Scourge of doping isn’t solely down to cheating
Pain and fear often fuel the use of drugs at elite level
ONE of the most valuable insights recently gleaned from Irish anti-doping efforts was not contained in the pages of a report issued three days ago. It came in a panel discussion at the launch when Ciara Mageean mentioned a documentary called The Price of Gold.
This brilliant work is as helpful as any statistical breakdown in improving our understanding of drug cheats in sport.
And a more complete assessment of why athletes cheat is required. It is not enough to foam on social media about Team Sky or wicked Russians. Cheap assertions can be flung on Twitter, but if the topic is as serious as we all insist it is, then ‘why’ is one of the most important words in the discussion. Doping is not addressed in The
Price of Gold. Cheating is never mentioned, or alluded to tangentially. The subject matter, rather, is the damage that elite athletics does to the body. It is an extraordinary revelation.
The documentary is Swedish. Made in 2012, it follows athletes at contrasting points in their careers, from the hopefuls trying to make the Olympics in London that year, to Olympic champions Carolina Kluft and Christian Olsson.
What all the participants have in common is a catalogue of injuries that is in some instances horrendous. A young decathlete called Nicklas Wiberg recounts the six knee operations he has undergone, as well as three on his feet.
‘It’s totally worth it,’ he enthuses, ‘even if it ends up with me becoming an invalid.’ He never competed in the Olympic Games.
High jumper Erik Sundlof was so determined to succeed he continued training even after a gaping hole appeared in his heel, caused by injections. It eventually required 11 hours of surgery, and he told the programme-makers that his attention was now on making the Swedish team for the 2016 Olympics.
‘I’m prepared to pay a high price to get there,’ he said. The Olympics beguiled him as a child and the dream sustained him through horrible surgery. He did not make it.
‘Elite athletics aren’t good for you,’ says one contributor.
The Price of Gold makes the point vividly, brilliantly. Long distance runner Susanne Grimfors was warned to stop training by an osteoporosis specialist. She ran a 10,000m race on a stress fracture that led to a full leg break during the race. She continued to the end.
The athletes interviewed were all pleasant and sane-seeming. However, they also spoke of athletics being their obsession, some using the word addiction.
At the issuing of Sport Ireland’s Anti-Doping Review for 2016, Mageean talked of recognising such an attitude.
‘What we do is insane,’ she said. ‘Most people think we’re the healthiest people around but we’re not.
‘We’re always a bit crocked, a bit hurt. Something I’ve talked to (her coach, Jerry Kiernan) about is that if someone told me I’d win an Olympic gold medal, but I wouldn’t be able to walk again after the age of 60, then in that case I would say yes, no doubt about it.’
Good coaching is sometimes about saving competitors from themselves. When the physical stresses they train under are in conflict with the obsessive determination not to stop, illness and serious injury too often ensues.
It would constitute gross stupidity, however, to suppose that some athletes do not try to find another way out of such a bind. It is the reason why some of them dope.
Understanding this is important in addressing the conditions in which cheating can arise. Not every doper is locked into a crooked system like the one that obtained in Russia. Their State-sponsored regime, while not unique, does not explain most of the doping that goes on in athletics and beyond.
If certain cultures have been bent out of shape by corruption that affects every aspect of life, people cheat for mostly other reasons. Often it is greed, but fear is a cause as well. Missing out on funding or a contract renewal drives some to make wretched decisions.
And for many, their bodies are falling asunder and they dope in the hope that they can survive long enough to compete in the next big match or major meet.
Understanding that should lead to more vigilance not in testing but in how sportspeople are managed, and how the demands placed upon them are handled.
Doping is mostly not about dramatic drug busts and high-profile cycling scandals. It’s mostly a squalid story of ambition that has curdled into pain, misery and fear.