In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned
athletic performance-enhancing drugs by athletic competitors as a way of
cheating in sports. The term ''doping'' is widely used by organizations that regulate sporting competitions. The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical, and therefore prohibited, by most international sports organizations, including the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
. Furthermore, athletes (or athletic programs) taking explicit measures to evade detection exacerbate the ethical violation with overt deception and cheating.
The origins of doping in sports go back to the very creation of sport itself. From ancient usage of substances in
chariot racing
Chariot racing ( grc-gre, ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromia, la, ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games f ...
to more recent controversies in
doping in baseball
Doping in baseball has been an ongoing issue for Major League Baseball (MLB). After repeated use by some of the most successful professional baseball players in MLB history, these banned substances found their way to the collegiate level. At the ...
,
doping in tennis The practice of doping in tennis involves the use of prohibited, performance-enhancing substances listed by the International Tennis Federation, International Tennis Federation (ITF) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The practice is considered un ...
,
doping at the Olympic Games
This article is about the history of competitors at the Olympic Games using banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs.
History
The use of performance-enhancing tactics or more formally known as PEDs, and more broadly, the use of any extern ...
, and
doping at the Tour de France
There have been allegations of doping in the Tour de France since the race began in 1903. Early Tour riders consumed alcohol and used ether, among other substances, as a means of dulling the pain of competing in endurance cycling. Riders began ...
, popular views among athletes have varied widely from country to country over the years. The general trend among authorities and sporting organizations over the past several decades has been to strictly regulate the use of drugs in sport. The reasons for the ban are mainly the health risks of performance-enhancing drugs, the equality of opportunity for athletes, and the exemplary effect of drug-free sport for the public. Anti-doping authorities state that using performance-enhancing drugs goes against the "spirit of sport".
History
The use of drugs in sports goes back centuries, about all the way back to the very invention of the concept of sports.
[ In ancient times, when the fittest of a nation were selected as athletes or combatants, they were fed diets and given treatments considered beneficial to help increase muscle. For instance, Scandinavian mythology says ]Berserkers
In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...
could drink a mixture called "butotens", to greatly increase their physical power at the risk of insanity, which is thought to have been prepared using the '' Amanita muscaria'' mushroom.
The ancient Olympics in Greece have been alleged to have had forms of doping. In ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
, where chariot racing
Chariot racing ( grc-gre, ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromia, la, ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games f ...
had become a huge part of their culture, athletes drank herbal infusions to strengthen them before chariot races.
A participant in an endurance walking race in Britain, Abraham Wood, said in 1807 that he had used laudanum (which contains opiates
An opiate, in classical pharmacology, is a substance derived from opium. In more modern usage, the term ''opioid'' is used to designate all substances, both natural and synthetic, that bind to opioid receptors in the brain (including antagonist ...
) to keep him awake for 24 hours while competing against Robert Barclay Allardyce.[ By April 1877, walking races had stretched to and the following year, also at the Agricultural Hall in Islington, London, to . The ''Illustrated London News'' chided:
:It may be an advantage to know that a man can travel 520 miles in 138 hours, and manage to live through a week with an infinitesimal amount of rest, though we fail to perceive that anyone could possibly be placed in a position where his ability in this respect would be of any use to him ndwhat is to be gained by a constant repetition of the fact.][Grajewski, Tadeusw: The Building That Would Not Go Away, Royal Agriciultural Hall, UK, 1989]
The event proved popular, however, with 20,000 spectators attending each day.[Woodland, Les: This Island Race, Mousehold Press, UK, 2005] Encouraged, the promoters developed the idea and soon held similar races for cyclists.
:"...and much more likely to endure their miseries publicly; a tired walker, after all, merely sits down – a tired cyclist falls off and possibly brings others crashing down as well. That's much more fun".[
The fascination with six-day bicycle races spread across the Atlantic and the same appeal brought in the crowds in America as well. And the more spectators paid at the gate, the higher the prizes could be and the greater was the incentive of riders to stay awake—or be kept awake—to ride the greatest distance. Their exhaustion was countered by soigneurs (the French word for "healers"), helpers akin to seconds in ]boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
. Among the treatments they supplied was nitroglycerine
Nitroglycerin (NG), (alternative spelling of nitroglycerine) also known as trinitroglycerin (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating ...
, a drug used to stimulate the heart after cardiac attacks and which was credited with improving riders' breathing.[Novich, Max M., ''Abbotempo'', UK, 1964] Riders had hallucinations from the exhaustion and perhaps the drugs. The American champion Major Taylor refused to continue the New York race, saying: "I cannot go on with safety, for there is a man chasing me around the ring with a knife in his hand."
Public reaction turned against such trials, whether individual races or in teams of two. One report said:
:An athletic contest in which the participants 'go queer' in their heads, and strain their powers until their faces become hideous with the tortures that rack them, is not sport, it is brutality. It appears from the reports of this singular performance that some of the bicycle riders have actually become temporarily insane during the contest... Days and weeks of recuperation will be needed to put the racers in condition, and it is likely that some of them will never recover from the strain.
The father of anabolic steroids in the United States was John Ziegler (1917–1983), a physician for the U.S. weightlifting team in the mid-20th century. In 1954, on his tour to Vienna with his team for the world championship, Ziegler learned from his Russian colleague that the Soviet weightlifting team's success was due to their use of testosterone
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristi ...
as a performance-enhancing drug. Deciding that U.S. athletes needed chemical assistance to remain competitive, Ziegler worked with the CIBA Pharmaceutical Company to develop an oral anabolic steroid. This resulted in the creation of methandrostenolone
Metandienone, also known as methandienone or methandrostenolone and sold under the brand name Dianabol (D-Bol) among others, is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication which is still quite often used because of its affordability and eff ...
, which appeared on the market in 1960 under the brand name Dianabol. During the Olympics that year, the Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen
Knud Enemark Jensen (30 November 1936 – 26 August 1960) was a Danish cyclist who died while participating in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. During his career, he was involved in an early doping scandal.
Biography
Jensen was bor ...
collapsed and died while competing in the 100-kilometer (62-mile) race. An autopsy later revealed the presence of amphetamines and a drug called nicotinyl tartrate
Nicotinyl alcohol (pyridylcarbinol) is a niacin derivative used as a hypolipidemic agent and as a vasodilator. It causes flushing and may decrease blood pressure.
It appears as a crystal that dissolves in water and alcohol with ease, also solub ...
in his system.
The American specialist in doping, Max M. Novich, wrote: "Trainers of the old school who supplied treatments which had cocaine as their base declared with assurance that a rider tired by a six-day race would get his second breath after absorbing these mixtures." John Hoberman, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, said six-day races were "de facto experiments investigating the physiology of stress as well as the substances that might alleviate exhaustion."
Prevalence
Over 30% of athletes participating in 2011 World Championships in Athletics
The 13th IAAF World Championships in Athletics () was an international athletics competition that was held in Daegu, South Korea. It started on 27 August 2011 and finished on 4 September 2011.
The United States topped the medal standings in th ...
admitted having used banned substances during their careers. According to a study commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
(WADA), actually 44% of them had used them. Nevertheless, only 0.5% of those tested were caught.
The entire Russian track and field team was banned from the 2016 Olympic Games, as the Russian State had sponsored and essentially sanctioned their doping program.[
]
Goldman's dilemma
Goldman's dilemma, or the Goldman dilemma, is a question that was posed to elite athletes by physician, osteopath and publicist Bob Goldman, asking whether they would take a drug that would guarantee them success in sport, but cause them to die after five years. In his research, as in previous research by Mirkin, approximately half the athletes responded that they would take the drug, but modern research by James Connor and co-workers has yielded much lower numbers, with athletes having levels of acceptance of the dilemma that were similar to the general population of Australia.
Substances
The most common prohibited substances for doping in sport are:
* Anabolic steroids (most common), which increase muscle mass and physical strength.
* Stimulants (second most common), which increase excitement and decrease the sensation of fatigue.
Examples of well known stimulants include caffeine
Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class. It is mainly used recreationally as a cognitive enhancer, increasing alertness and attentional performance. Caffeine acts by blocking binding of adenosine to ...
, cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Ameri ...
, amphetamine, modafinil, and ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is often used to prevent low blood pressure during anesthesia. It has also been used for asthma, narcolepsy, and obesity but is not the preferred treatment. It is of unclear benefit in ...
. Caffeine, although a stimulant, has not been banned by the International Olympic Committee or the World Anti Doping Agency since 2004.
Other ways of cheating that change the body without using foreign substances include injecting one’s own red blood cells as done with doping at the Tour de France
There have been allegations of doping in the Tour de France since the race began in 1903. Early Tour riders consumed alcohol and used ether, among other substances, as a means of dulling the pain of competing in endurance cycling. Riders began ...
, treating blood with UV light or the use of a hyperbaric chamber (not currently banned), and, potentially, gene doping
Gene doping is the hypothetical non-therapeutic use of gene therapy by athletes in order to improve their performance in those sporting events which prohibit such applications of genetic modification technology, and for reasons other than the trea ...
.
Anabolic steroids
Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) were first isolated, identified and synthesized in the 1930s, and are now used therapeutically in medicine to induce bone growth, stimulate appetite, induce male puberty, and treat chronic wasting conditions, such as cancer and AIDS. Anabolic steroids also increase muscle mass and physical strength, and are therefore used in sports and bodybuilding to enhance strength or physique. Known side effects include harmful changes in cholesterol
Cholesterol is any of a class of certain organic molecules called lipids. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid. Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell mem ...
levels (increased low-density lipoprotein
Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is one of the five major groups of lipoprotein that transport all fat molecules around the body in extracellular water. These groups, from least dense to most dense, are chylomicrons (aka ULDL by the overall dens ...
and decreased high-density lipoprotein
High-density lipoprotein (HDL) is one of the five major groups of lipoproteins. Lipoproteins are complex particles composed of multiple proteins which transport all fat molecules (lipids) around the body within the water outside cells. They are t ...
), acne
Acne, also known as ''acne vulgaris'', is a long-term skin condition that occurs when dead skin cells and oil from the skin clog hair follicles. Typical features of the condition include blackheads or whiteheads, pimples, oily skin, and ...
