June 18, 2024 • 37 mins
Is doping in sports defensible in certain situations? Are the rules prohibiting performance-enhancing drugs too restrictive and impractical? This is not a commonly held perspective in lieu of the present views of athletes and international sports organizations, but a new book by this episode’s guest, Alexander Hutchison, Ph.D., editor-in-chief: Current Protocols, tries to refute the common wisdom. Whether you agree with his views or not, this episode of the Sports Business Podcast with Prof. C. interviews Hutchison, providing an outlet for his ideas on reforming this system. It makes for interesting listening. Tune in now.
Host: Mark Conrad Producer: Victoria Ilano Additional Production: Jeffrey Haynes Artwork: Pamela V. White Marketing: Michelle Miller Music: ”MarcusWay/Energetic Pop Punk/Tribe of Noise”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Hello and
welcome to the Sports Business Podcastwith Prof.
C, the podcast that exploresthe world of professional,
collegiate, amateur and Olympic sports.
I'm Mark Conrad or Prof.
C, from FordhamUniversity's Gabelli School of Business,
whereI serve as Professor of Law and Ethics
(00:29):
and the Director of the Sports BusinessInitiative.
On this podcast,I like to explore alternative views
and different angles on prominent issuesin the sports industry.
So I was intrigued when a new book camemy way titled “In Defense
of Doping - Reassessingthe Level Playing Field”
(00:53):
by Alexander Hutchison.
Doctor Hutchison is a fitnessand wellness expert based in Dallas.
He received his PhD in Exercise
Physiology at the University of Houston.
Welcome to the Sports Business Podcast,Doctor Hutchison.
Thank you for having me,and happy to be here.
(01:13):
And when I saw your book,you know, I was intrigued.
And I read through itand I was somewhat honestly skeptical.
So before we get into the detailsand the meat of the matter,
just to give a background in your book,you take a position
that's contrary to many,if not most athletes and just
(01:34):
about all sports federations,and that is that doping,
at least some doping, is not badand should not be banned.
Is that a correct assessment?
That is a correct assessment.
And how do you feel?
How did you come to this position andwhy do you feel so strongly about that?
(01:55):
It was a long evolutionover a number of years,
and I can tell you that, you know,I've been a lifelong sports fan.
The, my initial position on thisin the late 90s,
when I was really paying attentionto doping, for the first time, was that
I was just like all the other peoplethat you've mentioned.
I was very much diametrically opposedto doping in any way, shape or form
(02:18):
until I started to actually do some moreresearch during my graduate studies.
And in addition to that, at the same time,
I was competing a triathlonat a relatively high level,
and I was started to dealwith my own series of injuries and stuff
like that, that would come alongwhen you start to do an endurance sport
time after time.
and you know, over the yearsof researching more and over the years
(02:40):
of watching athletes competeat different competitions, namely
UFC, boxing, football and road cycling,
there were just a number of anecdotesthat I started
to pick up from different athletes abouthow difficult the time they had recovering
between trainingsessions, between competitions,
and some of the tacticsthat they would use to try to,
(03:02):
well, hasten that recovery time.
And the only things that really worked inany meaningful way were drugs
that were on the banned list.
And these are typically steroidsthat we're talking about.
In addition to that,I had my own experiences
with, you know,competing in age group weightlifting,
while also being on therapeutictestosterone.
(03:23):
Getting a therapeuticuse exemption is exceedingly difficult.
I went through the entire process,and I was rejected by USADA.
And when I asked them, well,what's my next remedy for this problem?
They said, well, you got to go offyour testosterone for six months,
and then we have to wait for three monthsthereafter to test
you three consecutive monthsto prove that you were hypogonadic.
In other words, you don't make enoughof your own testosterone
(03:45):
and then you can go back on.
So this is going to be almostan entire year process
just for the purposesof competing in [...] weightlifting.
I thought that's remarkably restrictivefor somebody who doesn't really care
about winning anything.
I just want to havean organized competition to go to.
And then finally, the last, you know,straw that broke the camel's back,
as it were, was during the 2021Olympic trials.
(04:07):
So this was officially the 2020,
but it was postponed by year, obviouslybecause of Covid.
And we had Sha'carri Richardson,who was another Dallasonian like myself,
who won the 100 meter dash,and then two days later, was -
she tested positive for THC, obviouslythe active ingredient, marijuana.
And she was disqualified from that eventand subsequently
(04:28):
prohibitedfrom competing in the Olympics in Tokyo.
And having had my own experiences
with marijuana for a number of reasons,but mostly recreationally, I can assert
that there's no possible way thatmarijuana is a performance enhancing drug.
And so as I looked more into this,
because most people didn't know thatTHC was on the banned list.
You know, you run into WADA’s positionthat it's a a drug of abuse.
(04:53):
And since it's illegal in many countries,
they were also going to prohibitits use amongst athletes.
That particular event, combinedwith my own frustrations with WADA,
not being able to get a therapeutic
use exemption, really drove me to startconsidering writing this book.
And then I put the research inand my position became
much clearer as I went through the processof running the book.
(05:14):
So just by background.
for those who may not know,for the last 30 years or so, the World
Anti-Doping Agency or WADA,W-A-D-A, has been charged
with establishing the kind of substancesthat are banned from competition.
And they published lists every year.
Most sports federations have acceptedtheir standards and have abided
(05:38):
by the standards, and the punishmentfor being caught is fairly severe.
So Dr.
Hutchison is correct that indeed, itcould be a ban for two years, maybe more.
And it'swhat's called a strict liability standard.
So in other words,if you have certain excuses,
they may not be complete defenses.
(05:59):
[...] It's in your system,you've been caught,
and generally speaking,the punishments are severe.
But, to go back to Sha’carriRichardson's issue;
she accepted the sanction,she's competing now.
And it leads to the fact that or the pointthat most athletes I've spoken with over
(06:20):
the years are fairly happywith the WADA system,
because if it wasn't for that system,wouldn't there be more abuse of,
performance enhancing drugsby athletes in certain
countries,certain sports systems and the like?
So while imperfect, is itthe best we have?
(06:41):
I don't know that it's the best we have.
I mean, if you look at
what you're saying is correct,and I'm sure that there's athletes
who have you spoken with who theynot only tell you that they like
the way the system is, butI also have spoken to a number of athletes
who said the exact opposite.
Unfortunately, and I don't knowif you had these conversations.
you know,
you were expected to keep these thingsprivate and confidence.
(07:04):
But I can tell you that when we
when athletes are askedabout these things up front,
they put themselvesin a very difficult position
where the only really answer they can giveis I'm in support of WADA,
because if you have a dissenting viewand you're an athlete,
there is a lot of people who wouldbe concerned that they would be picked on
more so than normalin terms of their testing regimens,
(07:24):
and maybe something goes wrong
with the test, and then they're not goingto be viewed in a favorable light.
The best evidence that we haveis when we have anonymous survey data.
And, there are a number of studiesthat have been published,
the most recent one that I looked up,
surveyed athletes who were track and field
athletes, at a world championshipsand also the Pan Asian Games.
(07:45):
And the number, the percentage of athleteswho were surveyed who said that
they had usedor were currently using doping agents
was between 33 and 50%.
So if you assume that there's a level of,you know, that's rather conservative,
still, even in an anonymous survey,people are not going to necessarily
want to be honestbecause they just don't trust it.
Still a huge number that's admittingto the fact that they're taking something.
(08:08):
If you contrast that with the NFL- anonymous surveys
that were taken with the NFLspecifically for steroid use -
and it always hovers around 10 to 15%,a much lower number,
with punishmentsthat are much less restrictive and less
and less punitivethan what WADA turns out these days,
and also some level of collectivebargaining with the NFL.
(08:30):
That's really where my aim is going.
So I'm not necessarily interestedin just obliterating WADA.
I think it does some good things.
But the biggest problem with WADA is, isthis is one organization
who's telling all of the athletes,which is their labor force,
exactly what they're going to do,
when they're going to do itand how they're going to do it.
