DOPING SCANDALS AND LEGAL CONSEQUENCES

This Article is written by Anna Elizabeth Mithun, University of Turin, Italy, an intern under Legal Vidhiya

ABSTRACT

Doping is one of the most serious ethical and legal challenges in modern sports. Athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) may gain unfair advantages, but at the cost of their health, careers, and integrity. This article explores major doping scandals, such as those involving Ben Johnson, and Russian athletes, and examines the legal and other consequences of doping and actions taken by global anti-doping agencies. It also considers how doping impacts athletes and the broader world of sport, and discusses strategies to prevent future violations.

Keywords

Doping, WADA, sports, drugs, NADO, athletes, ethics, scandals, health.

INTRODUCTION

Over the years, doping scandals have tarnished the reputations of celebrated athletes, shaken public trust in sporting institutions, and sparked intense legal and ethical debates. In the world of competitive sports, where victory means fame, fortune and national pride, athletes face immense pressure to perform at the highest level. This pressure has driven some to seek unfair advantages through the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Over the past few decades, numerous doping scandals have surfaced, involving some of the most iconic figures in sports history. These cases not only shocked the public but also revealed systemic failures in regulation and enforcement. From Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace to the Russian state-sponsored doping program, such incidents have reshaped public perception of sport and forced governing bodies to take more aggressive actions.

UNDERSTANDING DOPING IN SPORTS

Doping, as officially defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), is the presence of prohibited substances or its metabolites or markers in an athlete’s body.[1] WADA has also established a ‘negative list of substances.’ If the use of drugs on this list is detected, the athlete is typically punished with a temporary ban from competition, often for two or more years in many sports. It is rather important to note that ‘drug use’ is often a simplification of ‘forbidden performance-enhancing behaviour’, which can also encompass activities like blood doping even if no actual drugs are ingested. Additionally, WADA bans certain recreational, non-performance-enhancing drugs (such as cannabis) if they are deemed harmful to the health of the athlete and against the spirit of the game.

A significant aspect of doping is the concept of a doping culture. This arises because the community of professional athletes may sustain different norms about doping compared to society in general. Despite violating official rules, convicted drug users often claim they did nothing wrong, justifying their actions by pointing out that fellow athletes also use drugs. Within closed athletic communities, drug use can become widely approved and even seen as an essential prerequisite for success.[2]

Doping has a long history, with various substances used to enhance performance depending on the sport’s requirements. Historically, in the era of the first Olympics, cyclists used substances like wine, cocaine, strychnine, ephedrine, and cocoa leaves to boost performance. More recently, since the early 1990s, injections of erythropoietin (EPO) have been available and can enhance endurance performance by about 5 %.[3] [4]

The popularity and power of doping methods vary with the sport:

• Endurance athletes (e.g., cyclists) most frequently use methods to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood, such as EPO and blood doping.
• Power athletes (e.g., sprinters, weightlifters) commonly prefer anabolic steroids.
• Athletes requiring steady action (e.g., archers) often prefer sedatives.

The issue of doping poses various ethical and health implications. The ethical landscape of doping is complex, often marked by a divergence between official rules and norms within athletic communities:

• Perception of Cheating: While doping violates official rules, athletes involved in doping often do not consider themselves cheaters or more involved in cheating than others. They may justify their actions by noting that peers also use drugs.[5] Even if a drug isn’t on the prohibited list, athletes might still feel ashamed for cheating their competitors.
• Doping Culture and Peer Influence: A ‘doping culture’ signifies a set of norms among professional athletes that can be opposed to the norms of the general society. Within these closed communities, drug use can become widely accepted, sometimes viewed as necessary not just to win but also simply to stay in the game. Younger elite cyclists, for example, have reported experiencing pressure from teammates to dope and learning specific substances and methods from more experienced cyclists, indicating a transmission of doping culture.[6]
• Inefficiency and Collective Action: In a high-incidence doping culture, the performance improvement from doping can become relatively small because a majority of competitors are also using drugs. In such a scenario, many drug users might prefer to stay clean if their competitors did too, but it requires massive collective action to shift towards a low-doping equilibrium.
• Fear of Rank Loss and Drive for Success: Rules that lead to rank-loss aversion (e.g., cut-off thresholds set by top performers, like minimum arrival times in cycling or Olympic qualification marks) can increase doping prevalence and reduce the effectiveness of anti-doping policies. A disproportionate emphasis on winning or achieving top ranks also makes a subgroup of high-ability athletes highly resistant to anti-doping measures, leading to a superhero-equilibrium where top performers continue to dope.[7]