, high blood pressure, and liver damage
Liver disease, or hepatic disease, is any of many diseases of the liver. If long-lasting it is termed chronic liver disease. Although the diseases differ in detail, liver diseases often have features in common.
Signs and symptoms
Some of the si ...
. Some of these effects can be mitigated by taking supplemental drugs.
AAS use in sports began in October 1954 when John Ziegler, a doctor who treated American athletes, went to Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
with the American weightlifting team. There he met a Russian physician who, over "a few drinks", repeatedly asked "What are you giving your boys?" When Ziegler returned the question, the Russian said that his own athletes were being given testosterone. Returning to America, Ziegler tried low doses of testosterone on himself, on the American trainer Bob Hoffman and on two lifters, Jim Park and Yaz Kuzahara. All gained more weight and strength than any training programme would produce but there were side-effects. Ziegler sought a drug without after-effects and hit upon the anabolic steroid methandrostenolone
Metandienone, also known as methandienone or methandrostenolone and sold under the brand name Dianabol (D-Bol) among others, is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication which is still quite often used because of its affordability and eff ...
, first made in the US in 1958 by Ciba and marketed as Dianabol (colloquially known as "d-bol").
The results were so impressive that lifters began taking more, and steroids spread to other sports. Paul Lowe, a former running back with the San Diego Chargers American football team, told a California legislative committee on drug abuse in 1970: "We had to take them teroidsat lunchtime. He n officialwould put them on a little saucer and prescribed them for us to take them and if not he would suggest there might be a fine."
Olympic statistics show the weight of shot putters increased 14 percent between 1956 and 1972, whereas steeplechasers weight increased 7.6 per cent. The gold medalist pentathlete Mary Peters said: "A medical research team in the United States attempted to set up extensive research into the effects of steroids on weightlifters and throwers, only to discover that there were so few who weren't taking them that they couldn't establish any worthwhile comparisons." Brand name Dianabol is no longer produced but the drug methandrostenolone
Metandienone, also known as methandienone or methandrostenolone and sold under the brand name Dianabol (D-Bol) among others, is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication which is still quite often used because of its affordability and eff ...
itself is still made in many countries and other, similar drugs are made elsewhere. The use of anabolic steroids is now banned by all major sporting bodies, including the ATP, WTA, ITF, International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
, FIFA, UEFA
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...
, all major professional golf tours
Professional golf tours are the means by which otherwise unconnected professional golf tournaments are organised into a regular schedule. There are separate tours for men and women; most are based in a specific geographical region, although some to ...
, the National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
, Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
, the National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
, the European Athletic Association
The European Athletic Association (more commonly known as European Athletics) is the governing body for athletics in Europe. It is one of the six Area Associations of the world's athletics governing body World Athletics. European Athletics has 51 ...
, WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vari ...
, the NFL, and the UCI. However, drug testing can be wildly inconsistent and, in some instances, has gone unenforced.
A number of studies measuring anabolic steroid use in high school athletes found that out of all 12th grade students, 6.6 percent of them had used anabolic steroids at some point in their high school careers or were approached and counseled to use them. Of those students who acknowledged doping with anabolic–androgenic steroids, well over half participated in school-sponsored athletics, including football, wrestling, track and field, and baseball. A second study showed 6.3 percent of high school student Football players admitted to current or former AAS use. At the collegiate level, surveys show that AAS use among athletes range from 5 percent to 20 percent and continues to rise. The study found that skin changes were an early marker of steroid use in young athletes, and underscored the important role that dermatologists could play in the early detection and intervention in these athletes.
1988 Seoul Olympics
A famous case of AAS use in a competition was Canadian Ben Johnson Ben, Benjamin or Benny Johnson may refer to:
In sports Association football
* Ben Johnson (footballer, born 2000), English footballer
* Ben Johnson (soccer) (born 1977), American soccer player
Other codes of football
*Ben Johnson (Australian foot ...
's victory in the 100 m at the 1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...
. He subsequently failed the drug test when stanozolol
Stanozolol ( abbrev. Stz), sold under many brand names, is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication derived from dihydrotestosterone (DHT). It is used to treat hereditary angioedema. It was developed by American pharmaceutical company W ...
was found in his urine. He later admitted to using the steroid as well as Dianabol, testosterone, Furazabol
Furazabol (, ) (brand names Frazalon, Miotalon, Qu Zhi Shu), also known as androfurazanol, is a synthetic, orally active anabolic-androgenic steroid which has been marketed in Japan since 1969. It is a 17α-alkylated derivative of dihydrotestos ...
, and human growth hormone amongst other things. Johnson was stripped of his gold medal as well as his world-record performance. Carl Lewis
Frederick Carlton Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996 ...
was then promoted one place to take the Olympic gold title. Lewis had also run under the current world record time and was therefore recognized as the new record holder.
Johnson was not the only participant whose success was questioned: Lewis had tested positive at the Olympic Trials. So, on 26 August 1988 he received a letter from Pittinger, USOC director: "Dear Mr Lewis, on behalf of the US Olympic Committee (...) I must confirm that the analysis of your Specimen B for sample #2383 and for sample #2356 was positive for Pseudoephdrine ic Ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is often used to prevent low blood pressure during anesthesia. It has also been used for asthma, narcolepsy, and obesity but is not the preferred treatment. It is of unclear benefit in ...
and Phenylpropanolamine
Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) is a sympathomimetic agent which is used as a decongestant and appetite suppressant. It was commonly used in prescription and over-the-counter cough and cold preparations. In veterinary medicine, it is used to contr ...
...Documentation is forthcoming. By policy of the USOC, this finding is cause for disqualification from the Olympic Team (...)".
Lewis defended himself, claiming that he had accidentally consumed the banned substances. After the supplements that he had taken were analyzed to prove his claims, the USOC accepted his claim of inadvertent use, since a dietary supplement he ingested was found to contain "Ma huang", the Chinese name for Ephedra Ephedra may refer to:
* Ephedra (medicine), a medicinal preparation from the plant ''Ephedra sinica''
* ''Ephedra'' (plant), genus of gymnosperm shrubs
See also
* Ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is of ...
(ephedrine is known to help weight loss). Fellow Santa Monica Track Club Santa Monica High School Girls Track team first coach is Dalal M. Ahmad, a USC graduate doing her second semester of student student teaching . She was placed in charge of the team in 1972 during her second semester of student teaching
The Santa Mo ...
teammates Joe DeLoach and Floyd Heard
Floyd Wayne Heard (born March 24, 1966, in West Point, Mississippi) is a retired track and field sprinter from the United States, best known for setting the 1986 world's best year performance in the men's 200 m. He did so on 7 July 1986 at a mee ...
were also found to have the same banned stimulants in their systems, and were cleared to compete for the same reason.
The highest level of the stimulants Lewis recorded was 6 ppm, which was regarded as a positive test in 1988 but is now regarded as negative test. The acceptable level has been raised to ten parts per million for ephedrine and twenty-five parts per million for other substances.[Wallechinsky and Loucky, The Complete Book of the Olympics (2012 edition), page 61] According to the IOC rules at the time, positive tests with levels lower than 10 ppm were cause of further investigation but not immediate ban. Neal Benowitz, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco who is an expert on ephedrine and other stimulants, agreed that "These evelsare what you'd see from someone taking cold or allergy medicines and are unlikely to have any effect on performance."
Following Exum's revelations the IAAF acknowledged that at the 1988 Olympic Trials the USOC indeed followed the correct procedures in dealing with eight positive findings for ephedrine and ephedrine-related compounds in low concentration.
Linford Christie
Linford Cicero Christie (born 2 April 1960) is a Jamaican-born British former sprinter. He is the only British man to have won gold medals in the 100 metres at all four major competitions open to British athletes: the Olympic Games, the World ...
of Great Britain was found to have metabolites of pseudoephedrine in his urine after a 200m heat at the same Olympics, but was later cleared of any wrongdoing. Of the top five competitors in the race, only former world record holder and eventual bronze medalist Calvin Smith of the US never failed a drug test during his career. Smith later said: "I should have been the gold medalist."
The CBC radio documentary, '' Rewind'', "Ben Johnson: A Hero Disgraced" broadcast on 19 September 2013, for the 25th anniversary of the race, stated 20 athletes tested positive for drugs but were cleared by the IOC at this 1988 Seoul Olympics. An IOC official stated that endocrine profiles done at those games indicated that 80 percent of the track and field athletes tested showed evidence of long-term steroid use, although not all were banned.
Stimulants
Stimulants are drugs that usually act on the central nervous system to modulate mental function and behavior, increasing an individual's sense of excitement and decreasing the sensation of fatigue. In the World Anti-Doping Agency list of prohibited substances, stimulants are the second largest class after the anabolic steroids.[
]Benzedrine
Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used a ...
is a trade name for amphetamine. The Council of Europe says it first appeared in sport at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. It was produced in 1887 and the derivative, Benzedrine, was isolated in the U.S. in 1934 by Gordon Alles. Its perceived effects gave it the street name "speed". British troops used 72 million amphetamine tablets in the Second World War[ and the RAF got through so many that "Methedrine won the Battle of Britain" according to one report. The problem was that amphetamine leads to a lack of judgement and a willingness to take risks, which in sport could lead to better performances but in fighters and bombers led to more crash landings than the RAF could tolerate. The drug was withdrawn but large stocks remained on the black market. Amphetamine was also used legally as an aid to slimming and also as a thymoleptic before being phased out by the appearance of newer agents in the 1950s.
Everton, one of the top clubs in the English football league, were champions of the 1962–63 season, and it was done, according to a national newspaper investigation, with the help of Benzedrine. Word spread after Everton's win that the drug had been involved. The newspaper investigated, cited where the reporter believed it had come from, and quoted the goalkeeper, Albert Dunlop, as saying:
:I cannot remember how they first came to be offered to us. But they were distributed in the dressing rooms. We didn't have to take them but most of the players did. The tablets were mostly white but once or twice they were yellow. They were used through the 1961–62 season and the championship season which followed it. Drug-taking had previously been virtually unnamed in the club. But once it had started we could have as many tablets as we liked. On match days they were handed out to most players as a matter of course. Soon some of the players could not do without the drugs.][Gabbert, Michael: How we uncovered the Everton drug scandal, ''The People'', UK, 13 September 1964]
The club agreed that drugs had been used but that they "could not possibly have had any harmful effect." Dunlop, however, said he had become an addict.[
In November 1942, the Italian cyclist ]Fausto Coppi
Angelo Fausto Coppi (; 15 September 1919 – 2 January 1960) was an Italian cyclist, the dominant international cyclist of the years after the Second World War. His successes earned him the title ''Il Campionissimo'' ("Champion of Champions ...
took "seven packets of amphetamine" to beat the world hour record on the track. In 1960, the Danish rider Knud Enemark Jensen
Knud Enemark Jensen (30 November 1936 – 26 August 1960) was a Danish cyclist who died while participating in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. During his career, he was involved in an early doping scandal.