The athletesdon't have any say in this whatsoever.
Well, is that a problem withthe Olympic system rather than with WADA?
(08:54):
Because the athletes cannot be unionizedin an American sense, because one, it's
an international sports federation,not just the IOC, but all the federations.
And two, they're not employees.
The NFL players are employees,and therefore they have the right,
under the U.S.
labor law,to form a union and negotiate this.
(09:14):
How do you clump togetherathletes of 200 countries
in a sports federationtrying to replicate the same situation?
Yeah, I don't know the insand outs of the labor laws.
What I can sayis that Major League Baseball and the NBA
both have teams in Canada.
So there at least there's some levelof cross-border negotiations
(09:35):
that have to take place.
It has been done for at leasttwo countries. I understand that
this would be a significantly larger featthan just the two.
However, I do think if there is a will,there is a way.
It shouldn't be impossibleto allow for for athletes to negotiate
the rules of their own engagementand also be full time employees.
What you mentionedthere is one of the biggest problems
(09:56):
I have with the international sportsfederations is they exist,
is that they do not treat the athletesas though they are employees.
They're barely even contract labor.
It's more alongthe lines of freelance labor.
They don't necessarily get any [...]for the Olympics, they get no payment
for winning.
And inmany instances, they get very little,
(10:16):
if any, support from their own country'snational federations for training purposes
and to stay alive while they're tryingto compete for the Olympics.
The long and the short of itis that when you think
about a sporting event,that's entertainment.
That's exactly what it is.
And athletes are the product itselfthat are being put on the field,
and they deserve to have a great dealmore say in what it is
(10:39):
that they are allowed to and not do,and also what level of punishment
they're willing to accept for themselvesand their fellow athletes.
Okay, let me throw a hypothetical then.
Let's saythere is an athlete's union of sorts,
and there are a few organizationsthat have tried to do that,
to be fair,and they’re international athletics.
Now you have about 40 sports federations.
(11:02):
How do you get athletesfrom all these different sports,
trying to negotiatesomething that is consistent
throughout that Olympic systemwhen the nature of competition,
the nature of sports,the nature of compensation differs
because these organizationshave very different financial backing?
Track is far wealthier than archery,for example.
(11:25):
So how do you fitin, an all encompassing organization
which would be much more difficultthan, say, the NFL Players Association,
whereall the players play American football.
So is that a challenge that isso difficult that has to be impractical?
If you were to try to get
(11:46):
every single sporting federationunder the same umbrella I would say yes.
But what I'm more interested in is havingeach individual sporting federations’
athletes have their own respective unionand negotiate their own thing.
So what may be legal in one sportsmay be not legal
in another,and that's currently how the situation is.
What you can do, for example,and I put this in my book,
(12:06):
what you can do in tennis,
maybe very differentthan what you can do in cycling,
specificallyas it relates to cortisone injections,
which is one of the big things that we'vethat's been around for many, many years.
But cortisone plays a very important rolein helping athletes recover
from injury, particularly acute injuriesif they still have to perform.
So let's let's get a hypothetical here.
Let's just say that you have,you know, a twisted ankle
(12:28):
and you got to go in therethe next day and in and perform.
What you may be asked to door what you may ask your doctor to do
is give you a cortisone injectionto bring down the inflammation
in the injured jointsto last for that one more game.
There's a number of sportsinternationally,
including tennis, wherethat would be allowed.
If you did the same thing in cycling,
you'd have to be out of competitionfor eight days straight.
(12:49):
So let's say you're in the middle of athree week tour - Tour de France, Giro
via the Vuelta - you go downreal hard on stage ten.
But you're, you know,all you need is a little bit
of pharmaceutical assistancejust to stay in the race.
You can't do it if it's cycling,you could do it if it's tennis.
That precedent’s already been set.
So having different sporting federationsadjust their own rules and regulations
(13:11):
as per their vote,that's the way we want it to be.
So we don't necessarily have to havea blanket rule across all sports.
It's already, that already exists.
So all we're doingis going to be expanding the level of
representation and say,instead of restricting it
and not really providing the athleteswith any type of representation.
(13:31):
Okay. Fair points.
let me just try one more hypothetical.
Let's say we have,
the, athletes
that represent a union of sortsand track and field,
and then negotiate with internationalathletics, which is their governing body,
and revise some of the WADA rules thereor wish to do so.
(13:53):
But what if the athletesthat represent the union members,
if you call itthat, are in favor of the current system?
Let's say they say so. Great. Okay.
But that's fine if but again,it comes down to what do the athletes
actually want?
I'm presenting an opinion as an outsider.
My opinion may be very different
(14:14):
if I was actually an active athletestill at that level.
but if the athletes who were voted
in as representativesof their constituents
then go in and vote to maintain thingsas they stand, that's their say.
And that's exactly the point.
They will have a say.
I would be surprised
if everything remained exactly the same,like I think THC would be out immediately.
(14:37):
I think there would be some loosertherapeutic use exemptions
for a number of different drugs,particularly during, recovery from injury.
and and I but most and also I
think they could also negotiatesome level of additional compensation.
They have some leverage there inwhich is they can say, look, we'll,
we'll keep the, the drug restrictionsas they are in exchange for compensation
(15:01):
because if this federation is makingbillions of dollars off the backs
of the athletes, they should be spreadingthat wealth around just a bit.
A few international federations,
ironically, have decided to compensate
their athletes in the upcoming Olympics,such as track and boxing.
So do you think that that trendcould help, as you said,
in possibly negotiating, an agreementregarding,
(15:25):
drug use in returnfor at least some kind of compensation?
I hope so, again, I want this to be
the decision of the athletes,the educated decision of the athletes.
I did see the track and fieldis going to be compensating
for, or at least rewarding, moneyfor gold medals.
At leastI don't know about the rest of them.
(15:46):
I didn't hear about boxinguntil you just told me.
That's a great positive.
What I would say is that that is in directresponse to the enhanced games
coming online, and the enhanced gamesoffering $50,000 for a gold medal.
now, if you
don't know what the enhanced games are,this is,
it's going to be a parallel gamesto the Olympics,
(16:07):
during which athletes will not be testedfor performance enhancing drugs.
At least that's the frameworkthat they have established now.
And as soon as they announcedthat they were going to be awarding
a cash prizefor gold medalists, at the very least,
I think it was two weekslater, World Athletics came through
and did the same thingwith track and field.
I'm not sure whatthe actual amount of compensation is,
(16:29):
but it's the fact that they're offeringanything is in direct response
to their being a change.
So let me let me parallel this.
Give an analogy.
If anybody is paying any attentionto the XFL
or the USFLwhen they merged to form the UFL,
the secondary league is, you know,
doing a lot of experimental thingsin terms of changing the rules slightly
(16:51):
to increase the interest of the gameand also the improved player safety.
The NFL is relatively slow to react untilthey get to see something on the field.
And now they've already adoptedthree rules, and they're going to have
to do a couple more.
So when you have some levelof additional competition for your league,
so you're not the only dog in the shed,you are forced into a position
(17:11):
if it's popular to actually makesome modifications yourself.
So if the enhanced games accomplishnothing else,
they have already accomplished this much.
And that's plenty as far as I'm concerned.
Can you tell usmore about the enhanced games?
I don't think many listenershave heard about them.
So thisis the brainchild of Aaron DeSouza.
(17:32):
He is an Australian lawyer.
I believe he went to Oxfordand it's being backed by Peter Teal,
who's the guy who, created PayPal.
And his brainchild was that -it's pretty simple concept - they just
they want to see how fast athletescan actually perform if not restricted on
(17:52):
what it is that they can take.
Now, I'm sure that there's going to be
some level of restrictionon what they will and will not allow.
So it's not going to be an absolute freefor all
where you can just take anythingunder the sun.
That said, you know, the the expectationand the hope is that
we see some athletes performbetter than they could without those drugs
because we want to see them performat their highest
(18:15):
possible level, even if that includessome level pharmaceutical assistance.
