Sport and Elite sport
Exercising is essential for humanity while elite sport might be its antithesis
SummaryWe love our sports. We love to see the competitions, the thrill of victory, even the joy of the rest after a hard training, possibly also the delight during the effort. We, Humans, have evolved and prospered thanks to endurance skills. It gave us the dominance over the other species and over the world. Our evolution from hunters to gatherers and workers allowed us to continue thriving. The transition to a more sedentary lifestyle in the last century bounds us to exercise to fulfill our bodily and mental health needs. Although competitions existed since the dawn of civilizations to test and improve skills and performances, to survive in wars, fights or environmental conditions, we kept inventing new sports and competitions. Following Pierre de Coubertin and others, we developed many events to motivate modern less active citizens to live a better and healthier life. Exercise, sports and competitions are one of the pillars of our modern life; we hate it but we still must exercise; we like it and choose one or more sports; we love it and engage in competitions.
Society has created numerous international competitions as arenas to measure performances. As often with human developments, these have evolved away from the ultimate goal of maintenance of health of human-hood, towards the search for wealth and fame. Sports is now a major industry, and Elite Sports is its marketing window attracting crowds and awe of spectators. It has evolved away from normal human performance and has created an artificial world. Many, incomprehensively, follow avidly performances and athletes. The search for the ultimate place or performance hides the total lack of reality and equality of elite sports.
We were made to believe that modern elite sports are the arena to witness sportsmanship, equality of chances, fairness, human mental strength and tenacity and resolve. Nothing is further from the truth.
If you have the courage to read through this article, and put away the criticism of syntactic or contextual contents which you are bound to develop as you try to reject the logic and reality of life, you might approach differently the elite sport and renew your drive to exercise.
Hopefully, you might grow a love for sport and for all its benefits. As you might have left behind your denial of global warming, you might want also to return to the purity of doing a performance for its own value, safely, cleanly, traditionally, fairly without support, cheat or compensation for yourself and for your health, leaving behind International events, deceit, corruption, exploitation. Beyond the physical benefits of exercises, the social value of doing them within a group, the emulation, camaraderie and sentiment of belonging it brings are the most priced values. Hopefully, you might develop the urge to be your best, but not to be first.
DefinitionsGetting the facts straight2600 years ago Anaximander theorized that humans could not have appeared on Earth in their current form, implying evolution was real. There was a long rest in these thoughts thanks to the obscurantism of religions, when, finally, some daring thinkers, such as Carl Linneaus, published first alternatives to the imposed creationism. Count Leclerc de Buffon, in 1753 proposed a common ancestry to all four legged creatures. Lamarck was the first to show evolution of species in 1793, followed by many others such as Erasmus Darwin, William Wells, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Grant, Lyell, Blith, even Chambers in 1844, and Wallace and Charles Darwin in 1858.
These were the starting blocks to comprehend human evolution and the divergence from other species and even from other mammals. This unveiled the leading reason for the survival and expansion of Humans, otherwise defenseless. It was the endurance requirements to relentlessly chase preys which led to the loss of hair to the profit of sweat glands allowing the heat regulation of the body, and to the ability to hunt and communicate in groups. We barely start to comprehend why physical exercise is so important for us. We are built to move, and constraint activities lead to health issues. Endurance exercises help clean our body through increased vascularization. Stems Cells flows in larger numbers when we exercise, helping and strengthening arteries organs, preventing cancers, mending tissues, providing anti-bodies, even reinforcing bone structures where needed. Cardiovascular and Neuronal health are directly linked to exercising in many studies.
Our society of couch potatoes, with TV and electronic games is slowly realizing that exercise is still the key to our health and crucial to our survival. In the 1970, the average Englishman walked 12 km per day, while it reduced to 0.8km per day in 2014, and even half of that in the US. Although sport is an important pastime, the average person in the US only spends 30 minutes daily practicing sport. It is a one-fifth of the time watching TV, and half of that playing computer games.
Many still deny the science behind Global Warming. Unfortunately, it is even easier to deny the science behind the benefits of sports because it implies that the individual actually acts on it. Exercising regularly brings countless recognized, mental and health benefits. We are starting to understand the mechanisms which contrives these benefits.
What do we mean by Sport?The origin of the word comes from old French term “desport” meaning “entertainment”, but the Oxford definition is now focus on physical exercise: “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment”. It can also be defined as “An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.” From there, we branch to competition: “The activity or condition of striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others. A test of skill or ability; a contest.”
Purpose of competitionOne of the main purpose of competition and of sport is to see the limits of the body at performing various functions; how high can one jump, how quick can one run or swim, how long can one swim or run, how strong is Man at lifting things, how flexible, or even what are the limits of endurance. Comparison to other species has always been a favorite, but no matter how we do it, we will only be bound to our own physiologies. Yes, we can beat a snail at high jump, but most species are better than we are, even insects. Competitions within our own specie do permit to push athletes towards further limits. We keep breaking records and records of all types will be bettered over time.
We do want to establish Man’s general limits, but perhaps more important is pushing one’s own limits or progress over time to see how “healthy” one can be. The competition permits an evaluation of one’s capacities versus these records and perhaps compare athletic and health levels.
Benefits for trainingAthletes and coaches improve also the techniques for each exercise. These techniques can be for efficiency to gain speed, height or length, or to be able do more within the time, or even to avoid injuries from wrong repeated movements. In this context, competition becomes important and necessary. It allows each individual to see if the exercise is done properly, if it can be done better in comparison to others, or if one should push one’s limits further. Breaking records is an important indicator for humanity on the efficiency of movements, but is not as valuable for each individual to improve his own performance.
To enhance the training, workouts are best done in groups. For collective sports it seems obvious that the success of a team depends of the cohesion of the group. Individual capabilities of the team members must be somewhat homogeneous for the team to perform well. Working out as a team for individual sports seems less obvious but as crucial for success and individual developments. The motivation is increased by working with others. Jogging or swimming alone never brings the same benefits as the emulation of a group. Nothing is more pathetic than the runner, driving to the spa to go on a treadmill, holding firmly on the handle bars with the device at maximum steepness. It does not bring the intended benefits. Training in group reinforces the rules and the respects brought by sports. Lonely joggers, bikers, or swimmers, end-up doing boring and inefficient exercise. Set workouts with mixed intervals and variety renders the performance and the efficiency extremely valuable. Most important however, is the social aspect of training in groups; the social interaction before, during and after the training.
Issues and Premises
We can agree that sports and physical exercise are important for humanity’s healthy survival. Competition is a good mean to measure differences, progress and efficiency of doing exercises properly, and finally attest to the limits Man can achieve in general or individually.
We could end this article with this and be content. Sports is important, and competition helps in motivation and measurements. Indeed, all “sports” have rules and organized events help in measuring accurately, over time, comparable performances.
Is it really so?
Sports and competitions have become extremely commercial and many of us watch avidly the performances. That would be fine if the comparison could be fair. If we change the premises such as the access to sport, the technology, the rules or enhance the performance in any manner possible, we lose the sought effects.
Issue 1: Social Aspect – Access to sport
Although we seem to praise fair competition at all levels, competition is nothing but fair. The first aspect is the huge discrepancies regarding the ability to train, the accessibilities to facilities, or simply the delay to adapt to new means.
Ability to train.Pierre de Coubertin originally wanted to ban professionals from participating in the early Olympics. His reason was very different from what we expect. His original drive to create the Olympic movements was to permit sedentary high-society members to exercise. “Professionals”, those having professions, should not need to do this and therefore should be excluded. Jesse Owens was almost banned as he obtained money from doing “sport” once. Today, in many countries, top athletes are professionals or semi-professionals, meaning earning directly from their sports and paid to train or perform. Some receive make large amount of money in the most well-known sports, but other get stipends to train full time. We do not make any difference when we watch world events who trains as a profession, from those who are “professionals”, in the sense of the early 1920, i.e. working persons. In the US, athletes get scholarships to train and participate in sports for their Universities, which correspond to equivalent salaries, while getting an education. The ability to train is crucial to success, but can be extremely disparate.
Accessibility to training facilities
The accessibility to facilities is important and differs by sports. Sports facilities such as well-equipped track-and fields, covered for the bad weather, swimming pools, gymnasiums are readily available in some countries, while very rare or simply inaccessible in others. Having the right facilities, available at convenient times and regularly is decisive for athletes. That creates huge differences among nations. This issue is compounded every year as there are an always increasing number of sports. In the first Olympics in 1896, there were 9 sports for 43 events; in 1906, 13 sports for 78 events; under 20 until 1972 for 195 events; Rio 2016 boasted 28 sports for 306 events; and there will be with 33 sports planned in 2020 in Tokyo for 339 events. This is a way to dilute the value of performances. Many nations have no chance in some sports. Winter sports is practically prohibited in all of Africa, and most of Asia and Latin America. Some sports require huge investments like canoeing to have “Olympic grade” facilities to train yearlong. Only 10 or 15 countries have Artificial White water training facilities for Canoeing or Kayak, and a handful have more than one, making it a very restrictive event, as opposed to football or athletics which is more democratic.
Timing towards performanceAbility to train, access to facilities, gradually allows some athletes to compete against top nations. All athletes tend to progress, but to be at the top it is often a matter of timing. Every athlete can get motivated by looking back at previous records or Olympic performances and judges that the record from the one or 2 previous winners are an easy reach. For example, the 200 m Butterfly was won in 2008 by Phelps with 1:52.03 while the 8th did 1:55.14. In 2004 the winner was at 1:54.04 and the 8th at 1:57.48, and in 2000 1:55.35 for the first and the 8th at 1:58.39. Performances rarely jump levels, there are subject to painful straight line progressions. Late comer Nations improves more rapidly but do stay one or more Olympiads back.
The three subjects above are fair and controllable. The social ability to train, the access to facilities and the timing to catch up, are good drive to improve on for nations. The competition allows to measure the gap to reach the top. As spectators, we tend to compare our nation against the others, but we tend to forget that the starting point is not the same. Certainly, the “professionalism’ can be construed as nationalism. Some nations sponsor greatly their athletes, with financial support and perfect facilities and coaches. Is that part of the competition? If we admit that one nation or club can have 20 sponsored or paid athletes training in top facilities, compete against athletes who must pay and work on the side, the view of fair competition is biased.
Issue 2: Technology changes
As seen above, sport is a necessity and a mean to stay healthy in exercising our body. The “competitions” allow us to measure progress, or compare to others better trained athletes. This gives boundaries to potential performances, and motivation or goal settings. We must remain cognizant that not everyone has had the same means and opportunities to train. It is a fair, goal setting avenue to improve, when possible, and gives also limitations to the possible performance each one can expect to achieve.
When we watch sports events, we therefore tend to compare against the top performers, and against previous years to understand the progress, to follow the better means to train our own body and set our own goals.
