Alessandro Donati
Lo sport del doping

The paradox is that now winning the Tour can be considered the easy part: looking at the list of winners, maintaining that triumph over the years seems like a much tougher feat!

I've always been lukewarm towards my sports idols: as much as it pains me to admit it, it's likely that they too aren't clean. Like a child who believes in Santa Claus, in the same way and without any proof, I want to convince myself that they do it less than others and that with equal weapons, there would be no contest. The performance differences between the top athletes and most high-level athletes are now so negligible that it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the continual positives of prominent names raise several questions for all those who finish just behind the best by a handful of seconds. Naturally, the book, with the first-person narrative, focuses on the history of doping in Italy with the strange entanglement of Dr. Conconi (alias Con CONI) and the highest sports federations. Endurance sports with the most modest technical gestures are ridiculed, but it’s obvious that even in more complex, short, and power disciplines, the physical component has gained increasing importance over time; the increase in frequent meetings to meet television demands may keep millions glued to their screens but also raises more than a few doubts: how can an athlete, theoretically human, significantly extend their career while enduring frantic workloads, increasingly dizzying performances? Training methodologies and nutrition. Yes, sure, but also the Elves and flying reindeer do their dirty work.

It's a book that surprised me because I believed that the federations of all countries were perfectly aware of the doping practiced by their top athletes to win medals galore and that the smooth-talking representatives had the "only" task of using a few pounds of rhetoric at press conferences to express their dismay, condemnation, and blablabla at the time of the scandal. A bit like when the hero of the moment is told, "if you get caught, we'll have to say we don't know you." My limited imagination didn’t foresee, however, that with state funds, anti-doping research centers were created to scientifically verify assimilation times and thus circumvent official checks. Doctors who get funded to fight doping, while actually delaying certification methodologies: something well appreciated by the pharmaceutical companies producing it. Attempts to manipulate evidence to kick out anyone trying to expose the fraud, IOC members with murky pasts, like their well-oxygenated blood.

Despite its overtly journalistic and dry writing style for my taste, I devoured “The Sport of Doping.” Moving on to criticisms, justified as it might be, I didn't appreciate the overly self-congratulatory way in which the author talks about his work: it seems he delights in describing the obstacles and accusations he had to overcome and return with a resounding moral slap. The piece is also divided into an endless number of subchapters, not always necessary for the book's objective, which could have been grouped in a more linear and concise way. In the book's conclusion, Donati reaches conclusions I find too Disney-like when he suggests that the fight against doping can be successfully achieved with family education and the creation of various federations led by courageous, blameless coaches across disciplines to create a healthy sporting culture. The financial interests, derived from television rights, are such that I think it's utopian. To achieve certain performances, an athlete will inevitably face a crossroads: dope up and adapt to others or staunchly refuse, bearing the cost of falling out of the "leading group." Unlike him, I advocate for the legalization of doping; the media spectacle seems to almost demand it, and athletes, if willing to take this madness, could enjoy greater medical protection that, in the past, might have saved lives. Like guinea pigs pushed beyond human limits, they would potentially compete on equal footing, (although there will always be innovative doping and different assimilation levels among individuals), and we, with our popcorn, could watch the ever more spectacular feats of these champions among the "super-normals." If you think about it, it's not too different from what happens in the shadows that we foolishly deny seeing.

The book also discusses the doping/organized crime relationship; there are also some slight contradictions, but I don't want to overdo it and deprive you of the pleasure of reading. I prefer to emphasize instead the theme which, in my opinion, should have been central but is only touched upon. If, from a certain point of view, I find it understandable that a top-level athlete wants to compete equally (by doping) to achieve fame and wealth, the phenomenon is chilling that sees more and more amateurs resorting to chemical help purely for emulation. Precisely due to the lack of controls, given the mediocre level and low financial results, more and more weekend enthusiasts resort to these substances with DIY methods, whose consequences can be even more devastating than those for professionals.

Now we should all be outraged and say that if true, it’s an abominable and incomprehensible reality, but anyone who has played sports at an amateur level (cycling and running, to name two) knows that it’s a practice far from pursuing the Asics acronym (A Sound Mind in a Sound Body). Nonsense! In village races, envy and unimaginable competitiveness can lead to pills. But if you think about it a bit, doping on a large scale among amateurs is perfectly in tune with contemporary society that doesn’t accept its limits. What's the difference between EPO and a nice lift to sagging cheeks or drooping breasts? Is there a big difference between blood doping to win the grandpa's cup and buying a flashy car on 60 installments that’s clearly out of our budget but can make us look richer than we are? Is there a difference between a 50-year-old athlete competing and the pathetic proclamations of a now-dead elderly politician? We spend our lives trying to fool ourselves and others, creating a more accommodating image than the real one.

Accepting our natural physical decline, our mediocrity/normality is not a tasty morsel to swallow, so for every aspect of life, we do the same as with Photoshopped pictures: we pump them up a bit to create a different reality from what it is. Those who believe doping is the result of poorly raised athletes/bad kids betraying a nation don't understand that if it takes root so well worldwide, there’s particularly fertile ground. That's why I don't believe it can be eradicated: society would need to change. And the proof of how well it works is not the ten lines of famous names that appear but the spread outside that elite that goes on television. The important thing, however, is to be indignant and deny reality, just as the politicians we despise do so well. I would like to point out how the mass media have lukewarmly received this uncomfortable literary bombshell and difficult to digest.

Alessandro Donati, for 20 years, did a dirty job earning few plaudits and many problems that, however, never resulted in a conviction or dismissal by CONI (he always ensured he could justify and prove his accusations). I therefore recommend spreading the word, buying, and reading this perhaps imperfectly centered but uncomfortable, sincere, and passionate book.