The mixed messages of doping

There is in this electronic age nothing new about doping in sport; it’s the different reactions to the revelations which keep coming through as a cacophonous cascade of largely conflicting information.

Doping, be it of the performance enhancing variety or that which is given the dubious “recreational” title, has begun to send out some very peculiar mixed messages.

Two Japanese snowboarders banned last year after being found guilty of puffing marijuana could be cleared to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics, ski officials say after one of them admitted to an off-piste puff or two at a party while on tour in Colorado, where cannabis was legalised for recreational purposes in 2012, provided the user is 21 years old.

But then the sport has already witnessed Japan’s Olympian Melo Imai, who arguably gave snowboarding more exposure than it really wanted after becoming a porn actress following her retirement.

The slap on the wrist handed out to the snowboarders is in sharp contrast to the punishment handed out to England international rugby league half-back Rangi Chase, who has been banned for two years after testing positive for cocaine – one of three Super League players to do so during the 2017 season.

“As an experienced rugby league player who has represented both New Zealand Maori and England, as well as Super League clubs Castleford Tigers and Salford Red Devils, Rangi Chase has tarnished his career with this sanction,” said UK Anti-Doping chief executive Nicole Sapstead.

“His two-year ban serves as a stark warning to athletes about the very real consequences of taking recreational drugs while competing in sport.”

But despite the variance in the sanctions, both stand out as a warning beacon that, anyone who intends making a career in top level competitive sport has to take a wide berth round recreational drug taking. This should be solidly implicit, not just a type of sacrifice athletes have to endure.

All of this pales under the muddle raised by the admission by former Great Britain and Team Sky coach Shane Sutton and hanging over Britain’s first Tour de France winner, Bradley Wiggins: to take an otherwise banned drug for medical reasons.

It’s sounds like pure semantics.