Dangerous shortcuts

Football. cycling, athletics, volley-ball: ever more sports in Italy, and elsewhere, are being stained by the practice of doping. The quest for the winning mentality at all costs seems to be spreading not only among the so-called champions, but also among sports buffs. To understand the reasons that may prompt an athlete to make use of doping we put some questions to Msgr. Carlo Mazza , director of the national Office for leisure time, tourism and sport of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), himself a sportsman and chaplain of the Italian Olympic squads. What explains this spread of doping also in the mass sports? “Doping represents a dangerous shortcut to cope with the insatiable demands of modern sport. Plausible reasons for the taking of doping substances do not exist. If, in spite of all the risks, the use of doping is spreading, it means that it serves not sport in itself but other ends. Doping does not add much to the beauty of the sporting gesture but it boosts its power, resistance, endurance, flashiness. Its impact is such that it changes the ‘fundamentals’ of sport and hence the relations of force between athletes; it triggers imbalances in sporting contests. The spread of doping is due to a culture of success, never mind the cost”. How much influence do economic interests have in the phenomenon? “A purely monetary quantification remains difficult, even though the economic pressure is obvious. An athlete does not dope himself for pleasure or for vain-glory, but to arrive first, because only by coming first does he count, in every sense”. What prompts an amateur sportsman to take performance-enhancing drugs? “The most assiduous consumers of performance-enhancing drugs are in fact to be found in the world of amateur sport, as in body-building. The motivations mainly reveal an attempt at self-affirmation, in reaction to a perception of failure or lack of self-esteem or the lack of other cards to be played in personal or social life”. Are controls and prevention enough to curb doping? “All the controls and all the forms of prevention are necessary. Every means of cracking down on the abuse must be seized. But to be able to control it effectively, sufficient resources need to be allocated and clear regulations enacted that are equal for all athletes and for all sporting disciplines. Good intentions are not enough to prevent doping; what’s needed is rigour, equity, clear rules. However, as always, a culture of life, a sporting culture inspired by shared values, needs to be promoted day by day”. And education? “Of course, but how many devote themselves to educating with patience, assiduity, dedication? To give a higher profile to education in the world of sport, it would be necessary to introduce a degree course to prepare technicians, coaches, managers, parents to be educators, with the essential extra, as St. John Bosco would put it, of ‘heart’. People need to be taught how to experience an ‘educational sport’, aimed at the development of the person through rigorous training courses and plausible sporting practices”. How is it possible to protect the credibility of sport? “Protecting the credibility of sport means not making it dependent on the logic of the market, not reducing it to pure bodily materialism, not humiliating it by a soulless pursuit of technique”. Many athletes, now famous, grew up in the oratories. What model of sport does the Church propose and what must an effective apostolate of sport propose? “The oratory has always been a nursing ground of great sportsmen. That is an undeniable historical fact, a great merit to be inscribed in the annals of Italian sport. The Church does not propose a “model of sport” but encourages and promotes values, ideals, lifestyles inspired by the gospel which also “serve” sportsmen to practice sport in a praiseworthy and passionate way. The pastoral care of sport is based on actions aimed at fostering these values with determination and wisdom”. Daniele Rocchi