Biography
Jensen was bor ...
collapsed during the 100 km team time trial at the Olympic Games in Rome and died later in hospital. The autopsy showed he had taken amphetamine and another drug, Ronicol, which dilates the blood vessels. The chairman of the Dutch cycling federation, Piet van Dijk, said of Rome that "dope – whole cartloads – ereused in such royal quantities."
The 1950s British cycling professional Jock Andrews would joke: "You need never go off-course chasing the peloton in a big race – just follow the trail of empty syringes and dope wrappers."
The Dutch cycling team manager Kees Pellenaars told of a rider in his care:
:I took him along to a training camp in Spain. The boy changed then into a sort of lion. He raced around as though he was powered by rockets. I went to talk to him. He was really happy he was riding well and he told me to look out for him. I asked if he wasn't perhaps "using something" and he jumped straight up, climbed on a chair and from deep inside a cupboard he pulled out a plastic bag full of pills. I felt my heart skip a beat. I had never seen so many fireworks together. With a soigneur we counted the pills: there were 5,000 of them, excluding hormone preparations and sleeping pills. I took them away, to his own relief. I let him keep the hormones and the sleeping pills. Later he seemed to have taken too many at once and he slept for a couple of days on end. We couldn't wake him up. We took him to hospital and they pumped out his stomach. They tied him to his bed to prevent anything going wrong again. But one way or another he had some stimulant and fancied taking a walk. A nurse came across him in the corridor, walking along with the bed strapped to his back.
Currently modafinil is being used throughout the sporting world, with many high-profile cases attracting press coverage as prominent United States athletes have failed tests for this substance. Some athletes who were found to have used modafinil protested as the drug was not on the prohibited list at the time of their offence, however, the World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
(WADA) maintains it is a substance related to those already banned, so the decisions stand. Modafinil was added to the list of prohibited substances on 3 August 2004, ten days before the start of the 2004 Summer Olympics.
One approach of athletes to get around regulations on stimulants is to use new designer stimulants, which have not previously been officially prohibited, but have similar chemical structures or biological effects. Designer stimulants that attracted media attention in 2010 included mephedrone
Mephedrone, also known as , , and , is a synthetic stimulant drug of the amphetamine and cathinone classes. Slang names include drone, , White Magic, meow meow, bubble, ''txomin'' and yurrpt. It is chemically similar to the cathinone compounds ...
, ephedrone, and fluoroamphetamine Fluoroamphetamine may refer to:
* 2-Fluoroamphetamine
2-Fluoroamphetamine (2-FA) is a stimulant drug from the amphetamine family which has been sold as a designer drug. 2-Fluoroamphetamine differs from 3- and 4-fluoroamphetamine in the positi ...
s, which have chemical structures and effects similar to ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is often used to prevent low blood pressure during anesthesia. It has also been used for asthma, narcolepsy, and obesity but is not the preferred treatment. It is of unclear benefit in ...
and amphetamine.
Strychnine
These "de facto experiments investigating the physiology of stress as well as the substances that might alleviate exhaustion" were not unknown outside cycling.
Thomas Hicks, an American born in England on 7 January 1875, won the Olympic marathon in 1904. He crossed the line behind a fellow American Fred Lorz, who had been transported for 11 miles of the course by his trainer, leading to his disqualification. However, Hicks's trainer Charles Lucas, pulled out a syringe and came to his aid as his runner began to struggle.
:I therefore decided to inject him with a milligram of sulphate of strychnine and to make him drink a large glass brimming with brandy. He set off again as best he could uthe needed another injection four miles from the end to give him a semblance of speed and to get him to the finish.
The use of strychnine, at the time, was thought necessary to survive demanding races, according to sports historians Alain Lunzenfichter and historian of sports doping, Dr Jean-Pierre de Mondenard, who said:
:It has to be appreciated that at the time the menace of doping for the health of athletes or of the purity of competition had yet to enter the morals because, after this marathon, the official race report said: The marathon has shown from a medical point of view how drugs can be very useful to athletes in long-distance races.[
Hicks was, in the phrase of the time, "between life and death" but recovered, collected his gold medal a few days later, and lived until 1952. Nonetheless, he never again took part in athletics.
]
Countries
East Germany (the GDR)
In 1977 one of East Germany's best sprinters, Renate Neufeld, fled to the West with the Bulgarian she later married. A year later she said that she had been told to take drugs supplied by coaches while training to represent East Germany at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
:At 17, I joined the East Berlin Sports Institute. My speciality was the 80m hurdles
Hurdling is the act of jumping over an obstacle at a high speed or in a sprint. In the early 19th century, hurdlers ran at and jumped over each hurdle (sometimes known as 'burgles'), landing on both feet and checking their forward motion. Today, ...
. We swore that we would never speak to anyone about our training methods, including our parents. The training was very hard. We were all watched. We signed a register each time we left for dormitory and we had to say where we were going and what time we would return. One day, my trainer, Günter Clam, advised me to take pills to improve my performance: I was running 200m in 24 seconds. My trainer told me the pills were vitamins, but I soon had cramp in my legs, my voice became gruff and sometimes I couldn't talk any more. Then I started to grow a moustache and my periods stopped. I then refused to take these pills. One morning in October 1977, the secret police took me at 7am and questioned me about my refusal to take pills prescribed by the trainer. I then decided to flee, with my fiancé.[Sport Information Dienst, W Germany, December 1978]
She brought with her to the West grey tablets and green powder she said had been given to her, to members of her club, and to other athletes. The West German doping analyst Manfred Donike reportedly identified them as anabolic steroids. She said she stayed quiet for a year for the sake of her family. But when her father then lost his job and her sister was expelled from her handball club, she decided to tell her story.
East Germany closed itself to the sporting world in May 1965.[ In 1977 the shot-putter Ilona Slupianek, who weighed 93 kg, failed a test for anabolic steroids at the European Cup meeting in ]Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
and thereafter athletes were tested before they left the country. At the same time, the Kreischa testing laboratory near Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
passed into government control; it reputedly made around 12,000 tests a year on East German athletes but without any being penalised.[
The ]International Amateur Athletics Federation
World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...
(IAAF) suspended Slupianek for 12 months, a penalty that ended two days before the European championships in Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
. In the reverse of what the IAAF hoped, sending her home to East Germany meant she was free to train unchecked with anabolic steroids, if she wanted to, and then compete for another gold medal, which she won.
After that, almost nothing emerged from the East German sports schools and laboratories. A rare exception was the visit by the sports-writer and former athlete, Doug Gilbert of the ''Edmonton Sun'', who said:
:Dr (Heinz) Wuschech knows more about anabolic steroids than any doctor I have ever met, and yet he cannot discuss them openly any more than Geoff Capes or Mac Wilkins can openly discuss them in the current climate of amateur sports regulation. What I did learn in East Germany was that they feel there is little danger from anabolica, as they call it, when the athletes are kept on strictly monitored programmes. Although the extremely dangerous side-effects are admitted, they are statistically no more likely to occur than side-effects from the birth control pill
The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control that is designed to be taken orally by women. The pill contains two important hormones: progesti ...
. If, that is, programmes are constantly medically monitored as to dosage.
Other reports came from the occasional athlete who fled to the West – 15 of them between 1976 and 1979. One, the ski-jumper Hans-Georg Aschenbach
Hans-Georg Aschenbach (born 20 October 1951) is a former East German ski jumper.
In 1969 he became junior world champion, and two years later won his first national title. He won the FIS Ski Flying World Championships in 1973. In 1974 he won t ...
, said: "Long-distance skiers start having injections to their knees from the age 14 because of their intensive training."[ He said: "For every Olympic champion, there are at least 350 invalids. There are gymnasts among the girls who have to wear corsets from the age of 18 because their spine and their ligaments have become so worn... There are young people so worn out by the intensive training that they come out of it mentally blank 'lessivés'' – washed out which is even more painful than a deformed spine."
After the 1990 German reunification, on 26 August 1993 the records were opened and evidence found that the Stasi, the state secret police, supervised systematic doping of East German athletes from 1971 until reunification in 1990. Doping existed in other countries, says the expert Jean-Pierre de Mondenard, both communist and capitalist, but the difference with East Germany was that it was a state policy. The ''Sportvereinigung Dynamo'' (English:''Dynamo Sports Club'') was especially singled out as a center for doping in the former East Germany. Many former club officials and some athletes found themselves charged after the dissolution of the country. Victims of doping, trying to gain justice and compensation, set up a special page on the internet to list people involved in doping in the GDR.
State-endorsed doping began with the Cold War of 1947–1991, when every Eastern Bloc gold represented an ideological victory. From 1974, Manfred Ewald, the head of East Germany's sports federation, imposed blanket doping. At the ]1968 Summer Olympics
The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...
in Mexico City, the country of 17 million collected nine gold medals. Four years later the total was 20 and in 1976 it doubled again to 40. Ewald was quoted as having told coaches, "They're still so young and don't have to know everything." In July 2000 Ewald received a 22-month suspended sentence, to the outrage of his victims. Often, doping took place without the knowledge of the athletes, some of them as young as ten years of age. It is estimated that around 10,000 former athletes bear the physical and mental scars of years of drug abuse; one of them, Rica Reinisch
Rica Reinisch (later Assmann then Neumann; born 6 April 1965) is a retired swimmer from East Germany. She was a specialist in backstroke, setting four world records in the Moscow Games (three in 100 m backstroke: 1:01.51, 1:01.50 and 1:00.86; o ...
