Bulgaria's weightlifters are on a mission to clean up their sport's tarnished reputation after a series of doping scandals and suspensions at the Olympic Games.

Only the former Soviet Union has won more medals than Bulgaria in weightlifting's major championships but the Balkan country has also come to represent the sleazy side of the sport.

"I know some people think that Bulgaria has brought darkness to weightlifting but we are ready to prove ourselves as fair sportsmen," coach Plamen Asparuhov said during a training camp for August's Beijing Olympics.

"I believe we have left the doping problem behind us. We have to show the world that we're capable of competing with the best without the help of banned substances."

Weightlifting has been the sport most affected by doping. It almost lost its status as an Olympic sport after five doping cases at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Asparuhov knows that the lifters will be monitored very strictly in China and says the Beijing Games will be the perfect setting for the Bulgarian team to prove its credentials.

"We need to be successful and clean at the Games," he said. "That's the only way to convince the skeptics."

Bulgaria's reputation hit a low at the 2000 Games in Sydney, where the team was stripped of three golds and sent home in shame following positive drugs tests.

Drugs made headlines again before the 2004 Athens Games, with Olympic champion Galabin Boevski banned for eight years for tampering with his urine sample at the World Championships in Vancouver the previous year.

Boevski's teammates Zlatan Vanev and Georgi Markov were given 18-month suspensions in 2004 after the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said their urine samples had come from the same person.

Bulgaria has a controversial history in women's weightlifting as well.

Izabela Dragneva triumphed as the sport's first female Olympic champion at the 2000 Games but was stripped of her gold medal following a positive drug test.

Critics say doping is still rife in Bulgarian sport, particularly in weightlifting, raising further concern for Beijing, but officials say they have taken stringent action to prevent any more transgressions.

"Everything is under control," said Tenyo Tenev, secretary general of Bulgaria's weightlifting federation. "I don't see any reason to make any special adjustments.

"Weightlifting's growing popularity has translated into tougher competition and increased use of performance-enhancing drugs but we have no fear as we know we follow the regulations.

"We have offered our lifters a perfect organization to prepare and we hope they will perform in the best possible way in Beijing," Tenev said.

A nation of fewer than 8 million, with an enormous passion for sport, Bulgaria has given the world some of the top names in weightlifting.

Many will remember Naim Suleymanoglu "The Pocket Hercules" and triple Olympic champion Halil Mutlu as Turkish athletes, but they were born in Bulgaria and began their careers competing for their native land.

In 1988, Suleymanoglu moved to Turkey on a $1-million transfer. Mutlu moved to Bulgaria's southeast neighbo when he was 16.

Oil-rich Qatar reportedly paid $1 million for a stable of nine Bulgarian lifters before the 2004 Summer Games in Athens as they built up a team.