ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF

DRUGS AND SPORT

Doping has become one of the most important and high-profile issues in contemporary sport.
Shocking cases such as that of Lance Armstrong and the US Postal cycling team have exposed
the complicated relationships between athletes, teams, physicians, sports governing bodies, drugs
providers and judicial systems, all locked in a constant struggle for competitive advantage.
The Routledge Handbook of Drugs and Sport is simply the most comprehensive and authoritative
survey of social scientific research on this hugely important issue ever to be published. It presents
an overview of key topics, problems, ideas, concepts and cases across seven thematic sections,
which include chapters addressing:

• the history of doping in sport;

• philosophical approaches to understanding doping;
• the development of anti-doping policy;
• studies of doping in seven major sports, including athletics, cycling, baseball and soccer;
• in-depth analysis of four of the most prominent doping scandals in history, namely Ben
Johnson, institutionalized doping in the former GDR, the 1998 Tour de France and Lance
Armstrong;
• WADA and the national anti-doping organizations;
• key contemporary debates around strict liability, the criminalization of doping, and zero
tolerance versus harm reduction;
• doping outside of elite sport, in gyms, the military and the police.

With contributions from many of the world’s leading researchers into drugs and sport, this book
is the perfect starting point for any advanced student, researcher, policy maker, coach or
administrator looking to develop their understanding of an issue that has had, and will continue
to have, a profound impact on the development of sport.

Verner Møller is Professor of Sport and Body Culture at Aarhus University Denmark. His
edited and authored books include Elite Sport, Doping and Public Health (2009), The Ethics of
Doping and Anti-doping – Redeeming the Soul of Sport? (2010), Doping and Anti-doping Policy in
Sport: Ethical, Legal and Social Perspectives (2011).

Ivan Waddington is Visiting Professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo and
the University of Chester, UK. His edited and authored books include Sport Health and Drugs
(2000), Sports Histories (2004), Pain and Injury in Sport (2006), and An Introduction to Drugs in
Sport: Addicted to Winning (2009).

John Hoberman is Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas.
He is author of a number of books including The Olympic Crisis: Sport, Politics, and the Moral
Order (1986), Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport (1992),
Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (1997),
Testosterone Dreams: Rejuvenation, Aphrodisia, Doping (2005).
This page intentionally left blank
 ROUTLEDGE
HANDBOOK OF
DRUGS AND SPORT

Edited by
Verner Møller, Ivan Waddington
and John Hoberman
 First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 V. Møller, I. Waddington and J. Hoberman
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
[CIP data]
ISBN: 978-0-415-70278-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-79534-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
 CONTENTS

List of illustrations ix
List of contributors x
List of abbreviations xii

Introduction 1
Verner Møller, Ivan Waddington and John Hoberman

PART 1
The construction of the doping problem 7
1 The concept of doping 9
Angela J. Schneider

2 Understanding performance-enhancing substances and sanctions

against their use from the perspective of history 20
Ian Ritchie

3 Is concern about sports doping a moral panic? 31

Erich Goode

4 The spirit of sport and the World Anti-Doping Code 41

Mike McNamee

5 Performance-enhancing biomedical technology in sport: where are

the limits? 54
Sigmund Loland

v
 Contents

PART 2
Drug use in various sports 65
6 Drug use in athletics 67
Marcel Reinold

7 Drug use in baseball 78

Bryan E. Denham

8 Drug use in cycling 89

Bernat López

9 Drug use in professional football 103

Dominic Malcolm and Andy Smith

10 Drug use in skiing 115

Erkki Vettenniemi

11 Drug use in swimming 128

Benjamin Koh

12 Drug use in animal sports 145

Verner Møller

PART 3
Key cases 157
13 Ben Johnson, steroids, and the spirit of high-performance sport 159
Rob Beamish

14 The East German doping programme 170

Mike Dennis

15 The 1998 Tour de France: Festina, from scandal to an affair in cycling 181
Christophe Brissonneau

16 Lance Armstrong 193

Martin Hardie

PART 4
Anti-doping policy and politics 207
17 Anti-doping policy before 1999 209
Thomas M. Hunt

vi
 Contents

18 Bilateral collaboration: a tool to improve anti-doping compliance? 219

Dag Vidar Hanstad

19 Anti-doping education for athletes 229

Susan H. Backhouse

20 Doping prevention – demands and reality: why education of athletes

is not enough 239
Andreas Singler

21 The future of anti-doping policy 249

Barrie Houlihan

22 Revisiting the drugs-in-sport problem: a manifesto for a new deal 260

Bob Stewart and Aaron C. T. Smith

PART 5
Key themes 281
23 The Prohibited List and its implications 283
John Gleaves

24 ‘Strict liability’ and legal rights: nutritional supplements, ‘intent’ and

‘risk’ in the parallel world of WADA 293
David McArdle

25 WADA’s whereabouts requirements and privacy 310

Oskar MacGregor

26 Implications of anti-doping regulations for athletes’ well-being 322

Anne Marie Elbe and Marie Overbye

27 Effectiveness, proportionality and deterrence: does criminalizing

doping deliver? 337
Jason Lowther

28 Healthy doping: why we should legalise performance-enhancing

drugs in sport 350
Julian Savulescu

29 Doping and performance enhancement: harms and harm reduction 363

Bengt Kayser and Barbara Broers

vii
 Contents

PART 6
Approaches to understanding doping in elite sport 377
30 Drug use and deviant overconformity 379
Jay Coakley

31 Game theoretic approaches to doping in sport 393

Gunnar Breivik

32 Towards an understanding of drug use in sport: a medical sociological

perspective 405
Ivan Waddington

PART 7
Drug use outside elite sport 419
33 Drug use in gyms 421
Ask Vest Christiansen

34 Dopers in uniform: police officers’ use of anabolic steroids in the

United States 439
John Hoberman

Index 453

viii
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
8.1 Distribution of images retrieved in Google with the search ‘doping’, according
to the featured sport 90
8.2 Number of articles retrieved in Lexis Nexis for the period 1.1.2000 to
30.10.2013 91
22.1 Drug use in sport: balancing rights and benefits against obligations and harms 269
22.2 Managing drug use in sport under the new deal model 275
28.1 Statistical distribution of red blood cells in adult males 353
31.1 Prisoners’ dilemma, ordinal version 396
31.2 The Lombardian doping game 396

Tables
11.1 Synonyms for DMAA 138
11.2 Difference between WADA Prohibited List (S6) and laboratory-tested
substances 138
15.1 Example of scientific training–doping programme 189
22.1 Stewart and Smith’s manifesto for a new drug control policy in sport 273
33.1 Prevalence rates for the use of anabolic steroids among males from the
Nordic countries 425
33.2 Prevalence rates for the use of anabolic steroids among males 425

ix
 CONTRIBUTORS

Susan Backhouse, Leeds Beckett University, UK

Rob Beamish, Queens University, Canada
Gunnar Breivik, Norwegian School of Sport Science, Norway
Christophe Brissonneau, Université Paris Descartes, France
Barbara Broers, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland
Ask Vest Christiansen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Jay Coakley, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, USA
Bryan E. Denham, Clemson University, USA
Mike Dennis, University of Wolverhampton, UK
Anne-Marie Elbe, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
John Gleaves, California State University, Fullerton, USA
Erich Goode, Stony Brook University, USA
Dag Vidar Hanstad, Norwegian School of Sport Science, Norway
Martin Hardie, Deakin University, Australia
John M. Hoberman, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Barrie Houlihan, Loughborough University, UK and Norwegian School of Sport Science,
Norway
Thomas Hunt, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Bengt Kayser, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Benjamin Koh, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Sigmund Loland, Norwegian School of Sport Science, Norway

x
 Contributors

Bernat Lopéz, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain

Jason Lowther, Plymouth University, UK
David McArdle, University of Stirling, UK
Oscar MacGregor, University of Skövde, Sweden
Mike J. McNamee, Swansea University, UK
Dominic Malcolm, Loughborough University, UK
Verner Møller, Aarhus University, Denmark
Marie Overbye, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Marcel Reinold, University of Muenster, Germany
Ian Ritchie, Brock University, Canada.
Julian Savulescu, Oxford University, UK
Angela Schneider, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Andreas Singler, Heidelberg University of Education, Germany
Aaron C. T. Smith, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia
Andy Smith, Edge Hill University, UK
Bob Stewart, Victoria University, Australia
Erkki Vettenniemi, University of Jyväskylä Finland
Ivan Waddington, Norwegian School of Sport Science, Norway and Chester University, UK

xi
 ABBREVIATIONS

AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science

AAF adverse analytical finding
AAS anabolic-androgenic steroids
ACCR Australian Crime Commission Report
ACMD Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs
ADD Anti Doping Denmark
ADO anti-doping organization
ADP anti-doping policy
ADRV anti-doping rule violations
AIS Australian Institute of Sports
ALPHA Athlete Learning Program about Health and Anti-Doping
ANADO Association of National Anti-Doping Organizations
APA American Psychiatric Association
AS anabolic steroid
ASP athlete support personnel
ATFR any two from three rule
ATHENA Athletes Targeting Health Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives
ATLAS Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids
BAG Federal Department for Health of Switzerland
BALCO Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative
BMA British Medical Association
BMT biomedical technology
BStU State Security Service of the Former GDR
CAM complementary and alternative medicine
CAS Court of Arbitration for Sport
CCDS Canadian Centre for Drug-Free Sport
CCES Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport
COCADC Chinese Olympic Committee Anti-Doping Commission
DEA Drug Enforcement Administration
DMAA 1,3 Dimethylamylamine
DSHEA Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

xii
 Abbreviations

DTSB German Gymnastics and Sport Confederation

EMCDDA European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
EPO erythropoietin
FDA US Food and Drug Administration
FIFA Fédéracion Internationale de Football Association
FINA Fédération Internationale de Natation
FIS International Ski Federation (Fédération International de Ski)
FKS Research Institute for Physical Culture and Sport
FSA Finnish Ski Association
GDR German Democratic Republic
GRAS Generally Recognized As Safe
hGH human growth hormone
HRT hormone replacement therapy
IAAF International Amateur Athletic Federation
IAAF International Association of Athletics Federations
IADA International Anti-Doping Arrangement
IF international federation
IFHA International Federation of Horseracing Authorities
IFSS International Federation of Sleddog Sports
IHRA International Harm Reduction Association
IICGAD International Intergovernmental Consultative Group on Anti-Doping
INADO Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations
IOC International Olympic Committee
IRB Institutional Review Board
ISDC International Standard for Doping Control
ISO international sport organisation
JADCO Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission
LSK Central High-Performance Sports Commission (Leistungssportkommission)
MfS Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit
MLBPA Major League Baseball Players Association
MoU Memorandum of Understanding
NADO National Anti-Doping Organisation
NCIS Naval Criminal Investigative Service
NGB national governing body
NOC National Olympic Committee
NYPD New York Police Department
OTC over-the-counter
PE performance enhancement
PED performance-enhancing drug
PES performance-enhancing substance
PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
PETS performance-enhancement techniques and substances
PFA Professional Footballers’ Association
PIEDs performance- and image-enhancing drugs
PL Prohibited List
PRA Pigeon Racing Association
RADO Regional Anti-Doping Organization
RCT randomized controlled trial

xiii
 Abbreviations

RRT randomized response technique

RTP registered testing pool
SCPCS State Commission for Physical Culture and Sport
SED Socialist Unity Party of Germany
SMD Sports Medical Service
SoS spirit of sport
Stasi Ministry of State Security
STS steroid substances
SVD Dynamo Sports Association (Sportvereinigung Dynamo)
SWAT Special Weapons and Tactics
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
TGA Therapeutic Goods Administration
THG Tetrahydrogestrinone
TRT testosterone replacement therapy
TUE therapeutic use exemption
UCI Union Cycliste Internationale
UKAD UK Anti-Doping
UKBA UK Border Agency
USADA United States Anti-Doping Agency
USOC United States Olympic Committee
USOTC US Olympic Training Center
WADA World Anti-Doping Agency
WADC World Anti-Doping Code
WHO World Health Organization

xiv
 INTRODUCTION
Verner Møller, Ivan Waddington and John Hoberman

The invitation to edit this volume on sport and drugs for inclusion in Routledge’s series of
International Handbooks testifies to the immense growth in academic interest in this topic.
A quarter of a century ago literature about drug use in sport from the perspective of the social
and human sciences was sparse. What was available were a few pioneering works typically
produced by authors who had been involved in sport as athletes, doctors, reporters or
administrators and who had first-hand experience or had heard insiders’ testimonies and were
concerned about the health risks medically-enhanced performances posed to new and coming
generations of athletes. Passionate in their attempt to warn against a development they saw as
a threat to sporting values, these authors were receptive to unsubstantiated stories about the
detrimental effects of drug use in sport. These stories were valuable for the anti-doping lobby
in order to convince politicians of the seriousness of the problem. The adverse effect was that
these stories were too good not to be true. So as the academic interest in the topic grew, researchers
repeated these stories which gradually came to be regarded as scientific truths, although many
were later proved to be unfounded. The encouraging lesson to learn from this development in
doping research is that it evinces that the human sciences are not, as is often claimed,
fundamentally different from the natural sciences because, even though the methods differ, all
sciences worthy of the name are in principle self-critical practices that contribute systematically
to increase the human knowledge base. The various sciences pursue truths about disparate
phenomena in the world and the obvious discrepancy between methodological approaches is
a consequence of the nature of the phenomena under investigation and the questions asked,
and not because they are separate cultures with incompatible ‘truths’. Different methodologies
and theoretical approaches are also utilized in social and human sciences, which sometimes makes
them appear as if they were representing separate worlds as well. This fact is manifest in this
Handbook which includes contributions by scholars from a broad range of disciplines who reach
contrasting and sometimes radically different conclusions. This does not contradict the idea that
all sciences pursue truth, but simply indicates that debate and disagreement are a normal part
of sciences. Hence we encourage the reader to engage and read the various chapters critically.
Our knowledge base is growing constantly; errors and miscalculations are corrected, dubious
interpretations are challenged and replaced with more convincing ones etc. But despite all our
efforts, the world we explore will never be exhausted and our explanations will never be wholly
adequate. This is also reflected in this Handbook, which is an attempt to provide an up-to-date

