Dwain Chambers PE coursework

Unit 2: - Determination of the winner

One of the major ideas behind the world championships is to find the best athlete's in the word at their particular event and as such all of the events need to have a means by which the winners and loser are identified. The majority of events within the championships have the winners determined through quantitative and objective means. Meaning that there are strict rules to make the whole event fair and winners are determined using quantitative and objective methods where scientific criteria apply. This is where one individual or team has to achieve a better score then their fellow competitors in order to win, for example the winner of the javelin is determined by who throws the furthest, and in the long jump where the person who jumps the furthest is the winner, the same is applied to the 100m final as the person who runs the fastest and finishes first is taken to be the winner. This form of determining the winner is very different to other events such as gymnastics where performers are assessed qualitatively and subjectively, and judges award marks based on their opinion and interpretations, such a method of determining a winner could not have been used in the 100m final as the sprinters do not need to demonstrate technical expertise and artistic impression in order to score high marks, they just need to run fast and finish the race first. It can be said however that in order to finish the race first they need to show a certain degree of accurate technique, but they are not tested on it. In the 100m final Chambers finishing place of fourth was determined objectively with little dispute. As electronic timers were used in order to clock the times for each individual athlete, it is hard to argue results to the contrary of whom the computers show to have won. This particular race was very close with milliseconds separating the sprinters, and the need for scientific technology to determine the winner was imperative to the race being carried out fairly and medals being handed out accordingly.

Unit 4: - Energy systems

Dwain Chambers completed the 100m in 10.08 seconds, and this was with him running flat out. An activity of such short duration and extremely high intensity will have used the ATP-PC (alactic) system as it is a system utilized mainly by athletes who compete at as near maximal intensity as possible for 10 seconds or less. Over the course of the race Chambers' body would have been carrying out chemical reactions without him realizing it which allowed his muscle fibers to contract and move him along. For the first three seconds or so of his race, his body would have depleted all of it's original adenosine triphosphate (ATP) stores, and the energy from the breaking of a high energy bond between one of the three phosphate molecules and the adenosine molecule to form adenosine diphosphate (ADP) would have provided energy for muscular contractions during this initial period. However over the course of the 100m it is often the case that the athlete does not draw breath, and it can be assumed that Chambers did not breathe from the start till the end of the race. As a result of this his body would not have been receiving sufficient oxygen to sustain the resynthesis of ATP needed to provide his muscles with energy. As such his body would have broken down its phosphocreatine (PC) stores in the muscles for the next seven seconds of the race in order to resynthesis the lost ATP. As Chambers used up his ATP stores, the enzyme creatine kinase was stimulated and released, it broke PC down into its constituent parts of creatine and phosphate, and when this bond between the creatine and phosphate was broken, energy would have been released. This 'free' energy would have been used to attach an inorganic phosphate molecule onto the ADP to reform ATP. PC is only able to efficiently resynthesis ATP because both molecules exist alongside each other in the sarcoplasm of the muscle cell, and so as soon as energy is released by the PC it is used straight away to form ATP. This energy system would have helped see Chambers from the start of his race right through to the end. He would have been  accelerating for the first 60m but would have then been slowing up for the last 40m, this is due to the depleting stores of PC as his body is unable to resynthesis the PC stores without the use of oxygen. As the PC stores depleted he would have found it harder and harder to continue accelerating as ATP was not being resynthesised at as fast a rate and would have slowed up towards the end of the race. But the lack of oxygen has bonuses for the running of the race as well, because the even is anaerobic, Chambers was able to make use of the energy system as soon as the race started rather then having to wait while he got sufficient oxygen in (as would have been the case if the even were aerobic).

