The Town Square: a resource to understand, and discuss doping in sports
In this section, you can find recommended articles, documentaries, books, reports and websites to learn about anti-doping, doping in sports, how it works, and what it feels like to dope.
I have been asked by several subscribers, if I can write more about why exactly doping works, how it feels when one dopes and why certain substances are so effective. I will be doing that in due course, but in the meantime I have collated a series of resources that will give any interested subscribers the opportunity to better understand the phenomenon of doping.
The Town Square is now also a place where you can suggest doping topics you would like me to research. Equally, if you have any questions, or would like more recommendations, please feel free to ask at the bottom of this resource post (which I will pin to the Town Square tab).
Warm regards,
Edmund
Everyone is aware that athletes cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs like steroids, testosterone, and erythropoietin (EPO), but in this article the author takes Human Growth Hormone himself and recounts his experience. “My skin started getting… better. Sun blotches that I'd had on my arms for a year faded away. One morning I woke up and a scar on my forehead—which I'd gotten from a mountain-bike endo two years earlier—was more or less gone. Even though I was training like a madman, I looked more rested. Younger. A little fresher,” (link).
Similarly, this article about an American skater who was given steroids by his father from the age of 12 provides an insight into what it like to be on testosterone. "When you are jamming yourself with a thousand milligrams of testosterone cypionate, your body is running high, to sleep at night you either have to be extremely exhausted, or you are going to have to use something to come down" (link).
Blood doping, in the form of blood transfusions and EPO injections, has the single biggest effect on performance out of all prohibited substances and methods. This fantastic 5-part series takes you from the origin of blood transfusions up until their continuing use in present day sport - “A Genesis of Blood Doping” (link).
Sports fan often assume that anti-doping agencies will catch athletes if they perform frequent doping controls. These two articles, on the US Anti-Doping Agency, explains the deficiencies in frequent drug testing because not all substances, such as testosterone, are tested for (link one), (link two).
Even when athletes test positive for doping, they will, more often than not, have their cases both dropped and kept private. This case study I ran on the International Tennis Federation shows that. When a tennis player tests positive there is only a 1 in 3 chance they will be banned from sport (link).
As for sports in which there are few high profile doping cases, such as football and tennis, one only needs to read about the lesser publicised cases to understand the sports have a significant doping problem. You can read about tennis’ doping history here (link), as well as football’s (link).
A comprehensive read, from the perspective of a US athlete, on how athletes make sure they are available for testing for 1 hour a day, 365 days a year (link).
It is often assumed that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) ensures that all doping cases are prosecuted properly, but that does not mean that all positive doping tests are publicly reported. This ARD documentary reveals that at least two male Jamaican sprinters tested positive for the banned drug clenbuterol at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (link).
‘Icarus’, the Oscar-winning Netflix documentary, exposes how the WADA system can be corrupted by state-run doping programmes. The documentary tells the incredible story of the former head of the Russian doping analysis laboratory, and how he corrupted the London 2012 and Sochi 2014 Olympics (link).
This Al Jazeera investigative documentary implies that the NFL quarterback Peyton Manning took Human Growth Hormone, but the documentary is especially interesting because it reveals the increasing use of peptides, a newer class of doping substances, in North America. In the US, there is a never ending stream of anti-ageing clinics willing to provide pharmaceutical grade hormones to athletes. The Al Jazeera investigation extends from sprinting to American football (link).
BBC Panorama exposed the Nike Oregon coach Alberto Salazar’s obsession with the banned drug testosterone thanks to crucial testimony from two key whistle-blowers. The documentary led to Salazar, the coach of the British Olympic star Sir Mo Farah, being banned for doping by the US Anti-Doping Agency (link).
This hour-long Youtube documentary provides a simple, digestible history of doping in the United States of America (link).
This book by the sprinter Ben Johnson’s training partner, Angela Issajenko, was one of the first autobiographies in which an athlete spoke openly about their doping. Issajenko reveals her doping protocols and how drugs were an open secret in track and field (link). I also recommend a similar book by her coach Charlie Francis, who trained Ben Johnson before Seoul 1988, although it is harder to find (link).
Similarly, this book by Lance Armstrong’s teammate on the US Postal cycling team, Tyler Hamilton, is an honest account about how systematic doping programmes work in professional cycling (link).
Grigory Rodchenkov, the Russian whistle-blower who exposed the country’s state doping scandal, reveals how Russia corrupted the global anti-doping system over three decades (link).
This book, by the scientist who created the first test for EPO before Sydney 2000, is a thoughtful read about blood doping and whether there is really a political will to eradicate doping in professional sport (link).
This report is an overview of the Operacion Puerto doping scandal. During Operacion Puerto, the Spanish military police exposed a blood doping network involving elite Spanish athletes, many of whom were never publicly named (link).
The British parliamentary inquiry into doping allegations at Team Sky and the Nike Oregon Project (link).
I recommend reading these affidavits from former cyclists that were used by the US Anti-Doping Agency to prosecute Lance Armstrong. They provide a fascinating insight into doping on the US Postal cycling team and Armstrong’s infamous doping doctor Michele Ferrari. If you scroll down on this link you can find all of the affidavits (link).
Equally this report by Danish anti-doping reveals the full extent of doping in cycling from 1998 to 2015 (link)
Every year, WADA publishes reports detailing how many drug tests have been carried out by all major anti-doping agencies and how many athletes tested positive (link).
WADA also publishes reports on the outcome of every doping case on an anonymised basis (link).
The French-language website Cyclisme Dopage has collated information on all the major doping scandals in professional cycling (link).
The German-language website Doping Archiv is a comprehensive archive for doping stories, both past and present, across all sports (link).
The French website Spe15 covers contemporary doping and anti-doping stories, with a particular focus on French track and field (link).
You will be able to find all previous Town Square posts, in which I comment on recent doping and anti-doping issues, here (link).
I publish Long Reads on doping in sport, along with a bi-weekly press round-up in which I summarise all of the latest doping news from the last seven days.
Lots of great resources to check out there. Thanks! It's a few years old now but I found the book 'Run, Swim, Throw, Cheat' by Chris Cooper a decent primer on what the major groups of doping substances actually do.