PROFESSIONAL athletes pay a high price for their pursuit of excellence and glory. Training to the limit tears muscles and wears out joints. Gymnasts often need hip replacements when barely into middle age. Few footballers gain it to the end of their careers with their knees intact.
But many also run a darker risk: doping. The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang,in South Korea, starts this week in its shadow. Years after whistle-blowers first revealed wholesale doping in Russia, or the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at final decided to bar it from taking allotment. But it has allowed many Russians to compete as individuals. And on the eve of the competition the Court of Arbitration for Sport said that 28 others should receive a more lenient penalty from the IOC,further muffling the anti-doping message.
Russia’s doping is strange only in its scale and institutional nature. No country or sport is immune (see page 57). Studies, and an anonymous survey at the World Athletics Championships in...
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Source: economist.com