New Horizons Digital 2 • Unit 2 p.22 © Oxford University Press PHOTOCOPIABLE

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The End of Fair Play? Sport is changing. As well as the status and fame successful sportsmen and women have always achieved, the financial incentives for winners have become more and more attractive. This leads some people to feel that they must win, no matter what it takes.

Before the Olympic Games in Norway in 1994, the American ice-skater Tonya Harding and her ex-husband paid a man to injure one of Harding’s rivals, Nancy Kerrigan. But Kerrigan managed to win the silver medal a month later, and Harding received three years’ probation, 500 hours of community service and a $160,000 fine. She also had to give up skating (she’s now a boxer!).

When it comes to cheating, football is often in the news. People often complain that FIFA must stop players ‘diving’ (falling over to give the impression that someone has fouled them). There have also been many rumours of teams agreeing to lose matches for money, like the massive scandal in 2006 involving Juventus and several other Italian Serie A teams. 

New Horizons Digital 2 • Unit 2 p.22 © Oxford University Press PHOTOCOPIABLE

Cheating in sport isn’t just about eliminating your opponent or about match-fixing. Drug abuse has become more and more common, and more and more famous sportspeople test positive for drugs every year.

The first big surprise was the Canadian 100m runner Ben Johnson, winner of a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics and a gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1986. He won the 100m at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul with a world record time of 9.79 seconds, but then he tested positive for anabolic steroids. He had to give up his Olympic title and was banned from competitions for two years.

Another sport with a long history of drug abuse is cycling. The first victim was the English cyclist Tom Simpson, who died during the 1967 Tour de France after taking amphetamines.

The Italian hero Marco Pantani, legendary winner of both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia in the same year, tested positive for performance-improving drugs in 1999 and was banned from the sport, and in 2007 the Tour de France was constantly in the news as one drug scandal followed another.

New Horizons Digital 2 • Unit 2 p.22 © Oxford University Press PHOTOCOPIABLE

There’s no doubt that events like the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia put incredible pressure on the human body. One solution might be to test every rider every day and make each stage easier so competitors won’t feel they have to use drugs to help them. Certainly the authorities will have to find more effective methods of testing all athletes quickly and efficiently. 

No matter what you feel about the use of drugs in sport, one thing is sure. The people who govern each sport will have to find solutions to these problems and they’ll have to find them very soon. Otherwise it really will be the end of fair play.