Now, the reason that I don't finda problem with
this is because I don't look at the drugsas being anything different
than the best equipmentthat you can get your hands
on, the best nutrition changesand sleep habits.
All of these things that have happenedover the last 30 years
that have made athletes significantlymore competitive than they used to be,
(18:37):
they would just be
enhanced that much more with performanceenhancing drugs.
But let's get to the elephant in the roomand that is the abuse
by governmentsor by governmental agencies.
And we talk about RUSADA,the Russian anti-doping agency.
We talk about allegationsinvolving Chinese swimmers.
we have allegations going backmany years to East Germany.
(18:59):
How do you protect competitive integrityif you deregulate the system
to a point that a fair amount of PEDs
are available and some coaches,
not only in those countries,but in the United States too, as well as,
policy planners do this by forcing
athletes to take these medications.
(19:21):
Well, let's be clear.
You can have a coach force an athleteto take a medication, whether there's a
WADA in place or not.
These types of
things have happened in the past,and unfortunately,
they will continueto happen in the future.
How do you actually regulate it?
You're going to have to havea list of things that you I suspect
I don't think that you can havejust an open system
where anybody can take anything,
(19:42):
including drugs,that have not been approved by the FDA.
But, you know,you have to have a system in a place
where you can have whistleblowerscall in to to report
abusive behaviorby coaches, trainers, managers, etc..
those systems are by and large, in placein a lot of federations.
I know with my daughterwho swims, we have safe coaching classes
(20:02):
that people have to take in safe sport,courses that the athletes have to take,
and there is a hotline to call inif you suspect abuse from your coach.
These things are not difficult
to actually set up in termsof having a place for people to go.
Whether the athletes will go and get thathelp is the question,
but there's only so muchyou can do to lead that horse to water.
(20:23):
You can't necessarily make them drink.
But I'm not tremendously concernedthat there will be an uptick
in the level of abuse or coercionthat coaches will do to their athletes,
because by and large,if you have an unethical coach,
they're going to do itwhether there's rules in place or not.
But not many countries
have a US safe sports systemwhere the coaches could be banned
(20:43):
and what do you think are the chancesof an athlete from, say, Russia
complaining about their coach,the doping, the athlete?
And, is it impractical to adhere,
have a system consistent around the worldwhen there are many countries that have,
a history
of using doping to expand
(21:04):
or enhance athletic results?
You're right.
That's that's that is a very fair point.
But what I would point out is that even,even with WADA in place, RUSADA,
you know, if you get a chanceto see Icarus, which is a documentary
about doping specifically within Russialeading up to the Sochi Olympics,
(21:25):
the athletes there [...] RUSADA,as you pointed out,
you have WADA as the global entitywhich is run by the Olympic Committee
and then you have the international,the separate national
doping agencies, which basically arethe ones who were responsible for
setting up WADA accredited clinics or labsin which the samples will be tested.
(21:46):
So what Russia did was thatthey had their own accredited labs, [...]
but they were taking taintedsamples of urine, cracking
open the unsealable bottlesthat were supposed to be unsealable,
and then sticking it or just getting ridof it and replacing that with clean urine.
All, the vast
majority of the athletesknew it, that they were being doped.
(22:07):
And if you have a situation like that,then you already have no particular
regulation over rogue countriesif they're not going to participate
in a meaningful way.
So we can't have any ideawhat's happening in Russia or China
or North Koreaor any of these other rogue states.
The fact that we would loosenour own restrictions
isn't going to have any impacton the level of cheating that's
(22:29):
happening on those levels,because we can't control that.
And obviously, WADA is rather loosein their interpretation of those rules
because they knew exactlywhich athletes had been doped
and they still allowedthe majority of them to compete.
This is Russia, under - notthe Russian flag - but the Olympic flag.
That was the level of punishmentthey came up with is
you can't represent your country.
(22:50):
You know. Right.
China, they didn't have anybodydisqualified at all.
And they had 21 swimmerswho tested positive for -
and I can't remember which drug it was -and they said it was just contamination
and all of their athleteswere allowed to to compete.
If Sha’carri Richardson had testedpositive for THC, which has no performance
enhancing benefit whatsoever,and is disqualified from the Olympics.
(23:13):
So we're already dealingwith this inequitable situation
between ourselves and other countrieslike us who actually follow
the rules and rogue states that do not.
I don't know that it's going
to make much difference whatsoeverif we change the rules.
Well, in your book, you mentionedthe history of certain substance
issues, particularly in competitivecycling, and discuss Lance Armstrong,
(23:36):
and I don't think we can really say LanceArmstrong is like Sha'carri Richardson -
maybe a one time error -given what happened with Armstrong
and how long it took for him to admit,that indeed, he was doping.
So, what do you think his case reflects?
And what lessons can be learned
(23:59):
from, the controversy that he and,
invoked many, many years ago?
There's there's so many lessonsthat can be learned.
But I will say you're absolutely right.
What Lance Armstrong did is not the same
as what we're talking about with Sha'carriRichardson.
Sha’carri Richardson tooka recreational drug to alleviate anxiety
after being ambushed by a reporterwho told her that her birth mother
(24:23):
had just died, which she was not aware of.
This was a day before her race.
That's not the same thingas systematically taking a performance -
a series of performance enhancing drugs -for the purposes of trying to win a race,
which is precisely what Lance Armstrongdid for the better part of his career.
Now, that said,
around 19
93 or 4, LanceArmstrong was faced with the decision,
(24:46):
knowing that everybody else in the peloton- this means the field of cyclists
- was taking some form of performanceenhancing drugs, if not multiple.
His choice was either
to continue doing what he was doing,which is not take anything and lose,
or to do with what everybody elsewas doing and try to compete.
Now he, you know,
everybody can ask themselvestheir own question,
(25:06):
what would you dounder those circumstances?
But I always ask people to remember
not much of an educationbeyond high school, no
other real job skills that were availableto him at that moment in time.
And then the most important thing,remarkably
competitive individualthat most of us are not.
So it's difficultto empathize on that level
(25:28):
until you really sit downand try to think about it.
So what would any one individual do?
He chose to go down that other routeand join the rest of the peloton,
who was doping.
Now, he was also aided in this by the UCI
- this is the federationfor cycling around the world.
In as much as they really turneda blind eye and looked the other way,
(25:49):
because he was popularizing the sportat a time when it needed it the most.
So similar to what happened
with Major League Baseball in ‘98,when we had the home run chase
that really, catapultedbaseball back into the mainstream.
It made it so it wasn't a niche sportany longer.
Cycling was desperate for a saviorwhen Lance Armstrong came along
(26:10):
and everybody was quite content
to ride his back, knowing fullwell that he was doing something
until such time as it became necessaryfor them to throw him under the bus
as a sacrificial lamb.
So some of the lessonsthat I look at with that are,
if you're not going to do anythingto regulate drug usage within your sport,
it's very difficult for you tothen come back
(26:31):
when the general populace decidesthat this is unpopular
and say, well, we really had no ideathis was happening.
And then to get rid of all the cyclistswho caused the problem, as it were,
when you've madeall that money off of their backs.
I'm here with
Alexander Hutchinson,the author of In Defense
of Doping - Reassessingthe Level Playing Field.
(26:53):
So continuing our discussion,if you liberalize some of the rules
and basically, you're not thereto throw the baby out with the bathwater,
but if you liberalize some of the rules,what message,
if any, do you think it may send to youngathletes, say, teenagers in particular?
Do you think possiblyit could create, a situation
(27:17):
where they say, hey, you know,it may not be such a bad idea
to usePEDs to get better results in competition?
Maybe it's not as importantor ethically less sound.
Are you concerned about what effect
liberalizing some of these rulescould be on younger people?
There is that possibility.
(27:38):
But in my research that I did,
there were congressional hearings in 2005
and 7, I believe, for Major LeagueBaseball specific to steroids in baseball.
And that was, that specific reason
was what was given by Congressas to why they were having these hearings.
