tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/1980-moscow-games-29600/articles1980 Moscow Games – The Conversation2021-11-10T18:44:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1715552021-11-10T18:44:58Z2021-11-10T18:44:58ZOlympic Games are great for propagandists – how the lessons of Hitler’s Olympics loom over Beijing 2022<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431178/original/file-20211109-19-wz7uvf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C23%2C7651%2C5074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will anodyne reporting from the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics play into China's propaganda efforts? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-practice-a-dance-routine-in-front-of-a-large-news-photo/1349382921?adppopup=true">Kevin Frayer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the morning of Aug. 14, 1936, two NBC employees met for breakfast at a café in Berlin. Max Jordan and Bill Slater were discussing the Olympic Games they were broadcasting back to the United States – and the Nazi propaganda machine that had made their work, and their visit to Germany, somewhat unpleasant. </p>
<p>Slater complained about all the staged regimentation and the obviously forced smiles everywhere. </p>
<p>“Why don’t they revolt? We wouldn’t stand for all this browbeating and bullying in America. I know that. Why do they stand for it here?” Slater asked Jordan. </p>
<p>As they were talking, three armed Nazi guards sat down at the next table. The whole café quieted. “It was as though a chill had come over those present,” Jordan later recalled. “In a nutshell, there was the answer to Bill’s question.”</p>
<p>I included the story Max Jordan recounted in his memoir <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p082214">in my book on the Nazi origins of Olympic broadcasting</a> because it perfectly encapsulated the quandary facing American sports journalists whenever the International Olympic Committee pushes them to broadcast happy images provided by repressive regimes.</p>
<p>It’s now less than 100 days from the opening ceremony of the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/beijing-2022/">2022 Beijing Winter Olympics</a>, and therefore it’s time for an honest discussion about the ethics of sport journalism and the morality of American media’s complicity with authoritarian regimes that hide the active repression of their citizens.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A 1936 sign from Germany saying Jews were forbidden to go to that year's Winter Olympics." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A sign reading ‘Juden Zutritt verboten!’ forbidding entry by Jewish people to the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-reading-juden-zutritt-verboten-forbidding-entry-by-news-photo/1277756265?adppopup=true">Photo FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Abundant evidence</h2>
<p>The world knows what China is doing right now. Courageous reporting has publicized the series of <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/as-global-pressure-over-human-rights-abuses-in-xinjiang-picks-up-china-remains-defiant/">repressive domestic</a> and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-how-china-exports-repression-using-a-network-of-spies-hidden-in-plain-sight">international actions taken by the Chinese government</a> over the past five years.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html">persecution of the Uyghurs</a> and other human rights abuses, the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/24/chinas-new-hong-kong-laws-a-breach-of-agreement-foreign-officials-say.html">abrogation of the Hong Kong treaty</a> along with the imposition of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-europe-business-5a7f50d5d5027fda34f9addeb883e809">Chinese government’s repression</a> in that port city, and the prevention of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/22/1019244601/china-who-coronavirus-lab-leak-theory">a comprehensive and transparent investigation</a> into the origins of COVID-19 are all well documented. </p>
<p>Thus, the Chinese government now wants good press in the West. And its efforts to ensure favorable coverage have prompted new concerns about media control and censorship during the Games, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/us-calls-china-not-limit-journalists-freedom-2022-beijing-winter-olympics-2021-11-04/">a U.S. government spokesman recently</a> urging Chinese government officials “not to limit freedom of movement and access for journalists and to ensure that they remain safe and able to report freely, including at the Olympic and the Paralympic Games.”</p>
<p>But, as was clear from the experience during the 1936 Olympics, if U.S. journalists go to Beijing and emphasize the beauty of its landscape, the happiness of its citizenry and its futuristic infrastructure, and fail to cover the more controversial realities in China, that would signal compliance with – and promotion of – Chinese propaganda. </p>
<p>This is American sports journalism’s Red Smith moment. </p>
<h2>Politics, meet sports</h2>
