Doping in Elite Sport: the Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Mvnt: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement [Hardcover]

Wayne Wilson (Author), Edward Derse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0736003290 | ISBN-13: 978-0736003292 | Edition: 1

The International Olympic Committee began its fight against performance-enhancing drugs nearly four decades ago. Testing has become increasingly more sophisticated, but the problem is far from being eliminated. Doping in Elite Sport: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement addresses the challenges and complexities of the issue.

The text, edited by Wayne Wilson, PhD, and Edward Derse, is based on papers presented at the 1998 conference, Doping in Elite Sport, and includes:
-a basic scientific explanation of how performance-enhancing substances improve performance and how banned substances are detected;

-a critical examination of the failure to control doping in the Olympic movement;

-a historical timeline of drug use in sport;

-evaluations of the philosophical and ethical issues of drug testing;

-the international politics of combatting drug use in sport; and

-insight as to how three very different countries have handled the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in sport.
Part I, “The Science of Doping,” provides the reader with a basic scientific explanation of how banned substances can improve performance, the process of drug testing, and the detection of athletes' drug use. This section also offers a recommended protocol for drug testing and critiques the differences between the ideal and actual testing practices

Part II, “The History, Ethics, and Social Context of Doping,” reviews the complex social and cultural issues surrounding doping. A thorough chronology of performance-enhancing drug use in sport precedes discussions of the ethical and cultural dimensions of the issue. Included is a comparative analysis of how Canada, Russia, and China - three very different countries - have responded to doping scandals involving their athletes.

Part III, “The Politics of Doping,” critically examines the effectiveness of the IOC and the international sport federations in administering campaigns against doping. Lack of political will, financial interests, and uncooperative bureaucracies all have hindered effective enforcement.

The first anthology on performance-enhancing drugs in sport, Doping in Elite Sport: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement is a critical examination of the failure to control the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs in the international sports arena. It provides an extensive overview of the real issues in the battle against doping in international sport.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wayne Wilson, PhD, is vice president of research for the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. He conceived and organized the 1998 conference Doping in Elite Sport, which this book is based on.

Wilson, the author of numerous articles on the Olympic movement, was the cowriter and executive producer of the CD-ROM An Olympic Journey: The Story of Women in the Olympic Games. Since 1990, he has edited a series of research reports published by the Amateur Athletic Foundation on race, gender, and the sports media.

He is a member of the North American Society for Sport History and the Research Council of the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Currently residing in Los Angeles, Wilson enjoys cross-country skiing and traveling with his family.

Edward Derse is senior producer for World Sports at FOXSports.com, where he is responsible for strategy, development, and production for international and Olympic sports coverage. He was previously the research director for the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. He also serves as vice president of the International Sepaktakraw Federation.

Derse has written or edited four books on coaching and training methods. His articles have appeared in several magazines covering a variety of sports. He also is the sports business analyst for Marketplace, a business news show airing on public radio stations across the United States.

Derse lives in Santa Monica, California and is an avid surfer.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Human Kinetics; 1 edition (August 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0736003290
• ISBN-13: 978-0736003292
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Miscellaneous > Olympic Games

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Is There Purity in Sport?, November 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Doping in Elite Sport: the Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Mvnt: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement (Hardcover)

This book is a book that provides a lot of information and hard facts for how the doping situation in the Olympics needs to be solved. It points out all of the corruption not only in athletes and countries but in the IOC, the organization responsible for drug testing. In editing the book, Wayne Wilson and Edward Dares attempt to collect articles, written by various authors, to show their disapproval of doping in sport and in their condemnation of the IOC for their apathy toward the epidemic. According to Ramin Minovi "Most of the writers deplore the failure of governing bodies to address the question, allowing drug use to proliferate, paying lip service to its dangers but taking no action." The majority of the works in the book does reprimand the IOC for not doing their job and for the corruption that exists or existed in it. The other chapters give the history of doping, give an example of the drugs used to escape detection and the methods of testing. By no means is there any chapter that supports the IOC in their dealings with drugs and enforcement of their drug policy.
The book it self was a very informative book but therefore was not very captivating. The book gave tons of facts but if the reader was not very interested in the topic to begin with then the book would not hold your attention. To compensate for the monotony of the book the book is short and has many sections to it. As a result of each chapter being a different article, written by different authors. This made the book "both readable and worth reading" to Ramin Minovi. He and I disagree on the difficulty of the reading. He said that the book was a "big read" and I feel that the articles were simplistic but some knowledge of steroids may be required. However one of chapters describes what some of these drugs do. Some of the articles of the book are almost repetitive and therefore could be left out. I feel as though these chapters should be skimmed through and then the reader should weed out the articles he/she has no interest in. The book also provides images which make the book a little more interesting. According to Minovi, they are the chapters about "Australian attitudes toward performance-enhancing drugs", and on Canada, German and China's regulations and dealings with toward athletes who abuse drugs. The book may also disinterest some from reading it because it is sort of a long book to be just informative but many of the pages are work cited pages. The book overall is decent but I would not recommend it to a person with no interest in the topic.

References

Ramin Minovi. 2001. http://www.abcc.freeserve.co.uk/drugs_elite1.html