Doping: A Sporting History

In Doping: A Sporting History, April Henning and Paul Dimeo, both prolific writers with multiple books published in recent years, team up to create a thorough introduction to doping in sports that not only traces the history of doping but also offers tangible and thoughtful ideas for moving forward. The authors chronicle the start of the push toward drug-free sports and the anti-doping movement, addressing myths and inaccuracies in arguing when and why anti-doping emerged as an issue in sports. Throughout the book, the authors highlight the nuances and complexity of regulating the substances and methods that sport scientists developed to enhance athletic performance. The common narrative that athletes who commit anti-doping rule violations are cheaters or morally bankrupt human beings is challenged throughout.Chapters 1, 2, and 3 cover the history of doping in sports, focusing on when and why sport administrators pushed back against an increasing number of athletes’ use of stimulants and steroids to enhance their performances. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on drug testing, the growth of the anti-doping movement, and the corresponding challenges to athletes’ autonomy that the system created. Chapters 6 and 7, the final two chapters, are athlete-centered and move from description to prescription: suggesting what is needed to make the anti-doping field fairer and more defensible and to reduce the collateral damage the system creates. Here, the authors add fresh ideas to the anti-doping literature by moving beyond critiquing the system to offering interesting and innovative ideas for positive change.Like much of the doping history that came before it, this book emphasizes the role of sport administrators in cycling and athletics, specifically cycling and athletics in Europe, in chronicling the development of the current anti-doping regulations. Little is still known about the origins of anti-doping attitudes in sports beyond cycling and athletics and beyond Europe and North America. Doping historians will not find much new until the final two chapters; however, scholars and students interested in doping from the fields of sport management, sociology, media studies, and so on will find this book provides an excellent introduction to the history of doping and anti-doping in sports. Undergraduate students will find this book a page-turner that captures their attention from the first page. This book would work well as required reading in a seminar on drugs in sports or as a specific unit within a broader social issues in sport course. The book's most useful function may be for lecturers teaching the history of doping. It is an excellent reference to quickly refresh memories of the many scandals and incidents that led to the current anti-doping system and requirements set out in the World Anti-Doping Agency's World Anti-Doping Code.Henning and Dimeo cover a lot of ground in the book's 240 pages, problematizing the system that remains in force today and considering what can and should be done differently. In doing so, they provide insight into why the anti-doping system remains ineffective by highlighting what they call the “central paradox of anti-doping,” noting the systems that WADA developed, and demands all signatories adhere to, “place almost no trust in athletes, subject them to various forms of invasive surveillance and punish even the most minor discretions, but simultaneously assume that sports organization leaders, directors of laboratories and drug-control officers can all be trusted to take their responsibilities seriously and follow the rules” (189). Henning and Dimeo's analysis of “collateral damage” is another strength of the book. They reserve the term for cases where “an athlete receives a ban that is not for deliberate doping or receives a grossly exaggerated ban that is disproportionate to the circumstances of the doping violation” (193). In discussing the collateral damage that the anti-doping system creates and sustains, Henning and Dimeo note, “Athletes pay a high price for the pursuit of the mirage or fantasy of ‘clean sport,’ and it would be a mistake to assume that all would dope given an opportunity. The debate has to move beyond simplistic assertions about ‘cheating,’ ‘integrity’ and ‘health,’ and shift towards recognizing the flaws in the current system” (193). This book is one step in doing so.

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