Gimme More! (About Doping in Sports)

Hell no – we don’t want doping! With the recent scandals in cycling, the topic has risen anew and next year, they will even test in the noble sport of gowf. This will change the meaning of the 19th hole.

So no doping anymore. We will all try harder and exercise more, select better and screen wider among the youngsters and maybe devote a whole existence from birth on to breaking the existing world record in rubber boot throwing (no joke – it’s a discipline, although not Olympic (yet?)).

But at the end of the day, there will be records – local, national, world records which – if at all – can only be bettered within centuries, maybe as evolution produces more apt athletes (such as runners with legs 3/4 of their body length and some extra new muscles). This will be a horror scenario for all the sports equipment makers, sponsors, organizers of events and so on. After all, sport nowadays is commerce. It exists to entertain the masses, make them go to events, intrigue them to possibly try some themselves and therewith to buy expensive gear (a new model each year). Once the excitement and lure of record performances has gone, there will be an important marketing factor missing. I consider it a great move that two German TV-stations quit broadcasting this year's tour de France after a number of doping scandals where uncovered. Incidentally the scandal concerned German cyclists who had to leave the race and attraction for the German viewers was down anyway. But, hei-ho! To the rescue came a different, new station that immediately picked up the rights.

I don’t have a solution for the dilemma. Should we allow genetic manipulation in order to create super athletes? This will, like drugs or earnest workout, still result in a stagnation of progress after a given span of time. It would not even help if we were to officially erase a record and declare it null after, say, 20 years. There would still be people who’d say ‘yes, he or she holds the record now, but such and such – 128 years ago had already been faster’, or longer, or whatever the record consisted of.

If we were serious about anti-doping we would have to eliminate the monetary side of sports, maybe even declare it unethical to spend more than a fifth of a person's wake time on it and pass legislation that all sports events and broadcasts have to be non-profit activities. Until then, let’s dream on about anti-doping.