MAJOR DOPING SCANDALS IN SPORTS

Cycling has a long history of doping problems, extending almost as long as the sport has existed. The EPO era for example, was a period of widespread cheating. The incident of Festina Affair (1998) saw many cyclists caught for drug use, with numerous riders admitting to taking erythropoietin (EPO).[8] Despite this, the 1999 Tour de France was optimistically nicknamed the “Tour of Renewal” or “The Tour of Hope,” suggesting a new era of drug-free competition. Lance Armstrong famously won seven consecutive Tour de France titles starting in 1999, an accomplishment experts believe was not achieved through doping. The authorities were reportedly well aware that most riders in major events were heavily doped. To manage the cheating, they even introduced haematocrit testing, though they never seemed genuinely committed to clamping down on drugs.[9]

Vladimir Putin’s Russia implemented a state-sponsored doping program described as one of the greatest doping scandals in sport. In the summer of 2013, an investigation published by Nick Harris and Martha Kelner revealed that Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Moscow lab, was central to a vast state-sponsored doping and cover-ups program. It was also revealed in this investigation that Russia intended to corrupt the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics before they even happened. Despite clear warnings, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) completely ignored the information and did nothing to investigate Rodchenkov, effectively allowing Russia to get away with it. More than a thousand athletes across over 30 sports were implicated in this scheme. Every member of the 2014 Russian World Cup squad is suspected of having gained from the program, whether by doping directly or by receiving state protection from being discovered. [10]

Ben Johnson is portrayed as arguably the most notorious single cheat in sports history up until his time. The 26-year-old Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter, made history at the 1988 Seoul Olympics by winning the 100m gold medal in a record-breaking 9.79 seconds. The day after his victory, his routine post-race urine sample tested positive for stanozolol, a banned performance-enhancing steroid. This made Johnson a “pariah” and the first Olympic gold medallist in the 100m event to test positive after winning, leading to immense public condemnation and permanently altering his life. However, it is important to note that most of his competitors in that 1988 Olympic final were also dopers, as were many other track and field athletes of that era. Carl Lewis, who was subsequently awarded the 1988 gold, had himself tested positive for stimulants, and other finalists like Linford Christie and Dennis Mitchell also served drug bans. Johnson’s initial reaction to the news was, “So they finally got me,” admitting he had been doping since the early 80s at his coach Charlie Francis’s suggestion. He stated he went along with it because he realized “everyone was juiced”. He was initially persuaded by Canadian Olympic officials not to reveal the full truth.[11]

Maria Sharapova, a premier tennis star who rose to prominence in 2004, admitted on March 7, 2016, that she failed a doping test for using meldonium, a substance banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Sharapova stated she had legally used the drug for a decade to address health issues like irregular EKG results and diabetes indicators, and was unaware of its prohibition starting January 1, 2016. However, WADA banned meldonium in 2016 because it found athletes were using it to enhance performance by maximizing endurance and speeding up recovery, not just for heart conditions, despite its typical prescription for such ailments. Scepticism surrounded Sharapova’s claim due to the manufacturer’s statement that a normal treatment period is four to six weeks, not a decade of continuous use, and the fact that many other Russian athletes also tested positive for the drug. The scandal led to sponsors dropping her and a potential four-year ban from the International Tennis Federation.[12]

LEGAL AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was formed in 1999 by the International Olympic Committee. WADA currently leads a global movement aimed at harmonizing anti-doping rules in elite sport. This involves the implementation of repressive, punitive policies for transgressions, which are documented within the World Anti-Doping Code and an annually updated list of forbidden substances and methods. To further globalize and harmonize these efforts, WADA solicited UNESCO to propose a convention against doping for signature by member states, which adds pressure on national governments and sports federations to comply with these rules.[13]

To fight the doping practices in elite sport it is also important to have the cooperation of the nations and implement measures at national level. National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs) are the main national authorities that manage anti-doping initiatives. They are appointed by their respective countries or governments. Their main duties involve creating and enforcing anti-doping regulations, educating athletes, overseeing sample collection (including training staff), conducting investigations, and managing test results nationwide. Additionally, Regional Anti-Doping Organizations (RADOs) exist in some regions to share anti-doping knowledge and expertise. India National Anti-Doping Agency is India’s NADO.[14] [15]

