Having once declared that all cyclists dope, the Italian Olympic Committee's anti-doping prosecutor now believes that there has been a "monumental" reduction in drug use among professional riders.

"When I began with CONI (in 2006) the situation was dramatic. Today I can say that there has been a monumental change," Ettore Torri said at an anti-doping conference earlier today.

"Good work has been done by all those involved, including the riders' association," the 79-year-old Torri added, according to the ANSA news agency and continued "I'm not optimistic enough to say that doping has been beaten, but certainly among professionals it has been reduced a great deal and I've contributed to that."

Torri's comments come ahead of a Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) hearing next week into a doping case involving three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador.

Torri has led doping cases against Giro d'Italia champions Ivan Basso and Danilo Di Luca and other Italian standouts such as Alessandro Petacchi and Riccardo Ricco.

However, he pointed to the relatively few doping cases during this year's three major races - the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana - highlighted by a positive test for a banned diuretic from Russian rider Alexandr Kolobnev at the Tour de France.

A year ago, Torri sparked an outrage when he suggested in an interview that doping was so widespread it should possibly be legalized if not for the health risks. He said that in interrogations riders had confirmed his view "that everyone dopes."

Torri now believes that anti-doping efforts have created a strong enough deterrent.

"Interest in doping has lessened," he said. "Before there were few tests and the penalties were light. Now it's not worth it anymore."

However, Torri maintains that doping is still rife among amateur cyclists.

"The situation there is dramatic," said Torri, himself an amateur cyclist. "I've met entire families who dope. From lawyers to manual labor workers, they do anything just to win a salami in ridiculous races."

Francesca Rossi, the International Cycling Union's anti-doping manager, also took part in the conference.

"Cycling's approach should be taken as an example," Rossi said. "Other sports do a lot of testing but in terms of quality they don't compare to us. Cycling is always in the spotlight but today it's at the vanguard of anti-doping."