<p>On Jan. 4, 1980, Walter “Red” Smith, the veteran New York Times sports columnist, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/04/archives/boycott-the-moscow-olympics-sports-of-the-times-we-should-have.html">surprised his readership</a> with his endorsement of the boycott movement against that summer’s Moscow Olympic Games. Boycott advocates were protesting the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Smith’s stance was unexpected, as he had carefully sidestepped – or even ignored – many other moments he considered unhealthy political intrusion into international athletic competition. But Smith wrote that history had proved that America’s participation in the Nazi Games was a mistake – even if the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/naming-heatwaves-custodians-vs-covid-19-nba-barbers-online-moderators-jesse-owens-granddaughter-and-more-1.5719784/remembering-jesse-owens-the-black-olympian-who-humiliated-hitler-1.5719794">great Black American runner Jesse Owens</a> redeemed the event in public memory.</p>
<p>“When Americans look back to the 1936 Olympics,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/04/archives/boycott-the-moscow-olympics-sports-of-the-times-we-should-have.html">Smith wrote in his famous column</a>, “they take pleasure only in the memory of Jesse Owens’ four gold medals.” Outside of that, he admitted, “we are ashamed at having been guests at Adolf Hitler’s big party.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/16/obituaries/red-smith-sports-columnist-who-won-pulitzer-dies-at-76.html">Smith was an old-school sports reporter</a>, already an old-timer in 1980 – he died in 1982. His reporting and columns reflected the influence of <a href="https://theathletic.com/1876184/2020/06/18/how-he-played-the-game-assessing-the-complicated-legacy-of-grantland-rice/">Grantland Rice</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/17/archives/paul-gallico-sportswriter-and-author-is-dead-at-78-founded-golden.html">Paul Gallico</a>, the giants who invented modern American sports writing in the 1920s. But there had always existed another group of sports reporters less afraid to point out obvious political unpleasantness.</p>
<p>For example, the great <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/06/archives/jimmy-cannon-columnist-dies-sportswriter-ranged-far-afield-protege.html">Jimmy Cannon</a> had no problem freely peppering political references and acerbic commentary throughout his columns. Westbrook Pegler detested the Nazis and <a href="https://olympic-century.blogspot.com/2016/11/arms-and-olympics-westbrook-pegler-and.html">criticized them relentlessly</a> throughout the 1936 Games. And Howard Cosell’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEg3uNqsTYQ">sharp commentaries</a>, on such issues as Muhammad Ali’s boxing suspension in the 1960s and the political activism that erupted in 1968 in Mexico City, remain a credit to his legacy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The U.S. Olympic Committee … is in the main a group of pompous, arrogant and medieval-minded men who regard the games as a private social preserve,’ said Howard Cosell.</span></figcaption>
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<p>That Red Smith had spent decades remaining largely apolitical in public made his support for the boycott surprising. That he was only the second sports columnist to be <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/walter-wellesley-red-smith">awarded a Pulitzer Prize</a>, and that his opinions were widely respected, gave his endorsement significant clout. </p>
<h2>‘The one lever we have’</h2>
<p>Smith opened the gates for others to point out the incongruity and obvious hypocrisy of celebrating the Soviet Union’s peaceful intentions while the Soviet army was invading and occupying Afghanistan. In his column, Smith quoted British Member of Parliament Neville Trotter, who led the boycott movement in Great Britain. </p>
<p>“This is the one lever we have to show our outrage at this naked aggression by Russia,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/04/archives/boycott-the-moscow-olympics-sports-of-the-times-we-should-have.html">Trotter told Smith</a>. “We should do all we can to reduce the Moscow Olympics to a shambles.” </p>
<p>One well-known and nationally respected sports journalist has explicitly and unambiguously called for boycotting the 2022 Beijing Games: Sally Jenkins. The Washington Post’s veteran columnist – who last year was a finalist for <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/sally-jenkins-washington-post">the Pulitzer Prize for commentary</a> – published a scorching column plainly stating that “ignorance is no longer an excuse.”</p>
<p>“It was a forgivable mistake to award an Olympics to Beijing in 2008,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/09/boycott-beijing-olympics">she wrote</a>. “It’s unforgivable to hold one there now.”</p>