1
 V. Møller, I. Waddington and J. Hoberman

overview of the knowledge about sport and drugs that has been produced within the human
and social sciences. However, we cannot claim that it is exhaustive. Some readers may consider
that we have unjustly omitted certain topics, or that some important topics have been mentioned
only in passing. We regret that but, in our defence, we would stress that any enterprise of this
kind is necessarily limited. It is necessary to choose focus and perspective and we hope the
reader will find an acceptable rationale for the choices we have made in what follows.
The use of performance-enhancing substances within the sporting context is a very
longstanding phenomenon. But notwithstanding this long history of doping, there is a good
deal of evidence to suggest that the incidence of drug use in sport has increased markedly since
the Second World War and especially since the 1960s, from which time steroid use, in
particular, became increasingly widespread. The German scholar Gunther Lüschen (2000: 463)
has noted that ‘knowledge, information and supply of steroids changed quite drastically’ from
the 1960s, while Michele Verroken, a former head of the Ethics and Anti-Doping Directorate
of the UK Sports Council, has also noted that by the 1960s the use of drugs in sport had become
widespread (Verroken, 2003: 30). The Italian athletics coach and anti-drugs campaigner,
Alessandro Donati, has similarly described what he calls an ‘alarming increase in doping . . . in
recent decades’ (Donati, 2004: 45).
This increase in the use of drugs from the 1960s was associated with a number of broader
social processes: the increasing competitiveness of modern sport, which in turn was associated
with the politicization of sport in the cold war period and with the increasing commercialization
of sport which massively increased the rewards associated with winning; and the medicalization
of sport, which was associated with the development of modern sports medicine from the 1960s
(Waddington and Smith, 2009).
It should also be noted that the increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport
from the 1960s paralleled a similar increase in the use of ‘recreational’ drugs in the wider society
in most Western countries in the same period. As public concern about the use of drugs, both
within and outside of sport, grew, so the response of sporting bodies to drug use in sport was
similar to the response of most governments to the use of recreational drugs within the wider
society: to prohibit the use of a wide range of drugs and to punish those who used such drugs
(Waddington and Smith, 2009). As many Western governments introduced new legislation to
try to control drug use within the wider society, so sporting bodies introduced drug testing in
a number of sports from the 1960s, with the first compulsory Olympic drug testing taking place
at the Winter Olympic Games at Grenoble in 1968. And since the first anti-doping tests were
introduced, anti-doping policy, whether under the direction of the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) or, since its establishment in 1999, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA),
has moved inexorably in one direction: more rules, more restrictions and more testing.
Public concern about drug use in sport has, since the 1960s, been further heightened by a
number of high profile doping scandals that have received global publicity, including the
disqualification of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, the
widespread drug use revealed in the 1998 Tour de France and, most recently, the doping
revelations concerning seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. And as public
awareness of, and concern about, drug use in sport has increased, so too have academics in the
social sciences and humanities become increasingly involved in the study of doping and,
particularly in the last two decades, this has resulted in a rapidly expanding volume of literature
on the subject.
Social scientists have sought to document changing patterns of drug use in sport over time
and the development of anti-doping policies (Hoberman, 1992; 2006; Todd and Todd, 2001;
Houlihan, 2002; Dixon and Garnham, 2006; Vamplew, 2006; Waddington, 2006; Dimeo, 2007;

2
 Introduction

Møller, 2008; Stewart and Smith, 2014). As noted earlier, anti-doping policy has developed
since the 1960s in the direction of greater regulation, with an increase in the number of
proscribed substances, in the number of tests and in the restrictions imposed upon athletes. These
changes have led philosophers and social scientists to raise a number of searching questions
about anti-doping policy. Is there a secure ethical basis for the imposition of such restrictions
on athletes? (Morgan et al., 2001; Loland, 2002; Schneider and Hong, 2007; Møller, 2010;
McNamee and Møller, 2011). Or has the search to catch ‘drug cheats’ resulted in the imposition
of unacceptable restrictions on athletes? For example, is the WADA ‘whereabouts system’ –
which requires athletes to provide details of their whereabouts every day of the year, in and
out of season, so that they can be continuously available for drug testing – simply a logical
extension of the anti-doping policy, or does it seriously infringe athletes’ civil liberties and privacy?
(Hanstad and Loland, 2009; Waddington, 2010; Møller, 2011a, 2011b). And can WADA’s
extension of the list of proscribed drugs to include not just performance-enhancing drugs but
also some recreational drugs such as marijuana be justified, or does it represent an unaccept-
able attempt to control athletes’ private lives? (McNamee, 2012; Waddington et al., 2013;
Waddington and Møller, 2014).
Alongside these studies, sociologists and others have sought answers to questions such as:
Why do athletes use drugs and why have they done so increasingly since the 1960s? What is
the pattern of relationships involved in what one might call the ‘doping network’? (Breivik,
1987, 1992; Lüschen, 2000; Bette, 2004; Waddington and Smith, 2009; Coakley, 2009).
Meanwhile, experts in social policy and in sports management have sought to examine critically
key questions relating to the effectiveness of anti-doping policy. How effective have anti-doping
policies been in terms of controlling the use of drugs in sport? One problem here is that no
anti-doping organization has ever provided clearly defined criteria in terms of which one could
judge the success or failure of anti-doping policy. As Houlihan has noted, ‘there is little evidence
of consistency and stability regarding objectives of sports anti-doping policy’, adding:

[I]t must be asked whether the ultimate objective is the complete elimination of drug
use in all sport, in certain sports, or only in sport at certain levels. One might also
ask whether the objective is elimination or simply the containment of the extent of
drug use.
(Houlihan, 2002: 113)

Given this situation, it is difficult to know what criteria to use in judging the effectiveness of
anti-doping policy.
While it is difficult to arrive at any precise measurement of current levels of drug use in
sport, it is clear, first, that drug use has increased markedly since anti-doping policies were
introduced in the 1960s and, second, that drug use remains widespread not just in many elite
level sports but also in mass sport and among gym users. This cannot easily be interpreted as
evidence of the success of anti-doping policy. Some scholars have argued quite simply that the
continued widespread use of drugs indicates that anti-doping policy is ‘ineffective and
inappropriate’ (Coomber, 1993: 171). Stewart and Smith (2014: 1) have argued that ‘drug use
is here to stay’, that the ‘war on drugs in sport’ will never be won and that current WADA
policy is ‘riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions’ (2014: 196). Waddington and Smith
(2009) have suggested not, as Coomber argues, that anti-doping policy ‘doesn’t work’ but that
‘it isn’t working well’ and they cite Goode’s conclusion in relation to anti-drugs policies more
generally in American society which, they suggest, is equally appropriate in relation to anti-
doping policies in sport. According to Goode (1997: 4): ‘Our present system of attempting to

3
 V. Møller, I. Waddington and J. Hoberman

control drug abuse . . . is vulnerable to criticism; it isn’t working well, it costs a great deal of
money, it has harmful side effects and it is badly in need of repair.’
However, there is a wide diversity of opinion among scholars about what ‘repairs’, if any,
are needed to current anti-doping policy. Some scholars – and indeed many athletes – have
argued, as we noted earlier, that the use of recreational drugs such as marijuana is not cheating
since such drugs are not performance enhancing, and that WADA should remove non-
performance-enhancing recreational drugs from the proscribed list, thus enabling WADA to
focus all its resources on the detection of those athletes who do cheat by using performance-
enhancing drugs (Waddington et al., 2013); however, others have resisted, suggesting that even
though drugs such as marijuana are not performance enhancing, their use nevertheless
contravenes the ‘spirit of sport’ (McNamee, 2012). Some scholars largely accept the current
framework of anti-doping policy and have argued in favour of recent attempts to tighten up
systems of control designed to make drug testing more effective (Hanstad and Loland, 2009).
Others have argued for more radical changes. Some, such as Coomber (1993), Cashmore (2003)
and Savulescu and Foddy (House of Commons, 2007), have argued that we should allow the
use of performance-enhancing drugs on practical and/or ethical grounds. In line with this it
has further been argued that we should move away from the moralistic and punitive focus of
current policy which focuses on reducing drug use and move towards the development of policy
designed on public health principles of harm reduction in which the primary focus is not on
reducing drug use but reducing drug-related harm, thereby improving health and welfare
outcomes. Advocates of this policy note that these principles have been widely and successfully
used in broader public health programmes designed to tackle problems associated with drug use
in the wider society (Waddington, 2000; Kayser and Smith, 2008; Waddington and Smith, 2009;
Stewart and Smith, 2014).
These are among the key issues in relation to drug use in sport that social scientists have
raised in recent years and this Handbook is designed to offer an overview of some of the major
research in this area. The book consists of seven parts.
Part 1 is a conceptual–theoretical section that introduces the reader to some of the ways in
which doping has been conceptualized. We felt it appropriate to begin with this section since
different ways of conceptualizing doping may give rise to very different understandings of the
phenomenon.
Part 2 is much more empirically based and examines patterns of drug use in different sports,
specifically athletics, baseball, cycling, football (soccer), swimming and animal sports. It is
important to examine patterns of drug use in several sports since the level of drug use and the
type of drug used vary considerably from one sport to another. In seeking to understand such
variations one needs to bear in mind the fact that all sports involve a particular balance between
speed, strength and power on the one hand and skill on the other. In those sports in which the
outcome is determined largely by speed, strength or endurance – examples include sprinting in
athletics, weightlifting and cycling – the level of drug use is, other things being equal, likely to
be relatively high, since there are drugs that, in combination with appropriate training, can
substantially improve one’s speed, strength or endurance. By contrast, in sports in which the
outcome is primarily determined by skill – examples might include badminton or bowls – the
level of drug use (again other things being equal) is likely to be lower, for the gains from drug
use are likely to be much less since there is no drug that can improve one’s skill levels in these
sports. However, it should be noted that the balance between speed, strength, endurance and
skill is not fixed and unchanging for any given sport. In European football, for example, players
at successful clubs that are involved in several domestic and European competitions have, in
recent years, been required to play an increasing number of games in a season, with reduced

4
 Introduction

playing time between games, and this has undoubtedly led to a greater emphasis than previously
on stamina, endurance and also on the speedy recovery from injury, all of which may increase
the likelihood of drug use. It is also the case, of course, that given the very different types of
techniques involved in different sports, not only the level of drug use but also the type of drug
used is likely to vary considerably from one sport to another.
The third part presents detailed studies of some of the most high-profile cases in doping in
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including those involving Ben Johnson, the 1998 Tour
de France and, most recently, Lance Armstrong. In addition, there is also a detailed study of
what was arguably the most successful doping programme ever – as measured in terms of winning
performances – in the history of doping: the systematic, state-sponsored system of doping in
the former East Germany which helped a relatively small nation with fewer than 18 million
citizens to become the third strongest sports nation in the world.
Part 4 focuses on anti-doping policies, politics and education. Key issues here include how
anti-doping policies have developed over time, the use by WADA of bilateral cooperation
between nations as an instrument to improve anti-doping compliance, problems and issues relating
to anti-doping education and doping prevention, and the future of anti-doping policy, including
the debate surrounding harm reduction policies.
Whereas Part 4 focuses on broad issues in relation to anti-doping policy and education, Part
5 focuses on a series of more specific themes in relation to anti-doping policy: the WADA
Prohibited List, which lists all proscribed substances; the ‘strict liability’ rule, which means that
athletes are held responsible for all substances identified in their bodies, however those substances
got there and whether or not they were used knowingly; the WADA ‘whereabouts policy’,
referred to earlier; some important implications of the anti-doping regulations for athletes’ welfare;
and questions relating to the criminalization and the legalization of doping.
Part 6 seeks to address a fundamental question: How can we best understand the processes
that lead athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs? This section draws upon the work of
sociologists and others to offer some general theoretical models that seek to analyse the network
of relationships in which elite athletes are involved and the culture of elite sport, and how these
may facilitate or encourage the use of drugs.
Finally, Part 7 looks at an issue that receives much less publicity than does doping among
elite athletes but that – in terms of the number of drug users involved and the quantity of drugs
consumed – presents a potentially far more serious public health problem: the use of
performance-enhancing drugs outside of elite sport. Key issues here relate to the use of anabolic
steroids and other drugs by gym users and to the use of steroids by those involved in occupations
that are physically very demanding.

References
Bette, K-H. (2004), ‘Biographical risks and doping’, in J. Hoberman and V. Møller (eds), Doping and Public
Policy, Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark, 101–11.
Breivik, G. (1987), ‘The doing dilemma: some game theoretical and philosophical considerations’,
Sportwissenschaft, 17, 83–94.
Breivik, G. (1992), ‘Doping games – a game theoretical explanation of doping’, International Review for the
Sociology of Sport, 27, 235–56.
Cashmore, E. (2003), ‘Stop testing and legalise the lot’, The Observer, 26 October.
Coakley, J. (2009), Sports in Society, 10th edn, Boston, MA, McGraw Hill.
Coomber, R. (1993), ‘Drugs in sport: rhetoric or pragmatism?’, International Journal of Drug Policy, 4, 169–78.
Dimeo, P. (2007), A History of Drug Use in Sport 1876–1976, London, Routledge.
Dixon, P. and Garnham, N. (2006), ‘Drink and the professional footballer in 1890s England and Ireland’,
in P. Dimeo (ed.), Drugs, Alcohol and Sport, London, Routledge, 22–36.