The second issue for this “comparison” either against top athletes, or over time, is quite biased by changes in technologies. Technics, one can say is the core of the success. These technics and technologies change. It is up to the competitors to adopt these changes in technologies. However, one can argue that if the technology is a driver, then fair competition from a physical and mental state is in question.
In earlier days, the first runners to adopt leather shoes for running had a significant technological advantage, at least, they could run more often and avoid injuries. Pole vaulting changed a lot from its early days, and often the winner was the one with the most technologically advanced pole. Bio mechanics experts calculated that Runners on cinder tracks had a 1.5% difference in efficiency compared to current Tartan surface. In 1936 Jesse Owens won Olympic gold with 10.2 sec for the 100m dash. Usain Bolt won in 2013 with 9:86 sec. Owens would have been 4.3m behind. But he ran on cinder after digging little holes to anchor his feet. Bolt had a starting block on a surface designed to maximize response. According to calculations, Owens would only have been one stride behind with the same premises although he did not have the sophisticated training facilities, trainers, videos to correct any movements to a maximum efficiency, nor did he have anyone in front. In 1954 Roger Banister ran the first mile under 4 minutes. Apparently, in 2013 1,314 runners did that. But Roger Banisters on cinders loses energy from each stride. On cinder track, only 530 persons would have done it. That is still a great progress, but Roger Banister was training 45 minutes a day between courses at Medical school while most same performers today train a few hours per days.
Swimming saw also great changes in technology. Johnny Weissmuller broke the record on the 100M Freestyle below 1 minute with 59 sec and then reached 57.4 in 1922. Weissmuller was swimming with his head out of the water, as in Water-polo, with no flip turns, in rough waters, training at best a couple of days per week. Today, many swimmers can beat a minute, but it is not sure how many can do that with the head out of the water. The record for 100m went down of course, but many technological changes occurred since then. Lane lines cutting turbulences, better pools, the flip-turn in 1956 allowed a drop the record by 2 sec. In 1976, introduction of gutters on the side of the pool reduces turbulences led to another abrupt drop of 2 sec. In 2008 Full body suits led to another 1.5 sec. Obviously, style and training methods have improved as well and contribute to an “acceptable” and normal improvement of the performances.
Open water swimming which existed before pools were built, should have remained free of technology, except for the advance of wetsuits always more technical. The advantages are greater from 15 to 20% in speed with reduction of effort. When open water swimming became popular, wet-suits did not exist, at least not for swimming. Today, differences in suits affect tremendously the performances un-levelling the field and leading to unfair competition.
One most obvious measured technology feature is in cycling. In 1972 Eddy Mercks beat the record for the hour, completing 49.43km. Over time, that record improved until 1996 when it was set at 56.78km, almost 7km or 15% more. In 2000, the UCI decided that cyclists had to use the same bike as Mercks… the record dropped to 49.68km, or just 250m farther than in 1972 or ½%. Technology was the proven source of improvement of the records.
The shaving of the body became popular in the 70s for swimming and cycling. Johnny Weissmuller certainly did not shave. Is shaving providing an unfair advantage. Obviously hairy body type would have disadvantages, but the competition would be “natural”.
There is an unfortunate tendency to find ways to beat earlier performances, or competitors. When these ways are artificial, or technological, that would be unfair competition. Triathlon by combining 3 sports is a good example. A triathlon is actually mostly biking with some running and a bit of swimming. The now famous grueling event, the Ironman, is 3.8 km swimming, 180 km biking and 42 km running, which is 1.7%, 80.1% and 18.2% of the distances respectively. Of course these disciplines do not cover the same ground, but for the better triathletes, swimming requires 45 minutes, biking 5 to 6 hours and the marathon 3 hours, that is 7.5 % of the time for swimming, 62% for the biking and 31% for the running. With such a heavy portion of biking, triathletes spend fortunes to get $10,000 bike which will be the main driver for success. They also lead the swimming with wetsuits technology always more performing. Wetsuits increase speed by 10 to 15%, while reducing the effort and the energy consumed. We move quickly away of the meaning of sport and exercise, when technology is so prevalent. The pure “exercising” portion is minimized, and becomes undemocratic given the barrier of entry to compete at a fair level. Imposed equipment should be the norm, as for the Sailing Tour de France with the same boat types.
These above are sports where technology, we would have thought, should have little influences. Many individual sports which require some equipment have technology driving performances from boating to archery to canoeing.
This is also visible in the booming industry of sport shops or gyms. Treadmills were created to allow very controlled pace, and training during harsh weather, too hot or too cold. Now every hotel, city even homes have treadmills, rowers, indoor bikes.
Nutrition can even be classified as technology. In the early days of sport, it was an unknown or at least misunderstood concept. Counter effects would have been expected, as the marathon runners in the 1900 Paris Olympics were given Cognac during the race. Many, as myself, were given a good steak and fries before finals to “be stronger”, probably the worst nutrition before a race. Which older athlete remembers taking a bottle a water on the side of the pool or next to the tracks? Nowadays, most athletes bring liquids and nutrients to every practice. Even Sunday joggers run with hydration packs on their backs or belts. The content has even evolved to space worthy nutrients combination designs. These contains, besides liquids, vitamins, electrolytes, sugars, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, in perfectly dosed portions for each type of exercise. No long distance event does without these body enhancing technologies. How much faster would the athletes of the past have been with these products before or during the race. The athletes or nations which do not have access to such feeding technologies, at training, before, during and after the race have a strong disadvantage.
Summary Technology.
Training facilities, training methods, technology changes including nutritional improvements can obviously have a tremendous effect on performances. Should they be used? If exercising the body is the goal, using changing the technology should not be the aim. It should probably be the opposite and use rougher conditions to maximize the exercise. Similarly, if fair competition should have meaning, technology should be minimized. Technology is becoming more prevalent and the most important driver for performances, in all sports and it improves rapidly. When races can be wan in hundredth of second, technology shift can be more important than actual performance. Amateur sports are often the first to jump on the band-wagon, and sports equipment marketers are rubbing their hands.
Why not enforcing a back to basics for all?
Issue 3: Enhancements
The push to performance, actually the push to win at any costs has driven many, if not all athletes to find booster products of any type. Doping is on every one’s mind, as everyone closes the eyes on reality. There is no interest, at any level, to catch someone not respecting the rules, as it only brings a negative image to the culprit sport. Sports is driven by Federations which thrive for recognition and compete for importance to attract more spectators, more participants, and more funds. The more athletes one federation can boast the more important it becomes at the national or international level. To make the sport more attractive, more spectacular, records must be broken to always enhance interest. Recently, federations must also give the impression to be clean and well-regulated on the one side, while allowing better performances to boost fame or awareness.
To maintain a clean image while providing better performances there are a few alternative solutions. The avenue favored by most has been to allow many drugs as “legal”. That is the easiest for any federation as conflict and control becomes unnecessary and public opinion is satisfied. The second is to allow TUE (Therapeutic Usage Exemption). These relieves the Federation from testing and avoid legal battles with lawyers of rich athletes which can only tarnish the reputation of the sport. The third is obviously the testing, which must appear well-organized, and thorough. For that, Federations have set-up an outside organism, the WADA (World Anti-doping Agency), which controls the delinquent athletes relieving federation from further implication.
The transition towards a “doping” behavior of Athletes is usually gradual. The first step is often the intake of readily available allowed food supplements such as iron, magnesium, mineral salts or vitamin cocktails. The move towards more effective substances is relatively quick once the habit has settled. Athletes quickly move on the band wagon, on their own, pushed by coaches, eager to get publicity and fame, by clubs to get more adherents, by sponsors who want results for their investments, by the public demanding performances, even by the federations, or the nations thriving for public image. The system can be very pernicious as some substances are allowed, some are difficult to detect, some can be hidden, some with well-controlled intake can be virtually undetectable.
Legal enhancements drugs
The most practical solution for all federations is to simply allow drugs. No federation has a vested interest to add drugs on lists of illicit products or to study the effect of the drugs on their sport. There are therefore many allowed known substances which are probably performance enhancing.
One recent famous example was Meldonium. Meldonium increases the vascularization of the heart muscle, reduces the cardiac rhythm, bringing more oxygen to the heart muscle. In such, it increases the endurance and helps to recuperate from efforts. The product exists since the 1970s. It was in common use for many decades specially in the Eastern Europe, but only came on the prohibited list in 2016. There are many more “Meldoniums” in the world, but who would have a vested interest to bring these forwards. It only brings a new negative image, and a new drug to tests against. Closing one’s eye is so much easier.
Creatine is a very widely used drugs in the world, and does not require prescriptions in many countries and therefore is widely available on the web. Creatine is a small peptide made of three amino-acids: glycine, arginine and methionine. Non-essential Amino-Acides produced by the body from the consumption of proteins at a rate of 1 or 2 g per day. In short, Creatine can quickly help the creation of muscle mass, reduce the fat content of the muscle, and could increase the strength by 0.5 to 10% according to some studies. It is helpful for short, repetitive efforts such a sprints or weight training, but some effects have been shown on endurance sports as well. Since no one dares make a reliable clinical studies on the product, it is allowed by all federations, and many companies advertise and compete for sales. It is estimated that 50% of the US college athletes use Creatine. The sales in 2000 were $300mio, and are estimated to be way over a $1 billion today in a $3 Billion nutritional business. Dosage suggested starts at 20g per day. It is difficult to imagine that it is not effective, and who would finance a clinical study to prove, or disprove, its effects. The sports nutrition market was 8.6 billion Kg in 2013 and is expected to be 14.7 in 2020 (Source Statista), much higher than the volume dispended for malnutrition in developing countries.
Caffeine is a commonly used substance. It is used as a short term stimulant, and it increases blood pressure, increases pulse rate, stomach acid, breaks down fat stores and releases fat contents into the blood stream. Apparently, this last effect seems to delay the depletion of glycogen in the muscle by 50% allowing the athlete to work longer before exhaustion. It is now commonly used in long distance events over 2 hours. The authorities allow a 12mg per liter of urine, corresponding to 8 good cups of coffee. However, there are available guideline to ensure that the level would be lower by the time athlete would have to be tested after the competition.