<p>Red Smith’s boycott column remains one of his most important and lasting examples of public service. As a media historian, I believe that those who emulate his courage today, like Sally Jenkins, will likely be remembered in the same way tomorrow.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the face of China’s repression and human rights abuses, a scholar asks whether cheerful media coverage of the Beijing Olympics in February 2022 signals complicity with Chinese propaganda.Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/631572016-08-09T00:19:55Z2016-08-09T00:19:55ZHow do Olympic athletes pay the electric bill?<p>Recently, while sitting in traffic, I noticed a weathered bumper sticker with a little acoustic guitar on it that said: “Real musicians have day jobs.”</p>
<p>I presume most of us do have real day jobs, but as the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics begin, for some reason – maybe because I’m an ex-Olympic shooter – I wondered about the hundreds of young women and men who have tried (with many failing) to represent the United States in the Olympics. </p>
<p>Real musicians and Olympians seem to have a lot in common. They have ambition and enthusiasm for their craft. But like musicians, these talented young people have to pay their electric bills too. How do they support themselves and their families, all while having to diligently train, often several hours a day over the course of years? How did I pull it off?</p>
<h2>The haves and haves nots</h2>
<p>Many might assume that since athletes are at the pinnacles of their respective sports, they’re all able to live comfortably, either from endorsements or competing professionally. After all, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ <a href="http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/athletes/richest-swimmers/michael-phelps-net-worth/">estimated net worth</a> is about US$55,000,000. </p>
<p>But most who do make it to Pyeongchang receive very little funding, and most don’t make a lot of money off their sport outside of the Olympics, either. For example, two-time Olympic javelin thrower Cyrus Hostetler <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/olympic-executives-cash-in-on-a-movement-that-keeps-athletes-poor/2016/07/30/ed18c206-5346-11e6-88eb-7dda4e2f2aec_story.html">recently told The Washington Post</a> that the most he’s ever earned in a year is $3,000. </p>
<p>Sure, there are many celebrity athletes who are professionals, have corporate endorsements and have their airbrushed faces on a Wheaties box. Snowboarder Shaun White and skier Lindsey Vonn compete in the Olympic Games and then return to a life of material comfort. But these folks are few and far between. </p>
<p>The average U.S. Olympian simply does not live in the highest level of the financial stratosphere. <a href="http://trackandfieldathletesassociation.org/site/how-much-money-do-track-and-field-athletes-make/">According to the Track and Field Athletic Association</a>, there’s a “steep pyramid of income opportunities” for track and field athletes, with only a “select few” able to earn a very good living. Fifty percent of track athletes who rank in the top 10 in the U.S. in their event earn less than $15,000 annually from the sport.</p>
<p>Unlike many other countries, the United States federal government <a href="http://www.teamusa.org/us-olympic-and-paralympic-foundation/team-usa-fund">doesn’t fund Olympic programs</a>, though some athletes get special funding from their national governing bodies. For example, USA Swimming reportedly provides <a href="http://www.sportsmanagementdegreehub.com/olympic-athletes-salaries/">approximately $3,000</a> to national team members of its top 16 ranked athletes. But other aspiring athletes are actually unemployed and need to be supported by their families – and some families have even gone bankrupt trying to support their son’s or daughter’s Olympic dreams. Leading up to the 2012 Games in London, US News <a href="http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/alpha-consumer/2012/08/07/why-olympic-athletes-parents-go-broke">reported</a> that gymnast Gabby Douglas’ mother had filed for bankruptcy, in part due to “the high cost of her daughter’s training, which involved living away from home for two years.” </p>
<h2>Scraping by to chase a dream</h2>
<p>In reality, countless hopefuls and current Olympians hold down real jobs working all shifts. You name it, <a href="http://www.frugalconfessions.com/exltra-cash/how-olympic-athletes-fund-their-dream.php">they do it</a>: waiter, teacher, coach, construction worker, public speaker, janitor and many other jobs. For example, swimmer Amanda Beard has worked as a model and as a public speaker to earn a living.</p>
<p>Many are undergraduate and graduate students who train at their universities. Some serve in the military. Several fortunate athletes live and train at regional Olympic training centers like those at Colorado Springs, Chula Vista and Lake Placid.</p>
<p>The U.S. Olympic Committee has created athlete employment programs that offer some support and employment opportunities. For example, the <a href="http://www.teamusa.org/Athlete%20Resources/Athlete%20Career%20and%20Education%20Services/Employers">Team USA Athlete Career and Education Program (ACE)</a> exists to link aspiring athletes with organizations like Coca-Cola and Dick’s Sporting Goods, among others, that provide full- and part-time employment. </p>
