Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This article, by the United Kingdom's last Olympic Marathon Medal winner, Charlie Spedding, and his brother, the pharmacologist, Michael Spedding, covers the difficulties posed by the availability of powerful drugs to ameliorate athletic performance, from an athlete's perspective, particularly in view of the fact that performances are becoming highly optimised with less margin for further physiological improvement.
The authors have had long athletic careers and argue that doping not only devalues performance but sport, and exercise, as a whole. Furthermore, the neurotrophic and metabolic changes involved in exercise and training, which can be modified by drugs, are central to health and reflect a part of the epidemic in obesity. The aim of this article is to put the abuse of drugs in sport, doping, into a social and sporting perspective and also to point out how central to metabolism and exercise are erythropoietin EPO and haematocrit see also Elliott, Exceptionally, we wish to contrast the scientific evidence with personal experience and in consequence this is a rather atypical article for the British Journal of Pharmacology and is at the interface of sports and science writing.
Athletes attempt to extract the best possible results out of their bodies by repetitive but mixed and progressive training, which requires efforts, which appear surprising to the non-athlete. Ten miles run in horizontal sleet after a hard day's work does require motivation. The objectives of such training depend on the talent of the athlete and their degree of preparation, and range from casual keep-fit, to local and eventual world class competition. Unfortunately, doping by a few may cause any excellent performance to be viewed as suspicious, devaluing the sport in general, with the risk that children are not encouraged to participate, with consequent major health risks for society see below.
The impact of sport on the main neurodevelopmental systems in the body is briefly covered at the end of the article. It is a luxury in modern life to be able to focus on a single figure, which is improved within limits by effort and application. This single figure places the athlete in a hierarchical triangle. But this is why doping is so insidious, as the crucial factors affecting performance can be modified. Absolute performance in sport is not the only reason why the vast majority of participants are involved.
Athletics is an individual sport, but is also very social. MS has two friends who he raced regularly in the early s and has run with ever sinceβbonds made by running together in horizontal sleet are strong. Few sports permit 30 years of performance at a reasonable level. Thus for most athletes, winning is only part of the reason for participating; doping arises as a problem when winning is the only reason for doing sport.
