Home > Blogs

A response to Sportnet’s four reasons to allow doping

Sportsnet

In the current issue of Sportsnet, writer Arden Zwelling comes out swinging for the dopers.

All manner of athletic doping, encompassing all performance-enhancing drugs, hormones, operations and techniques, should be permitted for consenting adults across all levels of sport. Performance-enhancing drugs and methods should not be barred; they should be embraced.

Those lines certainly caught my attention. Our sport is still trying to move past its doping scandals of the 1990s and 2000s. Teams such as Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies are trying to create a space for riders who didn’t dope. Jonathan Vaughters, a confessed doper, and his Slipstream project with its newly minted WorldTour team Cannondale-Garmin, is a sort of rehab for former dopers including the recently retired David Millar, Tom Danielson and Victoria’s Ryder Hesjedal. Both projects are examples of ways to break from a dirty past and show a way for a more credible future for fans and sponsors. Doping undermined the sport we love. Now, there’s this guy in Sportsnet telling us to go for broke on the dope.

As you might imagine, I’m not totally convinced by his arguments.

Zwelling outlines a doping utopia in which we have a World Doping Association. “The World Doping Association should make a great deal of money from [all athletes being allowed to dope] and funnel much of the profits back into the implementation and advancement of organized sports in developing countries. Every time an athlete injects a vial of EPO, a child in Somalia should get a pair of running shoes.” (Actually, wouldn’t it be better, more fair even, if the child got some EPO, too?) He then goes on to address four reasons we don’t allow doping and why those reasons, as he says, “are bunk.”

Reason 1: Doping is unfair

Zwelling sees doping as a leveller against the genetic lottery. You’re naturally 130 lb. and have a high red blood cell count; lucky you, you’re going to be a great endurance athlete. If you don’t have these genetic advantages, that’s not fair, is it? But while nature didn’t give you what you needed to be a pro cyclist or marathon runner,  science and hard work can mean you too can ride the Tour de France or win at Boston. Everyone can be an athlete. Right?

Not exactly. The genetic lottery also affects your response to the dope. Some people are higher responders to EPO than others, for example. Cyclist 1 can get a bigger bump than Cyclist 2. Doping doesn’t address the genetic advantages, it just plays to different genes.

Reason 2: Doping causes harm to athletes

I don’t disagree with Zwelling that doping products can be taken safely. The doping ban, Zwelling says, leads athletes to use the products in an unsafe manner. If doping was legal, then athletes, coaches and researchers could find out how to dope safely and effectively. Sounds great. But sport doesn’t owe it to cheaters to help them perfect their art. In a way, Zwelling is getting ahead of himself. If doping was legal, then yes, let’s make it safe like any other technology. But since it isn’t part of the equipment an athlete can use, why should we be exploring what is safe and what isn’t?

Let’s look at supposed motor doping in cycling, the kind of which Fabian Cancellara and even Ryder Hesjedal have been accused of, for a similar example. Such doping relies on a motor hidden in the seat tube to help keep the cranks turning. It’s probably very safe if used correctly. But, I’m sure it could be dangerous if used improperly, without safe and possibly redundant ways to kill power. But should these motors be legalized to keep riders safe, to prevent some riders from using motors that are too amped up? I’d say no. Neither motors nor drugs are technology available to cyclists. Just because they can be used, doesn’t mean they should be used.

Reason 3: Doping is morally wrong

Zwelling looks to surgical operations to address the moral argument. Tommy John, a pitcher for the White Sox and the Dodgers, ruined his arm in 1974. It looked like his career was over at 31 years old. But, a doctor figured a grafted ligament from John’s right wrist could fix the pitcher’s ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. It worked. Now, Zwelling says, a third of current MLB pitchers have had this surgery. The writer classifies this procedure, as well as laser-eye surgery and stabilizing bones with screws and plates, as performance enhancers. Then he wonders about drugs and hormones. “The use of HGH, which increases lean body mass and reduces fat, isn’t allowed, but using creatine, a popular supplement that has a similar effect, is permitted,” he writes.

Here, as with Zwelling’s Reason 2, I’d say it’s a matter of what technology is allowed. When we play a sport or enter a competition, all competitors follow a certain set of rules. Some are pretty obvious: you can’t show up to a bike race with a rocket on your bike. (Pretty obvious, I know. There’s probably not even a no-rockets rule in the UCI’s books. But then again, there do seem to be a lot of rules…). Some rules are more nuanced—what drugs are allowed and what drugs aren’t, for example. I’m sure it can seem pretty arbitrary when some substances are similar. But there are a lot of things that seem arbitrary in sport. Why is a cyclocross race one hour? Well, it could be 45 mintues (and it is for some rider categories), but we have to draw a line somewhere.

In a sense, I, and I imagine it’s the same for Zwelling, don’t see taking drugs or having surgeries as morally wrong. What’s wrong is not following the rules for an unfair advantage.

Reason 4: Doping hurts the integrity of sports

As I mentioned at the top of this piece, doping has hurt the integrity of cycling. (Maybe doping doesn’t hurt other sports, but I’m not going to wade in there. I’m going to speak only on what I know best, cycling.) During the great Lance Armstrong fallout of 2012-13, sponsors left  the sport, including Rabobank, which had supported a pro men’s team for 17 years.

“Doping is already deeply woven into sporting history, and there is legitimate reason to believe steroid use is just as widespread today as it has ever been. Current anti-doping efforts simply are not working.” Zwelling writes. But the problem is not the doping, it’s the cheating. The sentence could be, “Cheating is already deeply woven into sporting history.” That’s very true. And we try to prevent cheating. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have sport.