Doping

My first year of structured training began while I was on my foreign exchange in Norway in 1994. One evening my host parents had some relatives visiting, which I always looked forward to because it meant Kari, my host mother, would bake a cake, and she can bake the best cakes in the world. Not to get distracted, during the evening while I was mingling around, an older gentleman said he heard I was an athlete and he asked me, “If you knew 100% sure your competitors were doping, what would you do?” The answer, even at that age (I was 16 years old at the time) was clear for me. I told him I would search for new training methods to improve myself even beyond the dopers.

I always remember that moment, because it established a moral stance in my mind against doping. My stance became very extreme, even to this day I do not take anything in pill form, not even vitamin supplements or sport drinks. Perhaps it is selfish, but when I win, I want the full credit, knowing it was the result of my work, not from a pill, powder, or injection.

I can honestly say that I do not know of anyone that dopes, so as far as I know biathlon is clean. However, many athletes know the legal limit and take legal substances up to that limit. In my view, which is extreme, the general rule of thumb is if an athlete is taking any substance to improve his or her performance he or she may not be doping, but certainly has the mentality of a doper.

The most annoying method of “legal” performance enhancement is inhalers prescribed to athletes diagnosed with the borderline fictitious “Exercise Enduced Asthma”. I would never take away an inhaler from anyone with actual asthma. If a person is not able to breathe, they should be given what they need to breathe again whether it is legal or banned. Exercised Enduced Asthma, on the other hand, is borderline fictitous because every person in the world has the symptoms of asthma after hard physical exercise: Shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, etc. I have seen athletes who have never needed an inhaler in their life given inhalers based on the Exercised Enduced Asthma test. I have heard even high school racers are now using inhalers since the line between “legal” medications and doping was loosened.

I must admit, I take an extra pleasure in beating those athletes who eat more pills than pasta, or that take a pre-race puff of an inhaler. However, in order to stop doping completely, it will not work to teach athletes, especially young athletes, “this pill is ok, this pill is doping”, the mentality needs to be, “eat more fruits and vegetables and throw the pills away.”