The Cost of Glory: Sports and Doping

How can fans be certain that their sports idol has achieved his or her results solely through hard work and perseverance?

The answer is simple, yet hard to accept: they can’t.

Doping, and the inconsistent enforcement of doping penalties, damage the public’s perception every time a major doping case makes the news.

Despite its reputation as a sport of discipline and individual excellence, tennis recently found itself at the center of such scandal.

The world No.1 in the men’s category, Jannik Sinner, officially received a three-month suspension after testing positive for clostebol (an anabolic steroid) in March 2024. Despite accepting this short-term punishment, he continued to stick to his words - the substance entered his system unintentionally through a cream used by his physiotherapist.

As the amount of clostebol was insignificantly low, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reached an agreement with Sinner’s team so that the case did not go to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS). However, his brief suspension did not go unnoticed. Nick Kyrgios and Stan Wawrinka are two prominent names that shared their thoughts through social media. Their reactions ignited further outrage as more tennis players spoke out, revealing that favoritism was involved in the handling of this particular case. In the eye of this storm, Sinner’s nomination for the Laureus Sportsman of the Year Award was recently revoked.

Similarly, Iga Swiatek, a top-ranked female tennis player, tested positive in August 2024 for TMZ and was handed a one-month ban. Just like Sinner, Swiatek claimed that the banned substance entered her system unintentionally. Yet again, this led to additional questions regarding the fairness and consistency of anti-doping enforcement.

While Sinner and Swiatek's suspensions are relatively short, their cases have become the talk among sportspeople and fans of the sport. Were they privileged and treated differently because of their ranking? The reactions from the tennis community were far from positive, raising concerns about doping regulations and their impact on the sport’s credibility.

Sadly, tennis isn’t the only sport affected.

In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 23 swimmers from China tested positive for the prohibited cardiac substance trimetazidine (TMZ). The athletes Zhang Yufei, Wang Shun, and Li Bingjie, were allowed to compete when the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) determined that the findings of the doping test were the consequence of contamination.

This decision sparked international concerns and criticism because not only did this jeopardize fair competition on the biggest athletic stage, but the Chinese swimmers also went on to win Olympic medals.

This is not the first case that involves a famous Chinese athlete. Sun Yang, who is considered to be the most controversial person in Chinese swimming, has been accused of doping on several occasions. After testing positive for TMZ in 2014, he was suspended, and in 2019, he was banned for eight years (eventually lowered to four) for destroying blood samples during an anti-doping test.

I believe that cases like this and the one from Tokyo not only question the integrity of the sport but also reinforce concerns about how doping is managed within it.

Reflecting on these scandals, I can’t help but question what true athletic excellence means. Is any achievement worth it if it comes at the expense of fairness? While the temptation to win is undeniable, the implications of doping are far more detrimental to the human body. The results come and go, but the damage, both physically and reputationally, can last a lifetime. True greatness isn’t just finishing first or setting a world record – it is about doing so with integrity, knowing that success was earned, not stolen.