Doping As A Menace: Where To Stop?

INTRODUCTION

A significant issue broke up in 2019 after a Kenyan athlete named Eliud Kipchoge ran the marathon in under two hours. Eliud Kipchoge’s record-breaking effort served as evidence of how (shoe) technology has boosted athletes’ abilities.  He was sporting a test version of the brand-new Nike Vaporfly 4%.[i] By adding more to what the runners expended, Nike has shown that these shoes improved runner efficiency.[ii] Even Mo Farah, a four-time gold medalist and 2018 Chicago Marathon champion, promoted these shoes on the Nike website.[iii]

Doping, in the eyes of ethical critics, violates the idea of “clean” sport. Two groups have dramatised doping: the government by focusing on the underprivileged viewpoint and the athletes by viewing them as accidents.[iv]

EVOLUTION OF DOPING: SHIFT FROM STEROID ABUSE TO TECHNOLOGICAL DOPING

The Greeks have been credited as the “evolvers” of sports, much as Aryabhatta is given the credit for zero and Newton with gravity. The first instances of doping were recorded by Philostratus and Galerius at the 3rd-century BC Olympic Games. Ancient athletic stadiums have been littered with several little sculptures of Jupiter, which are evidence of a desire to beg for divine pardon for breaching the laws and to show the scale of the incident.[v]

The use of performance-enhancing substances, such as steroids, to increase body bulk and boost athletic performance is one of the first examples of doping. There are several examples, including as the time-honored cyclist Lance Armstrong, who acknowledged using performance-enhancing drugs.A new understanding of sports competition has emerged as a result of the advancements in technology, communication, health, and science. Porter claimed that having competition is essential for success in every field and that a lack of it eventually results in failure.[vi]

“Competitive situations, such as those described in Van Valen’s theorised biological evolution[vii] or the business environment[viii], are typically presented in the Red Queen perspective, emphasising the importance of constant development in order to remain within that environment.”[ix]

JURISPRUDENCE BEHIND DOPING IN SPORTS

Alternative normative interpretations of doping are expressed by ideal-typical theories of sport:

• The Narrow Theory – It is a hypothesis that clarifies why something is restricted. The restricted hypothesis is one potential replacement. The limited theory offers a particular understanding of sport ideals. According to the Olympic motto, the primary ideals of sport are performance and growth. The sporting record is its most well-known incarnation.[x]
• The Wide Theory – This theory’s central tenet is that sport has importance that goes beyond mere performance. A greater range of social, cultural, and moral values are associated with sport.[xi] The overarching idea comes from a variety of places, including conventional old sports, British amateur ideology, and formal Olympic ideology.

HOW IS THE ISSUE OF DOPING TACKLED IN INDIA?

In India, doping is not yet a crime. The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) became a registered society on November 24, 2005. The primary objectives of NADA are to create WADA-compliant anti-doping regulations, advance research and education, increase public awareness of doping, and make Indian sports fully drug-free.

There must be an adequate number of both in-competition and out-of-competition tests performed on the athletes in the NADA’s registered testing pool. NADA tests athletes competing at the international and national levels. For each sport or discipline, the NADA develops a test distribution plan and allocates the number of samples required for efficient deterrence. The plan may include blood and urine collection, in-competition testing, and testing both before and during competition.[xii]

THE INTERESTING CASE OF TECHNOLOGICAL DOPING

While Tokyo 2020 witnessed some of the strictest anti-doping measures yet, it also saw technology take center stage in an athlete’s performance.[xiii] All four competitors were wearing “super spikes”, which uses ultra-light foam energy-returning Pebax foam to increase efficiency while simultaneously reducing weight[xiv], when they smashed world records in both the men’s and women’s 400-meter hurdles at the Olympic trials in June and the Games itself.

Only the fact that everyone is wearing or not can establish whether or not employing such a shoe is unfair. For many novice athletes, the Nike ZoomXVaporfly 4 percent is pricey at less than Rs 19,695. The anticipated 4% improvement in performance, nevertheless, may provide the advantage needed to triumph in the match.[xv]

Regulatory agencies often ban technology when they start to give an unfair advantage. This was the case with Speedo’s LZR Racer swimsuit, which dramatically reduced water friction by 24%.[xvi]

WAS WHAT NIKE DID ACTUALLY WRONG?

There is nothing inherently wrong with a race between two people using two different sets of equipment, and sport shouldn’t stifle innovation. This can be compared, for instance, to advancements in Formula One. There are no fair playing fields in sports, giving the teams with more funding and sponsors an advantage.[xvii]

[Image Sources : Shutterstock]

Oddly enough, Nike hasn’t committed any crimes. They’ve merely merged already-existing technology and laid it, so to speak, at our feet. Others will quickly catch up, if not surpass, and World Athletics will be confronted with fresh issues. Pushing the toothpaste back into the tube won’t work. Years from now, people will be curious as to what the fuss was all about.