We have to protect the children.
(28:00):
So I went back and I looked at the numberof deaths within teens that could be
specifically ascribed to taking steroids,which was the big deal at the time,
and I lookedat for more research thereafter, tracking
those same numbers after the hearingswere done for the next ten years.
The number of teenagers that diedspecific to that was the exact same.
(28:21):
The anonymous survey data from high schooland collegiate athletes
about their steroid usestayed the exact same.
So legislating out bad behavior,as it were,
is a very difficult thing to dowith anybody, but particularly children.
Now, let me come back to the point.
I do not advocate for any childto take anything
(28:42):
that is not prescribed by their doctor.
A child has a developing brainor is an adult -
their brain is already developed.
Developing body, same is true.
but that said,
children's athletics is differentthan adult athletics.
We mandate specific ruleswithin children's
games to increase the amount of safetythat takes place.
(29:04):
Dimensions of the field are different.
They’re shorter, narrower.
The goals are smaller depending on whatsport we're talking about.
The safety equipment is mandatedand much safer than what you would see
in an adult sport.
So you mean let me give you an examplelike hockey.
Hockey you have you have to wear a helmetwith a visor, but you don't have to have
anything that actually protectsfrom your nose down.
(29:25):
And people take pucksto the face all the time.
even then, ifyou look at it, hockey players in the NHL,
when they're wearing their helmet,it's not strapped tight.
If they take a hit,that thing's flying off
and there's very littlethey actually protect their head.
If we look at children's
athletics within hockey,they have a full mask with face gear
that's not going to allow for anythingto smack them directly in the face.
And that helmet has to be strapped tight.
(29:47):
So wewe already see that there is differences
between adults and in, childrenwhen it comes
to how they participate in sports,this would be no different.
[...] And the other thing that we makesure we do is the same thing we used to do
in the 80s with PSAs for illicit drugsis educate them, don't touch this kid.
You don't need to.
There's no reason to,
(30:09):
unless you get yourself into a positionwhere you're going to be an adult
professional athlete.
That said, will there be an uptick?
It's hard to say, but I don't think thatthat can be your sole reason
for preventing athletes from being ableto make decisions for themselves
as far as it relatesto these particular drugs.
But in some sports,the children let's, define
(30:30):
that as anyone under 18 oftendo compete in elite levels
like women's gymnastics,that many competitors are under 18.
Sometimes that's the case for swimming,and it could be for track as well.
So you do find at least a cadre of quote
unquote children in the elite levelor professional level of athletics
(30:54):
in certain sports because of the waythe sport is made, how it evolves, etc..
So there how do you deal with the issuein a case of a 17 year
old gymnastor 17 year old track and field star?
Yeah, I would do it the same way I dofor anything else.
The parents have got to be the,
(31:14):
the primary screener for anythingthat's taking place with their kids.
so, you know, when it comes down to this,at the thought of, of an athlete
being a role model,and they have a specific responsibility
to all the children acrossthe entire world, I don't agree with that.
I have a 13 year old daughter.
She has her role models.
But I never abdicate responsibilityfor what she does to anybody else
except for myself.
(31:35):
So when it comes to these young athletes
and we see the same thing in figureskating, they can be as young as 14.
But they should have a parentthere as a hawk, preventing anything
from coming near their child thatthey don't want to come near their child.
That's as much as you can do.
you know,if you have people who are going to be
handlers of those kid athleteswho have bad intentions,
(31:56):
until you rootthose people out, it's very difficult
to protect anybody from anything.But let's let's be very clear.
We've had sex scandalswithin gymnast gymnastics.
They have nothing to do with drugs.
Larry Nasser's your best example.
And he had something like 50 some odd,victims,
many of whom had their parents in the roomwith them when they were victimized.
So to think that we can obliterateany type of bad behavior against children
(32:19):
by just having 1 or 2 rules in place,it's it's it's foolhardy.
It's not really going to happen.
You spoke about therapeutic use exceptionsand how hard it is to get.
But generally speaking,the United States has had
the most therapeuticuse exceptions in the WADA system.
Do you think that does create askewed environment as opposed to athletes,
(32:42):
maybe poor countries or countrieswhere, the attitude toward taking
certain substancesis very different than the United States.
It may,
there may be a competitive disadvantagethere if you came from come from a country
that doesn't have means, that can actuallyafford these pharmaceutical drugs.
the same may be trueif you come from a country
(33:04):
that's more restrictivejust in terms of their culture,
when it comes to taking drugs.
But the same competitive disadvantageis going to occur
anytime one country has more moneythan another country.
I put this in my book, the correlationcoefficient between, the GDP of a country
and how many medals they can win inan Olympics is right around point eight.
So in other words, you can do a great dealof prediction of how many
(33:26):
how many medals a country can win,
depending on how much moneythey actually have in that country.
So money is the biggest
tipper of the the scales of justice
or balance in terms of competitionthan anything else.
Those people, those schools, those states,those countries that have
money will have athletes competingat a higher level than those who do not.
(33:48):
I don't think that this is going to bethe biggest problem of all, particularly
when you think about the drugs that we'rethat we know for sure really work.
They're cheapand just about everybody can get them.
And if there's a monetary incentiveto allow this athlete to get that money
or to get that drug,then they'll make it happen.
For thoseinterested in, obtaining your book,
(34:09):
where are the best places to buy it?
Amazon.
[Mark Conrad (34:14):
Okay.] That would be the best place to buy it.
Okay.
In Defense of Doping - Reassessingthe Level Playing Field.
What is the best place to contact?
They can find me through my website,which is goodegg.fitness,
and goodegg is one wordjust like it sounds: G-O-O-D-E-G-G.
So you do say when all is said and
(34:36):
told thatthere should be some kind of regulation,
but the WADA system is way toorestrictive and unfair.
Yes. So I'm not openly advocating
for there to be just an open systemwhere we you can take anything you want.
There's too many drugs out therethat are relatively popular,
but have not been approved by the FDA.
(34:58):
We just don't know what the long termramifications of those drugs are.
But a lot of athletesare turning to those drugs
because they can't takethe ones that they would prefer,
which are the ones that have been outthere in the market for a million years.
And I'm referring to drugslike cortisone, testosterone
or any other type of anabolic steroids,human growth hormone and
oh my goodness [...],
(35:22):
so in a we can go over what each of thosedrugs does, but just in general,
we have a list, a very short list of drugsthat we know for sure have a big impact.
If athletes had access to those drugs,they would probably stick to those
and not worry about taking somethingthat's not approved by the FDA.
So, yes,I do think that there is some level
of regulation that should happen.
(35:43):
but I do think that it should be theathletes who are making these decisions
after being consulted by thosewho are in the know,
in terms of what it is that they wanttheir to be able to want their
their fellow athletes to be able to takeif they need it, as opposed to what
we currently have, which is a systemthat really doesn't work.
It works really well in a countrylike ours, where USADA
(36:05):
follows the rules of WADA,you know, straight up.
But if you have
if you're competingagainst another country
where they're not going to do that
and they're actively goingto flaunt the rules and cheat,
then how is this working for anybody?
But then even if you liberalize it,how is it going to work for anybody too?
But, even if you do have,say, ten PEDs listed,
(36:26):
it still may not work if those countriesare going to cheat right?
Nothing's going to be perfect.
If they find it,if they find an extra special,
better drug that they make themselvesis going to be better than anything
that we have on our approved list,they'll have a competitive advantage.
I mean that that is the proxy war betweennations when it comes to sportswashing.
That's just what they do.
This is what they've done for generations.
(36:48):
It's what they will continue to do.
That's the separate,you know, conversation
that's really outside the scopeof what I'm talking about.
And it's something that I certainly don'thave a solution for.
What I'm really talking about hereis that the biggest level, making
sure that the athletes get more of a sayin what it is that they wish to do.
And on that note, unfortunately,we have to come to a close
(37:08):
on behalf of Fordham University,the Gabelli School of Business
and the Sports Business Initiative,thanks to Doctor Alexander Hutchinson
for an engaging and informativediscussion.