5
 V. Møller, I. Waddington and J. Hoberman

Donati, A. (2004), ‘The silent drama of the diffusion of doping among amateurs and professionals’, in
J. Hoberman and V. Møller (eds), Doping and Public Policy, Odense, University Press of Southern
Denmark, 45–90.
Goode, E. (1997), Between Politics and Reason: the Drug Legalization Debate, New York, St Martin’s Press.
Hanstad, D. V. and Loland, S. (2009), ‘Elite athletes’ duty to provide information on their whereabouts:
justifiable anti-doping work or an indefensible surveillance system?’, European Journal of Sport Science,
9 (1), 3–10.
Hoberman, J. (1992), Mortal Engines, New York, Free Press.
Hoberman, J. (2006), Testosterone Dreams, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press.
Houlihan, B. (2002), Dying to Win, 2nd edn, Strasbourg, Council of Europe.
House of Commons (2007), Science and Technology Committee, Human Enhancement Technologies in Sport,
Second Report of Session 2006–07, London, The Stationery Office.
Kayser, B. and Smith, A. C. T. (2008), ‘Globalisation of anti-doping: the reverse side of the medal’, British
Medical Journal, 337, 12 July, 85–87.
Loland, S. (2002), Fair Play in Sport, London, Routledge.
Lüschen, G. (2000), ‘Doping in sport as deviant behaviour and its social control’, in J. Coakley and
E. Dunning (eds), Handbook of Sports Studies, London, Sage, 461–76.
McNamee, M. J. (2012), ‘The spirit of sport and the medicalisation of anti-doping: empirical and
normative ethics’, Asian Bioethics Review, 4 (4), 374–92.
McNamee, M. and Møller, V. (eds.) (2011), Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport, London, Routledge.
Møller, V. (2008), The Doping Devil, International Network of Humanistic Doping Research. Copenhagen,
Books on Demand.
Møller, V. (2010), The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping, London, Routledge.
Møller, V. (2011a), ‘One step too far – about WADA’s whereabouts rule’, International Journal of Sport
Policy and Politics, 3 (2), 177–190.
Møller, V. (2011b), The Scapegoat, Aarhus, AKAPRINT.
Morgan, W. J., Meier, K. V. and Schneider, A. J. (eds), (2001), Ethics in Sport, Champaign, IL, Human
Kinetics.
Schneider, A. J. and Hong, F. (2007), Doping in Sport, London, Routledge.
Stewart, B. and Smith, A. (2014), Rethinking Drug Use in Sport, London, Routledge.
Todd, J. and Todd, T. (2001), ‘Significant events in the history of drug testing and the Olympic
Movement: 1960–1999’, in W. Wilson and E. Derse (eds), Doping in Elite Sport, Champaign, IL, Human
Kinetics, pp. 65–129.
Vamplew, R. (2006), ‘Alcohol and the sportsperson: an anomalous alliance’, in P. Dimeo (ed.), Drugs,
Alcohol and Sport, London, Routledge, 37–58.
Verroken, M. (2003), ‘Drug use and abuse in sport’, in D. R. Mottram (ed.), Drugs in Sport, 3rd edn,
London, Routledge, pp. 18–55.
Waddington, I. (2000), Sport, Health and Drugs, London, Spon.
Waddington, I. (2006), ‘Changing patterns of drug use in British sport from the 1960s’, in P. Dimeo (ed.),
Drugs, Alcohol and Sport, London, Routledge, 119–43.
Waddington, I. (2010), ‘Surveillance and control in sport: a sociologist looks at the WADA whereabouts
system’, International Journal of Sport Policy, 2 (3), 255–276.
Waddington, I. and Smith, A. (2009), An Introduction to Drugs in Sport: Addicted to Winning? London,
Routledge.
Waddington, I., and Møller, V. (2014), ‘Cannabis use and the spirit of sport: a response to Mike
McNamee’, Asian Bioethics Review, 6 (3), 246–258.
Waddington, I., Christiansen, A. V., Gleaves, J., Hoberman, J. and Møller, V. (2013), ‘Recreational drug
use and sport: time for a WADA rethink?’ Performance Enhancement and Health, 2, 41–47.

6
 PART 1

The construction of the

doping problem
This page intentionally left blank
 1
THE CONCEPT OF DOPING
Angela J. Schneider

In the following chapter the conceptual construction of doping will be examined in detail.
Although a conceptual analysis of doping could include its applications outside of sport, for the
purpose of this work the primary focus will be on sport. Part of this examination will refer to
the philosophical basis for understanding the concept of doping and most of the arguments in
support of anti-doping; a second theme will also refer to significant real world events that have
had an influence on the development of this concept.

On the definition of doping

There have been two major international gatekeepers in regard to anti-doping in the sport world.
The first, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), primarily dealt with doping concerns
through its Medical Commission up until the beginning of the formation years of the second
one, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), in 1999–2000. Neither the IOC (nor WADA
after them) chose, for good reason, to use the very early Council of Europe definition of doping
from 1963 (Houlihan, 1999; Møller, 2010) which, although obviously fraught with problems,
provides an idea of the concept with which they grappled:

The administration to, or the use by, a competing athlete, of any substance foreign to
the body or any physiological substance taken in abnormal quantity or by an abnormal
route of entry into the body, with the sole intention of increasing, in an artificial and
unfair manner, his performance in competition.
(Houlihan, 1999: 130)

Thus IOC did not (nor WADA after it, as will be explained below) have a philosophical and
conceptual definition of doping. This lack of clarity has been consistently identified as a problem,
both by the IOC member most familiar with doping in sport (and former WADA leader) Richard
Pound,1 and by a great deal of scholarship focused on the conceptual and definitional problems
of doping in sport. Some very good examples of this kind of scholarship containing detailed
discussion and analysis of this conceptual problem, and the consequential ethical challenge that
follows from it, (simply put, there has been great willingness to strip medals, ban athletes, and
violate privacy rights, for example, all without a philosophically defensible definition of doping

9
 Angela Schneider

in sport) can be found in the following works. Of the more recent publications, Verner Møller’s
The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping (2010), and Thomas Murray’s edited volume of Performance-
Enhancing Technologies in Sports: Ethical, Conceptual, and Scientific Issues (Murray et al., 2009), give
a complete overview of most of these conceptual challenges. Of earlier comprehensive works,
particularly on the ethical rationale of anti-doping bans (that also laid the foundation for the
development of the ‘Spirit of Sport’), Doping in Sport: An Analysis of the Justification for Bans and
the Ethical Rationale for Drug-Free Sport, authored by Angela Schneider and Robert Butcher, was
supported and published in 1993 by what was then called The Canadian Centre for Drug-Free
Sport (CCDS).2 (It became known as ‘The Ethical Rationale’ when the CCDS merged with
Fair Play Canada, becoming the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES)).
The transition of stewardship over international anti-doping control from the IOC to WADA
was very significant. WADA was formed, and installed as and where it was, as a result of three
major events: i) the 1998 Tour de France Festina Affair (the doping scandal sometimes referred
to as the ‘Tour of Shame’), during which the civil authorities, for the first time, stepped in and
overtook the control of anti-doping policing from sport authorities; ii) the IOC bribery scandal
leading up to the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Games, causing the most significant loss of
moral confidence the IOC has ever sustained causing government leaders to question whether
the IOC should handle ethical issues such as doping in sport; and iii) the political triumvirate
of General Barry McCaffrey (Drug Czar) from the United States, Amanda Vanstone from Australia
and Denis Coderre from Canada that, for the first time, enabled, through what could be viewed
as a legitimate political kind of non-violent ‘Coup d’état’, the weakening of the European block
voting significantly enough to take the power over international anti-doping leadership away
from the IOC and away from Europe. Since the installation process of WADA in Montreal,
Canada in 2001–02, WADA has been the world’s authority on doping matters in sport.
WADA’s definition of doping is really not a universal definition in the conceptual sense,
but rather a legalistic reference to the current list of rule violations that are deemed to be specific
instantiations of doping in sport: ‘Doping is defined as the occurrence of one or more of the
anti-doping rule violations set forth in Article 2.1 through Article 2.8 of the Code.’3 It is not
surprising that WADA does not attempt to give a conceptual definition of doping as almost all
attempts have been fraught with significant problems.
Although the definition of doping is not provided from WADA, it is clear the kinds and
methods of doping have grown significantly since the early use of drugs to enhance sport
performance. For the most part, I would argue that it is useful for understanding the concept
to categorize the kinds of doping as follows: i) drug/substance use; ii) blood doping; iii) gene
doping; and iv) psycho-doping. The general public is more aware of the first category, and
primarily within it, with steroids. In recent years, the second category has been moving to eclipse
it due to revelations relating to Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France. However, there is
far less awareness of gene-doping, which has been on WADA’s list since its inception (primarily
due to the persistent work of genetic researcher Theodore Friedmann). For an understanding
of the science, the concept and some of the ethical issues in regard to gene-doping, please see
Genetic Technology and Sport (Tamburrini and Tannsjo, 2005) and Gene Doping in Sports: The
Science and Ethics of Genetically Modified Athletes (Schneider and Friedmann, 2006). The last category
of doping, ‘psycho-doping’, is the least familiar within the public domain and is not directly
on WADA’s list. Although not conceptualized and labelled as such, it was described by John
Hoberman in Sport and the Technological Image of Man (Hoberman, 1988), as a method of
psychological manipulation used in the former East Germany for performance enhancement in
sport. The ethical analysis and description of this category of doping was raised from a
philosophical perspective in Drugs in Sport, the Straight Dope (Schneider, 1993) and The Ethical

10
 The concept of doping

Rationale (CCDS, 1993); it is essentially ‘brain washing’. Another form of psycho-doping,4 which
again was not conceptualized and labelled as such, is the use of drugs for psychological
manipulation for performance enhancement in sport. In early WADA debates on the banned
list, marijuana was hotly contested because it was felt by many within WADA that it was not
scientifically proven to be a performance enhancer from the physiological perspective, as that
was the focus for sport and for the banned list.5 However, more recent publications in psychiatric
journals, such as ‘Why should Cannabis be Considered Doping in Sports?’ (Bergamaschi and
Crippa, 2013) attempt to provide evidence that cannabis can be a performance enhancer from
a psychological perspective. (But if one really wants to delve into the darker areas of psycho-
doping and performance enhancement, one need only look to the military and defense of world
powers.6) As it stands now, the category of psycho-doping is not labelled as such by WADA
and is not directly on the banned list, but has been indirectly addressed through the struggles
with cannabis.
A conceptual analysis of doping in sport would be remiss without a full discussion of the
moral repugnance that is very often associated with it and which has driven a significant part
of the anti-doping sentiment.

The construction of doping and wrongness

What the IOC, as the first gate-keeper of the international anti-doping movement, lacked was
a conceptual and philosophical framework that could explain the banning of the items on the
list by showing them to be different in relevant ways from other, permitted, substances and
practices in sport. However, the IOC did refer to some general reasons for banning doping:

Considering that the use of doping agents in sport is both unhealthy and contrary to
the ethics of sport, and that it is necessary to protect the physical and spiritual health
of athletes, the values of fair play and of competition, the integrity and unity of sport,
and the rights of those who take part in it at whatever level . . .
(IOC, 1990: 1)

Thus, protection from harm (both physical, and through the violation of rights), fair play and
the integrity of sport are the three underlying justifications. In addition, the IOC referred to
its role in the larger, social, ‘war’ against drugs (it saw doping in sport as a symptom of the
larger problem of social drug use), and as supporting athletes’ calls for more stringent doping
controls and sanctions. WADA has followed the IOC with the ‘Fundamental Rationale’
(similar, but far less detailed than the CCES’s Ethical Rationale and drafted by some of the same
authors7):

Anti-doping programs seek to preserve what is intrinsically valuable about sport. This
intrinsic value is often referred to as ‘the spirit of sport’; it is the essence of Olympism;
it is how we play true. The spirit of sport is the celebration of the human spirit, body
and mind, and is characterized by the following values: Ethics, fair play and honesty;
Health; Excellence in performance; Character and education; Fun and joy; Teamwork;
Dedication and commitment; Respect for rules and laws; Respect for self and other
participants; Courage; Community and solidarity. Doping is fundamentally contrary
to the spirit of sport.
(WADA, 2003–2015: 2–3)

