Sports doping: Administrators must first be disciplined to stop it

Nov 24, 2015

Doping in sports has been in the spotlight recently. Many sports practitioners continue to grab the limelight, enhanced by banned substances. It is known that doping has existed since sports began.

By Simon Mone

Doping in sports has been in the spotlight recently. Many sports practitioners continue to grab the limelight, enhanced by banned substances. It is known that doping has existed since sports began.

That was back in the time of ancient Greece. During that time, sportsmen could easily get away with cheating, as there were no tough rules.

Regulations on doping only came into play in the 1920s. The first cheating ban was implemented in 1928 when International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), athletics' world governing body, started to crack the whip.

But even with implementation of available regulations, today cyclers, runners and footballers have escalated the use of steroids and other illegal substances to a whole new level. It became so rampant that after a major drug scandal at the 1998 Tour de France, an independent international agency to monitor closely athletes that breached anti-doping procedures was set up.

Then World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was born. This was aimed at instilling some manners in athletes. And the clamp down meant that some track and field athletes be stripped of their ‘winners’ silverware. Whoever tested positive for prohibited drugs felt the pinch. And the hell was scared out of prominent sportsmen. Sanity was restored for a moment. But if sports must be cleaned of performance enhancement substances, resolute effort is a must.

To be the best, discipline and talent is a must. Sports science continues to innovate newer ways of improving performance. Not stimulants. But the motivation for players to perform and stay at the top means they are tempted to take performance enhancement tablets.

This incentive for players to show the World how good they are, is becoming too much to resist. Thus, they resort to swallowing prohibited substances to enhance performance. Deep inside the athletes, it is all very good. But to the fans that pay huge ticket fees to cheer their favourite sportsmen, it is dishonesty.

Genuine winners are having victory snatched off them. And medals robbed from their necks. The shame, humiliation that comes with being stripped is not what fans want to see. Suspension and a bad image are not worth the temptation. Whatever action is being taken, widespread usage of drugs in sports cannot be completely eliminated. Main reason is, sports administrators themselves are struggling to show some discipline.

They get caught in compromising situations; fixing matches, betting, picking up bribes to favour the other team. Some have even awarded hosting rights to preferred nations after receiving huge checks. Others dip their hands in public money meant to benefit a wider section of the public, and spend it like personal saving.

All these have now been exposed. What it means is the moral authority to clamp down on sportsmen who cheat is compromised. And players now view their administrators as corrupt. They develop immunity against punishment. By holding evidence against their bosses, they know that nothing will deter their use of drugs.

Sports managers are the biggest stakeholders in helping to stop doping. Refrain from acts of indiscipline and corruption. Then any attempts to curb misdemeanours of players will start to reap results. Otherwise such attempts will fall on deaf ears.

And players will continue to abuse steroids in order to train harder, recover quickly and build fat muscles to win. Sports should be allowed to remain a talent show. Use of performance enhancement should be discouraged. But first proper conduct on the side of sports managers should happen to bring back discipline. Winning by way of dishonesty is not a long-term strategy.

Fans pay up to go and watch favourite athletes perform without any enhancement. Only honest achievements should be welcome. But bosses should keep their hands in their pockets to be able to embrace honest achievements.

The writer is a civil engineer
 

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