Current anti-doping policy relies heavily on repressive, punitive measures to enforce consistent rules globally. Testing for doping involves the analysis of bodily specimens. However, there are significant problems with these methods. Testing for forbidden substances or methods will never uncover all use, as false negatives and false positives are inherent to the process. This uncertainty is problematic in sport because athletes can never be considered truly clean, and false accusations should be avoided. Also, only a small proportion of athletes are tested, and testing protocols consistently lag behind advances in biomedicine. The sanction-based model is only a partly successful deterrent. Moreover, rules and sampling procedures associated with testing protocols impinge on athletes’ privacy to an unreasonable degree and violate basic notions of personal freedom and self-regulation. Examples include young athletes feeling uncomfortable being watched while urinating, or being forced to comply at particularly intrusive times. The existing policy within elite sport is widely considered to be an expensive, repressive, and unforgiving zero-tolerance approach. The effects of prohibition as a means for regulating doping behaviour remain unclear, and it is possible that it may induce more harm than it prevents.[16]

The anti-doping framework is characterized by strong punishment and costly repression of doping practices. WADA employs explicitly harsh and disciplinary policies for any breaches of its rules. The policy operates on a sanction-based model and a punitive approach. The legal consequences may even extend beyond sporting penalties. The fight against doping frequently overlaps with the “war on drugs,” encompassing a shared prohibited list that includes both recreational and performance-impairing substances. Several European countries and the United States have enacted legislation against the personal use of such drugs. The inclusion of strong repression of anabolic steroid use in the US war on drugs is seen as a step towards a generalized anti-doping police state system where every citizen might be regularly tested. Prohibition sends users of substances, often of dubious quality, into hiding in medically unsupervised practice, leading to dangerous practices like syringe sharing and increased risks of infections (e.g., HIV or hepatitis). Strict, punishment-focused drug policies, heavily reliant on policing, may have worsened the negative consequences of drug use without significantly reducing consumption. History, such as the US prohibition period, suggests that strong repression can lead to increases in problems related to consumption, and the war on doping may face a similar fate.[17]

CONSEQUENCES FOR ATHLETES

Doping poses several consequences for athletes including career and financial risks, reputational damage and public perception and even health and psychological risks.

Career and Financial Risks – Doping can lead to clean athletes being unfairly displaced in rankings, records, competitions, and on teams. This displacement breaches a covenant with spectators and violates terms of contracts with governing bodies. We could say that it constitutes theft from the athletes who are unfairly displaced, affecting not only their dreams, hard work, and reputations but also their prize money, sponsorships, and long-term career opportunities that stem from athletic success. The “thievery” can have a potentially long-lasting impact on rankings and records, such as the suspicion surrounding Florence Griffith Joyner’s 100-meter world record. For instance, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s doping-tainted home run race may have cheated Ken Griffey, Jr. out of economic benefits and prestige he legitimately earned. Reputations of individual athletes who are caught doping are damaged. Rules against performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the past were remarkably tolerant, with a first positive test resulting in treatment, followed by suspensions, indicating a lesser severity compared to betting infractions which lead to permanent ineligibility. This suggests that athletes might incur relatively minor penalties depending on the sport’s policies, but the displacement of clean athletes is a severe consequence.[18]

Reputational Damage and Public Perception – When athletes like Ben Johnson are stripped of gold medals after testing positive for steroids, it becomes a matter of public concern. Johnson’s claim that he used drugs to level the playing field suggests a widespread issue, further affecting public trust.Doping is seen as a ‘mortal sin’ and undeniable proof that drugs have permeated sports to their highest level.Doping undermines the integrity of sport. It can distort and override natural gifts and turn sport into a spectacle rather than a subject of appreciation, especially if it isolates and exaggerates through artifice an attention-grabbing feature of a sport.Public intellectuals are now engaging with the problem of doping, indicating a broader societal concern.Known or suspected doping is particularly abhorrent to spectators when it disturbs the natural hierarchy at the elite level.When doping is widely believed to cause the defeat of geniuses or the eclipse of their records (e.g., Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s record, Florence Griffith Joyner breaking Evelyn Ashford’s record), spectators lament the diminishment of the vanquished but still greater athlete.[19]Athletes who dope and become unbeatable deny the world the chance to celebrate emerging talents, as their illicit performance enhancements overshadow the true value of future achievements. For example, Marion Jones’s alleged doping may have been an attempt to break Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record, which was widely suspected to be tainted by drugs.

Youth, who view successful athletes as powerful role models, are particularly affected by doping scandals. The use of performance-enhancing drugs by role models leads youth to copy these risky behaviours. For instance, after Mark McGwire’s admitted use of androstenedione, sales of that supplement increased by over 1,000%, and by 2001, 8% of male high school seniors had used it.

