Tougher punishment needed for drug cheats
What will it take for the sports world to tackle the doping scandals that so regularly blight it? The illicit use of drugs not only discredits the “achievements” of athletes, it tarnishes the dreams of spectators, who can never be sure whether what they are seeing is fair or credible. Yet it has taken journalists, such as the team behind The Daily Telegraph’s investigation into the people around 100 metre sprint champion Justin Gatlin, to uncover the extent of drugs corruption and spur the authorities into action.
It is easy to see why those ostensibly in charge of ensuring fair play might lack the will to act. Every revelation appears to confirm how deep and widespread the corruption has become. Authorities doubtless feel that an open and honest confrontation with the truth risks striking a fatal blow to public trust in them and the sports they oversee. The obvious flaw in this argument is that, by skirting the problem, trust is corroded anyway.
It is clear that a re-evalution of the rules, and their enforcement, is required. Some argue that the horse has bolted, and the time has come to let athletes do as they please as they aspire to the Olympic motto, “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. The second quality, they say, has now become an indispensable route to the first and third. But aside from the clear ethical problems that entails, it would be to risk the health of athletes, who can suffer debilitating conditions as a consequence of using drugs, including “designer” steroids that conventional testing struggles to pick up.
Instead, a new strategy is needed, and not just to tackle obvious cheats. For a grey area also exists, which needs to be addressed urgently. Many athletes give specimens that may not break the letter of the law but look suspicious. Are these the result of out-of-season doping, which can leave insufficiently incriminating traces to merit a ban but still unfairly boost performance? Others use prescription medication, but in potentially inappropriate ways. All we can be sure of is that those enforcing the rules are still far behind those breaking them. In a world where milimetres, or miliseconds, separate first place from second, the temptation is clear. If authorities really want to tackle these issues, they must confront this problem more diligently and look into whether the penalties for breaking rules are sufficiently tough. Or there will be no audience to watch anyway.