, a triple Olympic champion and world record-setter at the 1980 Summer Olympics, has since had numerous miscarriages and recurring ovarian cysts.[
Two former Dynamo Berlin club doctors, Dieter Binus, chief of the national women's team from 1976 to 1980, and Bernd Pansold, in charge of the sports medicine center in East Berlin, were committed for trial for allegedly supplying 19 teenagers with illegal substances. Binus was sentenced in August, Pansold in December 1998 – both were found guilty of administering hormones to underage female athletes from 1975 to 1984.
Virtually no East German athlete ever failed an official drugs test, though Stasi files show that many did produce failed tests at ]Kreischa
Kreischa is a municipality in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, Saxony, Germany. It directly borders the Saxon capital Dresden and consists of 14 districts.
Kreischa was first mentioned in 1282 in the name ''Heinricus de Kryschowe'' ...
, the Saxon laboratory (German:''Zentrales Dopingkontroll-Labor des Sportmedizinischen Dienstes'') that was at the time approved by the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
(IOC), now called the ''Institute of Doping Analysis and Sports Biochemistry'' (IDAS). In 2005, 15 years after the end of East Germany, the manufacturer of the drugs, Jenapharm
Jenapharm is a pharmaceutical company from Jena, Germany. Founded in 1950 in East Germany, the company focused from the beginning on the production and development of steroids. Due to the economic circumstances of the Eastern Bloc, the company ini ...
, still found itself involved in numerous lawsuits from doping victims, being sued by almost 200 former athletes.
Former Sport Club Dynamo athletes Daniela Hunger and Andrea Pollack publicly admitted to doping and accused their coaches for being responsible. Another former Sport Dynamo athlete, Ilona Slupianek
Ilona Longo (née Schoknecht, divorced Briesenick and Slupianek; born 24 September 1956) is a German former shot putter who represented East Germany. As Ilona Slupianek, she won the 1980 Olympic title in Moscow and won European titles in 1978 and ...
, was disqualified for doping. (''Ilona Slupianek failed a test along with three Finnish athletes at the 1977 European Cup, becoming the only East German athlete ever to be convicted of doping'')
Based on the admission by Pollack, the United States Olympic Committee
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...
asked for the redistribution of gold medals won in the 1976 Summer Olympics
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 P ...
. Despite court rulings in Germany that substantiate claims of systematic doping by some East German swimmers, the IOC executive board announced that it has no intention of revising the Olympic record books. In rejecting the American petition on behalf of its women's medley relay team in Montreal and a similar petition from the British Olympic Association
The British Olympic Association (BOA) is the National Olympic Committee for the United Kingdom. It is responsible for organising and overseeing the participation of athletes from the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team, at both ...
on behalf of Sharron Davies
Sharron Elizabeth Davies, (born 1 November 1962) is an English former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in the Olympics and European championships and competed for England in the Commonwealth Games. Davies has attended 12 ...
, the IOC made it clear that it wanted to discourage any such appeals in the future.
Soviet Union
According to British journalist Andrew Jennings
Andrew Jennings (3 September 1943 – 8 January 2022) was a British investigative reporter. He was best known for his work investigating and writing about corruption in the IOC and FIFA.
Early life
Jennings was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, ...
, a KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the IOC to undermine doping test
A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of d ...
s and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with hesetremendous efforts". On the topic of the 1980 Summer Olympics, a 1989 Australian study said "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games."
A member of the IOC Medical Commission, Manfred Donike, privately ran additional tests with a new technique for identifying abnormal levels of testosterone by measuring its ratio to epitestosterone
Epitestosterone, or isotestosterone, also known as 17α-testosterone or as androst-4-en-17α-ol-3-one, is an endogenous steroid and an epimer of the androgen sex hormone testosterone. It is a weak competitive antagonist of the androgen recepto ...
in urine. Twenty percent of the specimens he tested, including those from sixteen gold medalists, would have resulted in disciplinary proceedings had the tests been official. The results of Donike's unofficial tests later convinced the IOC to add his new technique to their testing protocols. The first documented case of "blood doping
Blood doping is a form of doping in which the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream is boosted in order to enhance athletic performance. Because such blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a higher concentration in the blo ...
" occurred at the 1980 Summer Olympics as a runner was transfused with two pints of blood before winning medals in the 5000 m and 10,000 m.
Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the sec ...
in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements. The communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field, was prepared by Dr. Sergey Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture. Portugalov was also one of the main figures involved in the implementation of the Russian doping program prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics.
West Germany
The 800-page ''"Doping in Germany from 1950 to today"'' study details how the West German
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
government helped fund a wide-scale doping programme. West Germany encouraged and covered up a culture of doping across many sports for decades. Clemens Prokop, head of Germany's athletics federation, told Reuters Television in an interview, "It is a bit of a problem that there is a short version that has been published and that names have not been named."
Immediately after the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final, rumors emerged that the West German team had taken performance-enhancing substances. Several members of the team fell ill with jaundice, presumably from a contaminated needle. Members of the team later claimed they had been injected with glucose
Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, u ...
, and the team physician Franz Loogen said in 2004 that the players had only been given Vitamin C
Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...
before the game. A Leipzig University
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...
study in 2010 posited that the West German players had been injected with the banned substance methamphetamine.
According to the German Olympic Sports Association (DOSB), doping was common in the West German athletes of the 1980s. West German heptathlete Birgit Dressel died at age 26 due to sudden multiple organ failure, triggered at least in part by long-term steroid abuse. In the newly emerging doping discussion in 2013 after submission of the final report of the anti-doping commission, the former German sprinter Manfred Ommer
Manfred Ommer (13 September 1950 – 21 May 2021) was a German sprinter. He competed in the men's 200 metres at the 1972 Summer Olympics representing West Germany.
Life
At the 1971 European Athletics Championships, he was eliminated with t ...
accused the Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
physician Armin Klümper: "Klümper was the largest doper on this planet."
China
China conducted a state-sanctioned doping programme on athletes in the 1980s and 1990s. The majority of revelations of Chinese doping have focused on swimmers and track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...
athletes, such as Ma Junren's ''Ma Family Army'' ().
More recently, three Chinese weightlifters were stripped of their gold Olympic medal
An Olympic medal is awarded to successful competitors at one of the Olympic Games. There are three classes of medal to be won: gold, silver, and bronze, awarded to first, second, and third place, respectively. The granting of awards is laid o ...
s for doping at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
In a July 2012 interview published by the '' Sydney Morning Herald'' newspaper, Chen Zhangho, the lead doctor for the Chinese Olympic team at the Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...
and Barcelona Olympics
The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...
told of how he had tested hormones, blood doping and steroids on about fifty elite athletes. Chen also accused the United States, the Soviet Union and France of using performance-enhancing drugs at the same time as China.
In 2012 and 2017 Xue Yinxian revealed systematic doping of Chinese athletes in Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
(and in other international sport events). He has claimed that more than 10,000 athletes in China were doped in the systematic Chinese government
The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, m ...
doping program and that they received performance-enhancing drugs in the 1980s and 1990s. He stated that the entirety of international
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
medals (both in the Olympics and other international competitions) won by Chinese athletes in the 1980s and 1990s must be taken back. This is contrary to previous statements by the Chinese government
The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, m ...
, which had denied involvement in systematic doping, claiming that athletes doped individually. The International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
and the World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
have investigated these allegations.
Russia
Systematic doping in Russian sports has resulted in 47 Olympic and tens of world championships medals being stripped from Russian competitors—the most of any country, more than four times the number of the runner-up, and more than 30% of the global total. Russia also has the most competitors that have been caught doping at the Olympic Games, with more than 200.
Russian doping is distinct from doping in other countries because in Russia the state supplied steroids and other drugs to sportspeople. Due to widespread doping violations, including an attempt to sabotage ongoing investigations by the manipulation of computer data, on 9 December 2019 the World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
(WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for four years. As at the 2018 Winter Olympics
The 2018 Winter Olympics ( ko, 2018년 동계 올림픽, Icheon sip-pal nyeon Donggye Ollimpik), officially the XXIII Olympic Winter Games (french: Les XXIIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver; ko, 제23회 동계 올림픽, Jeisipsamhoe Donggye Ollimpi ...
, WADA will allow individual cleared Russian athletes to compete neutrally under a title to be determined (which may not include the name "Russia", unlike the use of " Olympic Athletes from Russia" in 2018).
Russia later filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; french: Tribunal arbitral du sport, ''TAS'') is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its c ...
(CAS) against the WADA decision. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, on review of Russia's appeal of its case from WADA, ruled on 17 December 2020 to reduce the penalty that WADA had imposed. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag's colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation. Russia can appeal the decision.
On 19 February 2021, it was announced that Russia would compete under the acronym "ROC", after the name of the Russian Olympic Committee. On aftermatch, the IOC announced that the Russian national flag would be substituted by the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee. It would also be allowed to use team uniforms bearing the words "Russian Olympic Committee", or the acronym "ROC" would be added.
On 15 April 2021, the uniforms for the Russian Olympic Committee athletes were unveiled, featuring the colours of the Russian flag. On 22 April 2021, the replacement for Russia's anthem was approved by the IOC, after an earlier choice of the patriotic Russian war song
A war song is a musical composition that relates to war, or a society's attitudes towards war. They may be pro-war, anti-war, or simply a description of everyday life during war times.
It is possible to classify these songs by historical confl ...
" Katyusha" was rejected. A fragment of Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
's Piano Concerto No. 1 is used.
United States
In 2003, Wade Exum, the United States Olympic Committee
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...
's director of drug-control administration from 1991 to 2000, gave copies of documents to ''Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...
'' that revealed that some 100 American athletes failed drug tests from 1988 to 2000, arguing that they should have been prevented from competing in the Olympics but were nevertheless cleared to compete; those athletes included Carl Lewis
Frederick Carlton Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996 ...
, Joe DeLoach and Floyd Heard
Floyd Wayne Heard (born March 24, 1966, in West Point, Mississippi) is a retired track and field sprinter from the United States, best known for setting the 1986 world's best year performance in the men's 200 m. He did so on 7 July 1986 at a mee ...
. Before showing the documents to ''Sports Illustrated'', Exum tried to use them in a lawsuit against USOC, accusing the organization of racial discrimination and wrongful termination against him and cover-up over the failed tests. The Denver federal Court summarily dismissed his case for lack of evidence. The USOC labelled his case "baseless" as he himself was the one in charge of screening the anti-doping test program of the organization and clarifying that the athletes were cleared according to the rules.
