Skip to footer

Transparency in sports anti-doping efforts

An investigation of doping tests for many Olympic athletes suggests the need for further reform in curbing performance-boosting drugs.

|
REUTERS
Participants talk before the start of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Symposium for Anti-Doping Organizations in Lausanne, Switzerland, in this March 24, 2015 file photo. Leaks of confidential doping data threw global athletics into chaos on August 2 after a newspaper and a broadcaster said a third of medals in Olympic and world championship endurance races from 2001-2012 were won by runners with suspicious blood.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

Half the joy for sports fans in watching the world’s best athletes is to see them challenge the presumed limits of the human body. The challenge is mostly mental, requiring tenacity, talent, training, and technique. So when doping or other unfair material enhancements are used, the thrill is gone, as blues master B.B. King used to sing.

This is why world sports bodies need to take seriously the latest allegations of doping in Olympic sports. An investigation by The Sunday Times and the German broadcaster DNR alleges that a third of world and Olympic medals in endurance events between 2001 and 2012 were won by athletes who had recorded suspicious blood tests, suggesting possible use of banned performance-enhancing drugs.

The allegations are credible enough that the World Anti-Doping Agency is “very alarmed” and has launched an independent investigation. And the International Olympic Committee promises “zero tolerance” if the claims about specific athletes are verified.

The investigation was based on secret data released by a whistle-blower at the International Association of Athletics Federations, the body that oversees the track-and-field sports in the Olympics. The data was analyzed by two doping experts who questioned why the IAAF did not follow up in many cases or was not transparent about the information. The IAAF defends its actions, especially since 2009, when it greatly improved the techniques to detect “atypical” results in tests of athletes.

With the next Summer Olympics coming in 2016, world sports bodies will need to sort out the truth in these allegations in order to keep the trust of sports fans. Scandals have already engulfed world soccer with charges of match-rigging in many games and bribe-taking at FIFA, which runs the World Cup. Cycling’s governing body is trying hard to recover from the steroid use of many past contestants, such as Lance Armstrong.

One sign of hope for the IAAF: The expected winner in this month’s election of a new president, Britain’s Lord Coe, has called for drug testing to be completely independent of the sports body. This will help separate promotion of the sports from the key task of maintaining their integrity. Fans want their athletes to be models of excellence. Breaking limits in endurance sports should not be a contest of drug use.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Transparency in sports anti-doping efforts
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2015/0804/Transparency-in-sports-anti-doping-efforts
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe