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This entertainment element has attracted the attention of economic partners
and sponsors who have seen the financial interest of these events.
Money has now become a force to be reckoned with.
I would not count myself among those who systematically denigrate the
intrusion of money into sport, as it has enabled a number of people to attend
events they would otherwise never have been able to go to.
Thanks to money, high level sport has been able to advance from a technical
point of view, and this in turn has benefited the man in the street.
However, sport and financial interests may also have contradictory elements,
for to be profitable, a sport must be spectacular, which has a certain impact on the
frequency or intensity of competitions. The sportsman who cannot keep up with
this level of intensity sometimes resorts to expedients, which we call "doping". The
same goes for the sportsman reaching the end of his career who feels that his
value is dropping and often for financial reasons linked to his family must keep
going and also turns to doping.
Why is it necessary to fight against doping?
• Because doping endangers the health of the athletes
It is no longer possible to keep count of the number of young athletes who
have brutally succumbed to what should be called a "sudden death".
We can all still picture Tommy Simpson, collapsing on his bike on the climb
up Mont-Ventoux in France.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, access to the Stasi files made it possible
to locate athletes who are now suffering from endocrinal problems, including
sterility, certainly due to abuse of anabolic steroids.
• Because doping goes against sports and medical ethics
• Sports ethics
Sport has always been a vehicle for cultural, educational, moral
and social values. In French, sport as a school subject is called
"physical and sports education" ("EPS"). Today, sport is still a vital
element in the physical and psychical balance of the individual,
a major cultural element, a powerful educational tool and a social
and integrating factor.
• Medical ethics
Doctors treat their patients by giving them substances designed to treat the
causal illness. The sportsman is not ill and therefore has no right to take
drugs which, if abused or inappropriately used, counts as doping.
The high level sportsman is perceived by most people as a positive hero who
legitimately represents the excellence of sporting values.
He is both the image of the beauty of the human body and of a balanced
mind, an example of rigour and hard work. His success both on the media and
economic level transforms him into a carrier of dreams in a world where he is one
of a privileged few.
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