Health and Psychological Risks – The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) places substances on its Prohibited List if they risk adverse health effects. The drugs at the heart of the BALCO scandal (steroids, HgH, and rEPO) have definitive or potential adverse health effects.Steroids put users at risk forpsychiatric problems, cardiovascular and liver damage, drastic changes to reproductive systems, musculoskeletal injury and such.They also cause psychological changes like aggressiveness and euphoria.Adolescents may be especially vulnerable to psychological effects, including irritability, aggressiveness, depression, mood swings, altered libido, psychosis, withdrawal, insomnia, and addiction.Human Growth Hormone (HgH) is associated with potentially severe adverse side effects, including acromegaly (overgrowth of bone and connective tissue, leading to jaw and eyebrow protrusion), cancer, impotence in men, menstrual irregularities in women, cardiomyopathy, hypothyroidism, arthritis.Recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO) has the potential to be fatal if misused because it thickens the blood, which can result in thrombosis and stroke. It has been described as turning blood into ‘mud’ and potentially leading to death within a month.Athletes are notorious for exceeding therapeutic doses of performance-enhancing drugs, and therapeutic doses themselves may be overdoses for individuals who do not need them, increasing health risks.[20] [21]

ETHICAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS

Doping in sports carries significant ethical and social implications, fundamentally challenging the fairness and integrity of competition. It confers an unfair advantage, depriving no-doping athletes their just rewards and harming others, thereby violating the widely understood spirit of sport which values healthy, natural, and ethically regulated activity. Athletes, by their public nature, serve as role models for society, and their achievements are not considered morally admirable when they are not the result of virtuous perfection of our natural talents. The anti-doping stance argues that failing to prohibit such behaviours would celebrate bad role models and promote undesirable lifestyles, consistent with broader public health policies.[22] Furthermore, doping has a pervasive influence on younger athletes and sports culture, reflecting broader societal shifts in attitudes towards medical products. Doping is often a systemic effort involving various support personnel like coaches and physicians, as seen in historical cases like East Germany and recent events like the Tour de France, indicating a deep-seated cultural problem that can influence those entering sports. The expansion of punishment to the elite sports support system underscores this broader cultural impact, revealing how doping practices diverge from commonsense morality and impact the ethical foundation of sport.

PREVENTION AND FUTURE SOLUTIONS

Prevention and future solutions in anti-doping are multifaceted, emphasizing a shift towards proactive measures and robust governance. Education and awareness programs are foundational, requiring sport-specific, values-based, and skill-based approaches tailored to athletes’ levels and integrated into national curricula from an early age, promoting success through natural talent and hard work. There’s a recognized need for National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs) to extend these efforts to a broader sporting population, particularly recreational athletes, who often lack basic information and face public health risks from doping. However, research evaluating anti-doping education is significantly underdeveloped, necessitating the application and evaluation of broader drug prevention best practices.[23] Technological advancements in detection are crucial, with a growing focus on intelligence and investigations, enabling Anti-Doping Organisations (ADOs) to gather information from diverse sources and share it with law enforcement to disrupt the supply of doping products to both competitive and recreational sports. Strengthening an ethical sports culture involves upholding the spirit of sport values like fair play and honesty, ensuring good governance within anti-doping organizations by shielding them from undue influence, and establishing clear separation of powers for accountability.[24] All stakeholders are encouraged to support and implement these guiding principles, and clear anti-doping policies within clubs and gyms are suggested preventative tools. Finally, supporting clean athletes is paramount, focusing on protecting their rights, careers, health, and safety, giving their voices a prominent position in anti-doping decision-making, and incorporating an Athletes’ Anti-Doping Rights Act into the Code. This also entails ensuring access to justice with objective investigations, transparent hearings, and operational independence of proceedings, as exemplified by legal aid systems and pro bono policies. Future efforts call for coordination of educational campaigns at global level, further research into doping prevalence and determinants, and adequate funding and human resources to effectively implement these preventative strategies.

CONCLUSION

Doping in sports damages fairness, harms athletes, and breaks the trust of fans. While some athletes use banned substances to gain an edge, the risks and consequences are serious. Famous scandals show how doping can ruin careers and lead to legal trouble. With strong rules, better testing, and more education, the sports world can work toward a cleaner and more honest future.

