Doping in sports

PERHAPS the only task as hard as catching athletes using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) is determining their punishment. On one hand, doping undermines sports’ integrity, and harsh sanctions are needed to deter participants from trying to cheat. On the other, many athletes who have at some point used banned substances were among the world’s best in their disciplines even before they began doping. Tournaments cannot claim to crown true champions if they exclude the top competitors indefinitely.

Much progress has been made in developing more and better methods to detect PEDs. This year’s Olympics will see 6,200 tests carried out by around 1,000 agents. But there is not yet any consensus on what should happen to athletes who test positive. In 1999 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set up an independent foundation called the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which was charged both with fighting against PED use and with harmonising rules between countries. Five years later it established the World Anti-Doping Code, which stipulated a maximum two-year suspension for offenders.

That soon came into conflict with pre-existing policies. The IOC itself had implemented a rule preventing any athlete suspended for more than six months on a drug violation from participating in the following Olympics, even if the Games took place after the end of the two-year ban. The two organisations fought it out at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)—another IOC-sponsored body that now acts independently. Last year, the tribunal found in favour of WADA.

This year it was the British Olympic Association’s (BOA) turn to tussle with WADA. The BOA had taken the hardest possible anti-doping line: an automatic lifetime ban from the British Olympic team for any offence carrying a suspension longer than six months. That policy meant that Dwain Chambers, a sprinter who tested positive for a steroid in 2003, and David Millar, a cyclist who had admitted to using erythropoietin, an endurance enhancer, could not compete on their home soil for the 2012 Olympics. The IOC supported the BOA’s no-mercy policy.

But in April the CAS once again ruled in favour of WADA’s more lenient interpretation, putting the BOA in a difficult position. If it refused to abide by the ruling, the Olympic organisers could have declared it noncompliant with WADA regulations and disqualified the entire team. Moreover, the two suspended athletes could also have filed suit against the BOA for acting in restraint of trade. On May 17th the BOA buckled, and duly reinstated Mr Chambers and Mr Millar.

Nonetheless, although both the IOC and the BOA lost their battles with WADA, they have not abandoned their quest for tougher punishments. WADA is currently consulting on a new draft of the anti-doping code, which will be finalised in late 2013. The IOC and BOA are expected to lobby heavily for longer suspensions, and a number of other national Olympic associations are leaning that way as well. Walter Nicholls, a British sports lawyer, says he expects WADA to double the maximum sanction to four years. Lacking the freedom to make its own rules, the BOA must now convince its counterparts from across the globe of the wisdom of harsher penalties.

-C.S.W

source: www.economist.com