ABSTRACT
Doping control in elite level sport is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first compulsory Olympic drug testing took place at the Winter Olympic Games at Grenoble in 1968, and in the forty years since then anti-doping policy has been based almost exclusively on what might be described as a punitive or ‘law and order’ approach. How successful has that policy been in terms of controlling the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport? Is it perhaps time to re-examine some of the fundamental assumptions underlying that policy? These are some of the central questions which are raised in this chapter. The development and implementation of policy, whether in sport or
in any other area of social life, is a complex process which, almost inevitably, has unplanned consequences, and it is therefore important that we continually monitor policies with a view to asking whether or not those policies are achieving the desired ends (Dopson and Waddington, 1996). In order to monitor anti-doping policies in sport, it is necessary to ask a number of questions about how those policies are working, and the most basic question is: has current policy been effective? It is, of course, never easy to measure the effectiveness of social policy, not only because policies are likely to have a variety of both intended and unintended consequences but also because the criteria of effectiveness are often not clear and frequently no systematic attempt is made to monitor effectiveness. This is the case in relation to anti-doping policy in sport. This policy, underpinned by what Coakley (1998b: 148) has called the ‘absolutist’ or the ‘it’s either right or wrong’ approach (see Chapter 1), is widely seen as so obviously ‘right’ that one hardly dares to ask what the goals of the policy are, or how effective the policy has been in achieving those goals. However, such questions must be asked if we hope to develop a more adequate policy in relation to drug use in sport. It is reasonable to assume that, as far as sports governing bodies are
concerned, the central objective of anti-drugs policy is to control the use by athletes of performance-enhancing drugs. How successful, then, has this policy been? What impact has forty years of anti-doping policy had on the extent of drug use in sport? Let us begin by examining the changing pattern
of drug use in sport since anti-doping policies and associated drug testing programmes were introduced in the 1960s. As we noted in Chapter 6 and in our case study of drug use in British
sport (Chapter 7), it is generally agreed that the widespread use of drugs in sport dates from the l960s. By this time, performance-enhancing drugs had already come to be regarded as an essential aid to training and/or competition by many athletes and the evidence suggests that, since then, their use has become even more widespread. Certainly it is clear that, by the mid-tolate 1980s, the use of drugs was widespread in many sports and in many countries. For example, in her evidence to the US Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Steroid Abuse in America, chaired in April 1989 by Senator Joseph Biden Jr, Pat Connolly, a coach of the US women’s track and field team, estimated that of the fifty members of the team at the 1984 Olympics, ‘probably 15 of them had used steroids. Some of them were medallists.’ Asked by Senator Biden whether the number of athletes using steroids had increased by the time of the Seoul Olympics of 1988, Connolly replied ‘Oh, yes. Oh, yes, it went up a lot.’ She estimated that ‘At least 40 per cent of the women’s team in Seoul had probably used steroids at some time in their preparation for the games’ (cited in Dubin, 1990: 339). Shortly before the US Senate judiciary committee hearing, the Australian
government, concerned about the apparently increasing use of banned substances by athletes, referred the issue to a Senate standing committee for investigation and report. The committee heard evidence that approximately 70 per cent of Australian athletes who competed internationally had taken drugs, and that one quarter of the Australian track and field team at the Seoul Olympics had used drugs. The committee accepted that ‘drug taking in Australian sport is widespread, and that anabolic steroids in particular are used in any sport in which power is an advantage’. They also concluded that ‘drugs are being used at all levels of sport and by most age groups, although the extent of drug use varies widely from one sport to another’ (Australian Parliament, 1989). A few months prior to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, William Standish, the
chief physician to the Canadian Olympic team, claimed that the ideal of a drug-free Olympics was no longer possible. He said:
We have solid information that the use of drugs to enhance performance is really an epidemic. There is rampant use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs among young athletes … I think we have to look at the traditional Olympic charter and understand that to have a clean Olympics is no longer possible.
