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| Cheating in sport is becoming ever harder to judge Cheating in sport is becoming ever harder to judge | |
| (6 months later) | |
| Four years ago, Oscar Pistorius, still a hero rather than a murderer, was about to compete in the London Olympics against enabled athletes, running on his carbon-fibre blades. Not everyone was happy about this. The German team, for instance, said his Flex-Foot Cheetahs used 25% less energy and were unfair to natural runners. How was it fair to ban all doping, then allow one athlete to use special technology? It was against fair play, the spirit of the Games. | Four years ago, Oscar Pistorius, still a hero rather than a murderer, was about to compete in the London Olympics against enabled athletes, running on his carbon-fibre blades. Not everyone was happy about this. The German team, for instance, said his Flex-Foot Cheetahs used 25% less energy and were unfair to natural runners. How was it fair to ban all doping, then allow one athlete to use special technology? It was against fair play, the spirit of the Games. |
| Pistorius’s supporters were incredulous that anyone could accuse an awe-inspiring double amputee of having an unfair advantage. That was definitely against the spirit of the games. | Pistorius’s supporters were incredulous that anyone could accuse an awe-inspiring double amputee of having an unfair advantage. That was definitely against the spirit of the games. |
| In the event, after Pistorius failed to qualify for the men’s 400m final, it was he who complained most bitterly, after being beaten at the Paralympics by Brazil’s Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira. The winner’s blades were too long, Pistorius said. He wanted an official investigation. “I believe in fairness in sport,” he said, “and I believe in running on the right length.” | In the event, after Pistorius failed to qualify for the men’s 400m final, it was he who complained most bitterly, after being beaten at the Paralympics by Brazil’s Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira. The winner’s blades were too long, Pistorius said. He wanted an official investigation. “I believe in fairness in sport,” he said, “and I believe in running on the right length.” |
| With Pistorius and his blades out of the way, suspicions about sporting unfairness have returned to doping, whose detection is now practically a sport in itself, albeit a little on the slow side. Details are still emerging, thanks in part to whistleblowers, of the substantial contribution made by banned performance-enhancing drugs to the excitement at Sochi 2014. In its 2015 report, the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) said a cheating Russian team had effectively “sabotaged” the London Games, assisted by official inaction, and called for Russia to be barred from international athletics. A decision on Russian athletes’ participation in Rio is imminent. | With Pistorius and his blades out of the way, suspicions about sporting unfairness have returned to doping, whose detection is now practically a sport in itself, albeit a little on the slow side. Details are still emerging, thanks in part to whistleblowers, of the substantial contribution made by banned performance-enhancing drugs to the excitement at Sochi 2014. In its 2015 report, the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) said a cheating Russian team had effectively “sabotaged” the London Games, assisted by official inaction, and called for Russia to be barred from international athletics. A decision on Russian athletes’ participation in Rio is imminent. |
| Definitely absent from sport for the next two years will be their compatriot, Maria Sharapova, the tennis star and the world’s highest paid female athlete for 11 consecutive years. She has benefited, it emerges, from a fantastic sounding drug called meldonium, which is said to improve stamina and even, not unlike PG Wodehouse’s fabled Buck-U-Uppo, give the user “mental focus” and a “sharper edge”. | Definitely absent from sport for the next two years will be their compatriot, Maria Sharapova, the tennis star and the world’s highest paid female athlete for 11 consecutive years. She has benefited, it emerges, from a fantastic sounding drug called meldonium, which is said to improve stamina and even, not unlike PG Wodehouse’s fabled Buck-U-Uppo, give the user “mental focus” and a “sharper edge”. |