His book In Defense of Dopingis available on Amazon.
And thanks to my producer,Victoria Ilano, for her great work.
(37:29):
And thanks to all of you for listening in.
For the Sports Business podcastat Fordham's Gabelli
School of Business,I’m Mark Conrad or Prof.
C, have a great day.
Hello and
welcome to the Sports Business Podcastwith Prof.
C, the podcast that exploresthe world of professional,
collegiate, amateur and Olympic sports.
I'm Mark Conrad or Prof.
C, from FordhamUniversity's Gabelli School of Business,
whereI serve as Professor of Law and Ethics
(00:29):
and the Director of the Sports BusinessInitiative.
On this podcast,I like to explore alternative views
and different angles on prominent issuesin the sports industry.
So I was intrigued when a new book camemy way titled “In Defense
of Doping - Reassessingthe Level Playing Field”
(00:53):
by Alexander Hutchison.
Doctor Hutchison is a fitnessand wellness expert based in Dallas.
He received his PhD in Exercise
Physiology at the University of Houston.
Welcome to the Sports Business Podcast,Doctor Hutchison.
Thank you for having me,and happy to be here.
(01:13):
And when I saw your book,you know, I was intrigued.
And I read through itand I was somewhat honestly skeptical.
So before we get into the detailsand the meat of the matter,
just to give a background in your book,you take a position
that's contrary to many,if not most athletes and just
(01:34):
about all sports federations,and that is that doping,
at least some doping, is not badand should not be banned.
Is that a correct assessment?
That is a correct assessment.
And how do you feel?
How did you come to this position andwhy do you feel so strongly about that?
(01:55):
It was a long evolutionover a number of years,
and I can tell you that, you know,I've been a lifelong sports fan.
The, my initial position on thisin the late 90s,
when I was really paying attentionto doping, for the first time, was that
I was just like all the other peoplethat you've mentioned.
I was very much diametrically opposedto doping in any way, shape or form
(02:18):
until I started to actually do some moreresearch during my graduate studies.
And in addition to that, at the same time,
I was competing a triathlonat a relatively high level,
and I was started to dealwith my own series of injuries and stuff
like that, that would come alongwhen you start to do an endurance sport
time after time.
and you know, over the yearsof researching more and over the years
(02:40):
of watching athletes competeat different competitions, namely
UFC, boxing, football and road cycling,
there were just a number of anecdotesthat I started
to pick up from different athletes abouthow difficult the time they had recovering
between trainingsessions, between competitions,
and some of the tacticsthat they would use to try to,
(03:02):
well, hasten that recovery time.
And the only things that really worked inany meaningful way were drugs
that were on the banned list.
And these are typically steroidsthat we're talking about.
In addition to that,I had my own experiences
with, you know,competing in age group weightlifting,
while also being on therapeutictestosterone.
(03:23):
Getting a therapeuticuse exemption is exceedingly difficult.
I went through the entire process,and I was rejected by USADA.
And when I asked them, well,what's my next remedy for this problem?
They said, well, you got to go offyour testosterone for six months,
and then we have to wait for three monthsthereafter to test
you three consecutive monthsto prove that you were hypogonadic.
In other words, you don't make enoughof your own testosterone
(03:45):
and then you can go back on.
So this is going to be almostan entire year process
just for the purposesof competing in [...] weightlifting.
I thought that's remarkably restrictivefor somebody who doesn't really care
about winning anything.
I just want to havean organized competition to go to.
And then finally, the last, you know,straw that broke the camel's back,
as it were, was during the 2021Olympic trials.
(04:07):
So this was officially the 2020,
but it was postponed by year, obviouslybecause of Covid.
And we had Sha'carri Richardson,who was another Dallasonian like myself,
who won the 100 meter dash,and then two days later, was -
she tested positive for THC, obviouslythe active ingredient, marijuana.
And she was disqualified from that eventand subsequently
(04:28):
prohibitedfrom competing in the Olympics in Tokyo.
And having had my own experiences
with marijuana for a number of reasons,but mostly recreationally, I can assert
that there's no possible way thatmarijuana is a performance enhancing drug.
And so as I looked more into this,
because most people didn't know thatTHC was on the banned list.
You know, you run into WADA’s positionthat it's a a drug of abuse.
(04:53):
And since it's illegal in many countries,
they were also going to prohibitits use amongst athletes.
That particular event, combinedwith my own frustrations with WADA,
not being able to get a therapeutic
use exemption, really drove me to startconsidering writing this book.
And then I put the research inand my position became
much clearer as I went through the processof running the book.
(05:14):
So just by background.
for those who may not know,for the last 30 years or so, the World
Anti-Doping Agency or WADA,W-A-D-A, has been charged
with establishing the kind of substancesthat are banned from competition.
And they published lists every year.
Most sports federations have acceptedtheir standards and have abided
(05:38):
by the standards, and the punishmentfor being caught is fairly severe.
So Dr.
Hutchison is correct that indeed, itcould be a ban for two years, maybe more.
And it'swhat's called a strict liability standard.
So in other words,if you have certain excuses,
they may not be complete defenses.
(05:59):
[...] It's in your system,you've been caught,
and generally speaking,the punishments are severe.
But, to go back to Sha’carriRichardson's issue;
she accepted the sanction,she's competing now.
And it leads to the fact that or the pointthat most athletes I've spoken with over
(06:20):
the years are fairly happywith the WADA system,
because if it wasn't for that system,wouldn't there be more abuse of,
performance enhancing drugsby athletes in certain
countries,certain sports systems and the like?
So while imperfect, is itthe best we have?
(06:41):
I don't know that it's the best we have.
I mean, if you look at
what you're saying is correct,and I'm sure that there's athletes
who have you spoken with who theynot only tell you that they like
the way the system is, butI also have spoken to a number of athletes
who said the exact opposite.
Unfortunately, and I don't knowif you had these conversations.
you know,
you were expected to keep these thingsprivate and confidence.
(07:04):
But I can tell you that when we
when athletes are askedabout these things up front,
they put themselvesin a very difficult position
where the only really answer they can giveis I'm in support of WADA,
because if you have a dissenting viewand you're an athlete,
there is a lot of people who wouldbe concerned that they would be picked on
more so than normalin terms of their testing regimens,
(07:24):
and maybe something goes wrong
with the test, and then they're not goingto be viewed in a favorable light.
The best evidence that we haveis when we have anonymous survey data.
And, there are a number of studiesthat have been published,
the most recent one that I looked up,
surveyed athletes who were track and field
athletes, at a world championshipsand also the Pan Asian Games.
(07:45):
And the number, the percentage of athleteswho were surveyed who said that
they had usedor were currently using doping agents
was between 33 and 50%.
So if you assume that there's a level of,you know, that's rather conservative,
still, even in an anonymous survey,people are not going to necessarily
want to be honestbecause they just don't trust it.
Still a huge number that's admittingto the fact that they're taking something.
(08:08):
If you contrast that with the NFL- anonymous surveys
that were taken with the NFLspecifically for steroid use -
and it always hovers around 10 to 15%,a much lower number,
with punishmentsthat are much less restrictive and less
and less punitivethan what WADA turns out these days,
and also some level of collectivebargaining with the NFL.
(08:30):
That's really where my aim is going.
So I'm not necessarily interestedin just obliterating WADA.
I think it does some good things.
But the biggest problem with WADA is, isthis is one organization
who's telling all of the athletes,which is their labor force,
exactly what they're going to do,
when they're going to do itand how they're going to do it.
The athletesdon't have any say in this whatsoever.
Well, is that a problem withthe Olympic system rather than with WADA?
(08:54):
Because the athletes cannot be unionizedin an American sense, because one, it's
an international sports federation,not just the IOC, but all the federations.
And two, they're not employees.
The NFL players are employees,and therefore they have the right,
under the U.S.
labor law,to form a union and negotiate this.