11
 Angela Schneider

The individual reasons have also been expanded in arguments to justify bans in the research
and scholarship on doping in sport. For simplicity, those arguments have been categorized below
on the basis of the type of appeal they make. There are arguments from cheating and unfair
advantage, from harm, from the idea that doping perverts the nature of sport and from the
contention that doping is dehumanizing (discussions of unnaturalness arise in this category). We
also have ‘athlete-centred and athlete driven’ models, that emphasize reasoning and decision
making (Gunnar Breivik applied philosophical ‘Game Theory’ early on as the ‘The Doping
Dilemma’ in 1987 and in 1992). Finally, we have also had positively based justifications for
anti-doping from a view of the intrinsic goods of sport which has had various titles ranging
from the Joy of Sport (CCDS, 1993); the Spirit of Sport (CCES, 1993/94); and True Sport (WADA,
2003). This view has been most recently defended by Mike McNamee in The Spirit of Sport
and Anti-Doping Policy: An Ideal Worth Fighting For (McNamee, 2013) and by Sigmund Loland
(Loland and Hoppeler, 2012); earlier accounts of this argument can be found in Why Olympic
Athletes Should Avoid the Use and Seek the Elimination of Performance Enhancing Substances and Practices
from the Olympic Games (Schneider and Butcher, 1994).
There is an obvious connection between doping and wrongness when it is argued that doping
is banned because it is cheating or unfair. The problem with this position is that an activity
only becomes cheating once there is a rule prohibiting it. So while the fact that doping is cheating
may well provide a reason for enforcing the rules against doping, and while the fact that doping
is cheating may well give other athletes a reason for having an extremely negative attitude towards
those who dope, it is not, logically, a reason for creating the rule banning doping in the first
place. The arguments from unfairness face a similar fate. The simplest idea of fairness is one
connected to adherence to the rules; an action is unfair if it is against the rules. This position
suffers the same fate as that above. An alternative notion of fairness that is independent of the
rules of sport has been postulated. But this notion would have to show how doping was somehow
inherently unfair, even if the contestants agreed to do it and even if the rules of the game permitted
it. It is not clear how an argument like this could succeed.
The argument from harm comes in a variety of forms. Harm to athletes who dope is one
of the primary versions (and it leads quite logically to the reduction of harm position which
was the position of the Union Cycliste Internationale in practice for many years when testing
haematocrit levels). Here the suggestion is that doping should be banned to protect the health
of athletes. As it stands this argument is paternalistic, inconsistent and incomplete. It is
paternalistic because we do not generally permit the intrusion into the lives of competent adults
in order to protect those people from harms they may inflict on themselves. It is inconsistent
because sport, in particular elite-level sport, is necessarily an extremely hazardous enterprise. It
is not clear why athletes should be protected from the harm that might come from doping
when we do not see fit to protect them from the harms of the sports they practise and the over-
training they endure. The argument is incomplete because the evidence of harm from doping,
when in particular it is carried out under physician supervision, is mixed at best (with the exception
of gene-doping where the evidence is clear that there is currently no safe level with or without
physician supervision). Some of the earliest and the best arguments in the literature refuting
this argument can be found in the works of W. M. Brown (1980; 1984a; 1984b; 1990) and
Robert Simon (1984a; 1984b; 1991).
The second most common version of this kind of argument is based on harm to other (clean)
athletes. The argument here is that doping in sport is coercive. Because doping may well improve
results, there is coercive pressure placed on those who wish to compete without doping. The
dopers force the non-dopers to keep up. This argument has some merits, but is still incomplete.
It is incomplete because elite level sport is already highly coercive. If extreme training conditions,

12
 The concept of doping

altitude training, and very strict diet control, for example, are shown to produce better results,
then everyone is forced to adopt those measures to keep up. One of the earliest publications
using this coercion argument is by Thomas Murray (1983). It is unclear why doping is any
more coercive than any of these examples, such as training six to seven hours a day, and sufficiently
so to warrant being banned. On the other hand, some argue that the coercion argument may
have some merit if it can be shown how doping, and thus those being coerced to do it to keep
up, robs sport of what is important (for athletes or for the community for example). If sport,
and sporting excellence and sporting contests, are about testing skills, then it can be argued that
the improved performance that comes with doping is not a result of skill. (Especially when one
bears in mind that if some athletes dope, others will be forced to dope in order to keep up,
thus obviating the original advantage that came with doping.)
Another version of the harm argument is in regard to harm to society. This position says
that doping harms others in society, especially children who see athletes as role models. This
argument works in two ways. The first is that if children see athletes having no respect for the
rules of the games they play, there will be a tendency to undermine respect for rules, and law,
in general. This argument only works if doping is against the rules and so cannot function as a
justification for banning doping in the first place. The second version sees athletic doping and
drug use as part of a wider social problem of drug use. The argument here is that if children
see athletes using drugs to attain sporting success then other drugs may also be seen as a viable
means to other ends. Brown (1990) argued early on that the reason doping continues to be an
issue is due to the obsession with drugs in our society in general (it may be argued that this
reason is only applicable to certain societies). A limitation of this argument is that there are
many things that we consider appropriate for adults but not for children. Alcohol and cigarettes
are obvious examples, as indeed is sex, but we don’t ban these substances or activities for adults
because they would be bad for children.
There has also been some discussion (not so much by anti-doping agencies, or much ever
by the IOC nor by WADA) about the harm that is caused by doping bans. Unfortunately,
because there is a need to enforce the bans that are created, there are also harms caused by the
bans themselves. Enforcement of bans on substances or practices designed to help one train,
rather than improve one’s performance on the day of competition, requires year-round random,
unannounced, out-of-competition testing often referred to by WADA as ‘no-notice’. This testing
requirement is an extreme intrusion into the private lives of athletes. Thus, it is argued that
athletes are harmed by the requirement to consent to such testing procedures in order to be
eligible for competition. For a fuller discussion of athlete’s rights see McNamee and Møller’s
edited volume Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport: Ethical, Legal and Social Perspectives (2011)
and Schneider and Hong’s edited volume Doping in Sport: Global Ethical Issues (2007).
A less obvious connection between doping and wrongness is through the perversion of sport
argument. On this view doping should be banned because it is somehow antithetical to the
true nature of sport. This view requires an account of sport that shows why doping is
incompatible with it. The philosophical essentialist definitions of sport (Bernard Suits is the author
of the most extensive work on this topic (1967; 1973; 1977; 1978; 1988a; 1988b; 1989)) do
not demonstrate its incompatibility with doping. (Part of the problem is that sport is socially
constructed and there is no obvious reason why it could not be constructed to include doping.)
Views of sport based on Alasdair MacIntyre’s (1984) sense of a ‘practice’ or Ludwig Wittgenstein’s
(1953) ‘form of life’ are more promising, particularly if the standards of excellence place at its
centre the testing of sporting skills, with sporting skills defined by the nature of the sport or
game concerned (it can be argued that the ‘joy of sport’, ‘spirit of sport’ and ‘true sport’ campaigns
mentioned above are based on this sense of sport).

13
 Angela Schneider

There is a more obvious connection between doping and wrongness through the
constructions of the unnaturalness and dehumanization arguments.8 Here the argument is that
doping should be banned because it is either unnatural or dehumanizing. In this category the
argument is that there is something about the banned substances themselves, or the changes to
the user as a result of them, that is unnatural and/or dehumanizing. The types of arguments
can be looked at from at least two perspectives. First, the unnaturalness of the substance and/or
practice (e.g. type of substance or mode of ingestion): i) the substance itself is unnatural; ii) the
substance is unnatural to the human body; iii) the amount of the substance used is unnatural;
and iv) the method of using the substance is unnatural. Second, the dehumanizing effects of
doping are unnatural (e.g. by degradation, mechanization or extension). It is difficult to find
a good sense of ‘naturalness’ of the substances in question that would capture what we might
want to allow, and leave out what we might want to ban. There are serious problems with the
therapeutic versus non-therapeutic distinction, due to the related criteria of normalcy, in that
elite athletes are not normal, meaning they are above average physiologically speaking, so it
would be an individual case-by-case unworkable criterion because we would celebrate the winners
of the genetic lottery. But of course, it may be argued that there is no need to limit oneself to
just one of the arguments listed. It could be that in some cases the ban is based on mode of
introduction, in others because of the unnatural nature of the substance, and in other cases for
still other reasons. Thus, the best thing to do is to deal with each substance and method separately.
But whichever way is chosen, we still need a definition of naturalness, which has not been easy
to develop. This ought not to be surprising, since ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ mean ‘natural’ or
‘unnatural’ for us as human beings. The primary concept in terms of which ‘natural’ must be
defined is that of a human or a person. If we do not have a consistent universal view of what
it is to be human, we will be unable to define what is natural or unnatural. Deciding what it
is to be human is prior to determining what is, or is not, an ‘unnatural’ practice. The
unnaturalness argument does not get very far for two reasons. The first is that we do not have
a good account of what would count as ‘unnatural’ since humans have been known to engage
in very many odd and unusual behaviours. The second is that we are inconsistent in its application.
For any account of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, some things designated unnatural would be permitted
(e.g. spiked shoes) while other natural ones (e.g. testosterone) are on the banned list.
The dehumanization argument is interesting but incomplete. It is incomplete for similar reasons
to the above argument, because we do not have an agreed conception of what it is to be human.
Without this it is difficult to see why the use of some substances and practices on the banned
list should count as dehumanizing. However, we do have the use of some significant cultural
metaphors based on literature and other sources, such as Frankenstein. W. Gaylin first used the
‘Frankenstein Factor’ to describe the public fear of drug use in general in 1984 (Gaylin, 1984),
and it was then applied to doping in sport by Schneider in The Ethical Rationale (CCDS, 1993).
The argument here relies on the emotional response to the outcome of doping – we have created
a monster. The monster can take the form of the ‘grotesque’ over-developed ‘circus freak’ like
the body of a heavily ‘steroided’ athlete. Many examples of this kind of caricature arose when
Ben Johnson had his Olympic gold medal stripped for a doping infraction at the 1988 Seoul
Olympics. These caricatures resemble extreme versions of cover photographs on bodybuilding
magazines. Another form the monster can take is that of the mad or insane athlete. The most
recent examples of this kind of caricature are of Lance Armstrong, labelled a ‘sociopath’ by
many (even including by American comedian Bill Burr9). The prevalence of this view of the
‘Frankenstein Monster’ doped athlete is growing. In the famous parade of the Carnaval in Nice,
France, in 2012 (from even before Armstrong admitted his doping) there was included an
extremely elaborate float depicting the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey, rider representing the

14
 The concept of doping

signature uniform of the overall leader of the Tour de France. The rider is pedalling frantically
with a mad look on his face as animated, over-sized syringes jump up and down, pumping his
veins full of what we are to assume are doping concoctions. Attached to the back of the rider
is a second connected float with the also mad scientists with a Dr Frankenstein as leader.10 The
overall sentiment the public has in response to these athlete-monsters is that they are, at the
very least ‘unnatural’, and, at worst, abhorrent like the Frankenstein monster. This kind of
depiction of the mad or insane athlete leads us to a need of further analysis of the practice
of ‘psycho-doping’.
Here we will find that we also have a problem with consistency. Some practices, such as
‘psycho-doping’, the mental manipulation of athletes using questionable methods, are not banned,
whereas the re-injection of one’s own blood is banned. So far the arguments regarding the
dehumanizing nature of doping have not been articulated strongly and clearly enough to justify
bans. Not only is it unclear what would count as the boundaries of humanity, but one of the
very purposes of elite sport is to push those boundaries. One of the more promising options is
to provide some sort of framework that will give us an idea of human excellence and sport that
will permit us to see how the pursuit of athletic excellence can, and should, be limited in ways
that may well exclude forms of doping from the pursuit of sport.

The construction of the wrongness of doping through the internal goods

of sport: ‘the joy of sport’, ‘the spirit of sport’ and ‘true sport’11
According to this argument, sports are social practices, practices that provide the opportunity
to acquire and demonstrate skills. Each sport creates what counts as skill in that sport. So, for
instance, in tennis, a well-executed back-hand volley that passes your opponent on his or her
approach to the net is a demonstration of skill because of the kinds of things that are necessary
to win at tennis. The shot is difficult, and effective, and it is just this sort of manifestation of
skill that makes participating in sport so worthwhile. The joy of sport can come from acquiring
the goods that are internal to sport, the goods that come with the mastery and demonstration
of skill. If this joy is the primary reason for participation in sport we can see how doping is not
a necessary risk for the acquisition of the internal goods of sport. From this perspective, what
makes sport interesting and worthwhile is the mastery of skill and its demonstration in a fair
contest with equally skilled opponents. Doping does not help one to acquire sporting skills but
simply provides a competitive advantage over those who do not dope. Thus athletic prudence
would lead to the avoidance of unnecessary risk; provided one’s competitors do not dope there
is no reason for an athlete to dope. Because there is no game-productive reason for doping,
athletes would be wise to avoid it as an unnecessary risk. Doping is only an advantage, in terms
of ‘winning’, if you dope and your opponent does not; that advantage is lost if everyone dopes.
If athletes want doping-free sport, they will also want to be assured that the competition is fair.
Athletes, then, would be in the position to request the enforcement of the rules of self-limitation
that they themselves have rationally and prudently chosen. An athlete-driven proposal is quite
different from the top-down imposition of the bans we have traditionally seen.
The social practice perspective also gives the sport (and broader) community a position to
defend a view of human excellence that can put limits on the pursuit of performance excellence
in sport. Sport that is publicly funded by the community can promote a view of sporting
excellence that places it within the context of a complete, and excellent, human life. So despite
the fact that excellence in downhill skiing may require running dreadfully high risks, the
community is in a position to put some limits on those risks because it does not want to promote

15
 Angela Schneider

downhill speed for its own sake, over long and healthy lives. An athlete’s sporting life is only
a part of his or her entire life.

