Drugs and Sports Science: Where is the line?

Human sportspeople are, broadly speaking, fitter, faster and stronger than they've ever been. Seven of the top eight male 100m runners are currently active on the international athletics circuit. The days of footballers having to do 10 miles runs to improve their fitness are long gone: in their place are tailored drills that replicate the type of fitness required of a footballers; modern rugby players dwarf their counterparts from the 1970s; Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray are amongst the fittest tennis and strongest players ever; British cycling is the pre-eminent force in both track and road cycling.

These changes are all down to science. I think we can assume that modern day sportsmen and women are not more talented or innately physically superior to those of thirty years ago. Rather, the people behind them - coaches, analysts, nutritionists, physiotherapists - have upped their game. British cyclists are sweeping all before them at the moment, and much of this is due to Dave Brailsford and his much publicised marginal-gains approach to sport. Every facet that shapes an athletics performance is analysed then polished, all that is left for the athlete is to put in the hard work and success seems to come easy. The British approach, it seems, is still some way ahead of the chasing bunch. It is possible that British cycling has a greater pool of talent to choose the best from, but it is likely that the main reason for success is this laboratory approach.

The modern scientific approach has undeniably improved human performance beyond the capabilities of the lone, unaided sportsman. It's methodical, scientific, analytic. Why then, are drugs illegal? The makers of performance enhancing drugs have analysed ways humans can improve athletic capabilities, such as oxygen take-up, recovery methods and improved concentration, and devised a way to target these areas with science. Training programs use science to analyse how the body responds to certain stimuli in an effort to improve the same oxygen take-up, recovery methods and improved concentration that the drugs target.

Is there a difference (apart from effectiveness) between EPO, which supplies the body with more red blood cells, thus boosting its oxygen take-up, and modern compression clothing which (the makers claim) increases blood-flow and aids recovery by artificially expanding blood vessels? One is used by amateurs all over the country and the other is the most reviled aspect of professional sports and carries a prison sentence, and yet what is the difference? Both artificially boost the body's performance beyond what it could do un-aided. I would argue they're two branches of the same tree.

I suspect a large part of the resistance to drugs in sport is the perception that they're seen as improvement without effort: you pop some pills or inject some blood and you're faster and stronger already. This isn't the case because they mostly just allow an athlete to train harder; the improvements in sports science listed above are also intended to allow an athlete to train harder, so morally there is little difference.

I would draw the line at drugs that can endanger the lives of an athlete: EPO thickens the blood and puts an athlete at risk of cardiac arrest: users in the Tour de France have reported having to get up at 2am to do half an hour on the exercise bike in order to keep the heart pumping thick blood around the body in order to stave off a heart-attack. I make no claim to know the dangers of the myriad performance-enhancing drugs, but I'm sure there are quite a number that have a negligible negative impact on a sportsperson's physical well-being.

Should then, governing bodies open up certain performance-enhancing drugs to be used in sport? The line seems arbitrary and blurry. Sport and science are now entwined inextricably; even though when we see a sportsperson perform all we see is the person, they are supported by complex and advanced scientific methods. Certain drugs should be one of those scientific supports.

I'm Ready To Graduate

I’m Ready To Graduate

I’m ready to graduate, three years is enough,

I know what comes next won’t be easy but

I’ve grown up – older, wiser, smarter: I’m tough.

I’m ready to graduate with the world at my feet,

The choices are endless, doors open wide -

A 2:1 in Film & English: one of the élite.

I’m ready to graduate, who needs to have fun?

Getting hammered is childish and stupid and dumb.

…What’s that you’re holding? Is it rum?

I’m ready to graduate, back to the nest

For a while - a year, maybe two, maybe three -

Not long at all, Mum, just a temporary guest.

I’m ready to graduate, my friends aren’t too far,

We can see each other at weekends, right?

It’s easy to get to Hampshire or London without a car.

I’m not ready to graduate but time marches on.

The bell rings, brace yourselves lads, over the top,

We go together into the unknown beyond.

by Malcolm Gledhill