Sports

Tennis and Sex

by David Edmonds
January 27, 2009

Once a week I thrash around haplessly on the tennis court. This week, I’m also a tennis spectator. While the global economy implodes, at least one event appears to be untouched – the 2009 Australian Tennis Open. Andrew Murray’s defeat yesterday means he can’t now net the eye-watering AUD$2 million first prize for the men’s single title. The women’s champion will earn….well, exactly the same, AUD $2million.

After a long running campaign by various groups, all the Grand Slams tennis tournaments now offer equal prize money to both sexes: Wimbledon fell into line in 2007. The argument was that just as no distinction should be made between women and men in the office, so there should be no distinction drawn on the court.

Keeping Viagra in the bedchamber and out of the arena?

by Anders Sandberg
November 25, 2008

Viagra may not just be a performance enhancer in the bedroom, but also on the sports arena. Researchers are studying whether it helps dilate athlete’s blood vessels and improve their oxygen-carrying capacity. If it is found to improve performance it will likely be put it on the list of banned substances for athletes. But should it?

Why the cheating objection to smart drugs doesn’t work

by Rebecca Roache, Royal Holloway University of London
October 13, 2008

The BBC reports today
that increasing numbers of people are using prescription drugs like Ritalin—intended
as a treatment for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD)—to boost alertness and brain power. Reports of the increasing popularity of ‘smart
drugs’ are synonymous with concerns about cheating (see here, here, and here):
surely, the worry runs, taking drugs that help you do well at college is
equivalent to bribing your examiners into awarding you high marks? Those who take cognitive enhancement drugs,
just like those who bribe their examiners, are better placed to beat their
peers in the competition for the best educational qualifications and jobs, and
so cognitive enhancement is unfair. In
this case, shouldn’t cognitive enhancement be banned in schools and colleges?

How to Win the War on Drugs in Sport

by Julian Savulescu
July 25, 2008

Drug scandals again tarnish the Tour de France. Last week three riders, Spaniards Manuel Beltrain and Moises Duenas and Italian climber Riccardo Ricco, winner of two mountain stages, failed tests for the banned performance enhancer EPO. This year has seen fewer spectacular expulsions, but of course the game is not over.

Does this mean the drug testers are winning the war on drugs? It might. But it might also mean that cyclists and their doctors are getting better at evading testing. A recent BBC investigation supports the latter conclusion. WADA labs have been proven to fail to pick up positive results. There are 80 copy-cat drugs, produced in China, India and Cuba, which are difficult to detect. And labs apparently collude with doctors to “exchange knowledge” on testing procedures. Expert Professor Bengt Saltin, a leading anti-doping expert and a former winner of the IOC Olympic Prize, the highest honour in sports science, said

"I would think that most of the medal winners and many in the finals of endurance events – there is a big risk for them having used EPO."

So despite the numbers of athletes being prosecuted for EPO declining by two-thirds between 2003 and 2006, Professor Saltin concluded this was due to evasion, not a reduction in use.

"The reason that I am still a little bit upset with the whole situation is that I have seen too many suspicious samples that are clearly abnormal. Athletes are getting away with it. Look how many have been caught for EPO misuse recently."

The response is predictable: widen testing critieria. Experts have suggested that urine samples should be tested for any evidence of naturally produced EPO. If there is none, it should be classed as suspicious because the use of artificial EPO for doping causes the body’s own production to shut down. These experts also call for testing of blood profiles as well as the urine. An analysis of the number of young red blood cells can also indicate doping.

Is this a solution? No. It will simply escalate the war to the next level. History has proven the ability of athletes and their doctors to ingeniously evade detection. We will never win the war on doping.

Sport, Sudden Cardiac Death and Liberty

by Julian Savulescu
July 10, 2008

Sport, like life, is dangerous. Several fit young footballers have died of sudden unexpected heart attacks. Doctors are now calling for mandatory testing using ECGs of all athletes. Italy has been pursuing mandatory testing for 25 years. This has revealed over 5% have some abnormality. Some people have congenital heart rhythm abnormalities which place them at high risk of sudden heart attack during or after sport. The call for mandatory testing is a sensible one. The interesting question is what is to be done with the results.

Football screens and genes: Should genetic discrimination in sport be banned?

by Dominic Wilkinson
April 26, 2008

In the Guardian this weekend, it is reported that at least one UK football club has been contemplating using genetic tests to screen potential recruits,in the hope of identifying future star players. This comes only one day after legislation was passed in the US Senate prohibiting insurance companies and employers from using genetic information in hiring or insurance decisions.

Trading on Testosterone: Doping and the Financial Markets

by Tom Douglas
April 18, 2008

Two cambridge researchers have found that found that the amount of money a male financial trader makes in a day is correlated with his testosterone level. The pair – John Coates and Joe Herbert – also found that a trader’s testosterone at the beginning of a day is strongly predictive of his success that day, suggesting that testosterone causes improved stock market performance, rather than the reverse.

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