The Brave New World and the construction of gene doping

The concept of gene doping formally hit the press between 17 and 20 March 2002, as WADA’s
Medical, Health and Research Committee hosted the Banbury Conference on Genetic
Enhancement of Athletic Performance at the Banbury Centre, Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory,
New York.12 At this time, it was a very clear case of WADA, under the leadership of Richard
Pound, wanting to be proactive, and not just reactive, in the new constructions of doping
innovations:

Gene therapy has enormous potential to revolutionize medicine’s approach to curing

disease and improving the quality of life. Unfortunately, this same technology, like
many others, can be abused to enhance athletic performance . . . WADA is committed
to confronting the possible misuse of gene transfer technology in sport. The same kinds
of people who cheat in sport today will probably try to find ways to misuse genetics
tomorrow. WADA is grateful to all those who helped us gain an understanding of
this new field so we can consider how best to respond to the possible misuses.13

The conference brought together international experts and leaders in biology and genetics,
sports medicine, ethicists, policy makers, legal experts, representatives of the Olympic Movement
and athletes to explore the science, technology and ethical issues facing the sports community
as a consequence of gene transfer technology. Due to the fact that all of the current work on
gene transfer technology was in the research stage at the time (and for the most part, still is),
the potential impact was yet unknown; however, it was thought that the imminent applications
to sport performance included muscle growth factors and oxygen transport and utilization.14
During the process of the two-and-a-half day conference on genetic enhancement of athletic
performance, it was agreed that a combination of regulation, education, and research is the best
current method for addressing the prospect of gene doping in sport from becoming a reality.
Pound further concluded:

We found a remarkable degree of confluence amongst the scientific and sport

representatives regarding the possibilities of benefit to the community at large from
developments in genetic therapy, the need for a properly considered social framework
for such activities, and the need to prevent the misuse of this developing branch of
science.15

The Banbury Conference was truly unique and ‘cutting edge’ and represented important
leadership for WADA as it combined the resources of sport and government to enhance,
supplement and coordinate efforts to formulate a strategy and identify needs, not the least of
which was ‘a properly considered social framework’.
It was also argued at this conference that athletes, in common with other people, are entitled
to the benefits of genuine therapeutic applications to treat injuries and other medical conditions
but that there were evident risks that genetic transfer technologies might be used in a manner
that would be contrary to the ‘spirit of sport’ or potentially dangerous to the health of athletes.16
Therefore, the definition of doping used by WADA, the IOC, international sports federations

16
 The concept of doping

and national authorities was expanded to include the unapproved use of genetic transfer
technologies. The definition of gene doping in the WADA 2003 Code (still in the 2015 version)
was as ‘the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene
expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance’ (WADA, 2003). And thus the
world had the formal construction of the concept of gene doping.
The concept of doping in sport has gone through revolutionary changes since the practice
began so long ago. The construction of doping is tied inevitably to scientific and technological
developments with potential impacts on enhancing sport performance. The ‘properly considered
social framework’ for this construction is a work in progress. Part of that progress has to include
considerations not just of making better athletes, but of making better people too.

Notes
1 Documented as early as 1990 in Dubin, C. Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices
Intended to Increase Athletic Performance. Transcripts. Toronto, 1990a: 13641–13645 and conveyed in
personal accounts up to and including 2013.
2 This publication is based entirely on Schneider’s (1993) doctoral dissertation ‘Drugs in Sport, The
Straight Dope: A Philosophical Analysis of the Justification for Banning Performance-Enhancing
Substances and Practices in the Olympic Games’. http://ir.lib.uwo./digitizedtheses/2190.
3 World Anti-Doping Code, 2003–2015 (draft), Article 1: Definition of Doping, World Anti-Doping
Agency, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is important to note here that this is still, after all these years
with dealing with doping in sport, a ‘draft’.
4 The most current use of the concept I have termed ‘psycho-doping’ outside of sport, is associated
with ‘study drug’ use by students in exam preparation and writing.
5 I personally attended these meetings and witnessed this debate as I was the director of Ethics and
Education at WADA at the time.
6 There is a great deal of debate on drug use in warfare for psychological manipulation.
7 Based on personal experience in these processes.
8 One of the most detailed reviews of the unnaturalness, and resulting unfairness, arguments can be
found in Roger Gardner’s ‘On Performance-Enhancing Substances and the Unfair Advantage
Argument’ (1989) and ‘Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sport: An Ethical Study’ which was his
unpublished doctoral dissertation (1990).
9 www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9YL04v-J5U. This is a YouTube video of Bill Burr satirizing Lance
Armstrong’s confession to Oprah Winfrey on her programme.
10 For a full description and analysis of this event including photographs, see in ‘Rationalizing Doping:
A Perspective on Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France and Canadian Reaction to Future Doping
Scandals’ by A. Schneider in How Canadians Communicate About Sport edited by David Taras and
Christopher Waddell, Athabasca University Press, Canada (2015).
11 The authors who support this kind of argument were listed above.
12 What follows is from my personal participation in this seminal conference in 2002.
13 These remarks are from Pound’s closing comments at this 2002 WADA Banbury conference on Gene
Doping.
14 At this conference, the results of research on the ‘Schwarzenegger mice’ – transgenic mice that were
generated with an insulin-like growth factor 1 (mIgf-1) cDNA driven, engineered in 2001 by H. Lee
Sweeney and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania – and on the ‘Marathon mouse’ – genetically
programmed by Ron Evans at the Salk Institute to express high levels of protein in its muscles that
unexpectedly resulted with an increase of slow-twitch fibres and a decrease in fast-twitch ones that
made it seem like the mouse had been in marathon training for a long time – were presented making
steroids and EPO look like ‘smarties’ (children’s candy).
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.

17
 Angela Schneider

References
Bergamaschi, M. M. and Crippa, J. A. S. (2013) ‘Why should Cannabis be Considered Doping in Sports?’,
Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4: 32.
Breivik, G. (1987) ‘The Doping Dilemma: Some Game Theoretical and Philosophical Considerations’,
Sportwissenshaft, 17 (1), March: 83–94.
Breivik, G. (1992) ‘Doping Games: A Game Theoretical Exploration of Doping’, International Review for
Sociology of Sport, 27: 235–52.
Brown, W. M. (1980) ‘Ethics, Drugs, and Sport’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 7: 15–23.
Brown, W. M. (1984a) ‘Paternalism, Drugs, and the Nature of Sports’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport,
11: 14–22.
Brown, W. M. (1984b) ‘Comments on Simon and Fraleigh’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 11: 33–5.
Brown, W. M. (1990) ‘Practices and Prudence’, Journal of Philosophy of Sport, 17: 71–84.
Canadian Centre for Drug-Free Sport, Schneider, A. and Butcher, R. (1993) The Ethical Rationale for Drug-
Free Sport. Available at CCES (ed.): www.cces.ca/files/pdfs/CCES-PAPER-EthicalRationale-E.pdf.
(Accessed 16 April 2015.) Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.
Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (formerly Canadian Centre for Drug-Free Sport) (1993/1994) Spirit
of Sport: Campaign Description. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.
Dubin, C. (1990a) Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic
Performance. Transcripts. Ottowa: Ministry of Supply and Services Canada.
Dubin, C. (1990b) Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic
Performance. Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing Centre.
Gardner, R. (1989) ‘On Performance-Enhancing Substances and the Unfair Advantage Argument’, Journal
of the Philosophy of Sport, 16: 59–73.
Gardner, R. (1990) ‘Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sport: An Ethical Study’, PhD thesis, Purdue
University, Michigan: University Microfilms International, USA.
Gaylin, W. (1984) ‘Feeling Good and Doing Better’, in T. H. Murray, W. Gaylin and R. Macklin (eds)
Feeling Good and Doing Better: Ethics and Nontherapeutic Drug Use (1–10). Clifton, NJ: Humana Press.
Hoberman, J. (1988) ‘Sport and the Technological Image of Man’, in W. J. Morgan and K. V. Meier
(eds) Philosophic Inquiry in Sport (319–27). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Houlihan, B. (1999) Dying to Win: Doping in Sport and the Development of Anti-Doping Policy, Strasbourg:
Council of Europe Publishing.
International Olympic Committee. (1990) International Olympic Charter Against Doping in Sport. Lausanne:
IOC.
Loland, S. and Hoppeler, H. (2012) ‘Justifying Anti-Doping: The Fair Opportunity Principle and the Biology
of Performance Enhancement’, European Journal of Sport Science, 12 (4): 347–53.
MacIntyre, A. (1984) After Virtue, 2nd edn. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
McNamee, M. J. (2013) ‘The Spirit of Sport and Anti-Doping Policy: An Ideal Worth Fighting for’, Play
True (Montreal: World Anti-Doping Agency), 1: 14–16.
McNamee, M. J. and Møller, V. (2011) Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport: Ethical, Legal and Social
Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Møller, V. (2010) The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping: Redeeming the Soul of Sport. New York: Routledge.
Murray, T. (1983) ‘The Coercive Power of Drugs in Sport’, The Hasings Center Report, 13: 24–30.
Murray, T., Maschke, K. J. and Wasunna, A. A. (2009) Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports: Ethical,
Conceptual and Scientific Issues. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schneider, A. (1993) Drugs in Sport, the Straight Dope: A Philosophical Analysis of the Justification for
Banning Performance-Enhancing Substances and Practices in the Olympic Games. Dissertation,
Digitized Theses. Available at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/2190. (Accessed 16 April 2015.)
Schneider, A. and Butcher, R. (1994) ‘Why Olympic Athletes Should Avoid the Use and Seek the
Elimination of Performance Enhancing Substances and Practices From the Olympic Games’, Journal of
the Philosophy of Sport, 21: 64–81.
Schneider, A. J. and Friedmann, T. (2006) ‘Gene Doping in Olympic Sport: The Science and Ethics of
Genetically Modified Athletes’, Advances in Genetics, Vol. 51 (10–90). Boston, MA: Elsevier Academic
Press.
Schneider, A. and Hong, F. (eds) (2007) Doping in Sport: Global Ethical Issues. New York: Routledge.
Simon, R. L. (1984a) ‘Good Competition and Drug-Enhanced Performance’, Journal of the Philosophy of
Sport, 11: 6–13.

18
 The concept of doping

Simon, R. L. (1984b) ‘Response to Brown and Fraleigh’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 11: 30–32.
Simon, R. L. (1991) Fair Play: Sports, Values and Society. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Suits, B. (1967) ‘What is a Game?’ Philosophy of Science, 34: 148–56.
Suits, B. (1973) ‘The Grasshopper: A Thesis Concerning the Moral Idea of Man’, in R. Osterhoudt (ed.)
The Philosophy of Sport (198–218). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publishers.
Suits, B. (1977) ‘Words on Play’, Journal of Philosophy of Sport, 4: 117–31.
Suits, B. (1978) The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Suits, B. (1988a) ‘Tricky Triad: Games, Play and Sport’, Journal of Philosophy of Sport, 16: 1–9.
Suits, B. (1988b) ‘The Elements of Sport’, in W. Morgan and K. Meier (eds) Philosophic Inquiry in Sport
(39–48). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Suits, B. (1989) ‘The Trick of the Disappearing Goal’, Journal of Philosophy of Sport, 16: 1–12.
Tamburrini, C. and Tannsjo, T. (eds) (2005) Genetic Technology and Sport: Ethical Questions. New York:
Routledge.
Taras, D. and Waddell, C. (2015) How Canadians Communicate V: Sports. Athabasca, Canada: Athabasca
University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
World Anti-Doping Agency (2003) World Anti-Doping Code (2003). Available at: www.wada-ama.
org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/WADP-The-Code/Code_Review/1st_Consultation/
WADA_Code_2003_EN.pdf. (Accessed 16 April 2015.)

19
 2
UNDERSTANDING
PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING
SUBSTANCES AND SANCTIONS
AGAINST THEIR USE FROM
THE PERSPECTIVE OF
HISTORY
Ian Ritchie

According to Justice Charles Dubin, drug use is the ‘antithesis’ of what sport should be about.
Writing in the report of the inquiry into the use of performance-enhancing substances in Canada’s
sport system in the aftermath of the infamous 1988 Ben Johnson scandal, he claimed that their
use ‘threatened the essential integrity of sport and is destructive of its very objectives’ (Dubin,
1990: xxii). Of course, it may be argued that Dubin exaggerated the impact ‘doping’ had on
modern sport, and more specifically on the Canadian sport system, perhaps in part as a way of
legitimizing the importance of the Inquiry (Beamish, 2011: 113–31; MacAloon, 1990). However,
Dubin’s comments were also prescient in that the ‘moral issue’ of the use of performance-
enhancing substances and methods, or at least the use of those substances and methods that have
been formally prohibited, has been of central concern in international sport ever since 1990.
Dubin’s position reflected perfectly the position taken by contemporary anti-doping organizations
and prohibitory codes, in that their central justification has been that doping is contrary to sport’s
basic, essential nature or, in the words of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Code, its
‘spirit’ (World Anti-Doping Agency, 2009).
This chapter presents a historical account of the use of performance-enhancing substances
and methods and the creation of the rules against their use. What follows is by no means a full
chronological account, first because accomplishing such a goal is clearly impossible within a
reasonable word limit, and second, and much more importantly, because replicating the history
of doping and anti-doping would by no means do justice to the important theoretical points
made by scholars who have carefully studied the ‘problem’ of doping. In the historical literature,
interpretation, rather than chronology, has been much more important and illuminating. While
there is some traditional accounting for chronological history from past to present, more general
interpretations of events are favoured in the following analysis. If one were to chronicle doping

20
 Doping from the perspective of history

and anti-doping year-by-year, one might be left with the impression that, first, the use of banned
substances has become more widespread over time and, second, that the various groups that
have attempted to fight doping have done so with increasing vigilance based on sound rationale,
principled ethics, and with just cause in the ‘fight’. One might fall under the impression, in
other words, that there has been a gradual rise in ‘cheating’ in sport and that anti-doping authorities
have been increasingly ‘fighting the good fight’. However, careful historical accounts alongside
careful interpretations have demonstrated that this impression would be far from accurate.
This chapter builds three interrelated themes. First, doping practices and anti-doping rules
and sanctions have varied historically; the use of various substances and methods and whether
or not they are considered legitimate – with or without formal sanctions – have varied quite
dramatically, and this has, as this chapter hopes to show, important implications for our
understanding of this issue. Second, doping practices and the creation and application of rules
and sanctions have emerged through a combination of social structure, including major trends
in international, high-performance sport, alongside human agency, or in other words the real
people who created statements in principle against doping and prohibitory rules. Finally, any
analysis – historical or otherwise – of an important element of social and cultural life such as
doping must attempt as much as possible to remain as objective as possible. One premise that
all good historians take when looking at this issue is not to pre-judge the ‘morality’ of doping
behaviour because doing so immediately clouds the analysis. Also, what historians have
discovered and the implications of their discoveries are at times far removed from the formal
policies and practices in the world of anti-doping, including those of WADA today.
What follows, then, is an historical account that attempts to provide the reader with a ‘template’
to understand this important issue. The chapter begins with the first signs of concerns with
doping in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and ends with the creation of the
International Olympic Committees’s (IOC) first anti-doping policies in 1967. This may seem
like a strange point to stop the narrative but there are specific reasons for this. First, the values
of the people that created the first anti-doping statements of principle and sanctioning rules,
alongside the general social environment within which those principles and rules were created,
are instructive in terms of thinking about the issue today. Second, as we will see, many of the
contradictions and continued problems within the anti-doping movement today were created
because of the assumptions built into the original prohibitions. Finally, other chapters in this
volume are concerned with major events and policies since 1967. This includes chapters on the
histories of major sports in addition to specific chapters on the Ben Johnson scandal and the
ensuing Dubin Inquiry (Rob Beamish, Chapter 13), the 1998 Tour de France scandal
(Christophe Brissonneau, Chapter 15) and the creation of WADA (Dag Vidar Hanstad, Chapter
18), arguably the three most important events in doping and anti-doping since 1967.

