ABSTRACT
One of the most lively current controversies within sports concerns those interventions with the human body (and mind) that are acceptable in a ‘fair competition’ and those that are not so acceptable. On the philosophical level, this issue actualises the more basic query regarding the underlying criteria for demarcation between acceptable and unacceptable interventions. Traditionally, the controversies in this field have regarded intake of achievement-enhancing substances (some, like water, are allowed; others, like steroids, are prohibited; and yet others, like transfusion of one’s own blood from a period of ‘top shape’, are controversial), but also peculiar forms of ‘designed environment’ in training (such as the ‘low oxygen, low air pressure’ house made so famous by the Norwegian cross-country skier Björn Dählie). In this chapter I will take the discussion at least one step beyond these issues and consider the prospect of using various forms of gene technology in the making of winners in elite sports.
