One nice way of keeping the INHDR network alive is via our conferences. As previously announced INHDR's 2013 conference will be held in Aarhus on 15-16 August under the theme: "What do we (really) know about doping". A link to the conference announcement can be found elsewhere in this newsletter, and on our website www.doping.au.dk. Here you can also submit your abstract. You will be noticed when the online registration opens early January.

At this stage we are proud to announce keynote speakers of the 2013 conference. We believe many will be thrilled to know that Dr. Don Catlin will be speaking at the conference. Dr. Catlin is the founder of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, the world's largest doping testing facility. He has overseen testing for performance-enhancing drugs at the Olympic Games held in the United States in 1984, 1996 and 2002. He has developed several drug detections techniques, e.g. he identified and developed a test for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), also known as "The Clear". So if anyone, he knows the 'cat and mice game' of authorities' efforts to catch cheating athletes, and athletes' efforts to avoid getting caught. Also presenting at the conference is Professor Jay Coakley, one of the best known names in sport sociology. In his presentation entitled: "Doping Control in Sports: Ineffective Strategies, Misplaced Resources", Professor Coakley focuses on the context in which athletes form and affirm their identities, make their decisions about training and competition, and he argues that definitions of doping and current doping control protocol are unrealistic, short-sighted, inefficient, and destined to fail. Professor John Hoberman, a scholar that has made the most significant impact on the last 30 years' social science sport and doping research, will present under the title: "What do we (really) know about how to do 'anti-doping education'?". Hoberman reflects on previous anti-doping campaigns from around the world and discuss how anti-doping education in sport needs to face the dilemma on shifting the primacy of winning to a secondary status below the psychological benefits of drug-free competition. In contrast to the superficial anti-doping education produced by sports organizations Hoberman argues that the more promising alternative is "the formation of teams of athletes led by people committed to the integrity of sport rather than an economically-driven mandate to win". Professor Verner Møller, co-founder of INHDR with an unremitting will to investigate the (ir)rationality and dogmas of doping and anti-doping, will in his presentation, entitled "Listening to athletes' narratives – a reliable (scientific) research method to learn about drug use in sports?", be drawing on personal experience as well as eye-catching achievements in related research topics. From this he will present and discuss "attractions and challenges related to qualitative research in controversial sport related issues. The underlying question the paper asks is whether qualitative research qualifies as science." One of later years' most inspiring researchers when it comes to challenging previous research on the prevalence of doping in various populations is Dr Phil. Werner Pitsch. Pitsch, in his presentation, seeks to identify tacit premises within the construction and handling of the doping phenomenon by the stakeholders of the field, i.e. the WADA, the NADOs and the major international sports organisations. Two such tacit premises, Pitsch argues, can be defined as 1) Anti-doping organisations really want to fight doping, and 2) The means anti-doping organisations use (tests and sanctions) have the potential to be effective in the fight against doping. These premises imply that if anti-doping has been unsuccessful it must be due to the fact that too few resources have been allocated to anti-doping. Also on board as a keynote speaker for the conference is one of the most innovative and productive researchers in the field of endurance and blood physiology, Professor Carsten Lundby of the University of Zürich. A few years ago Lundby, in an article widely demonised by officials from WADA accredited laboratories, demonstrated the inefficiency of these same labs to test for and identify athletes' use of EPO. Not only will Lundby be presenting on the presumptions and current state of knowledge on athletes' use of blood boosting hormones and methods, he will also be able to act as a fact-checker for those of us making (un)substantiated claims on the efficiency of drugs and drug-testing.