Writing as Gutenberg. This piece appears in New Europe on September 15th 2012
A few weeks on from the Olympics, life is returning to
normal. The commentators are back to griping about the Eurozone, and whilst a
generation may well have been inspired, most of us have lost our inspiration to
get to the gym and are back slouching on the couch. The summer of sport is
over, but its legacy remains.
Big international events such as the Games are more than
just highlights in the sporting calendar. They tap into ancient myths about the
nobility of the human spirit, the fundamental role of fairness, and the
importance of individual endeavour. The London Games saw many such moments:
former Somali refugee Mo Farah’s delighted face when he took Gold for his
adoptive Great Britain in the 10,000 and 5,000 metres; the delight and pride of
16 year old judoka Wojdan Shahrkhani as she became the first Saudi Arabian
woman in Olympic history; Oscar Pistorius of South Africa lining up with his
able-bodied team mates as the Game’s first double amputee. The stories of
inspiration continued well after the closing ceremony, with athletes coming
home to thank their local communities, and at least one - Polish windsurfer Zofia
Noceti-Klepacka – auctioning her medal to pay for treatment for her neighbour’s
seriously ill child.
There was, of course, a downside. China reacted with
accusations of cheating and unfairness, especially after its team was barred
for throwing its matches. Doping was also in evidence, with some experts warning
that the tally might have been much higher had testers been able to detect
extra small doses of testosterone, and that athletes may have been using a new
and difficult to detect drug.
Keeping up with the development of new substances is not an
easy task. It is the main theme under debate at a joint conference organised in
November by WADA (the World Anti Doping Agency), UNESCO and the Council of
Europe. Fairness and safety in sport is a major theme for Europe’s human rights
watchdog, with its Anti Doping convention setting the standard for international
action since 1989, and its Convention on Spectator Violence – prompted by the
1985 Heysel tragedy - regulating
safety in stadia all over Europe. Doping is particularly relevant to the
Council’s key mission: if fairness and equity cannot be guaranteed in sport,
how can it be guaranteed in society?
But if Pistorius can use “blade runner” legs to compete, why
should it be illegal to enhance your performance in other ways? The ancient
Greeks ate specially prepared lizard meat, 19th century cyclists
took strychnine and athletes in the 1930s tried their chances with the
newly-developed artificial hormones. It was the deaths of Danish cyclist Knud
Enemark Jensen in the 1960 Olympics and Tom Simpson in the 1967 Tour de France
that spurred international efforts to clean up the sporting scene, and showed
that doping was not just cheating, but a major health hazard. And it can be
just as hazardous for international relations: East Germany’s use of steroids
in the 70s and 80s – only discovered after the fall of the Berlin Wall – turned
its athletes into pariahs and cast a long shadow over German sport.
This year, the news is good: only one medal winner fell foul
of the rules. Sport seems to be cleaning
up its act, and with bodies such as WADA and the Council of Europe pledged to
keep sport fair, clean sport could well be the most outstanding legacy of
London.
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