Between open curiosity and amateur reactions: early anti-doping

One of the first mistakes to avoid in any objective historical account of policies and practices is
to assume today’s values can be applied to the past. This is because, just as sport in general is a
social institution that varies over time, so too what constitutes a legitimate or illegitimate means
of performance has also varied greatly over time. Gleaves (2011: 239) points out that what athletes,
coaches, administrators, or for that matter the general public, think is ‘performance enhancing’
is really much more important than whether or not substances or methods actually do enhance
performance – intent is more important than actual effects. Once we have this in mind, we can
more objectively think of substances such as alcohol, strychnine, ‘purified oxygen’, tobacco or
even ultraviolet rays as ‘performance enhancing’ because all of those substances were used

21
 Ian Ritchie

sometime during the period between the late nineteenth century and the start of the Second
World War, yet hardly anyone today would think of them as truly performance enhancing. Also,
once we have it in mind that what is considered immoral or not varies over time, we are able
to more fully and objectively evaluate the past – or the present for that matter – because we
avoid the pitfall of assuming that doping is ‘inherently’ contrary to some sort of natural ‘essence’
of sport, a point of view that is, quite simply, false (Beamish and Ritchie, 2006).
In terms of identifying a starting point for understanding the issue in modern times,
Waddington (2006: 121), in his account of drug use in British sport, makes the very important
point that various forms of drug use have been used in sporting contexts for thousands of years,
yet it was only a very recent moment in time, roughly since the 1960s, that these practices
received widespread moral condemnation. This raises important questions, Waddington
continues, not the least of which is, in his words, ‘[w]hat is it about the structure of specifically
modern sport, and of the wider society of which sport is a part, that has been associated with
the development of anti-doping policies in sport?’ While Waddington’s observation that the
post-Second World War period of time was important in that it represented a dramatic shift
towards the greater moral condemnation of drug use and the creation of stricter rules against
doping and procedures for testing athletes, recent historical evidence demonstrates that the pre-
war period was both important and, in fact, set the tenor for anti-doping after the war and
ultimately to the end of the twentieth century and beyond.
Dimeo (2007: 17–50) has shown that the period from the late 1800s up to the Second World
War was an interesting one for nascent and emerging anti-doping attitudes. There tended to
be a combination of concern alongside a general acceptance and open curiosity with respect to
the potential impact various substances might have on athletes’ bodies. Alcohol, strychnine, kola,
tobacco, ‘purified oxygen’, and other substances were used in varied athletic environments and
while there were voices of disapproval based primarily on religious temperance, in general the
use of these substances was supported and in fact made perfect sense, especially for ‘extreme’
long distance running, ‘pedestrian’ walking, and cycling events, all of which were relatively
common at the time.
The lack of moral condemnation is buttressed by Hoberman who, in his classic text Mortal
Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport (1992), makes the point that
the involvement of scientists and medical personnel in sport dates back to the mid-nineteenth
century during a time when bio-medical scientists began to study athletes but had little interest
in enhancing their performance. Instead, they were more interested in the extremes to which
some athletes would push their bodies in order to discern biological ‘truths’ about human beings
as a whole. Indeed, the predominance from the mid-nineteenth century of the scientific doctrine
of the conservation of energy, which dictated that humans had limited physical energy, meant
that ‘expanding’ the human body’s potential in sport was probably not even considered a
possibility (Beamish and Ritchie 2005; Bowler and Morus, 2005: 79–102; Rabinbach, 1990:
124–7 and passim; Ritchie, 2010) and this is one reason that drugs were typically used as one-
off attempts to enhance performance on the day of competition. But the general assumption
that the human body had limited potential, the fact that scientists themselves would never or
rarely think it worthwhile to enhance performance through ‘external’ means anyway, the fact
that what relationship did exist between bio-medical science and athletes was considered
perfectly legitimate, alongside the lack of moral condemnation within the relatively small cadre
of elite athletes or, for that matter, the general public who followed their exploits, made the
performance-enhancing substances that were used generally accepted. Indeed, the condemnation
of and moral panic about drugs would come much later in time, and under a very specific set
of social and political circumstances.

22
 Doping from the perspective of history

Within the administrative ranks of high-level sport, the first few decades of the twentieth
century witnessed informal statements against the use of ‘dope’ and ad hoc rules and public
condemnations by administrators and others here and there, but few sanctions with any real
power to punish athletes. The original rules against the use of ‘dope’ came not from the context
of humans competing, but in the racing of horses. Interestingly, rules were created not because
unscrupulous owners and trainers enhanced their horses but because they impaired them, seizing
upon the opportunity to profit from fixed races in a sport in which gambling was common
(Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014). In human competition, a divide between ‘clean’ amateur
athletes and ‘doped’ professionals emerged in the first few decades of the twentieth century
(Gleaves, 2011). Given that the amateur versus professional social practices in sport were very
much determined by class positions, the line between ‘clean’ and ‘doped’ ultimately had its
roots in the class positions of athletes, and of those who were or were not criticizing their actions.
‘Anti-doping rules predicated on amateurism’s ideals’, Gleaves (2011: 241) points out, ‘would
simply become another tool for excluding or otherwise marginalizing working-class
professionals.’
Two examples highlight the class distinction. In the Olympic marathon, a sport that at the
turn of the century was considered a borderline case between professional and amateur, runners
Thomas Hicks and Dorando Pietri, who won the 1904 and 1908 Olympic marathons
respectively, both took a combination of strychnine and other substances, yet both escaped moral
condemnation from IOC officials because, as Gleaves and Llewellyn (2014: 844) point out,
they ‘fell outside the moral code of amateur sport’. Second, in the Tour de France, a direct
conflict emerged between many of the working class competitors who regularly took substances
to help them push through the physically gruelling event – ‘we run on dynamite’ quipped one
cyclist in 1924 – and wealthier promoters and managers, including one of the Tour’s founders
Henri Desgrange, who wanted to enhance the prestige of the nascent event by portraying it as
‘clean’ (Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014: 844).
The amateur versus professional division set the stage for the first anti-doping rules in human
competition. While there were very minor statements against drug use made by the German
Athletic Federation in 1927 and the German Amateur Boxing Federation in 1929 (Reinold
and Hoberman, 2014: 873), the first major international organization to create a statement of
principle against doping was the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). During the
IAAF’s 1928 Congress in Amsterdam, the central purpose in its policy discussions was to stem
the tide of professionalism. In this context, the IAAF, which was headed by the staunch defender
of amateurism, Sigfrid Edström, voted unanimously to adopt a rule against drugs or stimulants
and then drafted a text for its Handbook that stated ‘Doping is the use of any stimulant employed
to increase the power of action in athletic competition above the average’ and that infringement
of the rule could lead to suspension ‘from participation in amateur athletics’ (cited in Gleaves
and Llewellyn, 2014: 846).
Within the ranks of the IOC, two concerns motivated its reaction to the perceived problem
of drug use in the pre-Second World War period: the health of athletes and keeping their bodies
in a ‘normal’ state and, once again and more importantly, the defence of amateurism. Olympic
founder Pierre de Coubertin did not see the amateur distinction as paramount for his movement,
stating in his Memoirs in 1932:

[I]t seemed to me as childish to make all this depend on whether an athlete had received
a five franc coin as automatically to consider the parish verger an unbeliever because
he receives a salary for looking after the church.
(de Coubertin, 2000: 654)

23
 Ian Ritchie

Coubertin had grander values in mind than those represented by the amateur movement,
including notions of athletic ‘honour’ that he gleaned from literature on knighthood chivalry
during feudal times (Ritchie, 2014; Segrave, 2012). But within the day-to-day organization and
development of the IOC and the Olympic movement, the defence of amateurism took on
heightened significance during the decades leading up to the Second World War. Faced with
increasing commercial pressures, the realities of organizers having to raise money to pay for
facilities, debates over broken time payments, and a host of perceived social threats to the ‘purity’
of sport, the IOC adamantly defended amateurism and tightened its rules in the Olympic Charter
(Ritchie, 2014).
In terms of anti-doping, two events in the 1930s presaged IOC action during the end of
that decade. First, a controversy arose after the 1932 Los Angeles Games during which Japanese
swimmers had surprisingly beaten their American rivals. Accusations by American authorities
that Japan’s swimmers had used ‘purified oxygen’, even if they were premised more on
nationalistic fervour on the part of the Americans than true concerns over the injustice of the
practice (Dyreson, 2013), would have been witnessed and considered by IOC members,
including American Avery Brundage, who was confirmed as an IOC member in 1936 and
appointed to the Executive Board only one year later. Second, IOC members would certainly
have been familiar with rumours and accusations following the 1936 Berlin Games that the
National Socialists had ignored amateur restrictions and provided state resources to improve
German athletes’ competitive potential leading up to the Games (Gleaves and Llewellyn,
2014: 8–9).
IOC vice president Sigfrid Edström, who was also instrumental in the drafting of the IAAF’s
rule, suggested a committee be created to study the issue of doping in the Olympic movement.
President Henri de Baillet-Latour – whose personal history included among other things
owning horses, making him fully aware of the problems of ‘doping’ in that sport – drafted a
letter in advance of that committee, stating that ‘doping’ was one of the central challenges to
amateurism in the Olympic movement. Thought to be the first statement on doping by an
IOC President, Baillet-Latour’s letter held that ‘amateur sport is meant to improve the soul and
the body [and] therefore no stone must be left unturned as long as the use of doping has not
been stamped out’. The IOC President went on to make the exaggerated claim that ‘[d]oping
ruins the health and very likely implies an early death’ (cited in Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014:
847).
The IOC created a special commission to study the topic leading up to its meetings in Cairo
in 1938, and members of that commission included Edström and Brundage. Sometime shortly
before the Cairo meetings, Brundage wrote: ‘The use of drugs or artificial stimulants of any
kind cannot be too strongly denounced and anyone receiving or administering dope or artificial
stimulants should be excluded from participation in sport of the O.G. [Olympic Games]’ (cited
in Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014: 849). A statement from the commission’s report replicated
Brundage’s hand-written note almost verbatim. This was then submitted and accepted at the
IOC’s Cairo meetings, alongside various other resolutions on amateurism, and subsequently
published in 1938 in the IOC’s Bulletin. While not included in the Olympic Charter until 1946
because of the disruption from the war, the statement of principle against doping was included
in the Charter under the heading ‘Resolutions Regarding the Amateur Status’. Indeed, this
statement of principle – anti-doping as a subset of amateur values – would remain in the Olympic
Charter until 1975 (Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014: 849; Ritchie, 2014: 828–9). In short, the
foundation of the fight against doping that would become stronger in the post-war era was laid
by the pre-war assumptions about and defence of amateurism.