One of the most confusing whereas most widespread use of a performance enhancing substance is Salbutamol, the anti-asthma drug widely sold under the Ventoline or other brand names. It is a Beta2 Agonist as Clenbuterol, a forbidden substance. It was discovered in 1966, and in 1972 became forbidden when doping controls were first initiated. The 16 Years old Rick DeMont, lost then his gold medal of the 400m freestyle at the Munich 1972 Olympics, after a positive test for Ephedrine in his Asthma medication Marax. In 1986, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) permitted the use inhaled Salbutamol, although other Beta2 Agonist were not. However, in 1990, given the very steep rise of users, it allowed the use of Beta2-Agonist provided proof of Asthma was given. Every puff of Ventoline (oral) increases the oxygen consumption by 0.3 liter which is very critical for anabolic sports. For Swimming that it the most critical restriction of performance. Rick Demont, but also Mark Spitz the 7 Olympic gold medalist were “asthma sufferers”. This can also be classified as “new technology” as swimmers can today easily do the more efficient 15 meters newly allowed under-water glide with dolphin kicks for each length. “Non-asthmatic” swimmers would have no chance. Now, Phelps and others can easily swim the 400 Individual Medley, the most demanding and oxygen usage intensive event in swimming, doing under-water glides of 15 meters for each of the 8 lengths when any other as highly trained swimmers “not-asthmatically declared” would beg for air before each turn. This Salbutamol is used widely instead of the forbidden Clenbuterol as anabolic steroid. WADA allows the exemption for 1,600 micrograms over 24 hours divided in doses not over 800 micrograms for 12 hours which correspond to 8 puffs of Ventoline. According to the medical precautionary usage of the product, the first 4 inhalations are a maximum per day, and the other 4 additional should be done under hospital supervision. The WADA allowed 8 inhalations per day should correspond to the 1000ng/ml threshold in urine samples. In 2007 the cyclist Petacchi was “caught” with 1,352 ng/ml way above his prescription. In 2014 Ulissi was caught with 1,920 ng/ml and was suspended by his Swiss Federation, as he could not provide any explanation. Froome, the multiple tour de France Winner, was tested with over 2000ng/ml but was relaxed as his team provided “acceptable” usage. The drug has a half-life in the body of 5 to 6 hours, and all traces have disappeared within 24 hours. If you consider that 8 puffs a day should be done under hospital supervision, giving a threshold of 1000ng/ml urine, that the degradation is 50% every 6 hours, and that 2000ng.ml is now acceptable, this becomes truly ridiculous. Salbutamol is available as tablet, liquid and suppository which in theory are not allowed for athlete, but no one can detect the pharmaceutical form. Instead of fighting it, the Sports Authorities have relaxed requirements for TUEs for this product, and today a simple declaration of usage by the doctor is required. Most elite athletes “have” Asthma. 76% of the swimmers are declared asthmatic, and 80% of the cross-country skiers (The Physician and Sports Medicine Sept 2011, 39 (3); 163-170). Of course supporters mention that athletes breathe much more air than normal persons and therefore have a greater risk of developing allergic reactions. Cold air for winter athlete is pointed out, and chlorine for swimmers. Only 8% of the children developed asthma in 2016. The percentage of 80% for all endurance sports athletes is mindboggling. Medical profession suggests that a good warm-up can avoid getting asthmatic attacks during competition. With the support of the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Medical Profession declared “Exercised-induced asthma” as a pathology in 1990s. This allowed the market for Salbutamol to explode and from an 8% maximum market to much higher levels with much higher posology.
Asthma is potentially a restriction for performance, for the 8% population affected, if an attack happens during a competition, which can be minimized with proper preparation. Today, a non-declared asthmatic has virtually no chance to reach the top in most sports. Is it a real help for society or to athletes? Is it used as an enhancement to increase oxygen consumption and performance? Is it an avenue to take B2 agonist? Given such a widespread usage, such high dosage allowed, it is difficult to believe that this drug would lead to clean sport performances. May be, there should be competitions separating declared asthmatics from others.
Therapeutic Usage Exemption (TUE)
There are quite a few drugs which have been banned as clearly enhancing performance potential. Some are prohibited at all time such as Anabolic, Peptides Hormones, Human growth Hormones, Beta-2 Agonist (except Ventoline), Hormones and metabolic Modulators, Diuretics and masking agents. Others are prohibited only during competitions: Stimulants, Narcotics, Cannabinoids, Glucocorticoid steroids. There are other groups which results in a list of 100 to 150 unapproved known molecules. That excludes of course, blood doping or other non-detectable methods.
However, through various push by World Federations, Athletes, sports promotors and the Medical field, the TUE process was created, to allow some athletes to take some of these drugs as "required to treat an illness or condition."
TUEs are used extensively, bypassing the “doping” list prohibition. TUEs permits to take virtually all banned substances. When the Fancy Bears, Russian hacking group, threaten to release medical records of some athletes, which includes TUEs, the world of sports went crazy. But only a few names were revealed and the matter was washed down. Was it due to the “limited” access to medical records? Due to some national deal of black-mailing (it was a following a Russian “discovery of sponsored doping allegation)? Due to private deal with some athletes? Nevertheless, TUEs are well kept secrets of all athletes and nations. Australia estimates that there were 200TUEs in 2012 already, for 58 sports. There was a TUE for methylphenidate (Ritalin), a molecule used for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) mostly for children, but used as a stimulant for athletes. Every year, swimming, Cycling, Athletics have the highest number of TUEs. This well-kept secrets do not include just asthma drug which does not even require a TUE as mentioned earlier. The usage of TUE, besides ADHD includes Hydrocortisone, insulin, oxycodone, human growth hormone and testosterone.
The Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is also a good example. Synthetic human growth hormone was developed in 1985 and approved by the FDA for specific uses in children and adults. In children, HGH injections are approved for treating rare genetic disorders, Chronic Kidney disease and short stature of children. For adult, it is intended for short bowel syndrome, rare pituitary tumors, and muscle wasting disease resulting from HIV. However, the worldwide need for this drug for these intended needs is less than 1 % what the current sales would predict. The main usage is for enhancement of performances. HGH simply helps build muscle useful for short burst event, but also helps tired muscle to recuperate faster, allowing athletes to train harder and more often. Apparently, it is also used as a cocktail with other drugs, such as steroids.
Why would top ranking athletes of any sport suffer such rare diseases and need these very specific drugs to, in theory, “even the fields” is at best very questionable.
CBD, Cannabidiol, present in Cannabis is sometimes prescribed as post cancer treatment. Some Athletes use CBD as pre-workout to increase the intensity of workouts and lower the pain threshold. It is supposed to help in the recovery.
These are some examples of drugs present in TUEs of athletes. Former cancer sufferers, who were mediocre athletes have become top ranking once affected, possibly thanks to TUEs. Testosterone, HGH, EPO have been pointed out as involved in the development of prostate, testicular and ovarian cancers.
Athletes do not know if their competitors have TUEs for these or other drugs. The usage of TUEs is quite wide-spread. At least, the TUEs of athletes should be open, or at the very least athletes having TUEs should be mentioned.
Drug Testing
Performance enhancing substances have been used since sport exists. The products were similar to the one used by various society to increase the fierceness of warriors in battles. In 1967 the IOC establishes the first commission on doping with the first drug testing in 1968 in the Olympics in Grenoble and Mexico mostly testing for narcotics, analgesics and stimulants, as tests for anabolic steroids were not available. During the 1972 Olympics, 2000 samples were taken disqualifying 7 athletes, but only on stimulants. In Montreal only under 800 tests were taken, and tests included steroids resulting in the disqualification of 1.4% of the athletes. In 1983, during the PanAm games, surprised testing, with a new test for steroids resulted in many athletes withdrawing from the games.
Although never caught, an East German coach admitted to decades of doping, pointing already the weaknesses of the tests. Since roughly the 1980s, the drug controls are being organized with an international institution created, the WADA (World Anti-doping Agency) in 1999, following the first World Conference on doping in Lausanne in Feb 1999. The WADA is set-up as a foundation. Since then, many an athlete have been either caught or have admitted to taking drugs as doping. Several have been suspended, some escape suspension or were given reduced suspension for many sometimes odd reasons.
Doping is a very prevalent activity for athletes. Over 30% of athletes participating in 2011 World Championships admitted having used banned substances during their careers. WADA estimates that 44% of them had used them while only 0.5% of those tested were caught. Testing has a cost, and it would be high if done properly. The Australian Anti-doping authority estimates that regular testing of athletes should costs around $40,000 per athlete per year. WADA is non-profit organization set-up originally by the IOC. Its foundation board and Executive Board are composed mainly of sports related public authorities. The total funding is roughly $30 million per year. Overall, ARTE investigation revealed some alarming numbers relative to doping costs. It is 0.073% of the estimated world doping revenues of $30 Billion – 0.003% of the estimated world revenues from sport of $700 billion. The cost of a doping regimen of a basic athlete is $6000 per year (including Ozone, Creatine, Ventolin, Amino Acid), $30,000 for an international athlete to get EPO, Testosterone, HGH, and $100,000 for top athletes with more sophisticated products. The salary of the Guru doping doctors is over $6 million – Russia, China and India produce, as expected 40% of the doping substances with 70 tons of testosterone, and 700 tons of Steroids are produced every year. The estimation is that 8 million athletes dope regularly to use these substances despite the fact that less than 2% of tests are positive. Of the 10 men who ran below 9.80 second on the 100m, 9 were controlled positive. The USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) had revenues from grants of $21.6 Million in 2017, and expenses of $11.3 Million for testing. With that budget it completed 6,480 tests. Only 400 to 500 tests for the year were for swimming which has 2,800 swim clubs. 2000 tests were performed for track and fields for its 130,000 registered athletes, basically 1.5% chance to be tested once that year when each athlete should be tested multiple times per year. That is still much more than for Basketball with 12 tests, or American Football 9 or even baseball 0. Even in Olympic sports, that seems puny in view of just the IOC making revenues of $3.5 billion in 2016 alone. That means that 0.8% of that goes to testing. The IOC is only one of the profiteer of sports. The revenue of the 100th earner athlete is more than the spend for drug testing for the nation. Even in nations testing more, such as France with its 10,000 tests made, that is not sufficient but still 5 times more than the US a nation roughly 10 times larger.
Testing is the main tool to catch culprits one would think. However, there are many reasons why this is not efficient.
Clenbuterol is a beta2 agonist as the allowed Ventolin. It allows quick loss of weigh, it increases aerobic capacity, blood pressure and oxygen transport among others. This widely used substance available before the 1980s, became detectable only 12 years after in 1992 and led to many positive controls of many famous athletes.
Levothyrox is the newer molecule not yet on the list providing apparently a triple effect of anabolic, stimulant and weight reduction. It is apparently widely used by most endurance athletes (long distance, cycling, triathlon...)
