Competitive sports are a test of biological potential, training aims to enhance this natural potential. With the introduction of performance enhancing drugs, the winner will no longer be the best athlete, it will be the person who most successfully manipulated their bodies with drugs. People do well at sport in part because of a genetic lottery. Elite sports players were simply dealt a “good hand” (so to speak). People appreciate sport at an elite level because of the competition, but it also has a great deal to do with the love of watching an amazing performance. However, if the audience knew that the players were only really exceptional due to the drugs they took; the viewers wouldn’t enjoy the game as much as the betting syndicates. If all athletes took drugs, it would come to a point where the drugs would have had the biggest affect they possibly could, and it would be back to the individual genetic potential of the players, it would be like giving everyone in a race the same head start.
Professional sport is for the genetic elite. An example of this is Finnish skier Eero Maentyranta whom, thanks to a natural genetic mutation, had 40-50% more red blood cells than average. He won seven Olympic medals. Some would argue that his mutation was unfair, if he had more red blood cells, so should everyone else. In having a higher red blood cell level, more oxygen can get to muscles in the same amount of time, meaning he would have had greater stamina than the other competitors. However, nature is not fair. Athletes in different sports have specific advantages, in netball some players will have a distinct height advantage, in cricket some wicket keepers will be able to jump further.
Erythropoietin is a hormone that is naturally produced in the body that acts on bone marrow to stimulate the production of red blood cells. Having excess amounts of this hormone does have horrendous ramifications. In the 1990’s several Dutch cyclists died in their sleep of inexplicable cardiac arrest. This has now been linked with the use of erythropoietin. Erythropoietin is not the only way one can increase their red blood cell count, altitude training or hypoxic air machines raise red blood cell levels to sometimes fatal levels. There is one undetectable way to boost red blood cell count, and that is blood doping. This process involves removing their blood then re-injecting it after the body has made new blood to replace what was taken. Legalising blood doping could assist in making the effects of genetic inequality minimal.
In the years leading up to the 2004 Athens Olympics, Australia spent $547 million on sport funding. Of this, $13.8 million was used just to send the competitors there. This was the highest amount Australia had spent on sport, and it paid off, the Australian team won 17 gold medals. Even though we had the 52nd largest population we came fourth in the medal tally.
In an attempt to constrict the use of performance enhancing drugs a list of forbidden substances has been constructed which is as follows: stimulants including caffeine, narcotics including morphine (codeine is one of the few narcotics that are allowed), anabolic steroids, beta-blockers, diuretics, masking agents and peptide hormones are all forbidden. The majority of anti-doping tests carried out on athletes are urine tests. Under the doping control protocols, the athlete will be asked to provide a urine sample which gets divided into two separate containers labelled ‘A’ and ‘B’. Sample ‘A’ is tested and if it comes out negative then sample ‘B’ will be disposed of and the athlete is free to compete. If sample ‘A’ comes out positive, sample ‘B’ will be tested at a different laboratory to make sure the results are correct, then a provisional or temporary suspension will be enforced. The main reason for policing performance enhancing drugs is for the safety of the athletes, if the use of these drugs went unnoticed many athletes would ignobly be dying just trying to further their careers.
The use of performance enhancing drugs in professional sport has a serious impact on the lives of all the competitors. It places pressure on clean athletes; can they beat the people who took drugs? It places pressure on up-and-coming athletes and poor nations who want to compete against people with drug enhanced abilities, or promotes the taking of drugs to young children who look up to athletes as role models. On the other hand, it does level the playing field for the people who do not have the genetic advantage that other athletes do have.
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Wilson, W & Derse, E 2001, Doping in Elite Sport: The politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement, Human Kinetics, Massachusetts.
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