Issues in Sport 2024: Drugs and Doping

Roger Pielke reveals how sports stars break the rules in their search for a competitive edge. Both entertaining and thought-provoking, THE EDGE not only visits the battlefields in the war against cheating and corruption, but also explores ways to ensure that "the spirit of sport" can survive in today's high-tech, highly professional world. Drawing on controversies straight out of the headlines, Pielke looks at doping, match fixing, fake amateurism, and other ways of breaking the rules. But are those rules--and the values they reflect--hopelessly outdated?

Australians love playing and watching their sport. In our society, elite sportspeople are viewed as role models, however, an increasing incidence of sporting scandals is compromising sporting values and the spirit of competition, spurred on by commercial pressures to win at all costs. How should we prepare young Australians to make well-informed decisions in regard to enjoying and playing sport in a world seemingly rife with corruption, gambling, political power plays and poor sportsmanship?

There is no shortage of sporting stars making headlines off the field for all the wrong reasons. From dodgy dalliances bubbling to the surface, to marriages shattered, lucrative endorsement deals flushed down the toilet and clubs that can no longer hold onto players who have stuffed up in very big ways.