6.Test security
With the $millions involved, it is expected that someone might try to circumvent the procedures to ensure negative results. First, the sample testing, despite what is shown with the “tester” always present, is not as safe as expected. Second, testers are people too. One can imagine, a poorly compensated tester, might close his eyes when testing a multimillionaire athletes and his lawyers. Third, we assume that the test labs are also secured. They are not banks, and with millions at the end, one can imagine that the labs can be tempered with. That is when the whole country is not behind it, as in Russia in 2016. But we can be sure that Azerbaijan, Turkey or even China, would spend without restraint to ensure the perfect safety of samples during the whole process… especially given that catching a local athlete would result in negative image. The whole Russian track and field team was banned from the 2016 Olympic Games, because the Russian State had sponsored their doping program.[11]
7.Test avoidance
One easy way to avoid test is not being present. Many an athlete “miss” being present for a surprised test. Usually, the penalty is minimal, and the damage for the athlete’s reputation is minimized. To the public, that is very acceptable, as athlete quickly come to the press to point the many restrictions and being “forced” to submit whereabouts. The public easily excuses the poor athlete, training already so hard. However, if one takes into consideration the small window of traceability of many drugs, and the relative rarity of the “surprise” tests, missing one “surprise test” for a slap on the finger can be a quick passage. That is, when the “surprise” are indeed one, and partners are not informed ahead of time. A very common way to avoid surprise is to travel to faraway places to minimize the chances of being tested. Have you ever wonder why your best team goes on oxygenation trips, or training camps? Of course, Anti-doping Agencies can travel, and the athletes and coaches are supposed to give their whereabouts, but seeing the puny budget of all doping agencies of the world, travelling to Kenya, South Africa or Oceania seems to be at best strange. Of course, coaches and federation emphasize the need for their athletes to diversify the routines, but one wonders why they would travel so far to facilities much less advanced then their own.
With the pressure for performance and the increasing competitions for notoriety between federations, athletes are pushed towards artificial enhancement. The IOC, the nations and the Federations, spend on communication but pay only lip-service to control of performances. They simply allow many performance enhancing drugs (Ventolin, creatin) closing eyes on ridiculously expanding usage. They created TUEs for extremely hard drugs, closing the curtain on transparency and avoiding potential legal issue and negative discussions. They allow totally unreasonable threshold of treatment basically allowing many other drugs and “enforcing” utilization. They put tiny amounts for testing just for Public Relation purposes which really should be slap in the face of the public. For the public, the sheer volume of many drugs sales many, many folds higher than the expected “real” therapeutic usage of “real” patients, should be the eye opener. The revenues from sports, from pharmaceutical drugs and other profiteers so much outweigh the drive for some transparency, that drug testing potential is generations behind drug development, drug usage. Yes, we cannot do anything against these facts. The worst we can do, for sport, is believing that federation and IOC play a fair game. We must just consider that it is a spectacle, but not sport.
Issue 4: Genetics
Thanks to science, we have finally accepted that evolution is the key to our bodies functions and physiology. Genetics have helped refined the changes and differences in human bodies, shapes and even performances. We know that we have evolved to survive not through our speed, pure strength, majestic or minute size, our sharp claws, teeth or poisonous bites or sting, but merely through our potential for endurance allowing us to chase food to exhaustion, exchanging our hair for sweat glands in the process, and developing an ability to think forward and in groups. We still share 60% of our genome with fruit flies and chickens, 80% with cows, 90% with cats although they all look quite different and have very different capabilities. Chimpanzees could be 98% similar to humans. These 2% make huge difference in what chimps and humans can do. There are variations within the human species of 0.5%. These 0.5% can make significant variances in abilities and physical performances. These can be significant such as adaptation to high altitude, speed with the percentage of fast twitching muscle cells, blood content, strength and length of bones and of tendons, and many others, which can result in very different performances.
Sport is supposed to be a way to excel, to build a mind and to try to find one’s limits. Over the years, as in other areas, we have created events to improve human performance. With the support of the media, and the sponsors, we focus on the performances and the stars that accomplish them. To achieve higher levels of performance, more specialized athletes are needed. To win and to reach new peaks, athletes do not just train harder and better. Above all, it is necessary to have the adequate physiology. The East Germans understood this well in the 1970s, which might be commendable in itself. Why make a child believe that he will be a great basketball player, if he will never measure more than 1m 70, or a tumbling gymnast if he is likely to be 2m10 tall? Genetic differences are better understood today, and the pool of athletes is becoming universal, when it was a tiny fraction of the population a few decades ago.
Size is the most measurable feature. Man size have increased greatly during the last 2 millennia. The average of the current man is 1.75 meters. The 16,000 BC bone remains indicate that the average Man was 1.80, and the size steadily decreased to 1.62 meters in 4,000 BC. It increased again with some variation around the 16s century, but it was 1.73 meters a thousand years ago. The average size was 1.75 in 1929, the same as today. There are variations of course by ethnicity and country. However, for athletes, the sizes changed more rapidly. One interesting aspect is the changes in BMI (Body Mass Index) which has increased tremendously in the last decade for some sports. Some study points that the increase in BMI can only be linked to the use of steroids.
With little universal body changes in humanity, the body of athletes have changed extremely rapidly. Basically, athletes have specialized morphology, and physiology for each performance. The main driver of performance is the selection to the sport, and not the training.
In 1920, the average high jumper or shot putter were the exact same size. Then self-selection went on. Today the difference in size 6.4 cm taller for the high jumper, and 59kg heavier for the shot-putter. The NBA searches the globe for Basketball players body types. The proportion of players at least 2.10-meter-tall doubled to 10% in the NBA, despite the fact that the proportion of that size person is the same today as it ever was. It is such a rare feature that there is a 17% chance that these people are playing in the NBA today. The average NBA player is 2 meters today. So one would think size is the only factor. Not quite! Basketball players need not only be tall, but must have above average relation heights to wingspan. For the Da Vinci Vitruvian man, outspread arms are equal to height. The average 2-meter-tall NBA player has average arms at 2.13m. That is just the visible and measurable features. More features are advantages as well.
All sports have specialized feature which give great advantages. The average size the 100 m freestyle finalist swimmer in the 3 past Olympics is 1.88m. However, the bigger advantage is the wingspan over the body. Phelps is 1.93, but his wingspan is 2.03m. It was the same with Michael Gross winning 4 gold medals with his 2-meter height and 2.13 wingspan, and Mark Spitz with his unusually long arms despite his 1.83 height already in the 70s. But size and arm lengths and the disproportion thereof is not all that gives advantages. This is only the visible feature. Many swimmers have long feet and hands and often, the top one, disjointed ankles, giving extra flexibility for the kicks with maximum efficacy. These is not great for weight lifting or ice skating but great for swimming. Phelps has long arms but proportionally very short legs. In modern swimming, great efficient underwater dolphin kicks are now allowed for 15 meters after each turn. This is useful for freestyle, backstroke and Butterfly. For breastroke, only one dolphin kick is allowed. This change for the three strokes implies that with a great underwater dolphin kick you can thrive in all three disciplines. The long torso, short legs, and extremely flexible ankles gives a great advantage to those swimmers. That is why Phelps could win in all three strokes. Of course, others also have these morphological features, but the extent of them makes the difference.
On the other hand, if you have short arms and long legs, you would have no chance. This is the case for Hicham El Guerrouj, world record holder in many events from the 1500m to the 5000m tracks. El Guerrouj is only 1.75, compared to Phelps at 1.93, but both have the same length of legs.
New population joined in with genetics advantages. The Kenyans are the best runners at the time, and more specifically, descendants of the Kalejin tribes (12% of Kenyan population). They are born with very long but very thin legs. This adaptation saves energy while running and the long legs are used as a whip with low energy. Only 17 US highly trained runners have done under 2hour 10 min for the marathon in history. Close to 50 Kalejin men do that every year.
You just not have to be tall for sports. Short can be good as well. When low height is an advantage, like gymnastics, the average size for the gymnast dropped from 1.6m to 1.45m over the last 30 years.
All sports have special anatomic features that give advantages over competitors, even in less popular sports like water polo, the length of the forearm is longer as proportion of the rest of the arm.
But there are many more hidden physiological features which helps. If you are born in the highlands of Africa and have the chance to have a genetic adaptation that allows you a much higher oxygen absorption than other ethnicities, you have every chance to shine at long distance events. If in addition, compared to the generations of population of the Andes, you are not endowed with elongated bodies and proportionally long legs, you are done for the marathon. This is not the case of the native peoples of the plains of West Africa who are born with skeletal muscle fibers with a percentage of fast-acting muscle fibers, much higher than people of Caucasian origins. These permits them to excel in sprint and explosive activities. This is without counting on the Achilles tendons adapted to this kind of exercise which allows the sprinters to spend 60% in the air after each impulse. Training can only allow some compensation but not the starting platform.
Some sports have been forced to create categories, weight in general to give some a chance. This is the case of boxing, weightlifting and judo. In the larger categories of these sports, the dimensions of the champions become obvious, for the biggest triumph easily.
Genetics are probably the biggest driver for performances. For the average individual, who compares to the performance of top athletes, the outcome can be dramatic. Elite sport should really be an interesting information but not a driver and goal. We should do sport, even competition with that in mind, always. The person in the lane or track or field next to you, has not the same set of genetics. He might be ahead, effortlessly, while the you give it all. Life is not fair, and results are not either.
Conclusion
The media prefers to focus on the merits of great champions and the performances. Should we continue to adulate champions when starting social conditions, training facilities, technologies, very opaque substance enhancing and physiology are each the principle drivers for performance? Although we should not need to care, physical exercise and sport is good for all. Elite sports have taken a totally different route and, as such, becomes detrimental to the perception of sport and performance. It has become completely remote to the common man and woman levels. As it becomes artificial, it is not anymore a criterion of human "performance". Elite sports are not a measure of human performance of any kind, nor a display of equality, fairness, mental strength, or resolve. It is an artificial show and not sport.
Real sport is great. Exercise is indispensable for a healthy life. Its benefits are undisputed from cardiologic, neurologic, mental health and intelligence and memory enhancement, heavy pathologies avoidance, cancer risk reduction. We are starting to understand why exercise is good, as progress in the understanding of stem cells and microbiome reveal their first clues. Since our modern lifestyle is more sedentary we must find motivations to step out of the armchairs or desks. Organized sports, competitions can give us these drives. If it becomes unnatural, unfair, artificial, unattainable as in Elite sports it will reduces health in societies. We are not born equal certainly not genetically, but also in means and chances. Sports is a measure against one’s own ability, not against the rest of the world. One does not need the latest shoes, suit, bike, contention socks, carry-on energy drinks to do sports, quite the contrary especially since the next step towards enhancing technologies or medication becomes blurry. We must thrive to be our best, not to be first, for ourselves, not in comparison to others.
PS.: Some information on technology and changes of body types were inspired by David Epstein TED Talk on the subject.
Exercising is essential for humanity while elite sport might be its antithesis
SummaryWe love our sports. We love to see the competitions, the thrill of victory, even the joy of the rest after a hard training, possibly also the delight during the effort. We, Humans, have evolved and prospered thanks to endurance skills. It gave us the dominance over the other species and over the world. Our evolution from hunters to gatherers and workers allowed us to continue thriving. The transition to a more sedentary lifestyle in the last century bounds us to exercise to fulfill our bodily and mental health needs. Although competitions existed since the dawn of civilizations to test and improve skills and performances, to survive in wars, fights or environmental conditions, we kept inventing new sports and competitions. Following Pierre de Coubertin and others, we developed many events to motivate modern less active citizens to live a better and healthier life. Exercise, sports and competitions are one of the pillars of our modern life; we hate it but we still must exercise; we like it and choose one or more sports; we love it and engage in competitions.
