The nonsense of Olympic doping rules.

[Ganchrow]

An interesting article from Slate.com on why Olympic doping rules make little sense:

Turin Sample -- The nonsense of Olympic doping rules.

A snippet:

Every athlete knows how to exceed perfection. A steroid here, a hormone there, and you've got the speed, power, or stamina to get the gold. The International Olympic Committee knows it, too; hence the 1,200 drug tests being conducted at the Turin Games. Thanks to pharmacological data on the Internet and a blossoming generation of chemical hackers, athletes are finding new ways every day to alter their bodies for advantage. It's a multiplying mess of techniques and designer drugs, with varying degrees of risk, artificiality, and manipulation. And the dope cops have done a lousy job of sorting it out.

The bible of Olympic drug testing is the World Anti-Doping Code, written and enforced by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The code bans a substance or procedure if it meets any two of these criteria: 1) it endangers the athlete's health; 2) it "enhances sport performance"; or 3) it "violates the spirit of sport." Things that pose clear health risks—very high hemoglobin levels, for instance—are easy calls. But what about things that don't? If all enhancements were forbidden, the code points out, we'd have to ban training, red meat, and carbohydrate loading. That would be preposterous. But in the next breath, the code says enhancement through gene transfer "should be prohibited as contrary to the spirit of sport even if it is not harmful."

How, exactly, does the spirit of sport forbid gene transfer but not carbo-loading? The code doesn't say. It defines the spirit of sport as "ethics," "fair play," "character," and a bunch of other words that clarify nothing. In fact, the definition includes "courage" and "dedication." Doesn't it take more courage and dedication to alter your genes than to snarf a potato? Human-growth hormone appears on WADA's "Prohibited List" of substances and methods, even though the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists have vouched, to varying degrees, for its safety. Evidently growth hormone violates the spirit of sport, but stuffing yourself with steaks doesn't.

[Winston Smith]

My main aversion to the Olympics is that it always seems to become an exhibition in technicalities. Whether it be slight rule violations or using the wrong balding cream. I understand that they want to keep whatever they perceive as the sanctity and validity of the games, but it becomes a hypocritical, preposterous mess and eliminates any enjoyment I might have in watching it. (Short of stealing juuso's hockey picks, of course.)

(Nice sig, by the way. )