REFERENCES

1. Alex Abad-Santos, Maria Sharapova’s doping scandal, explained, Vox (Mar. 9, 2016), https://www.vox.com/2016/3/9/11187168/sharapova-meldonium-doping-explainer.
2. B. Kayser & A.C.T. Smith, Globalisation of anti-doping: the reverse side of the medal, 337 BMJ a584, XXXX (2008),https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a584.
3. Doping in sport got attention in the 1960s because of two deaths. In this article we highlights important milestones or incidents that moved antidoping work forward., The Anti-Doping Database (Dec. 21, 2023), https://www.antidopingdatabase.com/news/historic-overview-of-doping-in-sport.
4. Doriane Lambelet Coleman & James E. Coleman Jr, The Problem of Doping, 57 Duke L.J. 1743-1794, XXXX (2008), https://www.jstor.org/stable/40040632.
5. ERIC CHWANG, Why Athletic Doping Should Be Banned, 29 J. Applied Phil. 33, XXXX (2011), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.2011.00547.x.
6. Guiding Principles for the Future of Anti-Doping, https://www.inado.org/what-we-do/guiding-principles-for-the-future-of-anti-doping.
7. M.J. McNamee & L. Tarasti, Juridical and ethical peculiarities in doping policy, 36 J. Med. Ethics 165, XXXX (2010), https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2009.030023.
8. MORISI Davide, (Dec. 19, 2014), https://ec.europa.eu/assets/eac/sport/news/2014/docs/doping-prevention-report_en.pdf.
9. National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs), World Anti-Doping Agency https://www.wada-ama.org/en/anti-doping-partners/national-anti-doping-organizations-nados.
10. Nick Harris, The five greatest doping scandals in sport – and Kenya’s marathon attempt to join in, Sporting Intelligence | Nick Harris | Substack (Apr. 19, 2024), https://sportingintelligence832.substack.com/p/sports-greatest-doping-scandals-and.
11. Strulik, H. (2012). Riding high: Success in sports and the rise of doping cultures. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 114(2), 539–574. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01698.x
12. WADA (June 6, 2020), World Anti-Doping Code, World Anti-Doping Agency http://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/2021_wada_code.pdf.

[1] WADA (June 6, 2020), World Anti-Doping Code, World Anti-Doping Agency http://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/2021_wada_code.pdf.

[2] Strulik, H. (2012). Riding high: Success in sports and the rise of doping cultures. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 114(2), 539–574. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01698.x

[3] Ibid.  

[4] Doping in sport got attention in the 1960s because of two deaths. In this article we highlights important milestones or incidents that moved antidoping work forward., The Anti-Doping Database (Dec. 21, 2023), https://www.antidopingdatabase.com/news/historic-overview-of-doping-in-sport.

[5] Michael Shermer, The Doping Dilemma, 298 Sci. Am. 82, XXXX (2008), https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0408-82.

[6] Ibid

[7] Strulik, H. (2012). Riding high: Success in sports and the rise of doping cultures. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 114(2), 539–574. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01698.x

[8] ERIC CHWANG, Why Athletic Doping Should Be Banned, 29 J. Applied Phil. 33, XXXX (2011), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.2011.00547.x.

[9] Nick Harris, The five greatest doping scandals in sport – and Kenya’s marathon attempt to join in, Sporting Intelligence | Nick Harris | Substack (Apr. 19, 2024), https://sportingintelligence832.substack.com/p/sports-greatest-doping-scandals-and.

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid

[12] Alex Abad-Santos, Maria Sharapova’s doping scandal, explained, Vox (Mar. 9, 2016), https://www.vox.com/2016/3/9/11187168/sharapova-meldonium-doping-explainer.

[13] B. Kayser & A.C.T. Smith, Globalisation of anti-doping: the reverse side of the medal, 337 BMJ a584, XXXX (2008), https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a584

[14] Ibid

[15] National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs), World Anti-Doping Agency https://www.wada-ama.org/en/anti-doping-partners/national-anti-doping-organizations-nados.

[16] B. Kayser & A.C.T. Smith, Globalisation of anti-doping: the reverse side of the medal, 337 BMJ a584, XXXX (2008), https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a584

[17] Ibid

[18] Doriane Lambelet Coleman & James E. Coleman Jr, The Problem of Doping, 57 Duke L.J. 1743-1794, XXXX (2008), https://www.jstor.org/stable/40040632.

[19] Ibid

[20] Ibid

[21] Strulik, H. (2012). Riding high: Success in sports and the rise of doping cultures. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 114(2), 539–574. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01698.x

[22] M.J. McNamee & L. Tarasti, Juridical and ethical peculiarities in doping policy, 36 J. Med. Ethics 165, XXXX (2010), https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2009.030023.

[23] MORISI Davide, (Dec. 19, 2014), https://ec.europa.eu/assets/eac/sport/news/2014/docs/doping-prevention-report_en.pdf

[24] Guiding Principles for the Future of Anti-Doping, https://www.inado.org/what-we-do/guiding-principles-for-the-future-of-anti-doping.

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