Society has created numerous international competitions as arenas to measure performances. As often with human developments, these have evolved away from the ultimate goal of maintenance of health of human-hood, towards the search for wealth and fame. Sports is now a major industry, and Elite Sports is its marketing window attracting crowds and awe of spectators. It has evolved away from normal human performance and has created an artificial world. Many, incomprehensively, follow avidly performances and athletes. The search for the ultimate place or performance hides the total lack of reality and equality of elite sports.
We were made to believe that modern elite sports are the arena to witness sportsmanship, equality of chances, fairness, human mental strength and tenacity and resolve. Nothing is further from the truth.
If you have the courage to read through this article, and put away the criticism of syntactic or contextual contents which you are bound to develop as you try to reject the logic and reality of life, you might approach differently the elite sport and renew your drive to exercise.
- You will see that social context does not even the fields resulting in very unequal chances to shine.
- You will see how technologies, in very unexpected areas, become the main drivers of the wins, giving advantages to the well-sponsored.
- You will see that performance enhancements of all types and from all avenues renders formal competitions a parody of what it is intended to portray.
- With the very effective but allowed substances such as Ventoline, Creatine;
- With the newly created TUEs (Therapeutic Usage Exemptions) permitting any drugs justification;
- With the many drugs not yet known, with no test developed, or simply untestable;
- With the puny funds available for testing;
- With the many avenues to avoid, minimize, or control the tests;
- With the actors having a combined vested interest to bolster these artificial progresses, and to maintain opacity of the performances,
- You will see that genetics shows that we are not born equal as far as performances are involved and that your greatest champions might not deserve your adulation, but possibly only your curiosity.
Hopefully, you might grow a love for sport and for all its benefits. As you might have left behind your denial of global warming, you might want also to return to the purity of doing a performance for its own value, safely, cleanly, traditionally, fairly without support, cheat or compensation for yourself and for your health, leaving behind International events, deceit, corruption, exploitation. Beyond the physical benefits of exercises, the social value of doing them within a group, the emulation, camaraderie and sentiment of belonging it brings are the most priced values. Hopefully, you might develop the urge to be your best, but not to be first.
DefinitionsGetting the facts straight2600 years ago Anaximander theorized that humans could not have appeared on Earth in their current form, implying evolution was real. There was a long rest in these thoughts thanks to the obscurantism of religions, when, finally, some daring thinkers, such as Carl Linneaus, published first alternatives to the imposed creationism. Count Leclerc de Buffon, in 1753 proposed a common ancestry to all four legged creatures. Lamarck was the first to show evolution of species in 1793, followed by many others such as Erasmus Darwin, William Wells, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Grant, Lyell, Blith, even Chambers in 1844, and Wallace and Charles Darwin in 1858.
These were the starting blocks to comprehend human evolution and the divergence from other species and even from other mammals. This unveiled the leading reason for the survival and expansion of Humans, otherwise defenseless. It was the endurance requirements to relentlessly chase preys which led to the loss of hair to the profit of sweat glands allowing the heat regulation of the body, and to the ability to hunt and communicate in groups. We barely start to comprehend why physical exercise is so important for us. We are built to move, and constraint activities lead to health issues. Endurance exercises help clean our body through increased vascularization. Stems Cells flows in larger numbers when we exercise, helping and strengthening arteries organs, preventing cancers, mending tissues, providing anti-bodies, even reinforcing bone structures where needed. Cardiovascular and Neuronal health are directly linked to exercising in many studies.
Our society of couch potatoes, with TV and electronic games is slowly realizing that exercise is still the key to our health and crucial to our survival. In the 1970, the average Englishman walked 12 km per day, while it reduced to 0.8km per day in 2014, and even half of that in the US. Although sport is an important pastime, the average person in the US only spends 30 minutes daily practicing sport. It is a one-fifth of the time watching TV, and half of that playing computer games.
Many still deny the science behind Global Warming. Unfortunately, it is even easier to deny the science behind the benefits of sports because it implies that the individual actually acts on it. Exercising regularly brings countless recognized, mental and health benefits. We are starting to understand the mechanisms which contrives these benefits.
What do we mean by Sport?The origin of the word comes from old French term “desport” meaning “entertainment”, but the Oxford definition is now focus on physical exercise: “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment”. It can also be defined as “An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.” From there, we branch to competition: “The activity or condition of striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others. A test of skill or ability; a contest.”
Purpose of competitionOne of the main purpose of competition and of sport is to see the limits of the body at performing various functions; how high can one jump, how quick can one run or swim, how long can one swim or run, how strong is Man at lifting things, how flexible, or even what are the limits of endurance. Comparison to other species has always been a favorite, but no matter how we do it, we will only be bound to our own physiologies. Yes, we can beat a snail at high jump, but most species are better than we are, even insects. Competitions within our own specie do permit to push athletes towards further limits. We keep breaking records and records of all types will be bettered over time.
We do want to establish Man’s general limits, but perhaps more important is pushing one’s own limits or progress over time to see how “healthy” one can be. The competition permits an evaluation of one’s capacities versus these records and perhaps compare athletic and health levels.
Benefits for trainingAthletes and coaches improve also the techniques for each exercise. These techniques can be for efficiency to gain speed, height or length, or to be able do more within the time, or even to avoid injuries from wrong repeated movements. In this context, competition becomes important and necessary. It allows each individual to see if the exercise is done properly, if it can be done better in comparison to others, or if one should push one’s limits further. Breaking records is an important indicator for humanity on the efficiency of movements, but is not as valuable for each individual to improve his own performance.
To enhance the training, workouts are best done in groups. For collective sports it seems obvious that the success of a team depends of the cohesion of the group. Individual capabilities of the team members must be somewhat homogeneous for the team to perform well. Working out as a team for individual sports seems less obvious but as crucial for success and individual developments. The motivation is increased by working with others. Jogging or swimming alone never brings the same benefits as the emulation of a group. Nothing is more pathetic than the runner, driving to the spa to go on a treadmill, holding firmly on the handle bars with the device at maximum steepness. It does not bring the intended benefits. Training in group reinforces the rules and the respects brought by sports. Lonely joggers, bikers, or swimmers, end-up doing boring and inefficient exercise. Set workouts with mixed intervals and variety renders the performance and the efficiency extremely valuable. Most important however, is the social aspect of training in groups; the social interaction before, during and after the training.
Issues and Premises
We can agree that sports and physical exercise are important for humanity’s healthy survival. Competition is a good mean to measure differences, progress and efficiency of doing exercises properly, and finally attest to the limits Man can achieve in general or individually.
We could end this article with this and be content. Sports is important, and competition helps in motivation and measurements. Indeed, all “sports” have rules and organized events help in measuring accurately, over time, comparable performances.
Is it really so?
Sports and competitions have become extremely commercial and many of us watch avidly the performances. That would be fine if the comparison could be fair. If we change the premises such as the access to sport, the technology, the rules or enhance the performance in any manner possible, we lose the sought effects.
Issue 1: Social Aspect – Access to sport
Although we seem to praise fair competition at all levels, competition is nothing but fair. The first aspect is the huge discrepancies regarding the ability to train, the accessibilities to facilities, or simply the delay to adapt to new means.
Ability to train.Pierre de Coubertin originally wanted to ban professionals from participating in the early Olympics. His reason was very different from what we expect. His original drive to create the Olympic movements was to permit sedentary high-society members to exercise. “Professionals”, those having professions, should not need to do this and therefore should be excluded. Jesse Owens was almost banned as he obtained money from doing “sport” once. Today, in many countries, top athletes are professionals or semi-professionals, meaning earning directly from their sports and paid to train or perform. Some receive make large amount of money in the most well-known sports, but other get stipends to train full time. We do not make any difference when we watch world events who trains as a profession, from those who are “professionals”, in the sense of the early 1920, i.e. working persons. In the US, athletes get scholarships to train and participate in sports for their Universities, which correspond to equivalent salaries, while getting an education. The ability to train is crucial to success, but can be extremely disparate.
Accessibility to training facilities
The accessibility to facilities is important and differs by sports. Sports facilities such as well-equipped track-and fields, covered for the bad weather, swimming pools, gymnasiums are readily available in some countries, while very rare or simply inaccessible in others. Having the right facilities, available at convenient times and regularly is decisive for athletes. That creates huge differences among nations. This issue is compounded every year as there are an always increasing number of sports. In the first Olympics in 1896, there were 9 sports for 43 events; in 1906, 13 sports for 78 events; under 20 until 1972 for 195 events; Rio 2016 boasted 28 sports for 306 events; and there will be with 33 sports planned in 2020 in Tokyo for 339 events. This is a way to dilute the value of performances. Many nations have no chance in some sports. Winter sports is practically prohibited in all of Africa, and most of Asia and Latin America. Some sports require huge investments like canoeing to have “Olympic grade” facilities to train yearlong. Only 10 or 15 countries have Artificial White water training facilities for Canoeing or Kayak, and a handful have more than one, making it a very restrictive event, as opposed to football or athletics which is more democratic.
Timing towards performanceAbility to train, access to facilities, gradually allows some athletes to compete against top nations. All athletes tend to progress, but to be at the top it is often a matter of timing. Every athlete can get motivated by looking back at previous records or Olympic performances and judges that the record from the one or 2 previous winners are an easy reach. For example, the 200 m Butterfly was won in 2008 by Phelps with 1:52.03 while the 8th did 1:55.14. In 2004 the winner was at 1:54.04 and the 8th at 1:57.48, and in 2000 1:55.35 for the first and the 8th at 1:58.39. Performances rarely jump levels, there are subject to painful straight line progressions. Late comer Nations improves more rapidly but do stay one or more Olympiads back.
The three subjects above are fair and controllable. The social ability to train, the access to facilities and the timing to catch up, are good drive to improve on for nations. The competition allows to measure the gap to reach the top. As spectators, we tend to compare our nation against the others, but we tend to forget that the starting point is not the same. Certainly, the “professionalism’ can be construed as nationalism. Some nations sponsor greatly their athletes, with financial support and perfect facilities and coaches. Is that part of the competition? If we admit that one nation or club can have 20 sponsored or paid athletes training in top facilities, compete against athletes who must pay and work on the side, the view of fair competition is biased.
Issue 2: Technology changes
As seen above, sport is a necessity and a mean to stay healthy in exercising our body. The “competitions” allow us to measure progress, or compare to others better trained athletes. This gives boundaries to potential performances, and motivation or goal settings. We must remain cognizant that not everyone has had the same means and opportunities to train. It is a fair, goal setting avenue to improve, when possible, and gives also limitations to the possible performance each one can expect to achieve.
