AASP Newsletter - July 2019

Lennie Waite

Lennie Waite, PhD, CMPC, University of St. Thomas, Houston & Waite Performance Strategies LLC

The Current State of Doping in Sport
Doping is common in sport. We do not have accurate current statistics, nor will we likely in the future. But we do know that doping affects athletes in all sports, at all levels, and in all countries. Dopers steal Olympic glory, podium moments, lucrative contract bonuses that accompany medal-winning performances, and damage the mentality of current and future athletes. This ripple effect has large consequences for athletes at all levels in sport (Erickson, Backhouse, & Carless, 2016). Due to logistical shortcomings in testing procedures, athletes are often banned months, if not years, after capturing global medals. There are many examples to pull from in the elite world of track and field.

Some races that come to mind include the women’s 1500m from London 2012, the women’s Marathon from Rio 2016, and the women’s steeplechase from Rio 2016. The gold medalists (and others) from these three races all tested positive for drugs months after their winning performances. Let that settle in for a moment…Now think, how does this impact the athletes who finished third, fourth, and fifth in this race? And beyond that, how does it impact the mentality of the entire field who competed on that day and future Olympic hopefuls? These questions are central for mental performance consultants (MPCs) to consider. 

The Network of Doping 
At the AASP Annual Conference last year in Toronto, Dr. Kelsey Erickson and I started a discussion surrounding how and why MPCs can actively engage in the pursuit of clean sport across all competitive levels. Previous research has highlighted the significant role that athlete support personnel, like MPCs, play in both supporting and protecting athletes in the doping context (e.g., Hughes, 2013; Vakhitova & Bell, 2018). Athletes are not acting alone or solely in their best interest, but are often part of a network that is committed to the success of the bigger business of sports, which oftentimes sacrifices ethics and morals for performance and money (Connor, 2009). Recent suspensions from athletes highlight this trend, as many suspended athletes share a coach or an agent who is implicated in multiple cases of positive tests from athletes, spurring members of the clean sport movement to look deeper into the connections between doping athletes and people in their inner circle. Although an unpopular and difficult topic to discuss, doping is a reality of sports across all levels and an area where MPCs can play an important role, both from a preventative perspective and from a perspective of helping clean athletes deal with the reality of competing in a dirty environment.

It is likely that several people in the field of sport and exercise psychology have worked closely on the mental performance of athletes who have been edged out by dopers or, worse, been personally convicted of using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). Considering the debate surrounding PEDs, doping, corruption, and sport, and the proximity that we as a field have to these situations, how can we contribute to creating a more level playing field? Hearing athletes attribute their success to a resilient personality and mental strength to later being convicted of systematic doping hurts the integrity of MPCs. Furthermore, using convicted dopers as examples of mental toughness, poise, and role models for the impact that training the brain can have on performance distorts the reality of what performance excellence really entails. MPCs have to navigate the ethical boundaries of patient confidentiality, the AASP Code of Ethics, and their moral obligations to protecting the integrity of the sport industry. 

A Personal Note
The day before I competed at the 2016 Olympic Games in the 3000m Steeplechase, there was a positive test by an athlete on the starting list for my heat. Since joining the professional world of athletics in 2009, I had become much less naïve regarding the dark side of the sport, but I still struggled to process how athletes could ruin the integrity of what I felt was such a pure sport. Hearing this news before my Olympic debut served as a firm reminder that I, and the other clean athletes on the heat sheets, would not be competing on a level-playing field at the Games. This thought was later confirmed by the positive drug test of the gold medalist from the steeplechase final in Rio, Ruth Jebet, in February 2018 (yes, over a year and a half after she captured Olympic glory). In short, this experience highlighted to me that although eliminating PEDs is the ideal goal, the reality of doping in sports calls for personnel working with athletes to be able to discuss the psychological consequences tied to the current climate of high PED usage in sports. 

As a CMPC® and a passionate sports person, I feel an obligation to leave the sporting world in a better state than what I found it in. There have been small steps towards opening up the discussion of the role of MPCs in the clean sport movement, but little has been put into practice. Guidelines surrounding how and when MPCs can provide strategies to assist athletes in the current climate of PEDs are important to reiterate, spread, and incorporate into the daily practice of MPCs. As a community, I’d like to see AASP engage more in the discussions surrounding doping in sport.

References

Connor, J. M. (2009). Towards a sociology of drugs in sport. Sport In Society, 12, 327-343. doi:10.1080/17430430802673676

Erickson, K., Backhouse, S. H., & Carless, D. (2016). “The ripples are big”: Storying the impact of doping in sport beyond the sanctioned athlete. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 24, 92-99. https://doi-org.ezproxy.stthom.edu/10.1016/j.psychsport.2016.01.010

Hughes, D. (2013). Organised crime and drugs in sport': Did they teach us about that in medical school? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 47, 661-662.

Vakhitova, Z. I., & Bell, P. J. (2018). A script analysis of the role of athletes’ support networks as social facilitators in doping in sport. Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 20, 168-188. https://doi-org.ezproxy.stthom.edu/10.1057/s41300-018-0045-8