Carl Lewis broke his silence on allegations that he was the beneficiary of a drugs cover-up, admitting he had failed tests for banned substances, but claiming he was just one of "hundreds" of American athletes who were allowed to escape bans, concealed by the USOC. Lewis has acknowledged that he failed three tests during the 1988 US Olympic trials, which under international rules at the time should have prevented him from competing in the 1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...
. Former athletes and officials came out against the USOC cover-up. "For so many years I lived it. I knew this was going on, but there's absolutely nothing you can do as an athlete. You have to believe governing bodies are doing what they are supposed to do. And it is obvious they did not," said former American sprinter and 1984 Olympic champion, Evelyn Ashford
Evelyn Ashford (born April 15, 1957) is an American retired track and field athlete, the 1984 Olympic champion in the 100-meter dash. She ran under the 11-second barrier over 30 times and was the first to run under 11 seconds in an Olympic Gam ...
.
Exum's documents revealed that Carl Lewis had tested positive
Positive is a property of positivity and may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* Positive formula, a logical formula not containing negation
* Positive number, a number that is greater than 0
* Plus sign, the sign "+" used to indicate a posi ...
three times at the 1988 Olympics trials for minimum amounts of pseudoephedrine, ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is often used to prevent low blood pressure during anesthesia. It has also been used for asthma, narcolepsy, and obesity but is not the preferred treatment. It is of unclear benefit in ...
, and phenylpropanolamine
Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) is a sympathomimetic agent which is used as a decongestant and appetite suppressant. It was commonly used in prescription and over-the-counter cough and cold preparations. In veterinary medicine, it is used to contr ...
, which were banned stimulants. Bronchodilator
A bronchodilator or broncholytic (although the latter occasionally includes secretory inhibition as well) is a substance that dilates the bronchi and bronchioles, decreasing resistance in the respiratory airway and increasing airflow to the lung ...
s are also found in cold medication. Due to the rules, his case could have led to disqualification from the Seoul Olympics and suspension from competition for six months. The levels of the combined stimulants registered in the separate tests were 2 ppm, 4 ppm and 6 ppm. Lewis defended himself, claiming that he had accidentally consumed the banned substances. After the supplements that he had taken were analyzed to prove his claims, the USOC accepted his claim of inadvertent use, since a dietary supplement he ingested was found to contain "Ma huang", the Chinese name for Ephedra Ephedra may refer to:
* Ephedra (medicine), a medicinal preparation from the plant ''Ephedra sinica''
* ''Ephedra'' (plant), genus of gymnosperm shrubs
See also
* Ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is of ...
(ephedrine is known to help weight-loss). Fellow Santa Monica Track Club teammates Joe DeLoach and Floyd Heard were also found to have the same banned stimulants in their systems, and were cleared to compete for the same reason. The highest level of the stimulants Lewis recorded was 6 ppm, which was regarded as a positive test in 1988 but is now regarded as negative test. The acceptable level has been raised to ten parts per million for ephedrine and twenty-five parts per million for other substances. According to the IOC rules at the time, positive tests with levels lower than 10 ppm were cause of further investigation but not immediate ban. Neal Benowitz, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco who is an expert on ephedrine and other stimulants, agreed that "These evelsare what you'd see from someone taking cold or allergy medicines and are unlikely to have any effect on performance." Following Exum's revelations, World Athletics acknowledged that at the 1988 Olympic Trials the USOC indeed followed the correct procedures in dealing with eight positive findings for ephedrine and ephedrine-related compounds in low concentration. The federation also reviewed in 1988 the relevant documents with the athletes' names undisclosed and stated that "the medical committee felt satisfied, however, on the basis of the information received that the cases had been properly concluded by the USOC as 'negative cases' in accordance with the rules and regulations in place at the time and no further action was taken". Under current (2023) rules of the WADA Code, ephedrine has a 10 ppm limit, pseudoephedrine has a 150 microgram per millilitre limit, and phenylpropanolamine is investigated but not a prohibited substance, which all listed athletes from the Santa Monica Track Club would have cleared.
Olympics
United States has had eight Olympic medals stripped for doping violations. In all cases, the US government or the United States Olympic Committee
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...
(USOC) had nothing to do with it, and sanctioned athletes acted on their own. In the case of swimmer Rick DeMont
Richard James DeMont (born April 21, 1956) is an American former competition swimmer, world champion, and former world record-holder in multiple events. DeMont is often remembered for the controversy arising from his disqualification at the 19 ...
, the USOC recognized his gold-medal performance in the 1972 Summer Olympics in 2001,[ but only the IOC has the power to restore his medal, and it has refused to do so.] DeMont originally won the gold medal in 4:00.26. Following the race, the IOC stripped him of his gold medal after his post-race urinalysis tested positive for traces of the banned substance ephedrine
Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is often used to prevent low blood pressure during anesthesia. It has also been used for asthma, narcolepsy, and obesity but is not the preferred treatment. It is of unclear benefit in ...
contained in his prescription asthma medication, Marax. The positive test following the 400-meter freestyle final also deprived him of a chance at multiple medals, as he was not permitted to swim in any other events at the 1972 Olympics, including the 1,500-meter freestyle for which he was the then-current world record-holder. Before the Olympics, DeMont had properly declared his asthma medications on his medical disclosure forms, but the USOC had not cleared them with the IOC's medical committee.[ Rick DeMont]
Sports-Reference.com
[
]
Association football
There have been few incidents of doping in football, mainly due to FIFA's belief that education and prevention with constant in and out-of-competition controls play a key role in making high-profile competitions free of performance-enhancing drugs. The FIFA administration work alongside team physicians to fight for dope free competitions, having them sign a joint declaration that states they agree with having routine blood testing to check for blood doping before any FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
.
In 2014, the biological passport
An athlete biological passport is an individual electronic record for professional athletes, in which profiles of biological markers of doping and results of doping tests are collated over a period of time. Doping violations can be detected by n ...
was introduced in the 2014 FIFA World Cup; blood and urine
Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excreted from the body through the urethra.
Cellular ...
samples from all players before the competition and from two players per team and per match are analysed by the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses.
World Cups
A study titled "Doping in Germany from 1950 to today", published in August 2013, stated that some members of the German national team received injections during their successful world cup 1954. Erik Eggers, who wrote about the preanabolic period in the study, was sure that the injections didn't contain vitamin C ("They could have just eaten an orange") but assumed that they contained Pervitin. It also stated that Pervitin
Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug use, recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ...
(an upper, also used massively by soldiers in World War 2) was widespread in German football in the 1940s. The study, 800 pages in length and costing 450.000 Euro, was done by Berlin’s Humboldt University and financed by the institute of sports science.
Mohammed Kaci Saïd, Djamel Menad
Djamel Menad ( ar, جمال مناد; born 22 July 1960) is an Algerian retired professional footballer, who played as a forward and who manages USM El Harrach.
Club career
Born in El Bayadh, Menad started his playing career with CR Belouizdad ...
, Tedj Bensaoula, Medi Cerbah, Mohamed Chaib, Salah Larbès, Abdelkader Tlemçani, members of Algerias national side in the 1980s, claim that they were given performance enhancing drugs. They suspect this to be the reason why they all fathered disabled children. Chaib, father of three disabled children, demanded the medical records and was told they didn't exist anymore. Rashid Hanafi, team doctor back then, also suspected there were suspicious practices going on. He told CNN that he was "not allowed to take a look at the medical records of the players any more when Rogov took over as coach in 1981". Alexander Tabartschuk, main doctor of the team, said he only handed vitamins. Algeria fell victim to the Disgrace of Gijón in 1982 and won the African Cup eight years later.
Argentina took "speedy coffee" before the qualifier for the world cup 1994 against Australia, at least this is what Maradona said in May 2011. It should make them run faster, but also caused sleeping problems. He also found it suspicious that only the deciding match (against Australia) had no anti-doping control. Grondona, chairman of AFA back then, responded that there were no tests because Maradona, who already had a drug history, might not have passed. Maradona tested positive in the world cup.
Right after the world cup 1998, all of the drug testing samples were destroyed. If the same would have happened in the Tour de France, Armstrong wouldn't have been caught, former WADA director Dr. Alain Garnier argued. Marie-Georges Buffet, sports minister at that time, also recalls that she felt pressurised when she initiated an unannounced test in december 1997. There were no more unannounced tests after that. Jean-Pierre Paclet, physician of Les Bleus in 1998, mentions "abnormal haematocrit values" in his book. Gary Neville, former english international, recalled that "some of the players started taking injections from (...) a Frenchman called Dr Rougier". After some felt an energy boost, there was "a queue to see the doctor before the Argentina match".
Football Clubs
In the 1960s, Inter Milan has its greatest period of success known as '' aGrande Inter'' ("Great Inter"), achieved when Helenio Herrera was their manager. He won seven trophies with the club. In 2004, Ferruccio Mazzola, Inter player during that period, accused him of distributing performance enhancing drugs, including amphetamines, among the team players, especially the substitute players who often served as guinea pigs for trying new pills and see if they worked. When he found out that some in the team were spitting them out, he dissolved them in coffee to make sure they were consumed, a practice known as ''Caffè di Herrera'' ("Herrera's Coffee"). In 2010, Inter sued Mazzola but lost the case, the court believed him. One of the reasons he spoke up were the serious medical conditions and/or deaths of some of his former members: Giuliano Taccola, then team's captain Armando Picchi (died aged 36 due to cancer), Marcello Giusti, Carlo Tagnin, Mauro Bicicli, Ferdinando Miniussi, Enea Masiero and Pino Longoni. He suspected the drugs to be the cause of their sufferings. in 2015, his famous brother Sandro, who denied everything at the beginning, admitted that the incidents happened.
In the 1970s performance enhancing drugs were used on a regular basis according to witnesses of that period, mostly in Ajax, Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar during competitive matches, including the 1970 and 1972 Intercontinental Cups won by the first two cited clubs. Jan Peters recounted drug use before the big games. They seemed to work as he felt energy boosts and euphoria. Johnny Rep, former Ajax player, claimed that "everyone was on something". He recounted injections for everyone on 1 November 1979, ahead of a match of his team, Saint Etienne, against PSV Eindhoven. Pierre Poty, who was physician of the club at that time, also revealed that he worked with uppers and reasoned it with the fantastic effects. Fritz Kessel, also physician, worked for the dutch national side for 30 years and revealed that drugs were common in the World Cups 1974 and 1978. He said that to Guido Derksen, writer of ''Voetbal Myseries'', who wrote that players consumed tons of amphetamines.
