The International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced on Thursday that a new biological passport will be introduced this year to help combat doping. With the explicit support of figures like Roger Federer and Andy Murray, the federation will increase the budget spent in keeping tennis a clean sport. The new passport, which has already been successfully introduced in cycling, will be used to detect changes in the biological make-up, indicating the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Photo credit: Nigel Mykura, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1233115
Fighting for a Clean Sport: Why Do Players Resort to Doping?
The fight against doping is already long and complex, affecting all sports and players. As time passes, new drugs are invented, and, therefore, new ways of finding them should be discovered. This exhausting process would be shortened, though, if future generations were raised in a less competitive and more positive environment. The task is not easy, but it is one worth trying to accomplish.
Every sport where endurance, power and muscle gain is a decisive factor is a possible target to the problem of doping. This is exacerbated by the fact that many players feel that, because there is no fool-proof anti-doping method, their competitors might actually get an edge over them, making the drug-free players uncompetitive. On the other side of the screen, those who criticize and ridicule athletes because of their substance abuse would probably do better in understanding the pressure players have to go through.
Whatever the outcome of this new measure is, anti-doping organizations all around the world should probably invest in sports education and ethics, so that those who will be athletes in the future can see their profession as something enjoyable and worthy, one for which it is worth staying clean and helping others do so as well.
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