ABSTRACT
The possibility that overconformity could endanger their health and well-being was generally dismissed as an unavoidable fact of life in prolympic sports. Overconformity presented analytical and theoretical challenges in the sociology of sport and to all those concerned with social control in prolympic sports. Few people ever saw the negative consequences of overconformity in prolympic sports, which made it easier to “excuse” them, despite seeing them as deviant. onforming to the norms of the sport ethic was expected, and overconformity was seen as setting athletes apart as exemplars. The vested interests in the organization of prolympic sports are so strong that deviant overconformity will remain common. The athletes knew that testing was ineffective and that the “drug warnings” coming from officials were hypocritical or based on rumor and moral panic. Although people used a self-righteous rhetoric of social control when discussing drug use by athletes, there were multiple vested interests in the constant improvement of athlete performances in prolympic sports.