| Alas, thanks to Sharapova, the online price has reportedly soared, from £15 to £27 for 40 tablets, the athlete’s personal endorsement evidently carrying more weight than official warnings about the danger of unlicensed drugs and, indeed, meldonium’s designation, by Wada, as against “the spirit of sport”. One of Wada’s purposes, its director general has explained , is to discourage the use of performance-enhancing drugs at the amateur as well as elite level, where it also constitutes a “challenge to the values of sport and its integrity”. Those values, he specified, included “ethics, honesty, respect for rules, self-respect and respect for others, fair play and healthy competition”. | Alas, thanks to Sharapova, the online price has reportedly soared, from £15 to £27 for 40 tablets, the athlete’s personal endorsement evidently carrying more weight than official warnings about the danger of unlicensed drugs and, indeed, meldonium’s designation, by Wada, as against “the spirit of sport”. One of Wada’s purposes, its director general has explained , is to discourage the use of performance-enhancing drugs at the amateur as well as elite level, where it also constitutes a “challenge to the values of sport and its integrity”. Those values, he specified, included “ethics, honesty, respect for rules, self-respect and respect for others, fair play and healthy competition”. |
| If those don’t already sound quaint, given the colossal investment that rich countries consider a fair price for one medal, Wada may want to consider how sporting values accord with the IOC’s recent decisions on competition between individuals whose biology is so different that, some predict, fair play in certain women’s events could become impossible. | If those don’t already sound quaint, given the colossal investment that rich countries consider a fair price for one medal, Wada may want to consider how sporting values accord with the IOC’s recent decisions on competition between individuals whose biology is so different that, some predict, fair play in certain women’s events could become impossible. |
| The former Olympic champion Sonia O’Sullivan has drawn attention to the latest triumphs of Caster Semenya, the South African sprinter who is now predicted to win a gold medal in Brazil. She won a silver medal in London, then faltered, not even qualifying for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The reason usually advanced for Semenya’s impressive return to form is the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) decision to suspend an earlier ruling by the IAAF that put an upper limit on testosterone for intersex athletes competing in women’s events. It was designed to ensure – at some cost to the dignity of intersex women athletes – fairness for the majority, who have much lower testosterone levels. Last year, the ruling was the subject of a legal challenge by the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, arguing her right to compete without taking testosterone-suppressing drugs. | The former Olympic champion Sonia O’Sullivan has drawn attention to the latest triumphs of Caster Semenya, the South African sprinter who is now predicted to win a gold medal in Brazil. She won a silver medal in London, then faltered, not even qualifying for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The reason usually advanced for Semenya’s impressive return to form is the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) decision to suspend an earlier ruling by the IAAF that put an upper limit on testosterone for intersex athletes competing in women’s events. It was designed to ensure – at some cost to the dignity of intersex women athletes – fairness for the majority, who have much lower testosterone levels. Last year, the ruling was the subject of a legal challenge by the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, arguing her right to compete without taking testosterone-suppressing drugs. |
| The CAS duly suspended the regulations and asked for more evidence that high levels of testosterone confer a performance benefit. “To me, that CAS decision seems ludicrous,” O’Sullivan writes. “That’s the one marker that created the imbalance in performance and which has long been known.” | The CAS duly suspended the regulations and asked for more evidence that high levels of testosterone confer a performance benefit. “To me, that CAS decision seems ludicrous,” O’Sullivan writes. “That’s the one marker that created the imbalance in performance and which has long been known.” |
| Adding yet more interest to future women’s events is the IOC’s decision to allow people who self-identify as women to participate in the 2016 Games, including, for the first time, women who have not physically transitioned. The contestants must, however, have kept their testosterone levels below 10 nanomoles per litre for a year. Women usually have fewer than three nmol/L. | Adding yet more interest to future women’s events is the IOC’s decision to allow people who self-identify as women to participate in the 2016 Games, including, for the first time, women who have not physically transitioned. The contestants must, however, have kept their testosterone levels below 10 nanomoles per litre for a year. Women usually have fewer than three nmol/L. |