(09:14):
How do you clump togetherathletes of 200 countries
in a sports federationtrying to replicate the same situation?
Yeah, I don't know the insand outs of the labor laws.
What I can sayis that Major League Baseball and the NBA
both have teams in Canada.
So there at least there's some levelof cross-border negotiations
(09:35):
that have to take place.
It has been done for at leasttwo countries. I understand that
this would be a significantly larger featthan just the two.
However, I do think if there is a will,there is a way.
It shouldn't be impossibleto allow for for athletes to negotiate
the rules of their own engagementand also be full time employees.
What you mentionedthere is one of the biggest problems
(09:56):
I have with the international sportsfederations is they exist,
is that they do not treat the athletesas though they are employees.
They're barely even contract labor.
It's more alongthe lines of freelance labor.
They don't necessarily get any [...]for the Olympics, they get no payment
for winning.
And inmany instances, they get very little,
(10:16):
if any, support from their own country'snational federations for training purposes
and to stay alive while they're tryingto compete for the Olympics.
The long and the short of itis that when you think
about a sporting event,that's entertainment.
That's exactly what it is.
And athletes are the product itselfthat are being put on the field,
and they deserve to have a great dealmore say in what it is
(10:39):
that they are allowed to and not do,and also what level of punishment
they're willing to accept for themselvesand their fellow athletes.
Okay, let me throw a hypothetical then.
Let's saythere is an athlete's union of sorts,
and there are a few organizationsthat have tried to do that,
to be fair,and they’re international athletics.
Now you have about 40 sports federations.
(11:02):
How do you get athletesfrom all these different sports,
trying to negotiatesomething that is consistent
throughout that Olympic systemwhen the nature of competition,
the nature of sports,the nature of compensation differs
because these organizationshave very different financial backing?
Track is far wealthier than archery,for example.
(11:25):
So how do you fitin, an all encompassing organization
which would be much more difficultthan, say, the NFL Players Association,
whereall the players play American football.
So is that a challenge that isso difficult that has to be impractical?
If you were to try to get
(11:46):
every single sporting federationunder the same umbrella I would say yes.
But what I'm more interested in is havingeach individual sporting federations’
athletes have their own respective unionand negotiate their own thing.
So what may be legal in one sportsmay be not legal
in another,and that's currently how the situation is.
What you can do, for example,and I put this in my book,
(12:06):
what you can do in tennis,
maybe very differentthan what you can do in cycling,
specificallyas it relates to cortisone injections,
which is one of the big things that we'vethat's been around for many, many years.
But cortisone plays a very important rolein helping athletes recover
from injury, particularly acute injuriesif they still have to perform.
So let's let's get a hypothetical here.
Let's just say that you have,you know, a twisted ankle
(12:28):
and you got to go in therethe next day and in and perform.
What you may be asked to door what you may ask your doctor to do
is give you a cortisone injectionto bring down the inflammation
in the injured jointsto last for that one more game.
There's a number of sportsinternationally,
including tennis, wherethat would be allowed.
If you did the same thing in cycling,
you'd have to be out of competitionfor eight days straight.
(12:49):
So let's say you're in the middle of athree week tour - Tour de France, Giro
via the Vuelta - you go downreal hard on stage ten.
But you're, you know,all you need is a little bit
of pharmaceutical assistancejust to stay in the race.
You can't do it if it's cycling,you could do it if it's tennis.
That precedent’s already been set.
So having different sporting federationsadjust their own rules and regulations
(13:11):
as per their vote,that's the way we want it to be.
So we don't necessarily have to havea blanket rule across all sports.
It's already, that already exists.
So all we're doingis going to be expanding the level of
representation and say,instead of restricting it
and not really providing the athleteswith any type of representation.
(13:31):
Okay. Fair points.
let me just try one more hypothetical.
Let's say we have,
the, athletes
that represent a union of sortsand track and field,
and then negotiate with internationalathletics, which is their governing body,
and revise some of the WADA rules thereor wish to do so.
(13:53):
But what if the athletesthat represent the union members,
if you call itthat, are in favor of the current system?
Let's say they say so. Great. Okay.
But that's fine if but again,it comes down to what do the athletes
actually want?
I'm presenting an opinion as an outsider.
My opinion may be very different
(14:14):
if I was actually an active athletestill at that level.
but if the athletes who were voted
in as representativesof their constituents
then go in and vote to maintain thingsas they stand, that's their say.
And that's exactly the point.
They will have a say.
I would be surprised
if everything remained exactly the same,like I think THC would be out immediately.
(14:37):
I think there would be some loosertherapeutic use exemptions
for a number of different drugs,particularly during, recovery from injury.
and and I but most and also I
think they could also negotiatesome level of additional compensation.
They have some leverage there inwhich is they can say, look, we'll,
we'll keep the, the drug restrictionsas they are in exchange for compensation
(15:01):
because if this federation is makingbillions of dollars off the backs
of the athletes, they should be spreadingthat wealth around just a bit.
A few international federations,
ironically, have decided to compensate
their athletes in the upcoming Olympics,such as track and boxing.
So do you think that that trendcould help, as you said,
in possibly negotiating, an agreementregarding,
(15:25):
drug use in returnfor at least some kind of compensation?
I hope so, again, I want this to be
the decision of the athletes,the educated decision of the athletes.
I did see the track and fieldis going to be compensating
for, or at least rewarding, moneyfor gold medals.
At leastI don't know about the rest of them.
(15:46):
I didn't hear about boxinguntil you just told me.
That's a great positive.
What I would say is that that is in directresponse to the enhanced games
coming online, and the enhanced gamesoffering $50,000 for a gold medal.
now, if you
don't know what the enhanced games are,this is,
it's going to be a parallel gamesto the Olympics,
(16:07):
during which athletes will not be testedfor performance enhancing drugs.
At least that's the frameworkthat they have established now.
And as soon as they announcedthat they were going to be awarding
a cash prizefor gold medalists, at the very least,
I think it was two weekslater, World Athletics came through
and did the same thingwith track and field.
I'm not sure whatthe actual amount of compensation is,
(16:29):
but it's the fact that they're offeringanything is in direct response
to their being a change.
So let me let me parallel this.
Give an analogy.
If anybody is paying any attentionto the XFL
or the USFLwhen they merged to form the UFL,
the secondary league is, you know,
doing a lot of experimental thingsin terms of changing the rules slightly
(16:51):
to increase the interest of the gameand also the improved player safety.
The NFL is relatively slow to react untilthey get to see something on the field.
And now they've already adoptedthree rules, and they're going to have
to do a couple more.
So when you have some levelof additional competition for your league,
so you're not the only dog in the shed,you are forced into a position
(17:11):
if it's popular to actually makesome modifications yourself.
So if the enhanced games accomplishnothing else,
they have already accomplished this much.
And that's plenty as far as I'm concerned.
Can you tell usmore about the enhanced games?
I don't think many listenershave heard about them.
So thisis the brainchild of Aaron DeSouza.
(17:32):
He is an Australian lawyer.
I believe he went to Oxfordand it's being backed by Peter Teal,
who's the guy who, created PayPal.
And his brainchild was that -it's pretty simple concept - they just
they want to see how fast athletescan actually perform if not restricted on
(17:52):
what it is that they can take.
Now, I'm sure that there's going to be
some level of restrictionon what they will and will not allow.
So it's not going to be an absolute freefor all
where you can just take anythingunder the sun.
That said, you know, the the expectationand the hope is that
we see some athletes performbetter than they could without those drugs
because we want to see them performat their highest
(18:15):
possible level, even if that includessome level pharmaceutical assistance.
Now, the reason that I don't finda problem with
this is because I don't look at the drugsas being anything different
than the best equipmentthat you can get your hands
on, the best nutrition changesand sleep habits.
All of these things that have happenedover the last 30 years
that have made athletes significantlymore competitive than they used to be,
(18:37):
they would just be
enhanced that much more with performanceenhancing drugs.
