The More Things Change…

By John Gleaves & Ask Vest Christiansen

A new host of names and another set of shocking revelations cannot help but remind us how much the secret world of illicit performance enhancement garners headlines and captures audiences. It seems that some things never change. However, the threats that Russian athletics athletes may be staying home from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, and with a similar case building for athletes in other countries, such as Kenya and Ethiopia, where systematic flouting of doping regulations has brought outside scrutiny, the World Anti-Doping Agency seems to be employing a new strategy in its War on Doping.

As far as we can tell, the uniform suspension of all athletes in a particular sport because of a nation’s failure to comply with anti-doping rules enforcement has not been used previously. If WADA decides that Russia has not significantly reformed its sport system and bans them from the Olympic Games, it likely means that at least some clean track and field athletes from Russia will be unfairly denied a chance to compete in their sport’s marquee event. And as such WADA’s explicit aim “To protect the Athletes’ fundamental right to participate in doping-free sport and thus promote health, fairness and equality for Athletes worldwide” is left aside. Of course, it is hypothetically possible that every single athletics athlete used some prohibited substance and deserves to miss the Games. More likely, however, is that casting the net this broadly will ensnare some percentage of clean athletes along with those who are cheating. The precedent of this approach—where an innocent party can potentially pay the punishment for a guilty party’s crimes—certainly opens legal and ethical concerns many INDR members will likely wish to consider.

Equally fascinating (from a scholarly perspective) is Russia’s political interpretation of WADA’s investigation. Russia’s framing of accusations from “the West” (read: everybody else) as simply “sour grapes” over Russia’s success and historical acrimony designed to neuter the Russian Bear whenever its power threatens other nations. This victim narrative has appeared often in Russian history and usually as a way to explain mistakes by Russian leadership to its citizens. It seems that this narrative stays the same, even when the content changes.

Perhaps one of the saddest things of all this is that there does not seem to be a genuine will to change things on either side of the table. The continuing cases coming out of Russia have already been mentioned. But also the other part – the anti-doping organizations – seem to lack willingness to rethink matters. One of the concerns raised by NADO officials at the 2015 INDR conference as well as in our December 2015 newsletter was that academics too often just criticize anti-doping work instead of assisting in providing solutions. In light of this, it must have been encouraging for everyone to note when in April 2016 USA Cycling  announced that it was creating a new Committee on Anti-Doping, and that of the committee’s eight experts three were INDR members, including its chair Dr. Paul Dimeo of the University of Stirling in Scotland. The aim of the committee was to "help USA Cycling to determine how it can best reduce banned doping practices within amateur and professional cycling in America." It thus looked like genuine chance for both sides to prove that listening and sharing ideas could move things forward. As if he knew how unstable the arrangement was, Dr. Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado at Boulder, wrote in a letter to USA Cycling (USAC): “The role of your committee is presumably to offer expert perspectives to inform your internal decision making. How you make those decisions is the business of USAC. Other sports organizations have rejected certain experts for political or perception reasons – I hope you don't go down that path.”

Those humble hopes for mutual communication and exchange of ideas between Dimeo and USAC proved to be stillborn. Apparently, he was too controversial. After an interview in The Sunday Times (that had a very misleading headline), in which Dimeo proposes to rethink anti-doping, including a reconsideration of what is included (or not) on the WADA prohibited list. Dimeo’s comments were consistent with his scholarship and had been presented on numerous occasions before (e.g. in this and in this article). Given their support for Dimeo as a “leading international scholar,” Dimeo’s position could thus hardly be a surprise to USAC. Yet following the interview, USAC asked Dimeo to leave the committee since his positions were not in line with WADA’s and the IOC’s anti-doping principles. In light of this, it is puzzling why they first invited him on board and then asked him to leave.

USAC has offered an explanation. In an interview with cyclingnews.com, USA Cycling CEO Derek Bouchard-Hall said that they very well knew Dimeo. “We knew he had unconventional ideas. He challenged the system and asked hard questions such as 'is this working?', 'are we treating innocent athletes fairly?'. We thought that level of challenge was good. We didn't want a bunch of people with the exact same ideas. We wanted a collection of smart people who think about this and who are willing to challenge what we're doing. That was the whole point of it.” However, the initial heading in The Times (“Legalise drugs and allow blood doping, says sports expert”), apparently caused USAC to change their minds; “That view is completely inconsistent with our view,” Bouchard-Hall said to cyclingnews.com. And so, Dimeo was dismissed. This was despite the fact that Dimeo disagreed with the heading and asked The Times to change it, since he did not find it to be in agreement with what he said.

While this on the one hand side is a story about the power of media, who decided on a position that misrepresented Dimeo’s comments, it is on the other hand also sad to see how a contested media headline can throttle progressive work of anti-doping. USAC knew Dimeo was misquoted (he told them). They knew he was a great scholar, but that he was controversial. The organisations’ unwillingness to back their committee chair when misleading media headlines occurred shows how much public perception weighs on their minds. Unless they want more of the same, anti-doping work has to become less sensitive, more mature and willing to listen to what may be perceived as uncomfortable ideas and arguments, disregarding a provoking headline in a newspaper. Otherwise, the call for academics to collaborate is hollow. When asked, three INDR members stepped forward as unpaid advisors willing to offer their time and energy to help apply their research to USAC’s anti-doping mission. As Dimeo noted on Twitter after USAC’s decision “I'm looking forward to the next time someone says 'the problem with you academics is you just criticize and don't try to help.'” (See also Paul Dimeo’s comments on the events to The Sports Integrity Initiative)

The More things Stay the Same…

While new issues emerge, it is also refreshing that new research on doping and anti-doping continues to push our knowledge forward. We are pleased that the INDR Special Issue with the journal Performance Enhancement and Health is off to the (digital) printers and should be appearing shortly. Look for links to the final volume here on PEH’s home page and through the INDR’s website.

Also, we are pleased to share that discussions for the 2017 INDR conference are already in the works. Although more than a year away, make sure you block your summer vacations (for those in the North) and lectures (for those in the South) from our usual August time slot. Our next newsletter should announce the conference theme, dates, and keynotes, so stay tuned. With so much changing, it will be good to visit Aarhus once again to share research with scholars, both familiar and new.

Also in this newsletter…

We have two interesting commentaries by Professor Sigmund Loland and Dr. Dominic Sagoe.

In his thought provoking commentary, Loland takes on a defence of anti-doping via a reassessment of the contested notion of the Spirit of Sport. Loland’s argument aims at reaching “a more precise interpretation of ‘the spirit of sport’ with improved action-guiding potential“. Is Loland successful? Read the commentary and make your own assessment. It is worth reading Loland’s commentary together with that of Peter Bonte from March 2015.

Sagoe in his commentary draws attention to the use of anabolic adrogenic steroids (AAS) outside elite sports. He calls for more awareness of the issues of polypharmacy and stacking often involved in recreational athletes’ use of AAS and the associated health consequences with these regimes. As Sagoe argues, there is a whole array of interconnected problems regarding use, causes, health consequences and treatment when it comes to the unregulated use of AAS. The clandestine nature of production, distribution and use of drugs in this field means that our knowledge is still heavily lacking.

Lastly, we want to draw your attention to this job opportunity as a Lecturer in “Sport Coaching or Sport Management” in Stirling, which may be to you or your colleagues’ interest: see the call at University of Stirling's Website.