<p>In my case, I recall preparing over two Olympic quadrennials to get ready for the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games (a team I did not make) and the 1984 Los Angeles Games (which I did make and medal) as a shooter. It was not a financially comfortable time in my life. </p>
<p>I supported myself with a mix of funding from the G.I. Bill, a graduate assistantship teaching physical education classes and work as a shooting coach. I also served part-time as a member of the U.S. Army Reserves. All told, from working three jobs, I earned $500 a month (around $1,500 today), plus the cost of tuition. </p>
<p>In fact, I just received a Social Security statement of earned income during those eight years. It doesn’t reflect the wages of a rich man during my Olympic quest – and even so I was probably one of the lucky ones. Many more fail in the dream to make an Olympic team than those who actually get to walk behind the flag in the opening ceremonies.</p>
<p>Chasing the Olympic dream can be exhausting. It’s not a straight path. There are skilled athletes who had to drop out of their chase for a medal because of finances. </p>
<p>So when you watch the Olympics, consider the personal stories of the 2016 U.S. Olympians who might be making less than $12,000 a year. </p>
<p>I can tell you from personal experience it’s not easy. But I can also tell you it can be quite rewarding.</p>
<p><em>This an updated version of an article originally published on Aug. 8, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Etzel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A former Olympic gold medalist reflects on his own financial struggles as he trained and competed for the 1984 Games. Decades later, not much has changed for many Olympians.Edward Etzel, Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627912016-07-26T19:53:22Z2016-07-26T19:53:22ZHow the Olympic cult of performance breeds doping<p>The Rio Olympics haven’t even opened yet and already athletes are embroiled in multiple cases of alleged doping, including competitors from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/18/wada-report-russia-sochi-winter-olympics">Russia</a> and suspicions about others from several <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/13/kenya-escapes-rio-olympics-ban-doping-iaaf">African</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/oct/23/jamaica-olympics-threat-exclusion-drug-tests">Caribbean</a> countries. </p>
<p>This is nothing new – doping rumours and scandals have long been part of sporting competitions. In the 1904 Games, held in St Louis, US marathoner Thomas Hicks probably wouldn’t have won without <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-1904-olympic-marathon-may-have-been-the-strangest-ever-14910747/">liberal doses of strychnine</a> during the race. </p>
<p>The first proven case of doping dates to the <a href="http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/li/hans-gunnar-liljenwall-1.html">1968 Mexico City Games</a>. Since then, significant advances have been made in the fight against doping, yet it shows no sign of receding. </p>
<p>How can we explain the persistence of doping in spite of concerted efforts to eradicate it? To understand this, we must explore what leads to doping and ask if current anti-doping efforts truly attack the root of the problem.</p>
<h2>Ever more tests</h2>
<p>The current fight against doping primarily consists of identifying athletes who use illicit performance-enhancing substances, and punishing them and their entourages – coaches, and technical and medical staff – if they are accomplices. </p>
<p>This policy of control is complemented by efforts to educate athletes, especially young people, about sports ethics and the health dangers of doping. But these prevention efforts remain diffuse and inconspicuous, while the repressive component, which targets the most successful athletes, is continuously strengthened.</p>
<p>Anti-doping efforts advanced significantly in 1999, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set up the independent <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/">World Anti-Doping Agency</a> (WADA). In 2004, a <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/the-code">World Anti-Doping Code</a> was adopted. </p>
<p>The code sets out standards in a range of areas: tests and laboratory procedures, the list of prohibited substances and methods, authorisations for therapeutic purposes, and so on. Since 2005, athletes have been required to provide information on their whereabouts to the centralised <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/adams">ADAMS database</a> so that they are permanently accessible to potential controls. </p>
<p><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131066/original/image-20160719-13851-13g0fqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, 50% of participating athletes were tested.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/amsr1/7693753278/in/photolist-cHSuNA-cENn2f-cE76Ss-cQMhLs-cEzNtu-cLjGLU-cLk6qs-cLjvEb-cLjP9N-cR4gUQ-cLjQpq-cLjR3w-cLjKh1-cLjPKJ-cLk2rs-cLjHn5-cLjAtS-cLjEkC-cR4itf-cLjZuL-cLk1P9-cHSFF3-9KYoa-cHSUFd-bFaekL-cLjwfj-cHSHCm-cHSeRb-">Alistair Ross/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure></p>
