Doping in sport

Lore & Background

The origins of doping in sports go back to the creation of sport itself. In ancient times, athletes were fed diets and given treatments to increase muscle. Scandinavian mythology describes Berserkers drinking a mixture called 'butotens' to improve physical power at the risk of insanity, thought to be prepared from Amanita muscaria mushroom. The ancient Olympics in Greece have been alleged to have had forms of doping, and in ancient Rome, chariot racers drank herbal infusions to strengthen themselves.

Reader's Guide

Doping in sport represents a persistent ethical and regulatory challenge. The general trend among authorities over the past several decades has been to strictly regulate drug use in sports, citing health risks, equality of opportunity, and the exemplary effect of drug-free sports. Anti-doping authorities state that using performance-enhancing drugs goes against the 'spirit of sport'. The prevalence of doping is significant: over 30% of athletes at the 2011 World Championships admitted using banned substances, and a WADA-commissioned study found 44% had used them, though only 0.5% were caught. The entire Russian track and field team was banned from the 2016 Olympic Games due to state-sponsored doping. Goldman's dilemma, posed to elite athletes, asked whether they would take a drug guaranteeing success but causing death after five years; approximately half responded they would in early research, though modern studies yielded lower numbers.

Did You Know?

• The term doping is defined by the World Anti-Doping Code as one or more of the anti-doping rule violations outlined in Article 2.1 through Article 2.11.
• John Ziegler, a physician for the U.S. weightlifting team, worked with CIBA to develop the oral anabolic steroid Dianabol (methandrostenolone) in 1960.
• Goldman's dilemma asked athletes if they would take a drug guaranteeing success but causing death after five years; about half said yes in early research.

Ancient Roots and Crude Beginnings

The practice of gaining an unfair athletic edge stretches back to the very first Olympic competitions in Ancient Greece. Competitors were required to run naked, a rule that may have served to prevent hidden aids and to exclude women from men's events. Beyond clothing, athletes resorted to drinking mysterious potions and consuming exotic meats in the hope of a competitive advantage. Those caught cheating faced a public humiliation: their likenesses were carved into stone and set along the path leading to the stadium. When the modern Olympic movement began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, performance enhancement remained shockingly primitive. A striking example came at the 1904 Games, where marathon winner Thomas Hicks was dosed with strychnine and brandy by his coach, even while he was still running the course. The gap between that crude, almost medieval approach and the sophisticated pharmacology that would later define the sport was enormous, yet the underlying impulse to cheat had never changed.

A Death That Changed Everything

For decades, the Olympic world turned a blind eye to the growing use of performance-enhancing substances, even as athletes in the early twentieth century began experimenting with testosterone boosts and other increasingly dangerous methods. The tragedy that finally forced global attention arrived at the 1960 Rome Games. During the cycling road race, Danish rider Knud Enemark Jensen crashed from his bicycle and subsequently died. A coroner's investigation revealed that amphetamine had caused him to lose consciousness mid-race, making his death the only Olympic fatality directly linked to drug use. Jensen's passing shattered the illusion that doping was a minor infraction; it exposed just how widespread chemical enhancement had become among elite competitors. The first athlete to test positive under the new regime was Swedish pentathlete Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall at the 1968 Games, who lost his bronze medal after consuming what he described as two beers to calm his nerves. He was the sole positive case that year, but as testing technology advanced, the numbers of detected cheaters climbed steadily.

The State as Sponsor of Cheating

Perhaps the most disturbing chapter in Olympic doping history is the revelation that entire governments engineered and enforced drug programs for their athletes. American swimmer Shirley Babashoff raised alarms as early as the 1976 Montreal Games, but her accusations were dismissed as sour grapes after she collected three silvers to East German rivals' golds. It was only after the Wall fell that the truth emerged, and several East German officials were later tried and convicted under German criminal law. Soviet authorities, according to a KGB colonel quoted by journalist Andrew Jennings, had officers posing as IOC anti-doping officials to sabotage testing, and a 1989 Australian study described the 1980 Moscow Games as virtually a "Chemists' Games."

Stripped Medals and Lasting Consequences

The most visible consequence of Olympic doping is the revocation of hard-won medals. While athletes and teams can lose their honors for various infractions, drug use remains the single leading cause of medal stripping throughout the Games' history. Beyond losing a medal, a positive test typically disqualifies the individual or squad from further competition, erasing months of preparation in a single moment. The legal fallout extends far beyond the podium. The Soviet Union's track-and-field doping infrastructure, documented in files prepared by Dr. Sergei Portugalov ahead of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, revealed a systematic steroids operation that predated the country's boycott. Portugalov would later resurface as a central figure in Russia's doping scheme before the 2016 Rio Olympics. China's lead Olympic team doctor, Chen Zhangho, described administering hormones, blood doping, and steroids to roughly fifty elite athletes across three Games cycles. These revelations underscore that Olympic doping is not merely an individual failing but, in many cases, an institutional enterprise with lasting consequences for entire nations.