In this article we explain and reflect critically upon the athlete whereabouts reporting system in top-level sports initiated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). This system makes it compulsory for athletes who are in a registered testing pool in their national and/or international federation to submit information about their whereabouts. In this way, athletes are required to be accessible for no advance notice doping tests all year round. If such information is not submitted, or if the information provided is incorrect and athletes cannot be found when a no advance notice test is supposed to be taken (a missed test), they may be given a warning. In most sports and national anti-doping regulations, three such warnings within 18 months may be regarded as a violation of the doping regulations and may lead to exclusion from sport for a period of between three months and two years. The system is controversial. In this article we will examine the key objections to the system and, more specifically, objections connected to ideas of justice and athletes' autonomy and right to selfdetermination. The argument will be a practical ethical one informed by a survey on attitudes towards the whereabouts system carried out among 236 athletes belonging to the registered testing pool in Norway. We conclude that if the basic principles of anti-doping work are 1 accepted, WADA's whereabouts system represents nothing other than an efficient extension of this work.
This paper examines various kinds of sport technology from the perspective of three normative theories of competitive sport. Sport technology represents a certain type of means to realize human interests and goals in sport. Such technology ranges from body techniques, via traditional sport equipment used by athletes within competition, to performance-enhancing machines, substances, and methods used outside of the competitive setting. Any critical and systematic discussion of sport technology in competitive sport should relate to some kind of interpretation of the main constituent of these practices: athletic performance. The paper discusses three ideal-typical theories in this respect. The first possibility presented is the so-called non-theory. As the term indicates, the non-theory is no real theory of performance. Rather, it is a theory of how sport can serve as a means towards external goals such as prestige and profit. In technological terms, the non-theory is relativistic; it accepts any kind of sport technology as long as it serves as a means to reach external goals. The second theory of performance is the thin theory. The thin theory builds on a particular sport ideal: CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS. Sport is considered an arena for the testing out of the performance potential of the human body. To end up with valid and reliable tests, performance measurements have to be accurate, and the thin theory requires equal opportunity in competitions. The implication for technology is increased demand on standardization. However, the thin theory implies no regulation outside of competition. An acceptable technology is simply a performance-enhancing technology. A third, thick theory of performance does not just require equality of opportunity; its basic premise is that sport should be an arena for moral values and for human self-development and flourishing. Technology that requires athletic efforts and skills, to which there is equal access, and that does not represent unnecessary risk for harm, is considered not merely as acceptable but as constitutive to the value in sport. Expert-administrated technology that enhances performance without athletic effort or which exposes athletes to the risk of harm is problematic and should be avoided. In a final, critical comparison, it is argued that the thick theory represents the only possibility towards a sound ethics of technology in sport.
Medical and technological developments open up new possibilities for modifying the body and enhancing performance in various areas of life. The study compares attitudes among Norwegian elite athletes (n = 234) with attitudes in the general population (n = 428). Whereas vitamins, nutritional supplements and hypoxic rooms were accepted by more than 65 percent of both athletes and population the rejection of EPO, anabolic steroids and amphetamines were similarly clear in both groups. The athletes were in general more reluctant to use means of performance enhancement and body modification techniques than the general population. A significantly higher percent of the population than the athletes accepted a) means to avoid memory failure in high age (61,6 versus 43,2, sig. .000), b) means to avoid decrease in physical fitness among old people (48,6 versus 34,7, sig .005), c) liposuction (30,1 versus 12,4, sig .000), d) surgery to eat much (15,3 versus 9,4, sig .035), e) silicon implants (9,9 versus 5,1, sig .001). The athletes were significantly more satisfied with their bodies than the population (sig .000).Males were more positive towards means of performance enhancement, whereas females were more positive towards body modification techniques.. Males were significantly more positive towards use of a) means that increase strength and endurance (sig .002) b) means that increase sexual performance (sig .000). Females were significantly more positive than males towards use of liposuction (sig .000), plastic surgery on face (sig. 013), surgery to eat much (sig. 000), silicon implants (sig. 000). The ambiguous status of enhancement technologies is reflected in the general population as well. There is reason to expect a variety of views based on differences in individual values and attitudes, in socio-cultural contexts as well as in practice-specific preferences. For example, due to the crucial role of physical performance and appearance, practices and institutions such as ballet, circus, fashion, the movie industry, body building and elite sport, seem more exposed to physical enhancement than others.In sport, especially at elite levels, there is a long tradition of experimentation and use of performance-enhancing methods and substances. 2 With the establishment of the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) in 1999, sport has developed relatively strict antidoping regimes to control excessive use of such means. 3 However, the anti-doping campaign is contested both in terms of its effectiveness in controlling actual use and its effects on attitudes among athletes and the general public. Some even see the use of drugs as an integrated part of competitive sport and claim that the ban on their use cannot be justified. 4 Furthermore, we know little about the broader picture when it comes to attitudes towards various types of enhancement and body modification techniques.Overviews offered by among others Houlihan, Waddington, and Lueschen show that there is need for more extensive studies in this respect and for explanations ...
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