Did you know?

You may have read or heard about certain athletes or teams and the words ‘doping’ before in the news. Essentially some athletes, teams, or support staff have ben caught ‘cheating’. The word cheating in this context is referring to an athlete ingesting or injecting something into their body that could enhance their performance and give them an unfair advantage over other athletes. These are often referred to as Performance Enhancing Drugs, or PED’s. Below are two examples high profile cases over the last ~10-years.

Lance Armstrong was an exceptional cyclist, survived cancer and won seven consecutive Tour de France titles between 1999 and 2005. However, he was subsequently stripped of those titles and given a lifetime ban from cycling after confessing to using PED’s in 2012/2013. This was a huge revelation within the cycling community with a lot of media coverage at the time. You can read more in this brief BBC news article.

A more current example you may have seen is Russia; the nation was banned from competing in athletics in 2015. They were re-instated into competition in 2018, but then subsequently banned again. Russian athletes in more recent competitions were only allowed to compete under a neutral flag. You may have noticed at the Tokyo Olympics that some athletes competed under ‘ROC’ or the Russian Olympic Committee. You can read more in this BBC news article.

When working with elite athletes, it is important that we as practitioners act responsibly and promote honest competition. You can read more about anti-doping practice through the United Kingdom Anti-Doping website.