When we watch sports events, we therefore tend to compare against the top performers, and against previous years to understand the progress, to follow the better means to train our own body and set our own goals.
The second issue for this “comparison” either against top athletes, or over time, is quite biased by changes in technologies. Technics, one can say is the core of the success. These technics and technologies change. It is up to the competitors to adopt these changes in technologies. However, one can argue that if the technology is a driver, then fair competition from a physical and mental state is in question.
In earlier days, the first runners to adopt leather shoes for running had a significant technological advantage, at least, they could run more often and avoid injuries. Pole vaulting changed a lot from its early days, and often the winner was the one with the most technologically advanced pole. Bio mechanics experts calculated that Runners on cinder tracks had a 1.5% difference in efficiency compared to current Tartan surface. In 1936 Jesse Owens won Olympic gold with 10.2 sec for the 100m dash. Usain Bolt won in 2013 with 9:86 sec. Owens would have been 4.3m behind. But he ran on cinder after digging little holes to anchor his feet. Bolt had a starting block on a surface designed to maximize response. According to calculations, Owens would only have been one stride behind with the same premises although he did not have the sophisticated training facilities, trainers, videos to correct any movements to a maximum efficiency, nor did he have anyone in front. In 1954 Roger Banister ran the first mile under 4 minutes. Apparently, in 2013 1,314 runners did that. But Roger Banisters on cinders loses energy from each stride. On cinder track, only 530 persons would have done it. That is still a great progress, but Roger Banister was training 45 minutes a day between courses at Medical school while most same performers today train a few hours per days.
Swimming saw also great changes in technology. Johnny Weissmuller broke the record on the 100M Freestyle below 1 minute with 59 sec and then reached 57.4 in 1922. Weissmuller was swimming with his head out of the water, as in Water-polo, with no flip turns, in rough waters, training at best a couple of days per week. Today, many swimmers can beat a minute, but it is not sure how many can do that with the head out of the water. The record for 100m went down of course, but many technological changes occurred since then. Lane lines cutting turbulences, better pools, the flip-turn in 1956 allowed a drop the record by 2 sec. In 1976, introduction of gutters on the side of the pool reduces turbulences led to another abrupt drop of 2 sec. In 2008 Full body suits led to another 1.5 sec. Obviously, style and training methods have improved as well and contribute to an “acceptable” and normal improvement of the performances.
Open water swimming which existed before pools were built, should have remained free of technology, except for the advance of wetsuits always more technical. The advantages are greater from 15 to 20% in speed with reduction of effort. When open water swimming became popular, wet-suits did not exist, at least not for swimming. Today, differences in suits affect tremendously the performances un-levelling the field and leading to unfair competition.
One most obvious measured technology feature is in cycling. In 1972 Eddy Mercks beat the record for the hour, completing 49.43km. Over time, that record improved until 1996 when it was set at 56.78km, almost 7km or 15% more. In 2000, the UCI decided that cyclists had to use the same bike as Mercks… the record dropped to 49.68km, or just 250m farther than in 1972 or ½%. Technology was the proven source of improvement of the records.
The shaving of the body became popular in the 70s for swimming and cycling. Johnny Weissmuller certainly did not shave. Is shaving providing an unfair advantage. Obviously hairy body type would have disadvantages, but the competition would be “natural”.
There is an unfortunate tendency to find ways to beat earlier performances, or competitors. When these ways are artificial, or technological, that would be unfair competition. Triathlon by combining 3 sports is a good example. A triathlon is actually mostly biking with some running and a bit of swimming. The now famous grueling event, the Ironman, is 3.8 km swimming, 180 km biking and 42 km running, which is 1.7%, 80.1% and 18.2% of the distances respectively. Of course these disciplines do not cover the same ground, but for the better triathletes, swimming requires 45 minutes, biking 5 to 6 hours and the marathon 3 hours, that is 7.5 % of the time for swimming, 62% for the biking and 31% for the running. With such a heavy portion of biking, triathletes spend fortunes to get $10,000 bike which will be the main driver for success. They also lead the swimming with wetsuits technology always more performing. Wetsuits increase speed by 10 to 15%, while reducing the effort and the energy consumed. We move quickly away of the meaning of sport and exercise, when technology is so prevalent. The pure “exercising” portion is minimized, and becomes undemocratic given the barrier of entry to compete at a fair level. Imposed equipment should be the norm, as for the Sailing Tour de France with the same boat types.
These above are sports where technology, we would have thought, should have little influences. Many individual sports which require some equipment have technology driving performances from boating to archery to canoeing.
This is also visible in the booming industry of sport shops or gyms. Treadmills were created to allow very controlled pace, and training during harsh weather, too hot or too cold. Now every hotel, city even homes have treadmills, rowers, indoor bikes.
Nutrition can even be classified as technology. In the early days of sport, it was an unknown or at least misunderstood concept. Counter effects would have been expected, as the marathon runners in the 1900 Paris Olympics were given Cognac during the race. Many, as myself, were given a good steak and fries before finals to “be stronger”, probably the worst nutrition before a race. Which older athlete remembers taking a bottle a water on the side of the pool or next to the tracks? Nowadays, most athletes bring liquids and nutrients to every practice. Even Sunday joggers run with hydration packs on their backs or belts. The content has even evolved to space worthy nutrients combination designs. These contains, besides liquids, vitamins, electrolytes, sugars, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, in perfectly dosed portions for each type of exercise. No long distance event does without these body enhancing technologies. How much faster would the athletes of the past have been with these products before or during the race. The athletes or nations which do not have access to such feeding technologies, at training, before, during and after the race have a strong disadvantage.
Summary Technology.
Training facilities, training methods, technology changes including nutritional improvements can obviously have a tremendous effect on performances. Should they be used? If exercising the body is the goal, using changing the technology should not be the aim. It should probably be the opposite and use rougher conditions to maximize the exercise. Similarly, if fair competition should have meaning, technology should be minimized. Technology is becoming more prevalent and the most important driver for performances, in all sports and it improves rapidly. When races can be wan in hundredth of second, technology shift can be more important than actual performance. Amateur sports are often the first to jump on the band-wagon, and sports equipment marketers are rubbing their hands.
Why not enforcing a back to basics for all?
Issue 3: Enhancements
The push to performance, actually the push to win at any costs has driven many, if not all athletes to find booster products of any type. Doping is on every one’s mind, as everyone closes the eyes on reality. There is no interest, at any level, to catch someone not respecting the rules, as it only brings a negative image to the culprit sport. Sports is driven by Federations which thrive for recognition and compete for importance to attract more spectators, more participants, and more funds. The more athletes one federation can boast the more important it becomes at the national or international level. To make the sport more attractive, more spectacular, records must be broken to always enhance interest. Recently, federations must also give the impression to be clean and well-regulated on the one side, while allowing better performances to boost fame or awareness.
To maintain a clean image while providing better performances there are a few alternative solutions. The avenue favored by most has been to allow many drugs as “legal”. That is the easiest for any federation as conflict and control becomes unnecessary and public opinion is satisfied. The second is to allow TUE (Therapeutic Usage Exemption). These relieves the Federation from testing and avoid legal battles with lawyers of rich athletes which can only tarnish the reputation of the sport. The third is obviously the testing, which must appear well-organized, and thorough. For that, Federations have set-up an outside organism, the WADA (World Anti-doping Agency), which controls the delinquent athletes relieving federation from further implication.
The transition towards a “doping” behavior of Athletes is usually gradual. The first step is often the intake of readily available allowed food supplements such as iron, magnesium, mineral salts or vitamin cocktails. The move towards more effective substances is relatively quick once the habit has settled. Athletes quickly move on the band wagon, on their own, pushed by coaches, eager to get publicity and fame, by clubs to get more adherents, by sponsors who want results for their investments, by the public demanding performances, even by the federations, or the nations thriving for public image. The system can be very pernicious as some substances are allowed, some are difficult to detect, some can be hidden, some with well-controlled intake can be virtually undetectable.
Legal enhancements drugs
The most practical solution for all federations is to simply allow drugs. No federation has a vested interest to add drugs on lists of illicit products or to study the effect of the drugs on their sport. There are therefore many allowed known substances which are probably performance enhancing.
One recent famous example was Meldonium. Meldonium increases the vascularization of the heart muscle, reduces the cardiac rhythm, bringing more oxygen to the heart muscle. In such, it increases the endurance and helps to recuperate from efforts. The product exists since the 1970s. It was in common use for many decades specially in the Eastern Europe, but only came on the prohibited list in 2016. There are many more “Meldoniums” in the world, but who would have a vested interest to bring these forwards. It only brings a new negative image, and a new drug to tests against. Closing one’s eye is so much easier.
Creatine is a very widely used drugs in the world, and does not require prescriptions in many countries and therefore is widely available on the web. Creatine is a small peptide made of three amino-acids: glycine, arginine and methionine. Non-essential Amino-Acides produced by the body from the consumption of proteins at a rate of 1 or 2 g per day. In short, Creatine can quickly help the creation of muscle mass, reduce the fat content of the muscle, and could increase the strength by 0.5 to 10% according to some studies. It is helpful for short, repetitive efforts such a sprints or weight training, but some effects have been shown on endurance sports as well. Since no one dares make a reliable clinical studies on the product, it is allowed by all federations, and many companies advertise and compete for sales. It is estimated that 50% of the US college athletes use Creatine. The sales in 2000 were $300mio, and are estimated to be way over a $1 billion today in a $3 Billion nutritional business. Dosage suggested starts at 20g per day. It is difficult to imagine that it is not effective, and who would finance a clinical study to prove, or disprove, its effects. The sports nutrition market was 8.6 billion Kg in 2013 and is expected to be 14.7 in 2020 (Source Statista), much higher than the volume dispended for malnutrition in developing countries.
Caffeine is a commonly used substance. It is used as a short term stimulant, and it increases blood pressure, increases pulse rate, stomach acid, breaks down fat stores and releases fat contents into the blood stream. Apparently, this last effect seems to delay the depletion of glycogen in the muscle by 50% allowing the athlete to work longer before exhaustion. It is now commonly used in long distance events over 2 hours. The authorities allow a 12mg per liter of urine, corresponding to 8 good cups of coffee. However, there are available guideline to ensure that the level would be lower by the time athlete would have to be tested after the competition.