24
 Doping from the perspective of history

From health concerns to moral panic: the heady post-war years

The post-war period can accurately be summarized as a period of ‘mixed messages’ with respect
to the use of substances and methods to enhance performance, but it was also a period during
which, using Dimeo’s (2007) words, a ‘new ethics’ emerged. Dimeo points out that a ‘pep pill
mania’ of sorts existed in several sports – both professional and amateur – during the 1950s and
1960s. The use of stimulants, including various amphetamine derivatives, was also part of a
general social trend of ‘pill popping’ to create energy and ward off fatigue, perhaps most noticeably
in the USA. ‘Amphetamines were not simply seen as a “doping” substance at this time’, Dimeo
(2007: 62) points out, ‘but an acceptable and legitimate public medicine.’
Anabolic steroids had been identified and first synthesized in the 1930s, but during the late
1940s and 1950s there was general interest in their potential to strengthen and rejuvenate the
body. This was perhaps best exemplified in Paul de Kruif’s 1945 publication The Male Hormone.
The Male Hormone strongly defended the ability of the ‘newly discovered’ drug to enhance vigour
and energy, build strength, combat fatigue, improve quality of life, and even to extend the
duration of life. De Kruif, who had written several controversial texts on topics related to the
history of scientific discoveries and the ability of science to enhance life, had a wide popular
following (Summers, 1998). Popular accounts such as de Kruif’s, alongside the publication in
respected journals such as the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology of new evidence supporting the
idea that steroids could enhance strength and athletic performance, made the leap from
theoretical and popular evidence to real-life use in sporting circles a relatively short one
(Dimeo, 2007: 72; Yesalis and Bahrke, 2002: 49).
In the context of the cold war, anabolic steroids became, as Dimeo (2007: 75) demonstrates,
important weapons used by both sides in the attempt to gain sporting superiority. It meant for
the USSR ‘a systematic application of doping medicine and science to the problem of achieving
excellence’ while, in the USA, ‘sports physicians . . . made the connection between politics and
doping: defeat in athletic competition to the communists had to be avoided at all costs’. While
many have assumed that ‘doping’ in general flowed from east to west, with revelations about
the systematic use of drugs in the former German Democratic Republic heightening those
assumptions, Dimeo (71–6) shows that both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’ were simultaneously
committed to the use of anabolic steroids to improve performance and win medals. After the
1954 World Weightlifting Championships, American coach Bob Hoffman and the team’s
physician John Ziegler were convinced that Soviet weightlifters were, as Hoffman later put it,
‘taking the hormone stuff to increase their strength’ (cited in Todd, 1987: 93). With the aid of
the Ciba Pharmaceutical Company, which produced the synthetic steroid methandieone
(Dianabol), Ziegler gave the drug to weightlifters at the York Barbell Club in Pennsylvania and
by the 1960s the use of anabolic steroids was common in weightlifting circles but also spread
to shot putting, hammer throwing, discus and several other Olympic, strength-related events
(Dimeo, 2007: 76–8).
With rumours of growing use of amphetamines and anabolic steroids by both east and west
bloc athletes, and with the foundation for the fight against doping having been set in the context
of the defence of amateurism before the war, the IOC attempted to seize greater control of the
situation. Importantly, Brundage, whose hand-written note had set the foundation for IOC
anti-doping policy before the war, became Olympic President (1952–72) during these heady
days. Concerns were intensified because of two incidents in the sport of cycling. First, Danish
cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen collapsed and died during the road race in the 1960 Rome Summer
Games, and subsequently British cyclist Tommy Simpson died during the 1967 Tour de France.
Both, it was rumoured, died from amphetamine use. Recently, Verner Møller (2005; 2010:

25
 Ian Ritchie

37–42) has demonstrated that Jensen’s death was due to a series of factors – including extreme
dehydration caused from excessive temperatures in Rome on the day of competition – and not
to amphetamine use, yet in the early 1960s Jensen’s case and the assumption that he had died
from a drug overdose put anti-doping squarely on the IOC’s policy agenda.
But even before Jensen’s death, reactions against doping along the lines of amateur versus
professional that had begun before the war had intensified (Gleaves, 2011). American J. Kenneth
Docherty wrote in the IOC’s Bulletin in 1960 that ‘our present code of amateurism could never
bless such all-out efforts’ represented by athletes’ use of drugs but, interestingly, Docherty also
pointed out that committing full-time to training regimes and accepting external rewards were
also contrary to amateur ideals (cited in Dimeo, 2007: 96). Indeed, Brundage and others within
the ranks of the IOC were far more concerned with preserving the general principles of
amateurism; in this sense, doping was just a part of the more general problems facing ‘proper’
and ‘pure’ Olympic sport. During the IOC’s meetings in 1960, Brundage mentioned the issue
of athletes using ‘Amphetamine Sulfate’, and in the same meeting Swedish delegate Bo Ekelund
called for an investigation into drug use, but neither point led to subsequent action.
But just 15 days after Jensen’s death, Brundage and the IOC Executive Board met to voice
their concerns. In 1962 Brundage organized a doping subcommittee under the direction of the
head of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Sir Arthur Porritt. Perceiving Porritt to be
ambivalent towards the problem, Brundage replaced him with Dr Ferreira Santos and it was
under his watch that an anti-doping statement was published in the IOC’s Bulletin in 1963.
Reflecting inconsistencies in definition similar to the still-existent clause contained within the
amateur restrictions section of the Charter, the 1963 statement defined doping as:

an illegal procedure used by certain athletes, in the form of drugs; physical means and
exceptional measures which are used by small groups in a sporting community in order
to alter positively or negatively the physical or physiological capacity of a living creature,
man or animal in competitive sport.
(cited in Hunt, 2011: 15)

Besides the fact that the statement had no formal sanctioning power – no formal means to
discourage athletes – there were also quite obvious inaccuracies and vagueness contained within
the statement. The fact that many practices undertaken by athletes were perfectly legal, and
that it was not at all clear where ‘exceptional measures’ drew the line in terms of ethical versus
unethical behaviour, are just two of the more obvious examples.
Porritt once again became the head of the subcommittee after Santos’s death, and he asserted
a strong position on the issue of fighting doping during the IOC general meetings in Tokyo
in 1965. He stated that the IOC should issue a formal and more carefully worded statement,
create sanctioning procedures, and include a promissory clause that athletes would have to sign
as a condition of participation. In April 1966, Porritt presented a report that included a list of
banned substances that would be prohibited at the 1968 Mexico City Games and in that same
report he opined that ‘only a long-term education policy stressing the physical and moral aspects
of the drug problem would stop athletes from using drugs’ (cited in Hunt, 2011: 22–3).
Importantly, during the IOC’s meetings in Tehran in May 1967, the IOC formally defined
doping, voted to introduce drug and sex testing, and stated that athletes would be required to
sign a promissory statement – a pledge – that they were drug free. The IOC formally defined
doping as ‘the use of substances or techniques in any form or quantity alien or unnatural to the
body with the exclusive aim of obtaining an artificial or unfair increase of performance in
competition’ (cited in Todd and Todd, 2001: 68). Limited random tests were conducted at the

26
 Doping from the perspective of history

1968 Mexico City Games, and while a test for anabolic steroids at that time did not exist, those
tests were developed in 1973 and testing for steroids was first implemented at the Montreal
Summer Games in 1976.
If one were to take the history of doping practices and the creation of anti-doping policies
out of their historical context, one might be under the impression that drug use in sport gradually
emerged and became an increasing problem of greater moral concern to the point that, during
the 1960s, international sports authorities began a rational and ‘just’ war against ‘cheaters’ and
that the anti-doping movement has been constantly playing catch-up with increasingly
sophisticated ‘cheats’ ever since. However, this would remove doping practices and the anti-
doping movement from its proper historical context. More nuanced historical accounts give a
very different impression.
First, in his text Drug Games: The International Olympic Committee and the Politics of Doping,
1960–2008, Hunt (2011) has demonstrated that several problems plagued the IOC from the
start of the creation of the post-war policies and prohibitions, making the ‘fight’ against doping
anything but coordinated or, for that matter, rational. The early days of prohibitions and testing
were witness to conflicts between individuals involved in the administration of Olympic sport
along with ‘turf wars’ between organizations such as Olympic Games Organizing Committees,
International Federations, National Olympic Committees, and the IOC itself. Hunt also
demonstrates that the very definition of ‘doping’ was always uncertain in the first place, and
the various definitions of ‘doping’ cited here attest to this point – definitions were always faced
with a series of contradictions and ambiguities. But a more important and revealing problem
was the fact that anti-doping policies themselves were never rationally considered. The IOC –
or other major sports organizations for that matter – never considered the ethical issue fully but
instead reacted to what Hunt refers to as ‘focusing events’ – dramatic public cases that damaged
either the image of the ‘purity’ of Olympic sport or the ideal of the Olympic athlete’s body as
healthy: ‘[The IOC] tended to formulate doping policies with the idea of minimizing public
controversy. Meaningful reforms were deferred while a series of scandals continued to plague
the Olympic movement’ (Hunt, 2011: 3).
In A History of Drug Use in Sport 1876–1976: Beyond Good and Evil, Dimeo (2007)
demonstrates that the decisions made by IOC members during the controversial years between
the death of Jensen in 1960 and the decision to ban drugs and begin testing in 1967 were made
by men heavily influenced by ideals of amateurism and the notions that Olympic sport was
pure and beyond the realms of social and political affairs. What Dimeo describes as the
protagonists’ at times fanatical and proselytizing approaches ‘were a subtle and implicit – but
enormously powerful – force in setting the framework for anti-doping in the 1960s’ (Dimeo,
2007: 95). He shows that the crusade against drugs gradually shifted the emphasis away from
concern about the health of athletes to a quasi-religious moral attack on the character of users
and the ‘evils’ of their deeds, because the latter would more convincingly make the case both
to sports administrators and also to the general public. Dimeo (199–20) also shows that the
movement sought to return sport to its mythical original state; it was he says, ‘an exercise of
power in which the authorities had to protect sport: that meant disseminating the myth of its
purity’. An article by Arthur Porritt, published in the Olympic Review in 1965 under the simple
title ‘Doping’, is perhaps the best example of this. Resorting to name-calling, Porritt (1965:
47–9) informed his readers that drug users had ‘weakness of character’, ‘inferiority complex[es]’,
and that

every one of us interested in the basic values of amateur sport [should] keep this matter
under the closest surveillance and to remember always that the ‘dope’ in the American

27
 Ian Ritchie

sense – the mentally, physically and morally dulled individual – is to some degree at
any rate the inevitable corollary of doping.

Leading up to the creation of the first prohibitions in 1967, the IOC was in fact concerned
about a number of factors that seemed to be taking sport away from its perceived ‘foundation’.
Brundage thought of doping as merely a subset of greater problems, including an accelerated
emphasis on competition and the movement towards full-time, professional training in both
the east and the west. Indeed, practices such as increased time and effort committed to training
and competition, or in some cases athletes receiving money for performance, were becoming
increasingly common and, from the perspective of some IOC members, it is understandable
why – given the nineteenth-century set of values upon which the movement had been founded
– they would perceive things as spinning out of control. However, the IOC could do little
about many of these issues, and indeed by the early 1970s, amateur ideals were formally abandoned
and relevant rules and restrictions were removed from the Charter (Beamish and Ritchie, 2004;
Beamish and Ritchie, 2006: 11–30). But drug use was one aspect of sport that could be controlled,
or at least certain members of the IOC perceived it could, and so rules were put in place and
procedures for detection and punishment were implemented, and these continue to this day,
albeit with greater scientific sophistication and the commitment of greater money and
infrastructural resources. But because ‘ethics’ per se was never considered – because the IOC
was trying to ‘turn back the clock’ and preserve images of Olympic purity in light of dramatic
and embarrassing cases – the anti-doping movement was faced with a series of contradictions
in its policies that, arguably, continue to the present day (Dimeo, 2007; Beamish and Ritchie,
2006; Hunt et al., 2012; Ritchie, 2014).

Conclusion
One key finding of careful historical studies of doping and anti-doping is the manner in which
the ‘problem’ of doping in sport has been socially constructed (see Beamish, 2011). The various
social agents who created the first anti-doping statements and rules were influenced by a particular
set of values, reflecting their personal histories, the agendas of the organizations they represented
and the general tenor of their times. Value judgements about performance enhancement, in
other words, were a reflection of social structure and the individual agents who operated within
that structure. A number of implications flow from this history.
First, while this chapter has only scratched the surface of the numerous figures who played
important roles in anti-doping overall (see Dimeo, 2007; Hunt, 2011), some of the most important
men identified here, men such as Sigfrid Edström, Henri de Baillet-Latour, Avery Brundage
or Arthur Porritt, created the original and most important anti-doping policies based on their
conservative world views and an image of sport that sought to maintain the institution’s ‘purity’
in the perceived light of forces of modernity that they saw as spinning the world out of control
(Beamish, 2011). While a number of values and traditions influenced these men, the overriding
one was amateurism and the belief that sport – Olympic sport in particular – should remain
pure and that it could be used as a counterpoise to what Brundage referred to as the ‘cat force’
and ‘jungle’ of human social and political affairs (cited in Guttmann, 1984: 115–16).
The ‘amateur thesis’, or the impact amateurism had on the creation of anti-doping
prohibitions, is an emerging one in the historical literature (Beamish and Ritchie, 2004, 2006;
Gleaves, 2011; Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014). It has important implications for anti-doping policy
today because amateurism was abandoned as cold war sport brought practices further and further
away from anything Edström, Baillet-Latour, Brundage, Porritt or, for that matter, Olympic

28
 Doping from the perspective of history

founder Coubertin himself could ever have imagined. If anti-doping was largely based on amateur
sensibilities, what does this mean for the legitimacy of anti-doping historically? Beamish (2011:
71) states bluntly that the rules were ‘intimately tied to Coubertin’s original lofty principles,
and indeed, the use of performance-enhancing substances was, within that context, cheating.
. . . [However] [o]nce the Olympic Games’ fundamental principles were removed, the IOC’s
most principled rationale for a banned list vanished’.
Besides the fact that the original anti-doping rules tended to be based on a defence of sport’s
‘purity’, especially in the Olympic movement (Ritchie, 2014), there was, as Hunt et al. (2012:
55) point out, a more direct practical issue at stake. By defending sport’s ‘purity’, elite
administrators within sport could convince the public and non-sport authorities, such as
government leaders, that it was warranted to sanction drug users through private, rather than
public legal means. The latter would not only entail complex legal procedures but, under the
rules of law the accused was also entitled to the presumption of innocence. Hunt et al. point
out: ‘[T]he idea that disputes should be resolved within the governance structure for sport rather
than by public bodies became a fundamental tenant of anti-doping policy.’ This has direct
implications for thinking about the manner in which anti-doping organizations – WADA
obviously being by far the most powerful – operate today, including the accountability of such
organizations.
In general, the summary of history presented here suggests that the scholarship that has focused
on the historical forces that have led to doping practices and anti-doping policies needs to continue
to flourish and to address important questions. What were the historical forces that led to the
regular and systematic use of drugs? What were the historical forces that led to anti-doping
policies? What were, and what are, the ethical foundations – if any – upon which anti-doping
was, and is currently, based? These are important questions but, it should be pointed out, they
are not questions being asked by the anti-doping establishment itself, where policies and rules
are premised on the idea that the use of performance-enhancing substances and methods is
contrary to abstract notions of the ‘spirit of sport’ (see McNamee’s chapter in this volume). The
latter notion is by definition ahistorical; the idea that doping is contrary to a supposed ‘essence’
of sport takes a complex issue and pulls it out of historical context and therefore limits a full
understanding of it. It also does not do justice to the fact that sport is a complex social and
historical institution. So good historical scholarship helps inform us why anti-doping today tends
to be quite fraught with contradictions, and good historical accounts are necessary to bring greater
clarity to this complex social issue.

