Juice or No Juice? Who Decides?
May 24th, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
With Barry Bonds under the specter of steroids allegations on the brink of passing Babe Ruth in home runs, on another subject of sports and technology Arthur Caplan has a thought-provoking op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News about a new effort to classify sleeping in oxygen tents as a doping violation. He writes:
Should the bureaucrats who set the rules for the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports extend their critical eye to where athletes are allowed to sleep? This past weekend in Montreal, the bureaucrats, otherwise known as the World Anti-Doping Association, indicated that they are going to try to do exactly that. Bad idea. . .
Many athletes in amateur endurance sports such as skiing, running and cycling use altitude tents. These tents simulate thin mountain air. By sleeping in them, athletes who live at sea-level can get the benefits enjoyed by those who live in mountainous areas. Mountain air has less oxygen, so the body makes more red blood cells to compensate. Those extra red blood cells can provide a slight boost if you are running a marathon or skiing cross-country for 15 miles. That is one of the reasons the U.S. Olympic training facility is located in the Rocky Mountains at Colorado Springs, Colo.
So why is WADA worried about tents? There seems to be one main reason — sleeping in a tent is a passive activity producing benefits that athletes do not “earn” or “merit.” The idea that athletes ought to train to gain improvements in performance, not just lie snoozing in an artificial environment while their bodies make more red blood cells, is at the core of WADA’s concern. WADA is worrying about tents not for reasons of safety or even fairness but on ethical grounds — athletes should strive, not snooze, to succeed.
Linking the virtues to athletic success has some appeal. But when WADA uses a moral view of what makes sport worthwhile it is imposing a set of values rather than reflecting what athletes or the public want. Moreover, drawing a line at high-altitude tents is a boundary that cannot hold.
It is not possible to know who is sleeping in a tent unless WADA officials are prepared to get a lot more up close and personal with athletes than they are likely to tolerate. And if you ban altitude tents, are saunas, steam rooms, massages, ankle wraps and vitamins soon to follow?
Modern athletes long ago brought technology into their lives, and WADA holding its breath and pouting about those who are lazing around in altitude tents will not change that fact. We need to keep an eye on technology and its impact on sports. WADA has, however, nodded off at the switch with its threat to ban sleeping in altitude tents.
It would be a meaningless exhortation to say that athletics should be “pure,” and an unregulated playing field seems undesirable. How then should decisions be made about the role of science and technology in athletic achievements? Should some S&T sport policies be made democratically by government institutions, e.g., such as those focused on the Olympics or NCAA? Or should sport be a private affair internally policed, leaving open the possibility of competing professional sport leagues – the JMLB (Juiced- MLB) vs. the JFMLB (Juice-Free MLB)? (Though there is that anti-trust thing.)
I’m not sure what I’d recommend on where and how to draw lines in sport, but it does seem clear that the processed used to make decisions about S&T in sport are at least as important as the outcomes that result from such processes.
May 24th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Sleeping in a tent is little different than injecting EPO, both are methods for increasing hematocrit. Living in Nederland and training in Boulder also yields exact same results. None of these is more dangerous than the other (well the tent and EPO are safer than driving Boulder Canyon year round). As far as the body is concerned, all three methods are natural. Only way to level the playing field is to make them all legit and to monitor hematocrit so it doesn’t exceed a dangerous level.
BTW none of this is new…the first ban of Olympic athletes for using performance enhancing drugs was in 300 BC.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
since the JMLB would be much more interesting than the JFMLB, the JFMLB would quickly fold. Which raises a question you hinted at in the post: if the public isn’t clamoring for juice-free sports (obviously they aren’t, since the Sosa/Big Mac affair of 1998 brought back millions of fans disaffected by the strike — fans who were obviously willing to suspend reality and pretend that Big Mac was only on protein shakes and a bit of andro), why are unelected governing bodies taking up the mantle on behalf of an apathetic spectating body?
One answer is that they’re doing it not for fans but on behalf of athletes who don’t want to juice but still want to compete. In that case the athletes themselves should be able to tell WADA to backoff, but maybe it’s too late and has gone too far for them. Now that the bureaucratic structure is in place and staffed by overweight chubbos who have never *walked* a mile much less biked 2500, the rule-makers and enforcers have lost touch with their populace.
May 24th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
There are long discussions on various athletic forums (some of the x-country sking & cycling forums I’m a little familiar with, but I’m sure there are many others). This is a big and complicated issue. I’d encourage those interested to search them for a wide variety of opinions, and people who are a lot more knowledgable then me.
EPO only increases hematicrit.
The tent and living at altitude also increases blood volume and has a few other physiological effects that I don’t remember.
They are fundamentally different.
“…monitor hematocrit so it doesn’t exceed a dangerous level.” Cycling does this now, as well as testing for EPO. Several weeks ago I read that at least for cycling the decision on altitude tents was postponed until the fall in order to get more imput from the professional teams.
There are other issues such the cost for the tents, which are very expensive. The smaller teams do not like having to spend a lot of money in order to be competitive. There have been a number of rules to designed to mitigate sports becoming technology races (e.g. cycling minimum weights for bikes and rowing shells, restrictions on bike frame design). Drugs use has been a technology race between the users and the enforcement agencies.
As for Juiced leagues it is not going to happen and is a really bad idea. Currently these drugs are illegal without a doctors prescription. Do you really want kids to idolize atheletes who every one knows is doing drugs?
May 24th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
“The smaller teams do not like having to spend a lot of money in order to be competitive. There have been a number of rules to designed to mitigate sports becoming technology races”
uh huh. and every four years when the winter Olys come on and they do a 15-minute segment on how NASA is helping design the latest in bobsled runners (or in the summer it’s about frictionless swimsuit design) I wonder two things:
1- what’s the point? isn’t this the same as doping?
2- why aren’t we winning every race?
May 24th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Kevin:
By smaller teams I was specifically refering to pro-cycling teams. I believe several have expressed the desire to limit use of altitude tents. Different sports deal with technological inovation differently. The governing body get to make the rules.
1- There is a big difference between taking drugs, (which over the years has killed many atheletes and seriously harmed may others) and designing bobslead runners. Even simplistically one is within the rules and one is not.
2- a)there is more to winning then technology. Money plays a big part, but it is far from the only determining factor.
b)other countries also spend money, sometimes more and sometimes more intellegently.