‘Athletes in handcuffs?'

The idea that the doping of athletes is unethical has existed for about a hundred years (Hoberman 1992: 103–4, 133–4; Dimeo 2007: 26–9). Although the earliest objections to athletes’ use of performance-enhancing substances, dating from the latter part of the nineteenth century, were based on concerns about medical harm, the primary objection to doping for most of a century has been that doping is unethical behavior because it violates ideals of sports-manship that require fair competition and thus honorable self-restraint on the part of competitors. From this perspective, doping practices violate sport-specific norms that regulate personal conduct within the subculture of elite sport.