Doping

The Olympics are in a few months. They’d throw me out.

Right now, I would fail an Olympic-style drug test so hard it would make your teeth rattle. None of this A sample/B sample business, both specimens would probably just glow in the dark.

Why? Because I’m in the throes of a come-down from a workout that makes Pumping Iron look like Anne of Green Gables, and to survive it I took an array of stimulants which would give most people a coronary just looking at the bottle.

Continue reading "Can professional sport ever really be “natural”?" »

This week’s article by George Galanis in The Punch was an interesting read. But, I’m afraid to say, it mistakenly perpetuated the myth that somehow it is medically safe to use performance enhancing substances in sport. 

Doping has been around as long as competitive sport itself. However, in modern history one of the major catalysts for the prevention of doping in sport was the deaths of athletes resulting directly from doping.

The reality is that athletes have indeed died during and straight after competition because they have doped. The death of Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen during competition at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome (the autopsy revealed traces of amphetamine) increased the pressure for sports authorities to introduce drug testing.

Continue reading "Allowing doping in sport would put lives at risk" »