One of the most confusing whereas most widespread use of a performance enhancing substance is Salbutamol, the anti-asthma drug widely sold under the Ventoline or other brand names. It is a Beta2 Agonist as Clenbuterol, a forbidden substance. It was discovered in 1966, and in 1972 became forbidden when doping controls were first initiated. The 16 Years old Rick DeMont, lost then his gold medal of the 400m freestyle at the Munich 1972 Olympics, after a positive test for Ephedrine in his Asthma medication Marax. In 1986, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) permitted the use inhaled Salbutamol, although other Beta2 Agonist were not. However, in 1990, given the very steep rise of users, it allowed the use of Beta2-Agonist provided proof of Asthma was given. Every puff of Ventoline (oral) increases the oxygen consumption by 0.3 liter which is very critical for anabolic sports. For Swimming that it the most critical restriction of performance. Rick Demont, but also Mark Spitz the 7 Olympic gold medalist were “asthma sufferers”. This can also be classified as “new technology” as swimmers can today easily do the more efficient 15 meters newly allowed under-water glide with dolphin kicks for each length. “Non-asthmatic” swimmers would have no chance. Now, Phelps and others can easily swim the 400 Individual Medley, the most demanding and oxygen usage intensive event in swimming, doing under-water glides of 15 meters for each of the 8 lengths when any other as highly trained swimmers “not-asthmatically declared” would beg for air before each turn. This Salbutamol is used widely instead of the forbidden Clenbuterol as anabolic steroid. WADA allows the exemption for 1,600 micrograms over 24 hours divided in doses not over 800 micrograms for 12 hours which correspond to 8 puffs of Ventoline. According to the medical precautionary usage of the product, the first 4 inhalations are a maximum per day, and the other 4 additional should be done under hospital supervision. The WADA allowed 8 inhalations per day should correspond to the 1000ng/ml threshold in urine samples. In 2007 the cyclist Petacchi was “caught” with 1,352 ng/ml way above his prescription. In 2014 Ulissi was caught with 1,920 ng/ml and was suspended by his Swiss Federation, as he could not provide any explanation. Froome, the multiple tour de France Winner, was tested with over 2000ng/ml but was relaxed as his team provided “acceptable” usage. The drug has a half-life in the body of 5 to 6 hours, and all traces have disappeared within 24 hours. If you consider that 8 puffs a day should be done under hospital supervision, giving a threshold of 1000ng/ml urine, that the degradation is 50% every 6 hours, and that 2000ng.ml is now acceptable, this becomes truly ridiculous. Salbutamol is available as tablet, liquid and suppository which in theory are not allowed for athlete, but no one can detect the pharmaceutical form. Instead of fighting it, the Sports Authorities have relaxed requirements for TUEs for this product, and today a simple declaration of usage by the doctor is required. Most elite athletes “have” Asthma. 76% of the swimmers are declared asthmatic, and 80% of the cross-country skiers (The Physician and Sports Medicine Sept 2011, 39 (3); 163-170). Of course supporters mention that athletes breathe much more air than normal persons and therefore have a greater risk of developing allergic reactions. Cold air for winter athlete is pointed out, and chlorine for swimmers. Only 8% of the children developed asthma in 2016. The percentage of 80% for all endurance sports athletes is mindboggling. Medical profession suggests that a good warm-up can avoid getting asthmatic attacks during competition. With the support of the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Medical Profession declared “Exercised-induced asthma” as a pathology in 1990s. This allowed the market for Salbutamol to explode and from an 8% maximum market to much higher levels with much higher posology.
Asthma is potentially a restriction for performance, for the 8% population affected, if an attack happens during a competition, which can be minimized with proper preparation. Today, a non-declared asthmatic has virtually no chance to reach the top in most sports. Is it a real help for society or to athletes? Is it used as an enhancement to increase oxygen consumption and performance? Is it an avenue to take B2 agonist? Given such a widespread usage, such high dosage allowed, it is difficult to believe that this drug would lead to clean sport performances. May be, there should be competitions separating declared asthmatics from others.
Therapeutic Usage Exemption (TUE)
There are quite a few drugs which have been banned as clearly enhancing performance potential. Some are prohibited at all time such as Anabolic, Peptides Hormones, Human growth Hormones, Beta-2 Agonist (except Ventoline), Hormones and metabolic Modulators, Diuretics and masking agents. Others are prohibited only during competitions: Stimulants, Narcotics, Cannabinoids, Glucocorticoid steroids. There are other groups which results in a list of 100 to 150 unapproved known molecules. That excludes of course, blood doping or other non-detectable methods.
However, through various push by World Federations, Athletes, sports promotors and the Medical field, the TUE process was created, to allow some athletes to take some of these drugs as "required to treat an illness or condition."
TUEs are used extensively, bypassing the “doping” list prohibition. TUEs permits to take virtually all banned substances. When the Fancy Bears, Russian hacking group, threaten to release medical records of some athletes, which includes TUEs, the world of sports went crazy. But only a few names were revealed and the matter was washed down. Was it due to the “limited” access to medical records? Due to some national deal of black-mailing (it was a following a Russian “discovery of sponsored doping allegation)? Due to private deal with some athletes? Nevertheless, TUEs are well kept secrets of all athletes and nations. Australia estimates that there were 200TUEs in 2012 already, for 58 sports. There was a TUE for methylphenidate (Ritalin), a molecule used for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) mostly for children, but used as a stimulant for athletes. Every year, swimming, Cycling, Athletics have the highest number of TUEs. This well-kept secrets do not include just asthma drug which does not even require a TUE as mentioned earlier. The usage of TUE, besides ADHD includes Hydrocortisone, insulin, oxycodone, human growth hormone and testosterone.
The Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is also a good example. Synthetic human growth hormone was developed in 1985 and approved by the FDA for specific uses in children and adults. In children, HGH injections are approved for treating rare genetic disorders, Chronic Kidney disease and short stature of children. For adult, it is intended for short bowel syndrome, rare pituitary tumors, and muscle wasting disease resulting from HIV. However, the worldwide need for this drug for these intended needs is less than 1 % what the current sales would predict. The main usage is for enhancement of performances. HGH simply helps build muscle useful for short burst event, but also helps tired muscle to recuperate faster, allowing athletes to train harder and more often. Apparently, it is also used as a cocktail with other drugs, such as steroids.
Why would top ranking athletes of any sport suffer such rare diseases and need these very specific drugs to, in theory, “even the fields” is at best very questionable.
CBD, Cannabidiol, present in Cannabis is sometimes prescribed as post cancer treatment. Some Athletes use CBD as pre-workout to increase the intensity of workouts and lower the pain threshold. It is supposed to help in the recovery.
These are some examples of drugs present in TUEs of athletes. Former cancer sufferers, who were mediocre athletes have become top ranking once affected, possibly thanks to TUEs. Testosterone, HGH, EPO have been pointed out as involved in the development of prostate, testicular and ovarian cancers.
Athletes do not know if their competitors have TUEs for these or other drugs. The usage of TUEs is quite wide-spread. At least, the TUEs of athletes should be open, or at the very least athletes having TUEs should be mentioned.
Drug Testing
Performance enhancing substances have been used since sport exists. The products were similar to the one used by various society to increase the fierceness of warriors in battles. In 1967 the IOC establishes the first commission on doping with the first drug testing in 1968 in the Olympics in Grenoble and Mexico mostly testing for narcotics, analgesics and stimulants, as tests for anabolic steroids were not available. During the 1972 Olympics, 2000 samples were taken disqualifying 7 athletes, but only on stimulants. In Montreal only under 800 tests were taken, and tests included steroids resulting in the disqualification of 1.4% of the athletes. In 1983, during the PanAm games, surprised testing, with a new test for steroids resulted in many athletes withdrawing from the games.
Although never caught, an East German coach admitted to decades of doping, pointing already the weaknesses of the tests. Since roughly the 1980s, the drug controls are being organized with an international institution created, the WADA (World Anti-doping Agency) in 1999, following the first World Conference on doping in Lausanne in Feb 1999. The WADA is set-up as a foundation. Since then, many an athlete have been either caught or have admitted to taking drugs as doping. Several have been suspended, some escape suspension or were given reduced suspension for many sometimes odd reasons.
Doping is a very prevalent activity for athletes. Over 30% of athletes participating in 2011 World Championships admitted having used banned substances during their careers. WADA estimates that 44% of them had used them while only 0.5% of those tested were caught. Testing has a cost, and it would be high if done properly. The Australian Anti-doping authority estimates that regular testing of athletes should costs around $40,000 per athlete per year. WADA is non-profit organization set-up originally by the IOC. Its foundation board and Executive Board are composed mainly of sports related public authorities. The total funding is roughly $30 million per year. Overall, ARTE investigation revealed some alarming numbers relative to doping costs. It is 0.073% of the estimated world doping revenues of $30 Billion – 0.003% of the estimated world revenues from sport of $700 billion. The cost of a doping regimen of a basic athlete is $6000 per year (including Ozone, Creatine, Ventolin, Amino Acid), $30,000 for an international athlete to get EPO, Testosterone, HGH, and $100,000 for top athletes with more sophisticated products. The salary of the Guru doping doctors is over $6 million – Russia, China and India produce, as expected 40% of the doping substances with 70 tons of testosterone, and 700 tons of Steroids are produced every year. The estimation is that 8 million athletes dope regularly to use these substances despite the fact that less than 2% of tests are positive. Of the 10 men who ran below 9.80 second on the 100m, 9 were controlled positive. The USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) had revenues from grants of $21.6 Million in 2017, and expenses of $11.3 Million for testing. With that budget it completed 6,480 tests. Only 400 to 500 tests for the year were for swimming which has 2,800 swim clubs. 2000 tests were performed for track and fields for its 130,000 registered athletes, basically 1.5% chance to be tested once that year when each athlete should be tested multiple times per year. That is still much more than for Basketball with 12 tests, or American Football 9 or even baseball 0. Even in Olympic sports, that seems puny in view of just the IOC making revenues of $3.5 billion in 2016 alone. That means that 0.8% of that goes to testing. The IOC is only one of the profiteer of sports. The revenue of the 100th earner athlete is more than the spend for drug testing for the nation. Even in nations testing more, such as France with its 10,000 tests made, that is not sufficient but still 5 times more than the US a nation roughly 10 times larger.
Testing is the main tool to catch culprits one would think. However, there are many reasons why this is not efficient.
- Need to know the molecule to test them.
Clenbuterol is a beta2 agonist as the allowed Ventolin. It allows quick loss of weigh, it increases aerobic capacity, blood pressure and oxygen transport among others. This widely used substance available before the 1980s, became detectable only 12 years after in 1992 and led to many positive controls of many famous athletes.
Levothyrox is the newer molecule not yet on the list providing apparently a triple effect of anabolic, stimulant and weight reduction. It is apparently widely used by most endurance athletes (long distance, cycling, triathlon...)
- Some drugs take a long time to come on the list
- Some doping cannot be tested against
- Need to develop a test for the drug or its effect.