In 1987, Toni Schumacher wrote about a long-running tradition of doping in the Bundesliga, claiming that lots of players were taking Captagon. He himself experimented with it and the effects were: Increased aggression, lower pain threshold, increased focus, confidence and endurance. The by effect was sleeping problems. In Köln he was chauffeuring his colleagues to the doctor who gave them pills and injections, presumably anabolics and stimulants. In the national team he mentioned a "walking chemist" and hormone use. Despite being supported by Paul Breitner he had to leave Köln after 544 games. Later on, his statements about doping in the Bundesliga were supported by Per Roentved, Hans Werner Moors, Dieter Schatzscheider, Hans-Josef Kapellmann, Peter Neururer, Benno Möhlmann, Uwe Nester, Peter Geyer (who talked about procedure, quantity and side effects), Jürgen Röber, Jürgen Stumm and Peter Harms (both medics).
Juventus won the 1996 UEFA Champions League Final, but the victory remains controversial because of accusations of doping. The Juventus team has been accused of using erythropoietin (EPO) and the matter went to trial in 2004. In November 2004, club doctor Riccardo Agricola was given a 22-month prison sentence and fined €2,000 for sporting fraud by providing performance enhancing drugs, specifically EPO, to players between 1994 and 1998, Leading hematologist Giuseppe d'Onofrio said that it was "practically certain" that midfielders Antonio Conte
Antonio Conte (; born 31 July 1969) is an Italian professional football manager and former player who is the head coach of Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.
Playing as a midfielder, Conte began his career at local club Lecce and later ...
and Alessio Tacchinardi had taken EPO to overcome brief bouts of anemia
Anemia or anaemia (British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, or a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin. When anemia comes on slowly, t ...
, and that it was "very probable" that seven other players – Alessandro Birindelli
Alessandro Birindelli (; born 12 November 1974) is an Italian retired footballer who played as a full-back or as a wide midfielder
A midfielder is an outfield position in association football.
Midfielders may play an exclusively def ...
, Alessandro Del Piero
Alessandro Del Piero (; born 9 November 1974) is an Italian former professional footballer who mainly played as a deep-lying forward, although he was capable of playing in several offensive positions. Since 2015, he has worked as a pundit ...
, Didier Deschamps
Didier Claude Deschamps (; born 15 October 1968) is a French professional football manager and former player who has been manager of the France national team since 2012. He played as a defensive midfielder for several clubs, in France, Italy, ...
, Dimas, Paolo Montero, Gianluca Pessotto and Moreno Torricelli – had taken EPO in small doses. In April 2005, the Court of Arbitration for Sport
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; french: Tribunal arbitral du sport, ''TAS'') is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its c ...
gave the following advisory opinion, in part: "The use of pharmaceutical substances which are not expressly prohibited by sports law, and which cannot be considered as substances similar or related to those expressly prohibited, is not to be sanctioned by disciplinary measures. However, regardless of the existence or not of any judgement rendered by a State court, sports authorities are under the obligation to prosecute the use of pharmaceutical substances which are prohibited by sports law or any other anti-doping rule violation in order to adopt disciplinary measures." In December 2005, Agricola was acquitted of the charges by Turin's court of appeal. In March 2007, in the final verdict by the Supreme Court of Cassation, stated: "that in the years of 1994 to 1998 there was no ascertained positive case of doping substances by Juventus players, that the purchase of erythropoietin or its administration to the athletes of the club does not emerge from any act of the trial, and that the same expert had identified the possibility of an administration of erythropoietin in distant terms from the sure evidence ("very probable" and in two cases "practically certain"): it is that there fore, the judgement of probability and not of certainty, did not allow for a statement of responsibility." The verdict also went on to say: "In response to the conclusion taken, the territorial court notes that there were no deferred values higher than the limits set in the various antidoping protocols and that the situation of the Juventus players, both with reference to the average hematological values, and in relation to that of material balance, did not differ from the national average population.[
At Olympique Marseille, doping also took place according to ]Marcel Desailly
Marcel Desailly (born Odenke Abbey; 7 September 1968) is a French former professional footballer, widely considered to be among the greatest centre-backs and defensive midfielders to ever play football. During a successful career at club level, l ...
, Jean-Jaques Eydelie, Chris Waddle and Tony Cascarino
Anthony Guy Cascarino (born 1 September 1962) is a former professional footballer who played as a striker for various British and French clubs and internationally for the Republic of Ireland national team, with whom he competed in UEFA Euro 19 ...
. They told about stimulants taken prior to their big games, which made them more energetic and keen. According to Eydelie, "all (of them) took a series of injections" in the Champions League Final 1993, except Rudi Völler. All this was no surprise for Arsene Wenger, who said everyone in France assumed something like that going on. Additionally, Desailly and Cascarino claimed that Bernard Tapie, the president himself, distributed pills and injections. Author Mondenard also mentioned "injections for everyone". Tapie only admitted that some players took Captagon.
2013 it had been announced that Fuentes received up to €327,000 annually from Real Sociedad. This was detected by auditors from Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewat ...
at the behest of Iñaki Badiola, president of the club in 2008. The documentation of the doctor also contained the inscriptions "RSOC" a couple of times and "Cuentas illsAsti" which most probably stands for Astiazarán, president of the club from 2000 to 2005. In 2003 Real Sociedad finished second in the Spanish League, missing the title by two points. The well-known medic was hired by Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, too, according to Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
. They had access to confidential documents like training schedules.
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
In December 2013, the UFC began a campaign to drug test their entire roster randomly all year-round. Random testing, however, became problematic for the promotion as it began to affect revenue, as fighters who had tested positive would need to be taken out of fights, which adversely affected fight cards, and therefore pay-per-view sales. If the UFC were not able to find a replacement fighter fights would have to be cancelled. According to Steven Marrocco of MMAjunkie.com, about 31% of UFC fighters subjected to random testing since the program first started have failed due to using performance-enhancing drugs. That is approximately five failed tests for every sixteen random screenings.
From July 2015, the UFC has advocated to all commissions that every fighter be tested in competition for every card. Lorenzo Feritta, who at the time was one of the presidents of the UFC, said, "We want 100 percent of the fighters tested the night they compete". Also, in addition to the drug testing protocols in place for competitors on fight night, the UFC conducts additional testing for main event fighters or any fighters that are due to compete in championship matches. This includes enhanced, random 'out of competition' testing for performance-enhancing drugs, with both urine and blood samples being taken. The UFC also announced that all potential UFC signees would be subject to mandatory pre-contract screening for performance-enhancing drugs prior to being offered a contract with the promotion.
Endurance sports
The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport has become an increasing problem across a wide range of sports. It is defined as any substance or drug that, when taken, gives an athlete an unfair advantage relative to a "clean" athlete. The banning of these drugs promotes a level playing field and equality among athletes. The use of 'the suit' in swimming, which gives athletes an advantage in the way of hydrodynamics, has been banned from international competition due to the unfair advantage it delivered. The drugs taken by athletes differ widely based on the performance needs of the sport.
Erythropoietin (EPO) is largely taken by endurance athletes who seek a higher level of red blood cells, which leads to more oxygenated blood, and a higher VO2 max
VO2 max (also maximal oxygen consumption, maximal oxygen uptake or maximal aerobic capacity) is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption attainable during physical exertion. The name is derived from three abbreviations: "V̇" for volume (the dot ap ...
. An athlete's VO2 max is highly correlated with success within endurance sports such as swimming, long-distance running, cycling, rowing, and cross-country skiing. EPO has recently become prevalent amongst endurance athletes due to its potency and low degree of detectability when compared to other methods of doping such as blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...
. While EPO is believed to have been widely used by athletes in the 1990s, there was not a way to directly test for the drug until 2002 as there was no specific screening process to test athletes . Athletes at the Olympic Games are tested for EPO through blood and urine tests. Stringent guidelines and regulations can lessen the danger of doping that has existed within some endurance sports.
Cycling
''The Convicts of the Road''
In 1924, a journalist Albert Londres followed the Tour de France for the French newspaper ''Le Petit Parisien
''Le Petit Parisien'' was a prominent French newspaper during the French Third Republic. It was published between 1876 and 1944, and its circulation was over two million after the First World War.
Publishing
Despite its name, the paper was circu ...
''. At Coutances
Coutances () is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.
History
Capital of the Unelli, a Gaulish tribe, the town was given the name of ''Constantia'' in 298 during the reign of Roman emperor Constantius Chloru ...
he heard that the previous year's winner, Henri Pélissier
Henri Pélissier (; 22 January 1889 – 1 May 1935) was a French racing cyclist from Paris and champion of the 1923 Tour de France. In addition to his 29 career victories, he was known for his long-standing feud with Tour founder Henri Desgrange a ...
, his brother Francis and a third rider, Maurice Ville, had resigned from the competition after an argument with the organiser Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange (31 January 1865 – 16 August 1940) was a French bicycle racer and sports journalist. He set twelve world track cycling records, including the hour record of on 11 May 1893. He was the first organiser of the Tour de France.
...
. Pélissier explained the problem—whether or not he had the right to take off a jersey—and went on to talk of drugs, reported in Londres' race diary, in which he invented the phrase ''Les Forçats de la Route'' (''The Convicts of the Road''):
:"You have no idea what the Tour de France is," Henri said. "It's a Calvary. Worse than that, because the road to the Cross has only 14 stations and ours has 15. We suffer from the start to the end. You want to know how we keep going? Here..." He pulled a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine, for our eyes. This is chloroform, for our gums."
:"This," Ville said, emptying his shoulder bag "is liniment to put warmth back into our knees."
:"And pills. Do you want to see pills? Have a look, here are the pills." Each pulled out three boxes.
:"The truth is," Francis said, "that we keep going on dynamite."
Henri spoke of being as white as shrouds once the dirt of the day had been washed off, then of their bodies being drained by diarrhea
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin w ...