But let's get to the elephant in the roomand that is the abuse
by governmentsor by governmental agencies.
And we talk about RUSADA,the Russian anti-doping agency.
We talk about allegationsinvolving Chinese swimmers.
we have allegations going backmany years to East Germany.
(18:59):
How do you protect competitive integrityif you deregulate the system
to a point that a fair amount of PEDs
are available and some coaches,
not only in those countries,but in the United States too, as well as,
policy planners do this by forcing
athletes to take these medications.
(19:21):
Well, let's be clear.
You can have a coach force an athleteto take a medication, whether there's a
WADA in place or not.
These types of
things have happened in the past,and unfortunately,
they will continueto happen in the future.
How do you actually regulate it?
You're going to have to havea list of things that you I suspect
I don't think that you can havejust an open system
where anybody can take anything,
(19:42):
including drugs,that have not been approved by the FDA.
But, you know,you have to have a system in a place
where you can have whistleblowerscall in to to report
abusive behaviorby coaches, trainers, managers, etc..
those systems are by and large, in placein a lot of federations.
I know with my daughterwho swims, we have safe coaching classes
(20:02):
that people have to take in safe sport,courses that the athletes have to take,
and there is a hotline to call inif you suspect abuse from your coach.
These things are not difficult
to actually set up in termsof having a place for people to go.
Whether the athletes will go and get thathelp is the question,
but there's only so muchyou can do to lead that horse to water.
(20:23):
You can't necessarily make them drink.
But I'm not tremendously concernedthat there will be an uptick
in the level of abuse or coercionthat coaches will do to their athletes,
because by and large,if you have an unethical coach,
they're going to do itwhether there's rules in place or not.
But not many countries
have a US safe sports systemwhere the coaches could be banned
(20:43):
and what do you think are the chancesof an athlete from, say, Russia
complaining about their coach,the doping, the athlete?
And, is it impractical to adhere,
have a system consistent around the worldwhen there are many countries that have,
a history
of using doping to expand
(21:04):
or enhance athletic results?
You're right.
That's that's that is a very fair point.
But what I would point out is that even,even with WADA in place, RUSADA,
you know, if you get a chanceto see Icarus, which is a documentary
about doping specifically within Russialeading up to the Sochi Olympics,
(21:25):
the athletes there [...] RUSADA,as you pointed out,
you have WADA as the global entitywhich is run by the Olympic Committee
and then you have the international,the separate national
doping agencies, which basically arethe ones who were responsible for
setting up WADA accredited clinics or labsin which the samples will be tested.
(21:46):
So what Russia did was thatthey had their own accredited labs, [...]
but they were taking taintedsamples of urine, cracking
open the unsealable bottlesthat were supposed to be unsealable,
and then sticking it or just getting ridof it and replacing that with clean urine.
All, the vast
majority of the athletesknew it, that they were being doped.
(22:07):
And if you have a situation like that,then you already have no particular
regulation over rogue countriesif they're not going to participate
in a meaningful way.
So we can't have any ideawhat's happening in Russia or China
or North Koreaor any of these other rogue states.
The fact that we would loosenour own restrictions
isn't going to have any impacton the level of cheating that's
(22:29):
happening on those levels,because we can't control that.
And obviously, WADA is rather loosein their interpretation of those rules
because they knew exactlywhich athletes had been doped
and they still allowedthe majority of them to compete.
This is Russia, under - notthe Russian flag - but the Olympic flag.
That was the level of punishmentthey came up with is
you can't represent your country.
(22:50):
You know. Right.
China, they didn't have anybodydisqualified at all.
And they had 21 swimmerswho tested positive for -
and I can't remember which drug it was -and they said it was just contamination
and all of their athleteswere allowed to to compete.
If Sha’carri Richardson had testedpositive for THC, which has no performance
enhancing benefit whatsoever,and is disqualified from the Olympics.
(23:13):
So we're already dealingwith this inequitable situation
between ourselves and other countrieslike us who actually follow
the rules and rogue states that do not.
I don't know that it's going
to make much difference whatsoeverif we change the rules.
Well, in your book, you mentionedthe history of certain substance
issues, particularly in competitivecycling, and discuss Lance Armstrong,
(23:36):
and I don't think we can really say LanceArmstrong is like Sha'carri Richardson -
maybe a one time error -given what happened with Armstrong
and how long it took for him to admit,that indeed, he was doping.
So, what do you think his case reflects?
And what lessons can be learned
(23:59):
from, the controversy that he and,
invoked many, many years ago?
There's there's so many lessonsthat can be learned.
But I will say you're absolutely right.
What Lance Armstrong did is not the same
as what we're talking about with Sha'carriRichardson.
Sha’carri Richardson tooka recreational drug to alleviate anxiety
after being ambushed by a reporterwho told her that her birth mother
(24:23):
had just died, which she was not aware of.
This was a day before her race.
That's not the same thingas systematically taking a performance -
a series of performance enhancing drugs -for the purposes of trying to win a race,
which is precisely what Lance Armstrongdid for the better part of his career.
Now, that said,
around 19
93 or 4, LanceArmstrong was faced with the decision,
(24:46):
knowing that everybody else in the peloton- this means the field of cyclists
- was taking some form of performanceenhancing drugs, if not multiple.
His choice was either
to continue doing what he was doing,which is not take anything and lose,
or to do with what everybody elsewas doing and try to compete.
Now he, you know,
everybody can ask themselvestheir own question,
(25:06):
what would you dounder those circumstances?
But I always ask people to remember
not much of an educationbeyond high school, no
other real job skills that were availableto him at that moment in time.
And then the most important thing,remarkably
competitive individualthat most of us are not.
So it's difficultto empathize on that level
(25:28):
until you really sit downand try to think about it.
So what would any one individual do?
He chose to go down that other routeand join the rest of the peloton,
who was doping.
Now, he was also aided in this by the UCI
- this is the federationfor cycling around the world.
In as much as they really turneda blind eye and looked the other way,
(25:49):
because he was popularizing the sportat a time when it needed it the most.
So similar to what happened
with Major League Baseball in ‘98,when we had the home run chase
that really, catapultedbaseball back into the mainstream.
It made it so it wasn't a niche sportany longer.
Cycling was desperate for a saviorwhen Lance Armstrong came along
(26:10):
and everybody was quite content
to ride his back, knowing fullwell that he was doing something
until such time as it became necessaryfor them to throw him under the bus
as a sacrificial lamb.
So some of the lessonsthat I look at with that are,
if you're not going to do anythingto regulate drug usage within your sport,
it's very difficult for you tothen come back
(26:31):
when the general populace decidesthat this is unpopular
and say, well, we really had no ideathis was happening.
And then to get rid of all the cyclistswho caused the problem, as it were,
when you've madeall that money off of their backs.
I'm here with
Alexander Hutchinson,the author of In Defense
of Doping - Reassessingthe Level Playing Field.
(26:53):
So continuing our discussion,if you liberalize some of the rules
and basically, you're not thereto throw the baby out with the bathwater,
but if you liberalize some of the rules,what message,
if any, do you think it may send to youngathletes, say, teenagers in particular?
Do you think possiblyit could create, a situation
(27:17):
where they say, hey, you know,it may not be such a bad idea
to usePEDs to get better results in competition?
Maybe it's not as importantor ethically less sound.
Are you concerned about what effect
liberalizing some of these rulescould be on younger people?
There is that possibility.
(27:38):
But in my research that I did,
there were congressional hearings in 2005
and 7, I believe, for Major LeagueBaseball specific to steroids in baseball.
And that was, that specific reason
was what was given by Congressas to why they were having these hearings.
We have to protect the children.
(28:00):
So I went back and I looked at the numberof deaths within teens that could be
specifically ascribed to taking steroids,which was the big deal at the time,
and I lookedat for more research thereafter, tracking
those same numbers after the hearingswere done for the next ten years.
The number of teenagers that diedspecific to that was the exact same.
(28:21):
The anonymous survey data from high schooland collegiate athletes
about their steroid usestayed the exact same.