“It is finding the correct balance or ‘sweet tension’ between the view of sport as an impromptu challenge faced spontaneously to examine our reservoir of skills and experiences, and a carefully crafted experiment that draws on all possible means to achieve the task with maximum efficiency,” according to philosopher Alun Hardman.[xviii]

CONCLUSION: DOES DOPING ACTUALLY HARM THE SPIRIT OF SPORT?

No doubt, the use of drugs in sports is against the law. But the point we overlook is that we are the ones who make laws. Cheating would not occur if certain performance enhancing drugs are easily available to every participant. A substance violates the “spirit of sport if it is performance enhancing but poses a health risk and is forbidden, according to the WADA regulation.[xix]

Human sports are far more innovative than animal sports, and the winner is not always the one with the highest genetic potential for power.

This might be a strong justification for permitting doping in sports. But an athlete’s health must be our primary concern. Even if a chemical helps an athlete reach his full ability, we shouldn’t let it if it might be harmful to his health.

Athletes should have access to this choice, as should the medical organisations in charge of their care. According to this justification, legalising drugs in sports may thus be more fair and secure.

Author: Kaustubh Kumar, A Student at the National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com or IP & Legal Filing

REFERENCES

[i] Santosh Vikram Singh, ‘‘Technological Doping’: A Threat To Equity In Sports’(Fox Mandal, 17 April 2021) <https://www.foxmandal.in/technological-doping-a-threat-to-equity-in-sports/> accessed 8 June, 2023

[ii]‘Nike ZoomXVaporfly NEXT%’(Nike) https://www.nike.com/in/running/vaporfly/ accessed 8 June, 2023

[iii]Nike, [Nike Vaporfly featuring the new vaporfly next] <https://static.nike.com/a/images/f_auto/dpr_1.3,cs_srgb/w_706,c_limit/cogyakka10ydsnzj2v9m/nike-vaporfly-featuring-the-new-vaporfly-next.jpg>accessed 7 June 2023

[iv] Eugen König, ‘Criticism of Doping: The Nihilistic Side of Technological Sport and the Antiquated View of Sport Ethics’ [1995] International Review for the Sociology of Sport 30[3–4] 247–260

[v] Aleksander Berentsen, ‘The economics of doping’ [2002] European Journal of Political Economy 18[1] 109-127.

[vi] M.S. Surabhi et al, ‘A comprehensive dissection of the nikevaporfly controversy in light of sports and doping laws’ [2019] Law Audience J. 2, 1–11.

[vii] Leigh Van Valen, ‘The red queen’ [1977] Am. Nat. 111[980], 809–810.

[viii] S Lee et al, ‘Red Queen Effect in German Bank Industry: Implication of Banking Digitalization for Open Innovation Dynamics [2021] J. Open Innov. Technol. Market Complex, 7, 90.

[ix] Words & Unwords, [Red Queen Hypothesis (Wonderland Alice Red Queen) Ceramic Tile] ‘Zazzle’ accessed 7 June 2023

[x] Fraleigh, W. Right Actions in Sport. Ethics for Contestants. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1984

[xi] Hanstad, D.V., Smith, A., and Waddington, I. ‘“The Establishment of the World Antidoping Agency: A Study of the Management of Organizational Change and Unplanned Outcomes’.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 43(3), 2008, 227-249.

[xii]‘National Anti-Doping Agency – FAQ’<https://www.nadaindia.org/faq> accessed 8 June 2023

[xiii] Olympics: 5,000 Anti-Doping Tests to Be Conducted during Tokyo Games | Business Standard News’<https://www.business-standard.com/article/sports/olympics-5-000-anti-doping-tests-to-be-conducted-during-tokyo-games-121072001200_1.html> accessed 8 June 2023

[xiv] This Lightweight Foam Is Revolutionizing Running Shoes | Men’s Journal’<https://www.mensjournal.com/gear/this-lightweight-foam-is-revolutionizing-running-shoes-w502818/> accessed 8 June 2023

[xv]‘Nike ZoomXVaporfly NEXT% About to Hit the Roads – PodiumRunner’<https://www.podiumrunner.com/gear/nike-zoomx-vaporfly-next-announced/> accessed 8 June 2022

[xvi]‘The Rocket Swimsuit: Speedo’s LZR Racer’ (Science in the News, 16 September 2008) <https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2008/issue47-2/> accessed 8 June 2023

[xvii] Discovering What Makes Formula One, Formula One – Dummies’<https://www.dummies.com/article/home-auto-hobbies/sports-recreation/auto-racing/discovering-what-makes-formula-one-formula-one-200463/> accessed 8 June 2023

[xviii]‘Technological Doping! – Sportstar’<https://sportstar.thehindu.com/columns/lastword-suresh-menon/technological-doping-vaporfly-eluid-kipchoge-world-athletics-tokyo-olympics-marathon-world-record/article30870010.ece> accessed 8 June 2023

[xix] World Anti-Doping Code, Montreal (World Anti-Doping Agency), 2003.