Current doping charges against two American athletes, seven-time Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and most recently Olympic track and field 400 meter runner Debbie Dunn , mark the latest chapters in a long running conflict over where to draw the line between training and illegal performance enhancement. A look at the history of athletes using all manner of substances to improve their performance reveals it has been happening as long as there has been sport. The first well documented use of drugs in the modern era of sports is credited to the 1960 Rome Olympics. Author David Maraniss in his 2009 book Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics that Stirred the World offers a compelling story of Danish cyclist Knud Jensen and his teammates warned against taking a blood circulation enhancing drug Roniacol given the extreme hot temperatures in Rome (p. 138). Jensen ignored warnings and succumbed to the heat during the competition, his condition exacerbated by the drug (p. 139).
In the current issue (July-August 2012) of Smithsonian, author Christie Aschwanden details today's inner battle between athletes who, despite the warnings and regulations and random testing of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), continue to use illegal substances. Although detection of illegal substances or medical practices is more sophisticated than ever, Aschwanden, in a second article in the same issue , reports future practices will envolve altering athlete's DNA.
The USADA case against Armstrong will be interesting to watch. Armstrong is strident in maintaining his innocence and USADA's case is built not on identifying a specific drug violation but on blood test results according to an Examiner.com article . Sprinter Dunn has left the Olympic team and is working through the process for appealing the test findings.
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