So legislating out bad behavior,as it were,
is a very difficult thing to dowith anybody, but particularly children.
Now, let me come back to the point.
I do not advocate for any childto take anything
(28:42):
that is not prescribed by their doctor.
A child has a developing brainor is an adult -
their brain is already developed.
Developing body, same is true.
but that said,
children's athletics is differentthan adult athletics.
We mandate specific ruleswithin children's
games to increase the amount of safetythat takes place.
(29:04):
Dimensions of the field are different.
They’re shorter, narrower.
The goals are smaller depending on whatsport we're talking about.
The safety equipment is mandatedand much safer than what you would see
in an adult sport.
So you mean let me give you an examplelike hockey.
Hockey you have you have to wear a helmetwith a visor, but you don't have to have
anything that actually protectsfrom your nose down.
(29:25):
And people take pucksto the face all the time.
even then, ifyou look at it, hockey players in the NHL,
when they're wearing their helmet,it's not strapped tight.
If they take a hit,that thing's flying off
and there's very littlethey actually protect their head.
If we look at children's
athletics within hockey,they have a full mask with face gear
that's not going to allow for anythingto smack them directly in the face.
And that helmet has to be strapped tight.
(29:47):
So wewe already see that there is differences
between adults and in, childrenwhen it comes
to how they participate in sports,this would be no different.
[...] And the other thing that we makesure we do is the same thing we used to do
in the 80s with PSAs for illicit drugsis educate them, don't touch this kid.
You don't need to.
There's no reason to,
(30:09):
unless you get yourself into a positionwhere you're going to be an adult
professional athlete.
That said, will there be an uptick?
It's hard to say, but I don't think thatthat can be your sole reason
for preventing athletes from being ableto make decisions for themselves
as far as it relatesto these particular drugs.
But in some sports,the children let's, define
(30:30):
that as anyone under 18 oftendo compete in elite levels
like women's gymnastics,that many competitors are under 18.
Sometimes that's the case for swimming,and it could be for track as well.
So you do find at least a cadre of quote
unquote children in the elite levelor professional level of athletics
(30:54):
in certain sports because of the waythe sport is made, how it evolves, etc..
So there how do you deal with the issuein a case of a 17 year
old gymnastor 17 year old track and field star?
Yeah, I would do it the same way I dofor anything else.
The parents have got to be the,
(31:14):
the primary screener for anythingthat's taking place with their kids.
so, you know, when it comes down to this,at the thought of, of an athlete
being a role model,and they have a specific responsibility
to all the children acrossthe entire world, I don't agree with that.
I have a 13 year old daughter.
She has her role models.
But I never abdicate responsibilityfor what she does to anybody else
except for myself.
(31:35):
So when it comes to these young athletes
and we see the same thing in figureskating, they can be as young as 14.
But they should have a parentthere as a hawk, preventing anything
from coming near their child thatthey don't want to come near their child.
That's as much as you can do.
you know,if you have people who are going to be
handlers of those kid athleteswho have bad intentions,
(31:56):
until you rootthose people out, it's very difficult
to protect anybody from anything.But let's let's be very clear.
We've had sex scandalswithin gymnast gymnastics.
They have nothing to do with drugs.
Larry Nasser's your best example.
And he had something like 50 some odd,victims,
many of whom had their parents in the roomwith them when they were victimized.
So to think that we can obliterateany type of bad behavior against children
(32:19):
by just having 1 or 2 rules in place,it's it's it's foolhardy.
It's not really going to happen.
You spoke about therapeutic use exceptionsand how hard it is to get.
But generally speaking,the United States has had
the most therapeuticuse exceptions in the WADA system.
Do you think that does create askewed environment as opposed to athletes,
(32:42):
maybe poor countries or countrieswhere, the attitude toward taking
certain substancesis very different than the United States.
It may,
there may be a competitive disadvantagethere if you came from come from a country
that doesn't have means, that can actuallyafford these pharmaceutical drugs.
the same may be trueif you come from a country
(33:04):
that's more restrictivejust in terms of their culture,
when it comes to taking drugs.
But the same competitive disadvantageis going to occur
anytime one country has more moneythan another country.
I put this in my book, the correlationcoefficient between, the GDP of a country
and how many medals they can win inan Olympics is right around point eight.
So in other words, you can do a great dealof prediction of how many
(33:26):
how many medals a country can win,
depending on how much moneythey actually have in that country.
So money is the biggest
tipper of the the scales of justice
or balance in terms of competitionthan anything else.
Those people, those schools, those states,those countries that have
money will have athletes competingat a higher level than those who do not.
(33:48):
I don't think that this is going to bethe biggest problem of all, particularly
when you think about the drugs that we'rethat we know for sure really work.
They're cheapand just about everybody can get them.
And if there's a monetary incentiveto allow this athlete to get that money
or to get that drug,then they'll make it happen.
For thoseinterested in, obtaining your book,
(34:09):
where are the best places to buy it?
Amazon.
[Mark Conrad (34:14):
Okay.] That would be the best place to buy it.
Okay.
In Defense of Doping - Reassessingthe Level Playing Field.
What is the best place to contact?
They can find me through my website,which is goodegg.fitness,
and goodegg is one wordjust like it sounds: G-O-O-D-E-G-G.
So you do say when all is said and
(34:36):
told thatthere should be some kind of regulation,
but the WADA system is way toorestrictive and unfair.
Yes. So I'm not openly advocating
for there to be just an open systemwhere we you can take anything you want.
There's too many drugs out therethat are relatively popular,
but have not been approved by the FDA.
(34:58):
We just don't know what the long termramifications of those drugs are.
But a lot of athletesare turning to those drugs
because they can't takethe ones that they would prefer,
which are the ones that have been outthere in the market for a million years.
And I'm referring to drugslike cortisone, testosterone
or any other type of anabolic steroids,human growth hormone and
oh my goodness [...],
(35:22):
so in a we can go over what each of thosedrugs does, but just in general,
we have a list, a very short list of drugsthat we know for sure have a big impact.
If athletes had access to those drugs,they would probably stick to those
and not worry about taking somethingthat's not approved by the FDA.
So, yes,I do think that there is some level
of regulation that should happen.
(35:43):
but I do think that it should be theathletes who are making these decisions
after being consulted by thosewho are in the know,
in terms of what it is that they wanttheir to be able to want their
their fellow athletes to be able to takeif they need it, as opposed to what
we currently have, which is a systemthat really doesn't work.
It works really well in a countrylike ours, where USADA
(36:05):
follows the rules of WADA,you know, straight up.
But if you have
if you're competingagainst another country
where they're not going to do that
and they're actively goingto flaunt the rules and cheat,
then how is this working for anybody?
But then even if you liberalize it,how is it going to work for anybody too?
But, even if you do have,say, ten PEDs listed,
(36:26):
it still may not work if those countriesare going to cheat right?
Nothing's going to be perfect.
If they find it,if they find an extra special,
better drug that they make themselvesis going to be better than anything
that we have on our approved list,they'll have a competitive advantage.
I mean that that is the proxy war betweennations when it comes to sportswashing.
That's just what they do.
This is what they've done for generations.
(36:48):
It's what they will continue to do.
That's the separate,you know, conversation
that's really outside the scopeof what I'm talking about.
And it's something that I certainly don'thave a solution for.
What I'm really talking about hereis that the biggest level, making
sure that the athletes get more of a sayin what it is that they wish to do.
And on that note, unfortunately,we have to come to a close
(37:08):
on behalf of Fordham University,the Gabelli School of Business
and the Sports Business Initiative,thanks to Doctor Alexander Hutchinson
for an engaging and informativediscussion.
His book In Defense of Dopingis available on Amazon.
And thanks to my producer,Victoria Ilano, for her great work.
(37:29):
And thanks to all of you for listening in.
For the Sports Business podcastat Fordham's Gabelli
School of Business,I’m Mark Conrad or Prof.
C, have a great day.
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