Unit 4: - Muscle fibers

As has already been mentioned; Dwain Chambers needs to have extremely powerful muscles in order to run at the speeds required to achieve a time of 10.08s. The only way he can generate this power is by having fast twitch muscle fibers (mainly type 2b) in the muscles which are working to produce this power , as opposed to slow twitch muscle fibers (type 1). Fast twitch fibers contract in about 50 milliseconds (approximately 60 milliseconds faster then slow twitch fibers), generating greater forces and are perfect for power events like the 100m. During the course of the race Chambers muscles would have been contracting rapidly with great force. However such fibers fatigue very easily due to their increased anaerobic capacity, low mitochondria density (to produce ATP), capillary density, and low myoglobin content. The fibers are able to generate this increased power by being larger then slow twitch fibers and this could be seen by comparing the muscle size of Chambers to a marathon runner for instance who would have a large amount of slow twitch fibers. However Chambers was able to complete the race because fast twitch muscle fibers have high PC stores (enough to see him work at maximal capacity for up to 10 seconds or so) and larger glycogen stores compared to other types of fibers. It is thought that male sprinters, discus throwers and jumpers have the highest percentage ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch (about 62% to 38%) of all athletes and this helps them to carry out their powerful events with maximal effectiveness. Because of the way his fast twitch fibers are set up, Chambers would have been able to generate extremely large amounts of force in a short period of time which can be seen during the drive and starting phase of the sprint. At the start of the race, he is able to push off the blocks with the amount of power that he does because of his increased muscular strength compared to other athletes. Chambers was able to achieve a time of 10.08s by recruiting as many muscular motor units in his body as possible to produce as maximal muscle contractions as possible. This could be done through multiple unit summation and wave summation of the muscular contractions. Multiple unit summation is where the strength of his muscle contractions would have been increase as he recruited as many motor units as possible over the course of the race. The maximal contractions he performed over the course of the race recruited the majority of motor units in a particular muscle group (for example the quadriceps), and his fast twitch muscle fibers would have been recruited ahead of his slow twitch ones. Coupled with wave summation where he would have increased the force of the muscular contraction by adding together the effect of several motor impulses, he was able to finish fourth in a highly competitive field.

Unit 5: - Drugs

Post event drugs tests later revealed that Chambers performance in the world championships 100m final had been enhanced by the taking of tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), and his time of 10.08s was deemed void, along with him being stripped of his silver medal in the 4X100m relay (August 31st 2003), receiving a two year ban from athletics and a lifetime ban from the Olympics. THG is an anabolic steroid (man made versions of the male hormone testosterone) and are used to build muscle mass, and as such it lent itself to the power training that Chambers would have been undertaking in preparation for the championships., the drug would have increased his muscle mass and allowed him to generate more force with muscular contractions and therefore post a faster time. The drug promotes muscle growth, the ability to train harder without fatigue, repairs body after stress as well as increasing aggression. The thinking behind taking the drug would have been 'a win at all costs' mentality and to give him an unfair advantage over the other competitors (although Chambers maintains that he did not know that the drug was in his system). Other reasons as to why Chambers may have had the drug in his system were because he thought the rewards were worth the risk, he was pressured into by his coach the media or self. Plainly the risk was not worth it as he got caught and banned, but there are other consequences which resulted from his use of the steroid. He lost all sponsorship from Sport England and other sources, it is deemed unfair and immoral (going against the ethic of the championships of a level playing field for all), and it would have created a negative role model for children. Anabolic steroids can also have dangerous side effects, including liver damage, heart disease, anxiety and rage. Although little is known about THG's specific effects (because it is a fairly new drug), it is likely to poses similar risks. Despite Chambers two year ban there are those who argue for the ban on drugs to be lifted so that any athlete can use them saying that many of the banned substances are available over the counter and are not illegal and may enter the athletes system without their knowledge, and also that a lift on the drugs ban would enable all athletes to have the same opportunities to perform well as others. But their arguments fail because technologically advanced countries will have an advantage over other countries and it will become less about the athletes ability and more about the countries spending power and drug technology, if drug use is not monitored properly then it can be a health risk to the athlete, as well as this the money being spent on sporting bodies (if they were legalized) on drugs could be better spent in other areas. In an attempt to prevent more drug cheats from beating the system more random-out-of-season drug tests are carried out, more money is investing into the drug testing resources and stricter punishments and life bans are being put in place to prevent other athletes from taking banned substances.