challenge to avoid competitors going stir crazy in such an environment, even though a five-piece jazz combo was playing yesterday during lunch. Lord Coe, double Olympic champion and chairman of London 2012 is a noted jazz afficionado, but had nothing to do with selection of the Westin resort in Coloanne where the British team is staying. It's a five-star hotel barely a wedge from a golden beach washed by the South China. But unscheduled strolls on the sand appear off-limits, and the whole team, competitors and officials, have been told that any visit to Macau's garishly ostentatious casinos is most definitely out.

However, there was one break from training for the gymnastics squad over the weekend, when they watched Chelsea prepare for the match against Chengdu Blades, which they won 7-0 on Saturday night.

Beth Tweddle, the former world champion on assymetric bars, said she was only just getting over jet lag, having arrived two days earlier. "I'm a Chelsea fan, just through family. I followed my brother who I looked up to when I was younger . . . but I can't get to see them that much because I am always training."

Her favourite players are John Terry and Frank Lampard, and she was delighted to meet them. "We had been told we might be able to come and see the Chelsea guys in training, and it's very interesting just to see how their methods differ from our own," she said.