The ongoing crusade against doping in elite sports has
nothing to do with protecting the spirit of sport: it is just
superfluous, hypocritical and unconstitutional
Shortly before the start of the Winter Olympics in South Korea,
the International Sports Court in Lausanne acquitted around thirty
Russian athletes from doping charges. A few days later, the same
court could not manage to admit the acquitted athletes to the
Games. Whilst North and South Korea intend to meet for the
first time in almost seventy years, the legal, moral and ethical
demarcation lines in the global anti-doping struggle seem
unalterable.
It is noteworthy that the global antidoping crusade focuses on
organized elite sports. This stems from an ancient understanding of
sports, according to which humanistic athletes with a healthy body
and mind competed against each other. The ancient sports world,
however, was very much commercially organized and doping was
widespread whereby substances were
