Dwain Chambers and the drugs-in-sport debate

The BBC recently published a news item online about British athlete and former drug cheat Dwain Chambers and his continued effort to overturn a BOA bylaw and represent Team GB at the Beijing Olympics. The full text of the article can be accessed using the link below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/7482544.stm

Within the article there is a link to a comment page where users can post their thoughts about Dwain Chambers and the whole ‘drugs-in-sport’ issue. Unsurprisingly the issue is a highly contentious one. Among the large number of nuanced perspectives one can identify two distinct factions: the group who feel Chambers should never be allowed to race again and the group who feel – despite varying degrees of disapproval over drug taking – that once someone has served the punishment for their crime they are entitled to a second chance.

The first group, led by a posse of former athletes which includes the shamelessly self-promoting duo of Dame Kelly Homes and Sir Steve ‘I’ve won 5 Olympic Gold Medals’ Redgrave, are a rather witless band of kneedjerkers. They exhibit no signs of having engaged with the issue on any deeper level than, ‘He took drugs. Drugs is bad.’ I have no time for people who display this level of sophistication.

To be fair to the athletes, I have some sympathy with their position. If you had worked unimaginably hard to achieve success, you would understandably hold in contempt those who you felt had taken a short cut. Not only is it unfair, it also undermines the credibility of the profession.

The problem I have is that whilst the sentiments of clean athletes are perfectly valid, maintaining a blanket rejection to the idea of drugs in sport is incredibly naïve and, in the long-term, totally inviable.

On the immediate level, Chambers has served his punishment in accordance with the rules currently laid down and thus should be free to carry on as before. In any other field this would be the case. It is unethical to attempt to move the goalposts in an effort to appease the self-righteous protestations of a small and disproportionately vocal group.

In the longer term we need to change the whole focus of the debate. Instead of asking how we police drugs in sport and what the punishments should be, we need to look at the pressures that have encouraged proliferation. We also need to ask whether there remain genuine arguments against taking PEDs. Perhaps the answer is just to allow use of performance enhancers in sport – after all, human beings have always sought – via the use of technology – to push the boundaries of what is possible.

If synthetic PEDs can be developed that carry only the same risk of conventional forms of performance enhancement (i.e. intensive training, high altitude training, etc.) then why should there continue to be resistance to their use?

If, as is likely, some athletes continue to benefit from undetectable drugs, isn’t it in fact better to level the playing field?