- Testing costs
6.Test security
With the $millions involved, it is expected that someone might try to circumvent the procedures to ensure negative results. First, the sample testing, despite what is shown with the “tester” always present, is not as safe as expected. Second, testers are people too. One can imagine, a poorly compensated tester, might close his eyes when testing a multimillionaire athletes and his lawyers. Third, we assume that the test labs are also secured. They are not banks, and with millions at the end, one can imagine that the labs can be tempered with. That is when the whole country is not behind it, as in Russia in 2016. But we can be sure that Azerbaijan, Turkey or even China, would spend without restraint to ensure the perfect safety of samples during the whole process… especially given that catching a local athlete would result in negative image. The whole Russian track and field team was banned from the 2016 Olympic Games, because the Russian State had sponsored their doping program.[11]
7.Test avoidance
One easy way to avoid test is not being present. Many an athlete “miss” being present for a surprised test. Usually, the penalty is minimal, and the damage for the athlete’s reputation is minimized. To the public, that is very acceptable, as athlete quickly come to the press to point the many restrictions and being “forced” to submit whereabouts. The public easily excuses the poor athlete, training already so hard. However, if one takes into consideration the small window of traceability of many drugs, and the relative rarity of the “surprise” tests, missing one “surprise test” for a slap on the finger can be a quick passage. That is, when the “surprise” are indeed one, and partners are not informed ahead of time. A very common way to avoid surprise is to travel to faraway places to minimize the chances of being tested. Have you ever wonder why your best team goes on oxygenation trips, or training camps? Of course, Anti-doping Agencies can travel, and the athletes and coaches are supposed to give their whereabouts, but seeing the puny budget of all doping agencies of the world, travelling to Kenya, South Africa or Oceania seems to be at best strange. Of course, coaches and federation emphasize the need for their athletes to diversify the routines, but one wonders why they would travel so far to facilities much less advanced then their own.
With the pressure for performance and the increasing competitions for notoriety between federations, athletes are pushed towards artificial enhancement. The IOC, the nations and the Federations, spend on communication but pay only lip-service to control of performances. They simply allow many performance enhancing drugs (Ventolin, creatin) closing eyes on ridiculously expanding usage. They created TUEs for extremely hard drugs, closing the curtain on transparency and avoiding potential legal issue and negative discussions. They allow totally unreasonable threshold of treatment basically allowing many other drugs and “enforcing” utilization. They put tiny amounts for testing just for Public Relation purposes which really should be slap in the face of the public. For the public, the sheer volume of many drugs sales many, many folds higher than the expected “real” therapeutic usage of “real” patients, should be the eye opener. The revenues from sports, from pharmaceutical drugs and other profiteers so much outweigh the drive for some transparency, that drug testing potential is generations behind drug development, drug usage. Yes, we cannot do anything against these facts. The worst we can do, for sport, is believing that federation and IOC play a fair game. We must just consider that it is a spectacle, but not sport.
Issue 4: Genetics
Thanks to science, we have finally accepted that evolution is the key to our bodies functions and physiology. Genetics have helped refined the changes and differences in human bodies, shapes and even performances. We know that we have evolved to survive not through our speed, pure strength, majestic or minute size, our sharp claws, teeth or poisonous bites or sting, but merely through our potential for endurance allowing us to chase food to exhaustion, exchanging our hair for sweat glands in the process, and developing an ability to think forward and in groups. We still share 60% of our genome with fruit flies and chickens, 80% with cows, 90% with cats although they all look quite different and have very different capabilities. Chimpanzees could be 98% similar to humans. These 2% make huge difference in what chimps and humans can do. There are variations within the human species of 0.5%. These 0.5% can make significant variances in abilities and physical performances. These can be significant such as adaptation to high altitude, speed with the percentage of fast twitching muscle cells, blood content, strength and length of bones and of tendons, and many others, which can result in very different performances.
Sport is supposed to be a way to excel, to build a mind and to try to find one’s limits. Over the years, as in other areas, we have created events to improve human performance. With the support of the media, and the sponsors, we focus on the performances and the stars that accomplish them. To achieve higher levels of performance, more specialized athletes are needed. To win and to reach new peaks, athletes do not just train harder and better. Above all, it is necessary to have the adequate physiology. The East Germans understood this well in the 1970s, which might be commendable in itself. Why make a child believe that he will be a great basketball player, if he will never measure more than 1m 70, or a tumbling gymnast if he is likely to be 2m10 tall? Genetic differences are better understood today, and the pool of athletes is becoming universal, when it was a tiny fraction of the population a few decades ago.
Size is the most measurable feature. Man size have increased greatly during the last 2 millennia. The average of the current man is 1.75 meters. The 16,000 BC bone remains indicate that the average Man was 1.80, and the size steadily decreased to 1.62 meters in 4,000 BC. It increased again with some variation around the 16s century, but it was 1.73 meters a thousand years ago. The average size was 1.75 in 1929, the same as today. There are variations of course by ethnicity and country. However, for athletes, the sizes changed more rapidly. One interesting aspect is the changes in BMI (Body Mass Index) which has increased tremendously in the last decade for some sports. Some study points that the increase in BMI can only be linked to the use of steroids.
With little universal body changes in humanity, the body of athletes have changed extremely rapidly. Basically, athletes have specialized morphology, and physiology for each performance. The main driver of performance is the selection to the sport, and not the training.
In 1920, the average high jumper or shot putter were the exact same size. Then self-selection went on. Today the difference in size 6.4 cm taller for the high jumper, and 59kg heavier for the shot-putter. The NBA searches the globe for Basketball players body types. The proportion of players at least 2.10-meter-tall doubled to 10% in the NBA, despite the fact that the proportion of that size person is the same today as it ever was. It is such a rare feature that there is a 17% chance that these people are playing in the NBA today. The average NBA player is 2 meters today. So one would think size is the only factor. Not quite! Basketball players need not only be tall, but must have above average relation heights to wingspan. For the Da Vinci Vitruvian man, outspread arms are equal to height. The average 2-meter-tall NBA player has average arms at 2.13m. That is just the visible and measurable features. More features are advantages as well.
All sports have specialized feature which give great advantages. The average size the 100 m freestyle finalist swimmer in the 3 past Olympics is 1.88m. However, the bigger advantage is the wingspan over the body. Phelps is 1.93, but his wingspan is 2.03m. It was the same with Michael Gross winning 4 gold medals with his 2-meter height and 2.13 wingspan, and Mark Spitz with his unusually long arms despite his 1.83 height already in the 70s. But size and arm lengths and the disproportion thereof is not all that gives advantages. This is only the visible feature. Many swimmers have long feet and hands and often, the top one, disjointed ankles, giving extra flexibility for the kicks with maximum efficacy. These is not great for weight lifting or ice skating but great for swimming. Phelps has long arms but proportionally very short legs. In modern swimming, great efficient underwater dolphin kicks are now allowed for 15 meters after each turn. This is useful for freestyle, backstroke and Butterfly. For breastroke, only one dolphin kick is allowed. This change for the three strokes implies that with a great underwater dolphin kick you can thrive in all three disciplines. The long torso, short legs, and extremely flexible ankles gives a great advantage to those swimmers. That is why Phelps could win in all three strokes. Of course, others also have these morphological features, but the extent of them makes the difference.
On the other hand, if you have short arms and long legs, you would have no chance. This is the case for Hicham El Guerrouj, world record holder in many events from the 1500m to the 5000m tracks. El Guerrouj is only 1.75, compared to Phelps at 1.93, but both have the same length of legs.
New population joined in with genetics advantages. The Kenyans are the best runners at the time, and more specifically, descendants of the Kalejin tribes (12% of Kenyan population). They are born with very long but very thin legs. This adaptation saves energy while running and the long legs are used as a whip with low energy. Only 17 US highly trained runners have done under 2hour 10 min for the marathon in history. Close to 50 Kalejin men do that every year.
You just not have to be tall for sports. Short can be good as well. When low height is an advantage, like gymnastics, the average size for the gymnast dropped from 1.6m to 1.45m over the last 30 years.
All sports have special anatomic features that give advantages over competitors, even in less popular sports like water polo, the length of the forearm is longer as proportion of the rest of the arm.
But there are many more hidden physiological features which helps. If you are born in the highlands of Africa and have the chance to have a genetic adaptation that allows you a much higher oxygen absorption than other ethnicities, you have every chance to shine at long distance events. If in addition, compared to the generations of population of the Andes, you are not endowed with elongated bodies and proportionally long legs, you are done for the marathon. This is not the case of the native peoples of the plains of West Africa who are born with skeletal muscle fibers with a percentage of fast-acting muscle fibers, much higher than people of Caucasian origins. These permits them to excel in sprint and explosive activities. This is without counting on the Achilles tendons adapted to this kind of exercise which allows the sprinters to spend 60% in the air after each impulse. Training can only allow some compensation but not the starting platform.
Some sports have been forced to create categories, weight in general to give some a chance. This is the case of boxing, weightlifting and judo. In the larger categories of these sports, the dimensions of the champions become obvious, for the biggest triumph easily.
Genetics are probably the biggest driver for performances. For the average individual, who compares to the performance of top athletes, the outcome can be dramatic. Elite sport should really be an interesting information but not a driver and goal. We should do sport, even competition with that in mind, always. The person in the lane or track or field next to you, has not the same set of genetics. He might be ahead, effortlessly, while the you give it all. Life is not fair, and results are not either.
Conclusion
The media prefers to focus on the merits of great champions and the performances. Should we continue to adulate champions when starting social conditions, training facilities, technologies, very opaque substance enhancing and physiology are each the principle drivers for performance? Although we should not need to care, physical exercise and sport is good for all. Elite sports have taken a totally different route and, as such, becomes detrimental to the perception of sport and performance. It has become completely remote to the common man and woman levels. As it becomes artificial, it is not anymore a criterion of human "performance". Elite sports are not a measure of human performance of any kind, nor a display of equality, fairness, mental strength, or resolve. It is an artificial show and not sport.
Real sport is great. Exercise is indispensable for a healthy life. Its benefits are undisputed from cardiologic, neurologic, mental health and intelligence and memory enhancement, heavy pathologies avoidance, cancer risk reduction. We are starting to understand why exercise is good, as progress in the understanding of stem cells and microbiome reveal their first clues. Since our modern lifestyle is more sedentary we must find motivations to step out of the armchairs or desks. Organized sports, competitions can give us these drives. If it becomes unnatural, unfair, artificial, unattainable as in Elite sports it will reduces health in societies. We are not born equal certainly not genetically, but also in means and chances. Sports is a measure against one’s own ability, not against the rest of the world. One does not need the latest shoes, suit, bike, contention socks, carry-on energy drinks to do sports, quite the contrary especially since the next step towards enhancing technologies or medication becomes blurry. We must thrive to be our best, not to be first, for ourselves, not in comparison to others.
PS.: Some information on technology and changes of body types were inspired by David Epstein TED Talk on the subject.