References
Beamish, R. (2011) Steroids: A New Look at Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Santa Barbara, CA, Praeger.
Beamish, R. and Ritchie, I. (2004) ‘From chivalrous “brothers-in-arms” to the eligible athlete: changed
principles and the IOC’s banned substance list’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 39(4), 355–71.
Beamish, R. and Ritchie, I. (2005) ‘From fixed capacities to performance-enhancement: the paradigm
shift in the science of “training” and the use of performance-enhancing substances’, Sport in History,
25(3), 412–33.
Beamish, R. and Ritchie, I. (2006) Fastest, Highest, Strongest: A Critique of High-Performance Sport, London
and New York, Routledge.
Bowler, P. J. and Morus, I. R. (2005) Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey, Chicago, IL and London,
The University of Chicago Press.
de Coubertin, Pierre (2000) Olympism: Selected Writings, Lausanne, International Olympic Committee.
de Kruif, P. (1945) The Male Hormone, New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company.
Dimeo, P. (2007) A History of Drug Use in Sport 1876–1976: Beyond Good and Evil, London and New
York, Routledge.

29
 Ian Ritchie

Dubin, C. L. (1990) Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic
Performance, Ottawa, Canadian Government Publishing Centre.
Dyreson, M. (2013) ‘The original Olympic “war against doping”: oxygen use, swimming rivals, and politics
in the 1930s’, paper presented at the 41st annual conference of the North American Society for Sport
History, Halifax, Canada, 24–27 May.
Gleaves, J. (2011) ‘Doped professionals and clean amateurs: amateurism’s influence on the modern
philosophy of anti-doping’, Journal of Sport History, 38(2), 237–54.
Gleaves, J. and Llewellyn, M. (2014) ‘Sport, drugs and amateurism: tracing the real cultural origins of anti-
doping rules in international sport’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31(8), 839–53.
Guttmann, A. (1984) The Games Must Go On: Avery Brundage and the Olympic Movement, New York,
Columbia University Press.
Hoberman, J. (1992) Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport, New York,
The Free Press.
Hunt, T. M. (2011) Drugs Games: The International Olympic Committee and the Politics of Doping, 1960–2008,
Austin, TX, University of Texas Press.
Hunt, T. M., Dimeo, P. and Jedlicka, S. R. (2012) ‘The historical roots of today’s problems: a critical
appraisal of the international anti-doping movement’, Performance Enhancement and Health, 1, 55–60.
MacAloon, J. (1990) ‘Steroids and the state: Dubin, melodrama and the accomplishment of innocence’,
Public Culture, 2(2), 41–64.
Møller, V. (2005) ‘Knud Enemark Jensen’s death during the 1960 Rome Olympics: a search for truth?’
Sport in History, 25(3), 452–71.
Møller, V. (2010) The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping: Redeeming the Soul of Sport? London and New
York, Routledge.
Porritt, A. (1965) ‘Doping’, Olympic Review, 90, 47–9.
Rabinbach, A. (1990) The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, CA, University of California Press.
Reinold, M. and Hoberman, J. (2014) ‘The myth of the Nazi steroid’, The International Journal of the History
of Sport, 31(8), 871–83.
Ritchie, I. (2010) ‘The sociology of science: sport, training, and the use of performance-enhancing
substances’, in E. Smith (ed.), Sociology of Sport and Social Theory, Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics,
41–53.
Ritchie, I. (2014) ‘Pierre de Coubertin, doped “amateurs” and the “spirit of sport”: the role of mythology
in Olympic anti-doping policies’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31(8), 820–38.
Segrave, J. O. (2012) ‘Coubertin, Olympism, and chivalry’, paper presented at the 11th International
Symposium for Olympic Research, London, Canada, 19–20 October.
Summers, W. C. (1998) ‘Microbe hunters revisited’, International Microbiology, 1, 65–8.
Todd, T. (1987) ‘Anabolic steroids: the gremlins of sport’, Journal of Sport History, 14(1), 87–107.
Todd, J. and Todd, T. (2001) ‘Significant events in the history of drug testing and the Olympic movement:
1960–1999’, in W. Wilson and E. Derse (eds), Doping in Elite Sport: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic
Movement, Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics, pp. 65–129.
Waddington, I. (2006) ‘Changing patterns of drug use in British sport from the 1960s’, in P. Dimeo (ed.),
Drugs, Alcohol and Sport, London and New York, Routledge, 119–143.
World Anti-Doping Agency (2009) World Anti-Doping Code, Montreal, World Anti-Doping Agency,
available at: www.wada-ama.org (accessed 20 May 2014).
Yesalis, C. E. and Bahrke, M. S. (2002) ‘History of doping in sport’, International Sports Studies, 24(1),
42–76.

30
 3
IS CONCERN ABOUT
SPORTS DOPING A
MORAL PANIC?
Erich Goode

The origin of organized sport is lost in the mists of time. Upper Paleolithic cave paintings depict
humans swimming and shooting arrows, but they appear to portray functional activities.
Archeological evidence indicates that ancient Sumerians may have held organized competitions
in wrestling, swimming, archery, and rowing (Blanchard, 1995). Perhaps not quite as long ago,
the Maya, Olmec, Toltec, and Aztec played a rubber ball game roughly 3,500 years ago—though
its significance was less sporting than ritualistic: the game was probably played to supply sacrificial
victims (Evans, 2013). Contemporary sport doesn’t have quite the life-or-death significance of
the Mesoamerican ballgame, but it is momentous in its cultural, emotional, and economic
importance. Globally, professional sports represent a half-a-trillion-dollar a year industry; in
addition, enormous sums are wagered on the outcome of athletic events—illegally, in the United
States alone, some 380 billion dollars. During sporting events, fans hurl themselves into a frenzy,
shrieking, crying, begging, moaning as if tortured or experiencing orgasm; suicide and murder
are not unknown to fanatical supporters disappointed by their team’s poor on-the-field
performance.
The reward of winning and the agony of losing suggest that athletes could be likely to be
tempted to cheat. At least as far back as the ancient Olympic Games, athletic competitors
consumed substances they thought would improve their performance, though we have no
indication that such practices were prohibited or condemned. The banning of performance
enhancement drugs began in the 1960s, and with a specific event. In 1960, while competing
for the 100-kilometer time trials in the Olympics in Rome, the 23-year-old Danish cyclist Knud
Enemark Jensen collapsed onto the cement track and suffered a skull fracture; he died several
hours later. Some observers claim that his use of performance enhancing drugs contributed to
the collapse—“Trainer Says He Issued Cyclist Drug,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 29, 1960—
while others argue that this assertion is “unfounded” (Møller, 2005: 452); either way, the matter
remains controversial (Hunt, 2007: 1–2; Maraniss, 2008: 141). And whether doped or not, Jensen’s
death produced major consequences; it provided a “catalyst for firming up anti-doping policy”
(Møller, 2005: 452). In 1961, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) formed a medical
committee that tested for drugs beginning in 1967; in 1968, the IOC promulgated a list of

31
 Erich Goode

banned substances, and in 1999, in collaboration with various sporting agencies and governments,
it created WADA—the World Anti-Doping Agency; WADA bans 192 drugs. Virtually all
organized sports and competitions now ban the use of certain substances they deem illegitimately
and unethically performance-enhancing.

Doping as deviance
Sociologists define deviance as any behavior, beliefs, or conditions that violate a social norm
and elicit sanctions from one or more relevant audiences, or circles or collectivities of persons.
Deviance pivots on two central features. One, it is a social construction: What it is, is not based
on material, essentialistic reality or because of the intrinsic qualities it possesses. What deviance
‘is’ is determined culturally, sociologically, and interactionally. To the matter at hand, defining
sports doping is the result of deciding which of the many available sports technologies are illicit—
and hence, are instances of ‘doping’ (Møller, 2010). Second, behavior (as well as beliefs and
physical appearance) are deviant to the extent members of societies and collectivities react to
them as offensive and objectionable. What’s sociologically deviant is defined by a specific,
identifiable audience—that is, who judges an act to be a case of wrongdoing. The audience
could be the society as a whole, or aggregates within the society. In sports, relevant audiences
include the media, the general public, and the members of official organizations that represent
athletics. Doping stands near the pinnacle of the hierarchy of infractions that relevant audiences,
particularly sports organization officials, consider sanctionable offenses; a judgment by such an
organization that a competitor has used an illicit substance to boost on-the-field performance
can effectively terminate an athletic career. Officials consider such a violation as second only
in seriousness to the commission of a felonious crime. Likewise, the general public can manifest
its displeasure about an athlete’s doping by boycotting events, expressing negative feelings that
are then reported in the media, and refusing to purchase a product endorsed by a tainted athlete.
Today, corporations typically make a pre-emptive strike against the negative publicity that an
athlete spokesperson who is guilty of doping engenders, which in turn is likely to sour the
public’s sentiment—and hence, harm a corporation’s own image—by canceling his or her
contract.
Diego Maradona is an Argentine soccer player, coach, and manager, and perhaps the greatest
football player in the history of the sport. In 1991, playing for Napoli, Maradona tested positive
for cocaine; the Italian Football League suspended him for 15 months. In 1994, playing for
Argentina during a FIFA (Fédéracion Internationale de Football Association) tournament,
Maradona tested positive for five different ephedrine-related substances; FIFA banned him from
the tournament. “They have retired me from soccer,” he exclaimed, “my soul is broken.”
Without their key player, Argentina, a heavily favored team, lost to Bulgaria, and dropped to
third place in their division (Verhovek, 1994). In 2001, the Argentina Football Association asked
FIFA to retire Maradona’s jersey number 10; considering such an action an honor—and
Maradona unworthy of it—FIFA refused the request.
Ben Johnson, a Canadian sprinter (born in Jamaica), won three medals in the 1984 and 1988
Olympic Games in Los Angeles and Seoul; his time for the event in Seoul set a then-world
record of 9.79 seconds. Two days after Johnson won gold in 1988, the vice president of the
IOC and the head of the Canadian Olympic delegation informed him and his trainer that he
had tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid, stanozolol. The IOC withdrew his gold medal,
disqualified his world records, banned him from competition for two years, and rescinded the
Canadian government’s award of a lifetime monthly annuity. In 1993, Johnson won a 50-meter

32
 Doping in sport and moral panic

race, but because of a positive test for testosterone, the International Association of Athletics
Federations (IAAF) banned him from international competition for life; any athlete competing
against him could likewise be banned. In 1999, in a 50-yard sprint in Ontario, Johnson ran the
race alone; once again, he tested positive, this time for a banned diuretic. In 2010, Johnson
self-published his autobiography, Seoul to Soul, in which he exposes the conspiracy against him,
accuses Carl Lewis, his main competitor, of spiking his beer with a steroid, and discloses that
he is the reincarnation of the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu.
Barry Bonds played major league baseball from 1986 to 2007. Most sports writers consider
him one of the greatest hitters in the history of professional baseball. He holds more than a
dozen major records—more than any player in history—including most career home runs (762)
and most home runs in a single season (73). In addition, Bonds was an exceptional fielder, winning
eight Gold Gloves. He also appeared in 14 All-Star games and received the Most Valuable Player
award for the National League seven times, the only player to win as often. In January 2007,
Bonds tested positive for amphetamines; later that year, he was indicted for perjury, lying to a
grand jury, and obstruction of justice; in 2011, he was convicted of the third of these counts,
a case that is still under appeal. In 2013, the first year of his eligibility, Bonds was turned down
for entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame; he received only 36 percent of the Baseball Writers’
Association vote—far short of the necessary 75 percent. Most of the Hall admitees who
commented agreed with the decision. It is entirely possible that, in spite of his immense
accomplishments, Bonds will never be admitted to the Hall of Fame.
Floyd Landis was a cyclist for three professional teams during the early-to-mid 2000s; He
won the Tour de France in 2006. In July of that year, his team, Phonak Cycling, reported an
anomalistically high ratio of two hormones in his urine, and dismissed him from the team. Landis
repeatedly denied the charge, claiming that the reading resulted from the medications he took
for a hip ailment. The case was turned over to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which,
in 2007, found him guilty of doping and banned him from cycling for two years. After his ban
ran out, Landis entered several races in the United States and New Zealand; in one, in Oregon,
he was so shunned by his fellow cyclists that he performed as a single rider without a team. In
May of 2010, while competing in a race in California, The Wall Street Journal published an article
based on emails that Landis had sent to anti-doping officials to the effect that between 2002
and 2006, he and other cyclists had routinely engaged in doping. In 2012, Landis admitted to
fraud in fundraising for his legal defense; the court ordered him to pay half a million dollars in
restitution. In the wake of his admissions, two of his teams disintegrated, and he found himself
without a team; six months after his last race, Floyd Landis retired from racing. In 2012, the
USADA released a report stating that Lance Armstrong, the most successful and celebrated cyclist
in the history of the sport and a seven-time Tour de France winner, took EPO, a banned blood-
boosting substance, as well as testosterone to ensure his 1999 Tour victory. One of the main
witnesses against Armstrong was Floyd Landis. Armstrong decided not to contest USADA’s
charge of doping; he was stripped of his Tour de France titles and has retired from the sport.

Why do they do it? Anomie theory

When a society rewards something, many people are motivated to obtain it. And when a social
collectivity culturally deems a particular, effective means of obtaining a positively valued goal
as illicit, illegal, and deviant, most people, depending on the size of the reward and the likelihood
and severity of the punishment, will be discouraged from acquiring it through these illicit means;
they will plod along, trying to obtain it through a conventional, and legal—though less
effective—route. But others, usually a minority, will seek to achieve it through illicit means,

33