Doping affects the entire nature of sports

ANTI-DOPING, DRIVING, AND A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

Life is like a box of chocolates. And doping in sport is like driving on the roads.

To drive on the roads, drivers need to first learn the basics of operating their vehicle. And although every driver start from that common first step, how different drivers drive, what they drive in, where they drive to, and why they continue to drive varies.

While majority of drivers will only ever drive locally, use a basic vehicle, and drive for practical reasons of getting to a destination, there will be a talented few that constantly practice their driving skills, upgrade to the latest and greatest specification for their vehicle, and compete with other drivers locally and internationally.

Now in order for different drivers to compete, there must be some universally agreed rules. For example, all driver must agree that they will drive from point A to B to C, and not C to B to A. The problem comes when trying to agree on other competition rules.

Now driving has been around for a long time. But as vehicle technology continue to improve, it enabled drivers with modified vehicles to drive faster and faster. This made driving exciting and the blossoming group of spectators that enjoyed watching the driving races.

As technology improved, it meant that vehicles became cheaper. Driving was thus no longer restricted to the rich as cheaper vehicles became available. Everyone wanted a say in what driving is about, or ideally should be.

Now because new technology for vehicle modification progressed far quicker than drivers’ and manufacturers’ understanding of the risk of new devices, some vehicles began to overheat during races and some even gave rise to spectacular explosions during competition. Well the sight of an exploding high powered vehicle understandably caused a certain amount of distress to some drivers, to many spectators, to the road owners, and also to race organisors. Although everyone intuitively knew that was part of the game and implicitly accepted this risk through complicity.

Finally there came a time when a series of cars exploded during competition, and a public uproar ensued. So road owners and race organisors began instituting more competition rules. As a result of the new rules, in order for drivers to continue racing on those roads, they had to follow all the rules. Regardless if they personally agreed with it or not. They were never really consulted about it.

Now initially the new rules were not all bad, in fact the foundations were very well intended. To protect drivers, the new speed rules were designed to prevent drivers’ vehicles from over heating and exploding. Since high speed was the main cause of over heating, the rule makers thought that the best way to protect drivers was by putting speed limits for the races. The reasoning was that the spirit of racing was such that it was the journey of how drivers get to the finish line that was important and not what speed they got there in.

To police the speed limit, organisors, on prompting by road owners, begin putting up expensive speed cameras at various points in the race route. Because these speed cameras, many organisors could not afford it. So it was mainly in the big races that had it.

Unfortunately, the rule makers also did not really think through the whole process on how their rules will work in real life. For example, even though most drivers knew that there was a speed limit, many did not know what that limit was. Also the speed limit also changed depending on which part of the race route they were on. Unfortunately, because there were not many speed limit sign posts along the route, or because some driver consciously ignored the few sign posts that were present, many drivers began to travel as high a speed as they feel comfortable with (and confident that their vehicle will not overheat), or trustingly followed the lead of other (more seasoned) drivers on the assumption that the old guns always knew what the speed limit is suppose to be.

So now that the rules were there, many resumed enjoying the fast races between speed cameras. But not everyone was happy. A few indignant evangelists even began lobbying for more random mobile speed cameras to catch speeding drivers unawares. But when that measured also failed to control drivers speeding whenever possible, a new idea began to developed. This new idea was to institute a passport system to measure average speed of drivers. Under this new passport system, the time a driver crosses point A and point B is recorded. Their average speed can then calculated based on the time taken to travel between point A and B. Because this new passport system is new, no one knows if it will work. In any case, some drivers are unhappy with the costs and inconvenience of purchasing a new device to install in their vehicle for the passport system to work.

Now, the organisors did not just stop with speed policing. Besides the original issue of overheating, many organisors were also concerned about protecting the image of their sport and on how competing vehicles looked like. Because of this, new rules were also enacted that cherry picked what vehicle modifications were legal and what were illegal. These modification rules were, unfortunately, not necessarily based on issues of overheating or even about speed. For example, some modifications were allowed if they were manufactured from a well known factory from country A, while there was a blanket ban on all backyard/non-factory modifications. While this would obviously make sense from a quality control and image perspective, it had nothing to do with overheating or with speed itself. This was because factory parts from “reputable” countries were not necessarily safe, and backyard parts were similarly not necessarily unsafe.

And so many who loved the driving competition began to complain. Some support the idea or removing all speed and modification rules and contend that speed and modifications are what made driving competition exciting and is the true spirit of racing. But others argue that removing speed rules in driving races would encourage younger non competiting road users to speed on non competition roads.

Advocate for race rules also argue that modification rules (and not speed rules per se) protect competiting drivers by preventing exploding vehicles. Others highlight the fact that modification rules do not necessarily address overheating issues,and the focus should be to allow all modifications to be legal but involve engineers and other professinals so that high speed driving can be monitored and done safely. By shifting the focus from speed and modification control to overheating control, they argue, could also allow new technologies on engine cooling to develop. This would be useful for all drivers, and not just competing drivers.

And so the debate rages on and nobody knows what chocolate they will get the next time they pick one out from the box.