From Nick Cater
Your editorial claims “our expectations are putting athletes in an impossible
position” as the public demands that sporting records be broken
(14 August, p 3).
Your argument misses the biggest factor in sport: money.
In the past, drugs use was fuelled by the Soviet bloc’s manipulation of sport
for illusory political gain. Today drugs use reflects greed for the new big
prize: the billions unlocked by sport’s professionalisation and privatisation,
as it is destroyed and reinvented as mere satellite TV entertainment.
Don’t blame the public for drugs in sport. The fundamental transaction in
sport is the marketing of its audiences to companies. Despite denials, the
unspoken pressure for drug-enhanced performance is coming from within sport’s
commercial interests, from advertisers, television and governing bodies.
Langport, Somerset
