Sport, Technology and the Body
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Sport, Technology and the Body What is the nature of athletic performance? This book offers an answer to this fascinating question by considering the relationship between sport, technology and the body. Specifically, it examines cultural resistance to the enhance- ment of athletes and explores the ways in which performance technologies complicate and confound our conception of the sporting body. The book addresses concerns about the technological ‘invasion’ of the ‘natural’ body to investigate expectations that athletic performances reflect nothing more than the actual capacity of the untainted athlete. By examin- ing a series of case studies, including Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, Fastskin swimsuits, hypoxic chambers and an array of illicit substances and methods, the book distinguishes between internal and external technologies to highlight the ways that performance enhancement, and public reaction to it, can be read. Sport, Technology and the Body offers a powerful challenge to conventional views of athletic performance that stand authenticity against artifice, integ- rity against corruption, and athletic purity against technological intrusion. It is essential reading for all serious students of the sociology, culture or ethics of sport. Tara Magdalinski is the Academic Director of the Centre for Sports Studies at University College Dublin. Her research focuses on the con- struction of social identities and the production of historical narratives through sport. She co-edited With God on Their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion (Routledge, 2002). Sport, Technology and the Body The nature of performance Tara Magdalinski First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Tara Magdalinski All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Magdalinski, Tara. Sport, technology and the body / by Tara Magdalinski. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Sports–Sociological aspects. 2. Sports–Physiological aspects. 3. Sports–Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Sports sciences. 5. Athletes– Training of. 6. Performance technology. 7. Body image. 8. Body, Human–Social aspects. I. Title. GV706.5.M33 2009 796.01–dc22 2008016085 ISBN 0-203-09938-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN13 978-0-415-37877-2 (hbk) ISBN13 978-0-415-37876-5 (pbk) ISBN13 978-0-203-09938-4 (ebk) For Mummy, for your strength, for your courage, for your wisdom, for your love. I miss you desperately. Contents Acknowledgments viii List of abbreviations x 1 Introduction: sport, the body and performance technology 1 2 The nature of sport 14 3 The nature of the body 31 4 The nature of performance 54 5 The nature of health 71 6 ‘Those girls with sideburns’: enhancing the female body 91 7 Enhancing the body from without: artificial skins and other prosthetics 109 8 Drugs, sport and Australian identity 128 9 The performance of nature at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games 145 10 Conclusion 157 Bibliography 163 Index 181 Acknowledgments Although writing can be a solitary, even lonely, experience, a book is never produced in isolation, and there are so many friends, family and colleagues who have supported me with ideas, encouragement and advice over the years. First, I would like to acknowledge the institutions that provided the requisite time, space and intellectual stimulation to see this project through to completion. The School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland was my home during a long overdue sabbatical in 2005, and it was a wonderful opportunity to renew old acquaintances and make new friends. Despite the distractions of rugby, sheep and castles, I spent the second part of my research semester in the Department of Psychology and Education at the University of Glamorgan; thank you for making a ‘ring in’ feel so welcome. I would like to especially thank the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland for offering ‘asylum’ when I needed it; your generosity was much appreciated. I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to my understanding colleagues in the Centre for Sports Studies and the School of Public Health and Population Science at University College Dublin for indulging me the time and space, during a hectic restructure, to finish this manuscript. Finally, I have appreciated the backing of a terrific publisher, and several editors, and so would like to extend my thanks to Samantha Grant and Simon Whitmore for their guidance and, most importantly, their patience. I am incredibly fortunate that the field of sports studies includes so many inspiring and accomplished individuals, who have been exceptionally gen- erous with their time, advice and ideas. I would particularly like to recog- nise the support, encouragement and, most importantly, friendship I have received over the years from Patricia Vertinsky, Doug Booth, Murray Phillips, Malcolm MacLean, Mike Cronin, Allen Guttmann, Richard Cashman, Wray Vamplew, Doug Brown, Jim McKay, John Bale, Mel Adelman, Colin Tatz and John Hughson. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my friends and colleagues in both the Australian Society for Sports History and the North American Society for Sport History who have listened to, and offered constructive feedback on, versions of these chapters, despite my brief forays into tales of wombats and arses. Acknowledgments ix On a personal note, my friends and family know how difficult the last three years have been, and I hope you know that it is only your love and strength that has seen me through. I would especially like to acknowledge the talented Karen Brooks: you have provided invaluable love and advice for over a decade, and you cannot know how much your friendship has meant to me; darling Jane Prince, who gave me a bed (finally!), endless cups of tea and a good deal of wine during those sunny Cardiffian months. You made my stay in that quaint, green city particularly, well, quaint (say, is that the Millennium Stadium again?); my various ‘families’ (and crashpads) around the world include my honorary ‘feral parents’ Bobby and Pauline Simm, thank you for your love, the wine and the obligatory Bold;to Torsten, Diana and Eyleen Kothe for the years of love, friendship and my Neuenbrunslar home; and to Caley and Max Madden for being two of the brightest stars in my life. Finally, to my family: what on earth could I ever say to thank you enough. To my gorgeous cousins, Rachel Vowles and Dale Williams, how can I ever tell you what you mean to me? You are my sisters. To my won- derful Daddy, Lloyd, if not for you, my journey through the world of sport would never have started, and for your love, belief in me and the coaching (!) I will forever thank the heavens. To my beautiful and brilliant sister, Anna. Moon, I love you very much and am so enormously proud of you – now it is your turn to write the ‘Great [insert nation of choice] Novel’.And finally to Marcus Wehr, your love and constant support on the emotional rollercoaster that is my life means everything to me, as do you … oh, and thanks for the occasional insight into the crazy train! Abbreviations AIS Australian Institute of Sport ASC Australian Sports Commission FINA Federation Internationale de Natation IAAF International Association of Athletics Federations IFBB International Federation of Bodybuilders IOC International Olympic Committee rEPO recombinant Erythropoietin SOCOG Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games TUE Therapeutic Use Exemption USOT United States Olympic Team WADA World Anti-Doping Agency WHO World Health Organisation 1 Introduction Sport, the body and performance technology In 1995, Zoe Warwick committed suicide. A dedicated bodybuilder and former European champion, a career of abusing steroids had culminated in the disintegration of her once flawless body. The medications pumped into her to keep her alive could not prevent system after system from shutting down, and, unable to cope with the pain, she took her own life. In 1988, Ben Johnson was celebrated as the fastest human being to propel his body down a one hundred-metre track. He then became the most infamous drug cheat in the history of modern sport, testing positive to stanozolol. In 2000, after trialling a ‘fastskin’ for Adidas, Ian Thorpe announced to a press conference that the new full-length swimsuit certainly ‘optimised’ his per- formance but carefully pointed out that it did not ‘enhance’ it. A body destroyed, a world record negated, and a performance improved; each reveals the difficult relationship between the ‘natural’ body and technology to be central to contemporary constructions of elite sport. Modern sport is a paradox. On the one hand, the quest for outstanding performances, encapsulated in the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius, requires increasing scientific intrusion into the sporting body. Athletes, coaches and sports scientists rigorously search for techniques, supplements or modifications that will deliver the elusive ‘edge’, whilst the public crave world records each time an athlete steps onto the track, dives into the pool or tumbles across the mat. The promised commercial benefits that accom- pany international sporting success mean securing the slightest of advan- tages over a competitor is paramount.