Although the Olympics only occur every four years, it seems like doping scandals at the modern day Games are inevitable, as much a part of the whole thing as national anthems and people drooling over divers and volleyball players.
Despite the consequences of getting caught, athletes representing their country at this level are going to be pressured, both by their own ambitions and from all sides, to increase their odds of winning by any means necessary, up to and including doping. It may even be their home country itself pressuring them into this.
So we have something like a war of attrition; Olympic authorities going to extremes to stamp out doping, and competitors and other involved groups to extremes to use doping without being detected.
It’s a costly, restrictive and time consuming process which detracts from the inspirational nature of the tournament itself. But here’s a radical solution: why not just allow doping? Let all the athletes take whatever drugs they like and let them get on with it?
It’s not as unusual a suggestion as you might think. I’ve heard it numerous times, usually in pubs after a few drinks. It was put forward as a question at a recent recording I did of the Level Up Human podcast. Marina Hyde acknowledged it in her recent post for the Guardian.
There are, perhaps, logical arguments in favour of lifting the ban on doping. Dropping the constant tests and checks would save much time and money. It wouldn’t be “unfair”, as every athlete has access to the same drugs, so it levels the playing field. It could even make it more inclusive: people normally get to be top athletes because of “unfair” genetic advantages, so those who normally couldn’t keep up can use drugs to compensate and stay competitive. And, potentially, it could make the games far more interesting. World records constantly being smashed, athletes being faster, stronger, more enduring. What’s not to like? So yes, why not just allow doping in the Olympics?
Sadly, this is not a rhetorical question. It turns out that, rather than being limited to slightly-inebriated discussions among friends, the notion of an Olympics where doping is permitted has actually being scientifically studied. And it should perhaps come as no surprise to find that, according to all available data, legalised doping in the Olympics would be an absolutely terrible idea.
Firstly, the idea that allowing doping would make things fairer is ludicrous. People seem to forget it’s performance enhancing drugs, not performance creating. Basically, if you’re a 20 stone trucker with a dodgy hip, a course of steroids and hormones is not going to turn you into a world-class athlete. Performance enhancing drugs work in a number of ways, but performing miracles isn’t one of them. You still need to be a top athlete for them to have any useful effect, so any notion that doping would allow “normal” people to compete should be abandoned.
It would still be something of a genetic lottery as well. How people respond to drugs is heavily influenced by their own personal physiology and genes, and this is equally true for performance enhancers. If anything, a doped Olympics would be more exclusive, not less, as it would favour those individuals lucky enough to be born with bodies that are physically better at sport whilst also more responsive to the positive effects of doping and resistant to the negative consequences. No doubt such people are relatively rare, even among the already-small pool of world-class athletes.
And these “negative consequences” can’t be overlooked. Top athletes put their bodies through punishing regimes with long-term consequences as it is. Making doping compulsory would only drastically increase the risk of serious damage to the health of an athlete. And it would be compulsory; the odds of someone at that level relying on the “natural” approach when all their competitors are doped up to the extremes are laughably small.
A regime of doping to get the best possible result would require a team of dedicated medics monitoring athletes and their reactions, plus a regular supply of the latest and most effective performance-enhancing substances, so there goes any notion of efficiency and cutting costs.
Again, this would make the playing field more uneven, not less. Countries like the US and China would have the resources and infrastructure to obtain the best performance enhancers for their athletes and maximise their safety when using them. What chance would the Refugee Olympic Team have in this scenario?
We’d likely end up with more regulation as well, as organisations have to determine which drugs are allowed where and when to ensure fairness in the contest. Otherwise, what’s the point?
But at least we’d end up with more exciting tournaments, right? Well, maybe. For a short while, perhaps. As exercise physiologist Dr Mark Burnley of Kent University explains: “No combination of drugs and blood doping is going to alter performance in a normal human to make them an Olympian, but a blanket lifting would almost certainly improve performances and there would be a period of optimisation of drug regimes (what to take, how much and when), followed by individualisation (figuring out what works best for who) and then stagnation (where everyone gets set in their ways) - which is what we have seen with physical training and nutrition, for the most part. Then we would be where we are now but faster/higher/stronger by 5-10%, depending on event and drugs used.”
So there we have it. The Doping Olympics: no fairer or cheaper or any more entertaining, much more dangerous, and serving only to undermine the achievement of every athlete involved and remove any inspirational element from the tournament.
It seems the only real use for a Doping Olympics would be to say it’s going ahead, then immediately ban any athlete who shows up to compete. But again, the paperwork alone is off-putting.
Dean Burnett is fully aware that he will never be an athlete of any description. His debut book The Idiot Brain is available now in the UK, USA and Canada.
