From the Inside Flap
The scandals break monthly, even weekly—athletes caught doping in a multitude of sports, and around the world. The doping spotlight has been shone on Olympic athletes for years, and now professional sports, leagues, and athletes can no longer hide in the shadows either.
Leading the fight against doping in sports is Dick Pound, the chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Controversial, outspoken, and reviled by those he seeks to expose and bring to account, Pound is the authority in the world on doping in sports.
According to Pound, doping is “one of the most important and difficult problems that sport will have to overcome in the future.” It goes to the core of the ideals that we hold about sport, our heroes, and what parents want for their children. No longer an issue that can be ignored by any country or any sport, doping is a growing problem, extending far beyond the world of sports to touch on much broader social issues.
Never shy of the issues or his critics, Pound takes on tough subjects in Inside Dope with his usual straight talk and candor, as well as a fiery passion for upholding the ideals of fair play in an intensely competitive environment.
Inside Dope tackles the issue of doping in sports: why it has become such a problem; the role of big business and drug companies; the complicity of coaches, doctors and trainers; testing and the battle to stay ahead of the users; WADA as the world’s watchdog; setting standards and the future of doping and sports.
At times damning, sometimes revealing, at others prescriptive, but always honest and outspoken, Inside Dope is an important contribution to the debate on performance-enhancing drugs in sport and gives a rare inside view on the business, the personalities, and the issues behind the greatest challenge facing the world of sports.
From the Back Cover
HOW DRUGS ARE THE BIGGEST THREAT TO SPORTSUnderstand this—doping in sport is almost never, I repeat, almost never accidental. It is almost always planned and deliberate. It is carried out with the specific intention of enhancing performance, knowing that it goes against the rules of sport and that it is dangerous to the health of the athlete.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Do you want your children to be forced to become chemical stockpiles in order to be successful in sport, simply because of cheaters who are using drugs and who could not care less that they are compromising their whole sport?
AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THEM
Doping is cheating, and there must be consequences for that. Serious penalties for doping will show that cheaters are not welcome and will act as a deterrent to discourage others from cheating. Doping in sport can be beaten. We just need to persevere. But like that old ’60s slogan states: “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
