Cocaine, strychnine and brandy: when doping came to sport

BarcelonaCheating in sports is nothing new. Even in Ancient Greece, some boxers cheated and offered money to their rivals to throw matches, since everyone wanted a laurel wreath and to be admired. The desire for victory, the dream of fame, or the pressure to succeed have led thousands of athletes to disregard all moral principles and cheat to get their way. And this includes doping, which is also not new. "It almost originated at the same time as professional sport in the late 19th century," explains Paul Dimeo, a professor at the University of Stirling, in a recently published study. Doping, between glory and deceit (Route Books) in conjunction with April Henning, from the University of Edinburgh.

The first cases of doping in sport date back to the late 19th century, precisely at a time when sports were gaining more and more fans, more disciplines and competitions were emerging, and, especially, a business was developing around them. Being able to earn a living led many people to experiment with ways to compete better, in an era when there were scientists like Robert Christison, a professor of medicine in Edinburgh, who conducted experiments offering cocaine to people he made climb hills, to see how they claimed to "feel less tired." The first high-profile case in sport occurred in 1896, when Welsh cyclist Arthur Linton died shortly after participating in the Bordeaux-Paris race. "His coach, James Edward Choppy Warburton was known for supplying his cyclists with a drink. “When Linton died, it seemed plausible that stimulants were the cause of death,” says Dimeo. In reality, Linton died of “fevers,” but “the insistence on explaining that he died from stimulants shows that it was common practice at the time.” At that time, many men in track and field and cycling races used stimulants.

At the 1904 Olympic Games, the third of the modern era in St. Louis, doping made a grand entrance with a bizarre marathon. Frederick Lorz arrived first and was cheered, but he wasn't considered the winner because he had gotten into an official car and taken strychnine sulfate mixed with brandy during the race. He crossed the finish line half-drugged, and doctors prevented further harm by taking him to the hospital. But he is still considered the winner. “It seems strange now, but back then strychnine wasn't considered a poison, and scientists were studying its stimulant properties.”

"The pills of joy"

Until World War II, a policy of tolerance towards doping was maintained. It wasn't considered a major issue, although many athletes took substances without fully understanding what they were doing. A well-known case was that of the "happy pills," which Arsenal manager Leslie Knighton gave to his players before a match in 1925. These pills, administered by a "distinguished doctor from the West End," contained an unknown quantity of substances, but the players "couldn't sit still for a second: they were jumping and running before the match, and they didn't stop moving during the entire game." A few days later, the players refused to take any more.

"Doping is part of sport. And, in fact, one could say that part of the glory of sport, whether we like it or not, is linked to doping. The best example is the Olympic Games, which were in crisis for most of the postwar period. What made them interesting during the decade was the Cold War between the Soviet Union, East Germany, and the United States and their respective allies. This rivalry created meaning and a culture of excellence. Records were broken regularly in almost every discipline. In the book, they analyze this blatant commitment to doping on both sides of the Wall, with symbolic cases like East Germany. Swimmer Kornelia Ender, for example, set 27 world records in just five years thanks to steroids.

And from state-sponsored doping, with cases like East Germany or present-day Russia, we have moved to industrial doping, which has become a business, with sports like cycling at the center of the storm." Dimeo believes the perspective on many athletes who have doped should be changed. The blame should be placed on the system, not the individuals, who are often deceived or pressured. In an article in The Guardian Dimeo wrote: "After a doping scandal, we are encouraged to side with traditional ethics and support anti-doping. However, if we can empathize with the will to win and the desire for competitive advantage of the athletes, whom we as spectators celebrate and admire, we might be less harsh. They both felt they could not trust the anti-doping system to protect the idea of fairness, and they were right about this too."