Sport may teach people how to win gracefully, but it may also teach them how to win at any cost, even if this involves violence or cheating. Here, a sociological perspective is brought to bear on the topic of how sport operates.

An Introduction to Drugs in Sport provides a detailed and systematic examination of the extent of drug use in sport and attempts to explain why athletes have, over the last four decades, increasingly used performance-enhancing drugs. Richly illustrated throughout with case studies and empirical data, this book is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the relationship between drugs, sport and society.

Drug use and abuse represents perhaps the most profound and high-profile issue facing sport today. Each major international championship seems to deliver a new drug-related controversy, while drug takers and sports administrators attempt to out-manoeuvre each other with new substances and new testing procedures. Drugs in Sport - 3rd Editionis a fully revised and updated version of the most comprehensive and authoritative text available on the subject. Leading figures in the field explore the hard science behind every major class of drug, as well as the social, ethical and organisational dimensions to the issue. Key topics include: * analysis of all the key substances, including anabolic steroids, EPO and human growth hormone * alcohol and social drug use in sport * creatine and nutritional supplements * evidence and issues around doping control in sport. This is a highly accessible text for all sports science and sports studies students, coaches and professional sports people, and sports administrators and policy-makers.

Athletes are always aiming to be faster, better, stronger. New techniques to enhance their sporting performance have increasingly been linked to use of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) and other hard-to-detect substances like performance-enhancing drugs. This book offers a timely analysis of the new challenges posed by this phenomenon in the anti-doping community. The authors present the first comprehensive perspective on the rapidly shifting doping scenario and reflect on use, regulation, policy, and market structure of NPS used in sports. They highlight the challenges with the list of prohibited substances and methods in and out of competition. They also evaluate how methods to detect new drugs present an ongoing battle for doping control as they have to be adapted constantly. Topics covered within the chapters include: Contamination of Sports Supplements with Novel Psychoactive Substances Untested Supplement Use Among Athletes: An Overlooked Phenomenon? International Drug Control: Protecting the Health of the Athlete Analysis of New Chemical Entities in a Sport Context Emerging Drugs in Sport establishes a clear benchmark on the policy discussion, drawing from available evidence and sources, including athletes' personal experiences, to generate a fact-based resource that informs a research as well as wider audience. The book is essential reading for those working in anti-doping, substance misuse, sports, ethics, and human enhancement. It also is useful for policy-makers, legislative personnel, and other professionals with an interest in protecting clean sport. "Doping is one of the greatest threats to the integrity of sport. We must never be tempted to turn our back on the problem and hope it will disappear. The benefits and values of clean sport have never been more important to the world. That is why this book with its wide-ranging approach is so valuable." Thomas Bach, President, International Olympic Committee "Physical activity is vital to a healthy living, which is why doping is not just an assault on fair competition, but also on health. I strongly commend this book for compiling advanced knowledge on performance-enhancing drugs and promoting health through sport." Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization.

Sport may teach people how to win gracefully, but it may also teach them how to win at any cost, even if this involves violence or cheating. Here, a sociological perspective is brought to bear on the topic of how sport operates.

The debate around the role of drugs in sport is vibrant. There is a wealth of evidence from the hard end of science, telling us how drugs work, how drug testing works, and how many athletes have fallen foul of the system. The evidence from social science is still building momentum. For example, what makes an athlete use a performance enhancing substance? "To win" simply fails to explain the drug use behaviour we see among athletes. This book provides a foundation for anyone trying to understand the drugs in sport problem beyond the hard science by looking at the "people factor" from different perspectives. After building a case for the social science of drugs in sport, it is examined from the ethical, sociological, economic, legal and psychological points of view. The book concludes with a definitive statement about what researchers, policy makers, sports administrators, athletes and fans can do to achieve a social science of drugs in sport that puts people firmly in the centre of the debate. This volume was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Doping, Performance-Enhancing Drugs, and Hormones in Sport: Mechanisms of Action and Methods of Detection examines the biochemistry and bioanalytical aspects of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) and other questionable procedures used by athletes to enhance performance. The book informs the specialist of emerging knowledge and techniques and allows the non-specialist to grasp the underlying science and current practice of the discipline. With clear and compelling language appropriate for a broad spectrum of readers, this book provides background on prevalence, types of agents, their actual or supposed benefits, and their negative effects on health. The technical aspects of detection are discussed, followed by a discussion of why detection is a problematic and still-evolving science. To facilitate comprehension, each chapter is organized in a uniform way with six sections: (1) standard medical uses, (2) why the drugs are used by athletes, (3) biological mechanism of action, (4) what research says about efficacy in improving performance, (5) major health side effects from use and abuse in sport, and 6) concluding key points. - Presents the scientific concepts of how performance enhancers work, how they are used, and how they are detected and masked from detection - Features language that is neither simplistic to scientists nor too sophisticated for a large, diverse global audience - Provides a short "close-up in each chapter to illustrate key topics that engage, entertain, and create a novel synthesis of thought