| If the potentially arresting consequences seem to be have been subjected, as yet, to relatively little public examination, it probably, as with Pistorius’s blades, seems more in the spirit of the Games to welcome a landmark triumph over exclusion and discrimination for athletes who have as much right to compete as anyone. | If the potentially arresting consequences seem to be have been subjected, as yet, to relatively little public examination, it probably, as with Pistorius’s blades, seems more in the spirit of the Games to welcome a landmark triumph over exclusion and discrimination for athletes who have as much right to compete as anyone. |
| The question is, when athletes are routinely segregated, in the interests of fairness, according to sex, often weight, against whom? Only the Games themselves will show if the cost of fairness for transgender and intersex women will be its loss – contrary to the spirit of the Games –for cis women athletes. | The question is, when athletes are routinely segregated, in the interests of fairness, according to sex, often weight, against whom? Only the Games themselves will show if the cost of fairness for transgender and intersex women will be its loss – contrary to the spirit of the Games –for cis women athletes. |
| Then again, there’s nothing particularly fair about the Olympics, unless athletes from wealthy and powerful countries are just naturally better than athletes from everywhere else. Why shouldn’t intersex athletes enjoy their victories? But Joanna Harper, a physicist, athlete and trans woman, who is an adviser on gender issues to the IOC, says of the suspension of testosterone limits: “Allowing these [intersex] athletes to compete in women’s sport with their serious testosterone-based advantage threatens the very fabric of women’s sport.” | Then again, there’s nothing particularly fair about the Olympics, unless athletes from wealthy and powerful countries are just naturally better than athletes from everywhere else. Why shouldn’t intersex athletes enjoy their victories? But Joanna Harper, a physicist, athlete and trans woman, who is an adviser on gender issues to the IOC, says of the suspension of testosterone limits: “Allowing these [intersex] athletes to compete in women’s sport with their serious testosterone-based advantage threatens the very fabric of women’s sport.” |
| The IOC’s declared emphasis in Rio, on protecting “clean athletes” from the dopers, may only add to the indignation of some women competitors, held back by average hormone levels. | The IOC’s declared emphasis in Rio, on protecting “clean athletes” from the dopers, may only add to the indignation of some women competitors, held back by average hormone levels. |
| O ne solution, if testosterone is not all the help it’s cracked up to be, would be to remove it from the banned list of pharmaceuticals, to allow for individual topping up. And if that led to demands, from people who don’t fancy the side-effects, for testosterone alternatives, there is surely a place for niche tonics such as Sharapova’s Buck-U-Uppo or Lance Armstrong’s preferred androstenone, the active ingredient in – really – Boarmate. | O ne solution, if testosterone is not all the help it’s cracked up to be, would be to remove it from the banned list of pharmaceuticals, to allow for individual topping up. And if that led to demands, from people who don’t fancy the side-effects, for testosterone alternatives, there is surely a place for niche tonics such as Sharapova’s Buck-U-Uppo or Lance Armstrong’s preferred androstenone, the active ingredient in – really – Boarmate. |
| As well as sparing athletes the incessant testing that never, anyway, keeps up with cheating’s finest, the freedom to take any safe, performance-enhancing drug would guarantee, for the audience, Olympics that are genuinely, as advertised, ever faster, higher and stronger. | As well as sparing athletes the incessant testing that never, anyway, keeps up with cheating’s finest, the freedom to take any safe, performance-enhancing drug would guarantee, for the audience, Olympics that are genuinely, as advertised, ever faster, higher and stronger. |
| It would be a shame if any sudden leap forward in Brazil were restricted to women’s events, courtesy of newly validated contestants. | It would be a shame if any sudden leap forward in Brazil were restricted to women’s events, courtesy of newly validated contestants. |
| If, however, the overriding sporting objective of fair competition dictates that pharmacological advances continue to be excluded from the range of athletics-enhancing innovations – from competitive swimsuits to the “secret tech” promised by British cyclists – the IOC might be advised to remind women in certain events of the importance of being a good loser. It’s the taking part that counts, right? | If, however, the overriding sporting objective of fair competition dictates that pharmacological advances continue to be excluded from the range of athletics-enhancing innovations – from competitive swimsuits to the “secret tech” promised by British cyclists – the IOC might be advised to remind women in certain events of the importance of being a good loser. It’s the taking part that counts, right? |
| • Comments will be opened later | • Comments will be opened later |