, before continuing:
:"At night, in our rooms, we can't sleep. We twitch and dance and jig about as though we were doing St Vitus's Dance..."
:"There's less flesh on our bodies than on a skeleton," Francis said.
Francis Pélissier said much later: "Londres was a famous reporter but he didn't know about cycling. We kidded him a bit with our cocaine and our pills. Even so, the Tour de France in 1924 was no picnic." The acceptance of drug-taking in the Tour de France was so complete by 1930, when the race changed to national teams that were to be paid for by the organisers, that the rule book distributed to riders by the organiser, Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange (31 January 1865 – 16 August 1940) was a French bicycle racer and sports journalist. He set twelve world track cycling records, including the hour record of on 11 May 1893. He was the first organiser of the Tour de France.
...
, reminded them that drugs were not among items with which they would be provided. The use of Pot Belge by road cyclists in continental Europe exemplifies a cross-over between recreational and performance-enhancing abuse of drugs by sportsman.
Festina affair
In 1998, the entire Festina
image:Festina F16184 4.jpg, Festina F16184
Festina is a spain, Spanish watch brand. In 1985, businessman Miguel Rodríguez acquired Festina, a brand founded in Switzerland in 1902, thus forming the ''Festina-Lotus group.''
History
Festina w ...
team were excluded from the Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
following the discovery of a team car containing large amounts of various performance-enhancing drugs. The team director later admitted that some of the cyclists were routinely given banned substances. Six other teams pulled out in protest including Dutch team TVM who left the tour still being questioned by the police. The Festina scandal overshadowed cyclist Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani (; 13 January 1970 – 14 February 2004) was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely regarded as the greatest climbing specialist in the history of the sport by measures of his legacy, credits from other riders, and records. He re ...
's tour win, but he himself later failed a test. The infamous " Pot Belge" or "Belgian mix" has a decades-long history in pro cycling, among both riders and support staff. David Millar, the 2003 World-Time Trial Champion, admitted using EPO, and was stripped of his title and suspended for two years. Roberto Heras
Roberto Heras Hernández (born 1 February 1974) is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer who won the Vuelta a España a record four times. Between 1997 Vuelta a España, 1997 and 2005 Vuelta a España, 2005 he finished in the top 5 of ...
was stripped of his victory in the 2005 Vuelta a España
The Vuelta a España (; en, Tour of Spain) is an annual multi-stage bicycle race primarily held in Spain, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. Inspired by the success of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, the ...
and suspended for two years after testing positive for EPO.
Floyd Landis
Floyd Landis was the initial winner of the 2006 Tour de France
The 2006 Tour de France was the 93rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between the 1st and the 23rd of July. It was won by Óscar Pereiro following the disqualification of Floyd Landis. Due to the United ...
. But a urine sample taken from Landis immediately after his Stage 17 win has twice tested positive for banned synthetic testosterone
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristi ...
as well as a ratio of testosterone
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristi ...
to epitestosterone
Epitestosterone, or isotestosterone, also known as 17α-testosterone or as androst-4-en-17α-ol-3-one, is an endogenous steroid and an epimer of the androgen sex hormone testosterone. It is a weak competitive antagonist of the androgen recepto ...
nearly three times the limit allowed by World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
rules. The International Cycling Union
The ''Union Cycliste Internationale'' (UCI; ; en, International Cycling Union) is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland.
The UCI issues racing ...
stripped him of his 2006 Tour de France title. Second place finisher Óscar Pereiro was officially declared the winner.
Lance Armstrong case
Lance Armstrong was world number one in 1996. In the same year he recovered from severe testicular cancer and continued to break records and win his seventh Tour de France in 2005. After beating cancer and breaking records he was accused of doping. Teammates of Lance had been caught taking EPO ( Erythropoietin), which made the accusations against Armstrong stronger.
On 22 October 2012 Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong ('' né'' Gunderson; born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. Regarded as a sports icon for winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 after recovering fr ...
was officially stripped of his Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
titles since 1 August 1998. As a response to the decisions of the USADA and UCI, Armstrong resigned from the Lance Armstrong Foundation
The Livestrong Foundation is a United States nonprofit organization that provides support for people affected by cancer. The foundation, based in Austin, Texas, was established in 1997 by cancer survivor and former professional road racing cycl ...
. He later admitted to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Other endurance sports
In triathlon, 2004 Hawaii Ironman winner Nina Kraft, was disqualified for a positive test to EPO. She remains the only Hawaii Ironman winner to be disqualified for doping offences. Sports lawyer Michelle Gallen has said that the pursuit of doping athletes has turned into a modern-day witch-hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern per ...
.
Non-endurance sports
In sports where physical strength is favored, athletes have used anabolic steroids, known for their ability to increase physical strength and muscle mass.[Michael Powers, "Performance-Enhancing Drugs" in Joel Houglum, in Gary L. Harrelson, Deidre Leaver-Dunn, "Principles of Pharmacology for Athletic Trainers", SLACK Incorporated, 2005, , p. 330] The drugs mimic the effect of testosterone
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristi ...
and dihydrotestosterone in the body. They were developed after Eastern Bloc countries demonstrated success in weightlifting during the 1940s. At the time they were using testosterone, which carried with it negative side effects, and anabolic steroids were developed as a solution. The drugs have been used across a wide range of sports from football and basketball to weightlifting and track and field. While not as life-threatening as the drugs used in endurance sports, anabolic steroids have negative side effects, including:
Side effects in men
*Acne
*Impaired liver function
*Impotency
*Breast formation (Gynecomastia)
*Increase in oestrogen
*Suppression of spermatogenesis: As endogenous testosterone is the major regulator of the HPG axis, the exogenous testosterone and androgen anabolic steroids exert a suppressive effect of LH and FSH, leading to a decrease in intratesticular and secreted testosterone, decrease in spermatogenesis and sperm production.
*Lack of libido and erectile dysfunction: especially occurs in those men abusing aromatisable androgen anabolic steroids, resulting in high oestrogen levels. Although physiological levels of oestrogens are necessary for normal sexual function, the high doses and the imbalance between testosterone and estradiol appear to be the cause of sexual dysfunction.
*Increased sex drive
*Male pattern baldness
*Risk of heart failure
Side effects in women
*Hair loss
*Male pattern baldness
*Hypertrophy of the clitoris
*Increased sex drive
*Irregularities of the menstrual cycle
*Development of masculine facial traits
*Increased coarseness of the skin
*Premature closure of the epiphysis
The epiphysis () is the rounded end of a long bone, at its joint with adjacent bone(s). Between the epiphysis and diaphysis (the long midsection of the long bone) lies the metaphysis, including the epiphyseal plate (growth plate). At the jo ...
*Deepening of the voice
In countries where the use of these drugs is controlled, there is often a black market trade of smuggled or counterfeit drugs. The quality of these drugs may be poor and can cause health risks. In countries where anabolic steroids are strictly regulated, some have called for regulatory relief. Anabolic steroids are available over-the-counter in some countries such as Thailand and Mexico.
Sports that are members of the IOC also enforce drug regulations; for example bridge.
Reaction from sports organizations
Many sports organizations have banned the use of performance-enhancing drugs and have very strict rules and penalties for people who are caught using them. The International Amateur Athletic Federation, now World Athletics
World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body fo ...
, was the first international governing body of sport
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
to take the situation seriously. In 1928 they banned participants from doping, but with little in the way of testing available they had to rely on the word of the athlete that they were clean.
It was not until 1966 that FIFA and Union Cycliste Internationale
The ''Union Cycliste Internationale'' (UCI; ; en, International Cycling Union) is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland.
The UCI issues raci ...
(cycling) joined the IAAF in the fight against drugs, followed by the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
the following year. Progression in pharmacology has always outstripped the ability of sports federations to implement rigorous testing procedures but since the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
in 1999, it has become more effective to catch athletes who use drugs. The first tests for athletes were at the 1966 European Championships and two years later the IOC implemented their first drug tests at both the Summer and Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...
. Anabolic steroids became prevalent during the 1970s and after a method of detection was found they were added to the IOC's prohibited substances list in 1975, after which the 1976 Summer Olympics
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 P ...
in Montreal were the first Olympic games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
which tested for them.
Over the years, different sporting bodies have evolved differently in the struggle against doping. Some, such as athletics and cycling, are becoming increasingly vigilant against doping. However, there has been criticism that sports such as football (soccer) and baseball are doing nothing about the issue, and letting athletes implicated in doping get away unpunished.
Some commentators maintain that, as outright prevention of doping is an impossibility, all doping should be legalised. However, most disagree with this, pointing out the claimed harmful long-term effects of many doping agents. Opponents claim that with doping legal, all competitive athletes would be compelled to use drugs, and the net effect would be a level playing field but with widespread health consequences. A common rebuttal to this argument asserts that anti-doping efforts have been largely ineffective due to both testing limitations and lack of enforcement, and so sanctioned steroid use would not be markedly different from the situation already in existence.
Another point of view is that doping could be legalized to some extent using a drug whitelist
A whitelist, allowlist, or passlist is a mechanism which explicitly allows some identified entities to access a particular privilege, service, mobility, or recognition i.e. it is a list of things allowed when everything is denied by default. It is ...
and medical counseling, such that medical safety is ensured, with all usage published. Under such a system, it is likely that athletes would attempt to cheat by exceeding official limits to try to gain an advantage; this could be considered conjecture as drug amounts do not always correlate linearly with performance gains.
The influence of popular culture
Social pressures
Social pressure is one of the factors that leads to doping in sport. The media and society work together to construct a view of what masculinity and femininity should look like. Adolescent athletes are constantly influenced by what they see on the media, and some go to extreme measures to achieve the ideal image since society channels Judith Butler's definition of gender as a performative act. Examples of social pressures were given in a study done on an online bodybuilding community where bodybuilders doped because they felt like it was a rite of passage to be accepted into the community, and to feel validated. Both men and women are being materialized in the context of doping in sport; in an interview involving 140 men, it was concluded that "bodily practices are essential for masculine identity," and it was determined that the media highly publicizes female athletes who were strong, and thin. This leads to the issue of the consumption of performance enhancement drugs to achieve muscular or thin figures, and the assumption that the opponents are also taking performance-enhancing drugs, deeming it as an acceptable behavior to conform to. In addition, society's embracement of the "winning is everything" spirit leads many athletes to participate in doping, hoping that they will not be caught.
