Reblog: Psychology of Doping- Why we're fighting a losing battle
Einen lesenswerten Beitrag über die psychologischen Aspekte des Dopings hat Steve Maggness in seinem Blog The Science of Running geschrieben!
We're fighting a losing battle is a phrase that is thrown around far too frequently. It's meant to show despair but also to inspire a change of direction. When it comes to performance enhancing drug use in sport, sadly this cliche phrase is applicable. We are losing a fight that needs to be won, if not only for the sake of parents and coaches of young athletes everywhere who need to be able to look into their young athletes eyes dreaming of Olympic glory and tell them that it's possible.
Traditionally, we have fought the war on performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) using a testing based model to try to catch athletes. More recently, the use of investigations and whistle blowers has brought about the catching of drug cheats.
However, If the Lance Armstrong or Marion Jones' of the world have taught us anything it's that passing a drug test means little except that you are smart enough to not make a blatant mistake. In a BBC documentary I was a part of, a journalist ordered EPO from China and by simply searching on the Internet, took enough EPO to see massive performance benefits while avoiding raising any suspicion on the latest in anti-doping science, the athlete blood passport.
Let this sink in for a minute. A journalist who is a recreational athlete figured out how to stay clean against our most sophisticated anti-doping measure. Not someone with reams of doctors or sports scientist behind him.
A man, simply searching on the Internet.
This isn't the anti-drug testers fault, it's the nature of anti-doping. In order to insure that we don't have a false positive, a situation that would be far more damaging than any other result, the thresholds are set so high for items like the Blood Passport, that numerous abnormal tests get through the gates.
The problem with the testing and investigating method is that they are ex post facto solutions. They are focused on catching athletes after the athletes has reached a high level of performance. In most cases it's a catch them after the damage is done situation.
The success rate of this operation can be judged by looking at the rate of drug positives at the elite level (1-2%) versus what recent research suggests is the actual rate (~30%).
Obviously, that's a pretty large gap, and rather disheartening. On top of that, I couldn't help but notice in athletes who have actually tested positive have few of them admit to cheating. They hold steadfast that they committed no wrong doing. Even serial cheaters like Lance Armstrong come across as not truly believing that they defrauded fans and their fellow competitors. The mindset seems to be that they don't truly believe they violated any moral issues.
On the other hand, clean athletes are irate and can't understand how someone could commit a blatant violation yet show little remorse or understanding. How could this be?
The problem is a psychological one.