<p>Tests are constantly being improved, allowing them to detect new substances or delivery methods. Urine and blood samples are stored to allow for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/27/olympics-23-athletes-caught-out-london-2012-drug-retests">retrospective testing</a> using methods that didn’t exist when samples were originally taken.</p>
<h2>The doping race</h2>
<p>Currently, more than <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/laboratories/anti-doping-testing-figures">200,000 samples</a> are analysed each year under the auspices of WADA, of which approximately 1% are positive. </p>
<p>Since the introduction of drug tests, positive cases have been detected at every Olympics except the 1980 Moscow Olympics – an irony given they’ve been referred to as the <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=c4oQAR2G4OgC&pg=PA99&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">“Chemists’ Games”</a>, when evidence of extensive state-sponsored doping was discovered after the fall of the Iron Curtain. </p>
<p>Monitoring of athletes has become tighter. During the 2012 London Olympics, more than half were tested and all were warned that controllers could burst into their rooms at any time.</p>
<p><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131218/original/image-20160720-31156-s0yqn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ben Johnson ‘wins’ the gold medal in the 100-metre sprint at the Seoul 1988 Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DPMS/Flickr</span></span>
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<p>Behind the drive to improve athletic performance – the Games’ Latin motto translates as “Faster, Higher, Stronger” after all – hides the race to improve doping. This involves constant improvements in substances and methods to sidestep controls that are increasingly powerful. </p>
<p>The key is innovation, which requires financial investment and involves (almost) undetectable doping among elite athletes, the only ones who can bear its economic costs.</p>
<p>EPO has become ever more advanced, for instance, as has the use of blood transfusions to boost performance. The steroids behind the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SPORTS-AND-DRUGS-How-the-doping-scandal-2545661.php">Balco case</a>, which cost Marion Jones the five medals she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, were worlds away from those that led to the first big doping scandal – that of Ben Johnson, winner of the 100-metre sprint at the 1988 Games in Seoul.</p>
<h2>The cult of performance</h2>
<p>The roots of doping are deep; more structural and less individual, more systemic and less isolated. It is not a matter of deliberate choices made by a few cheaters; it is the direct consequence of the search for athletic perfection and all the work that it entails. </p>
<p>Doping is not simply a individual misdemeanour because athleticism at the highest level demands constant evaluation and, ultimately, results. To live such a life, an athlete must undertake rigorous training and coaching, suffer through pain and injury, go through performance slumps, overcome moments of doubt, and adhere to a rigorous lifestyle. </p>
<p>Athletes must overcome these constant tests to stay competitive in a world where the demand for performance is pervasive, where it is the measure of value and the condition of survival. </p>
<p>This cult of performance is as demanding as job conditions are fragile and contractual commitments precarious. Thus doping is not only a practice that improves physical performance, it is a response to a set of physical, psychological and contractual constraints.</p>
<p>In this regard, sport is not so different from many other professional communities where the pressures are strong, and where taking psychoactive substances (licit and illicit drugs, alcohol and others) allows individuals to be effective. The list is long, from financial traders to manual workers, through artistic circles and students at highly selective institutions. </p>
<p>The sociology of work teaches us that strong professional constraints favour the use of products that support high performance. Only in sports is this labelled doping.</p>
<p>None of this is to excuse or justify doping, particularly because it exposes athletes to serious health risks. But only by understanding why athletes dope can we improve what has been largely ineffective law enforcement up to now. </p>
<p>This requires us to abandon the individualistic and moralistic vision that portrays doped athletes as cynical cheats, and to better understand the demands of elite athletes’ lives. </p>
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<p><em>Translated from the French by Leighton Walter Kille.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Didier Demazière ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Only a better understanding of what drives doping can improve enforcement. To do so, we must break with the perception of doping as an individual or moral problem.Didier Demazière, Sociologue, directeur de recherche au CNRS (CSO), Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.