Physical pressures
Elite athletes have financial competitive motivations that cause them to dope and these motivations differ from that of recreational athletes. The common theme among these motivations is the pressure to physically perform. In a study of 101 individuals, 86% responded that their use of performance enhancement drugs were influenced by the potential athletic success, 74% by the economic aspect, and 30% by self-confidence and social recognition related reasons. In another study of 40 people, it was concluded that athletes used performance enhancement drugs for healing purposes so that they were an able competitor for the economic rewards involved with elite sports. Physical pressures often overlap with social pressures to have a certain body build. This is the case with muscle dysmorphia, where an athlete wants a more muscular physique for functionality and self- image purposes. The most popular motive for athletes to take supplements is to prevent any nutrient deficiencies and to strengthen the immune system. These factors all focus on improving the body for performance.
Psychological motivations
Psychology is another factor to take into consideration in doping in sport. It becomes a behavioral issue when the athlete acknowledges the health risks associated with doping, yet participates in it anyway. This has to do with the psychological thinking that the drug will make one feel invincible. The individuals are very egotistic in their way of thinking and their motivation is dependent on the performance enhancement drug since they believe that it delivers the results. On a study on health psychology, Quirk points out three different psychological aspects that lead one to dope: social cognition, stress and strain, and addiction. The social and physical pressures can alter an athlete's way of thinking, leading them to believe that they must take performance enhancement drugs since everyone else is doing it, known as "the doping dilemma."
Anti-doping organizations and legislation
* In 1999, initiated by the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
to fight against doping in sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
had been founded. After the doping scandal in cycling in the summer 1998 the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
(IOC) decided to establish the WADA to promote, coordinate and monitor the fight of against doping in sport. The headquarters for WADA is in Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
, Canada. The WADA is the supreme international authority and is allowed to do doping tests and can determine which substances are illegal.
*In February 2011, the United States Olympic Committee
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...
and the Ad Council
The Advertising Council, commonly known as the Ad Council, is an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors, including nonprofit organizations, non-governme ...
launched an anti-steroid campaign called Play Asterisk Free aimed at teens. The campaign first launched in 2008 under the name "Don't Be An Asterisk!".
*In October 2012, the USADA
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA, ) is a non-profit, non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization and the national anti- doping organization (NADO) for the United States. To protect clean competition and the integrity of sport and prevent ...
released evidence to corroborate their doping claim against cyclist Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong ('' né'' Gunderson; born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. Regarded as a sports icon for winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 after recovering fr ...
. According to USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart, the evidence against Armstrong includes, "...scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance enhancing drugs".
*On 1 November 1989, US Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Joseph Biden introduced S. 1829, The Steroid Trafficking Act of 1989. The purpose of the act was simple: It would "amend the Controlled Substances Act to further restrict the use of steroids. By designating anabolic steroids as a Schedule II controlled substance, the bill would crack down on illegal steroid use". (Senate Judiciary Committee, 2002, p. 282).
Test methods
Urine test
Under established doping control protocols, the athlete will be asked to provide a urine sample, which will be divided into two, each portion to be preserved within sealed containers bearing the same unique identifying number and designation respectively as A- and B-samples. An athlete whose A-sample has tested positive for a prohibited substance is requested an analysis of his or her B-sample after a confirmation test on sample A that delivered the same results. If the B-sample test results match the A-sample results, then the athlete is considered to have a positive test, otherwise, the test results are negative. This confirmation process ensures the safety of the individual.
Blood test
''see also:'' blood doping
Blood doping is a form of doping in which the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream is boosted in order to enhance athletic performance. Because such blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a higher concentration in the blo ...
The blood test detects illegal performance enhancement drugs through the measurement of indicators that change with the use of recombinant human erythropoietin:
# Hematocrit
# Reticulocytes
# Level of Iron
Gas chromatography-combustion-IRMS
The gas chromatography-combustion-IRMS is a way to detect any variations in the isotopic composition of an organic compound from the standard. This test is used to detect whether or not synthetic testosterone was consumed, leading to an increased abnormal testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) level.
Assumptions:
* 98.9% of the carbon atoms in nature are 12C
* the remaining 1.1% are 13C
The lower the 13C to 12C ratio, the more likely that synthetic testosterone was used.
Athlete biological passport
The athlete biological passport is a program that tracks the location of an athlete to combat doping in sports. This means that the athlete can be monitored and drug tested wherever they are and this data can be compared to the history of their doping test results. There is an ongoing discussion about how this measure can be seen as a violation of an individual's privacy.
Re-testing of samples
According to Article 6.5 in the World Anti-Doping Code
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
samples may be re-tested later. Samples from high-profile events, such as the Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
, are now re-tested up to eight years later to take advantage of new techniques for detecting banned substances.
Cheating the tests
Athletes seeking to avoid testing positive use various methods. The most common methods include:
*Urine replacement, which involves replacing dirty urine with clean urine from someone who is not taking banned substances. Urine replacement can be done by catheterization or with a prosthetic penis such as The Original Whizzinator.
*Diuretics, used to cleanse the system before having to provide a sample (which have also been placed in lists of banned substances themselves to circumvent this practice).
*Blood transfusions, which increase the blood's oxygen carrying capacity, in turn increasing endurance without the presence of drugs that could trigger a positive test result.
*To avoid being tested during training periods, athletes can make themselves unavailable. To mitigate this, athletes have to report their location at any time. If intended doping tests could not be done because the athlete could not be found, three times during a year, it's considered a doping violation, same as refusing a test. There is a web site and a phone app, called ADAMS, in which athletes are expected to report their location.
Validity
Donald Berry, writing in the journal ''Nature'', has called attention to potential problems with the validity of ways in which many of the standardised tests are performed; 'subscription required''/sup> in his article, as described in an accompanying editorial, Berry The editorial closes, saying "Nature believes that accepting 'legal limits' of specific metabolites without such rigorous verification goes against the foundational standards of modern science, and results in an arbitrary test for which the rate of false positives and false negatives can never be known."[
]
Defense
G. Pascal Zachary argues in a ''Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...
'' essay that legalizing performance-enhancing substances, as well as genetic enhancements once they became available, would satisfy society's need for übermenschen and reverse the decline in public interest in sports.
Sports scholar Verner Moller argues that society is hypocritical when it holds athletes to moral standards, but do not conform to those morals themselves. Fox Sports writer Jen Floyd Engel stated in an article, "We live in a pharmacological society. We live in a society of short cuts, of fake this and enhanced that, and somehow we keep trying to sell the line that sports has become this evil empire of cheating. The reality is athletes are merely doing what so many of us do and celebrate and watch every single day of our lives."
Sociologist Ellis Cashmore argues that what is considered doping is too arbitrary: transfusing blood cells is not allowed, but other methods of boosting blood cell count, such as hypobaric chamber
A hypobaric chamber, or altitude chamber, is a chamber used during aerospace or high terrestrial altitude research or training to simulate the effects of high altitude on the human body, especially hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypobaria (low ambient ...
s, are allowed. Other scholars have advanced similar arguments.
Legal
Anti-doping policies instituted by individual sporting governing bodies may conflict with local laws. A notable case includes the National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL)'s inability to suspend players found with banned substances, after it was ruled by a federal court that local labor laws superseded the NFL's anti-doping regime. The challenge was supported by the National Football League Players Association
The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director DeM ...
.
Athletes caught doping may be subject to penalties from their local, as well from the individual sporting, governing body. The legal status of anabolic steroids varies from country to country. Fighters found using performance-enhancing drugs in mixed martial arts competitions (e.g. the UFC
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...
) could face civil and/or criminal charges once Bill S-209 passes.
Under certain circumstances, when athletes need to take a prohibited substance to treat a medical condition, therapeutic use exemption
A therapeutic use exemption (TUE), also known as a temporary use exemption, is a term created in 1991 and refers to an official medical document. The document gives an athlete permission to take a medication listed on the World Anti-Doping Agency ...
s may be granted.
See also
* Cheating in sports
* McLaren Report
* Mitchell Report
*Doping at the Olympic Games
This article is about the history of competitors at the Olympic Games using banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs.
History
The use of performance-enhancing tactics or more formally known as PEDs, and more broadly, the use of any extern ...
* Cheating at the Paralympic Games
* Doping in Russia
*Doping in China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), conducted a state-sanctioned doping programme on athletes in the 1980s and 1990s. The majority of revelations of Chinese doping have focused on swimmers and track and field athletes, such a ...
* Doping in the United States
*Doping in East Germany
The government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) conducted a decades long program of coercive administration and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs, initially testosterone, later mainly anabolic drugs to its elite athletes. The ai ...
*BALCO scandal
The BALCO scandal was a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) was a San Francisco Bay Area business which supplied anabolic steroids to profes ...
* Caffeine use for sport
* Cannabis and sports
*Concussions in sport
Concussions, a type of mild traumatic brain injury, are a frequent concern for those playing sports, from children and teenagers to professional athletes. Repeated concussions are a known cause of various neurological disorders, most notably chr ...
* Doping in pigeon racing
* Equine drug testing
*Gene doping
Gene doping is the hypothetical non-therapeutic use of gene therapy by athletes in order to improve their performance in those sporting events which prohibit such applications of genetic modification technology, and for reasons other than the trea ...
* Mechanical doping
*Stem cell doping
Stem cell doping is the postulated practice of enhancing athletic performance through various beneficial effects of stem cells injected into the bloodstream or otherwise introduced into the body. Currently there are no documented cases of stem ce ...
*Technology doping
Technology doping is the practice of gaining a competitive advantage using sports equipment. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) considers prohibiting technologies if they are "performance-enhancing" or "being against the spirit of the sport". I ...
References
Further reading
*
*
* Mottram, David (2005); ''Drugs in Sport'', Routledge. .
Murray, Thomas H. (2008); "Sports Enhancement", in ''From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book for Journalists, Policymakers, and Campaigns''.
*
* Waddington and Smith (2008); ''An Introduction to Drugs in Sport'', Routledge. .
External links
Anti-Doping Sciences Institute
Banned Substances Control Group
World Anti-Doping Agency
at the International Association of Athletics Federations
{{authority control
Bioethics
Drug testing