Christophe Brissonneau

Tracing the history of sports medicine from the ancient world through to the present day, this book shines new light on the embedded relationship between physicians, performance enhancement and doping in elite sport. Combining historical and sociological analysis, the book shows how sports medicine, as it developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, became increasingly disengaged from its origins in preventive medicine to become closely linked with elite level competitive sport. The book demonstrates how this link between sports medicine and elite competitive sport drew sports physicians into the search for enhanced performance so that by the second half of the twentieth century performance enhancement had become an essential raison d’être of sports medicine practitioners. It examines how this search for enhanced performance has often led sports physicians to play a prominent role in the development and provision of performance-enhancing drugs, and looks in depth at the case study of France and professional cycling, scene of some of the most high-profile and consequential doping cases of all time. This book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport history, the history of medicine, medical ethics, the ethics of sport, sport and society, or science and society.

Drawing on rich empirical material from elite French sport, this book offers a detailed history of how the concept of doping evolved from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. The first study to span the period from 1950 to 2010, it sheds new light on the extraordinary world of elite sport in France – a world governed by its own moral standards and defined by extreme expectations of physical performance and highly medicalised training regimes. Including exclusive insights from athletes and their doctors, it explains how the use of drugs became an integral part of training in elite French sport. Considering the complex and paradoxical moral arguments that frame this phenomenon, it explores the decades-long social and political process that resulted in the normalisation of this doping culture. Drawing on examples from cycling, athletics, weightlifting, wrestling and bodybuilding, this book compares doping practices in these sports and questions the effectiveness of anti-doping policies. This is fascinating reading for all those interested in the use of drugs in sports, the ethics and philosophy of sport, or sports history.

Drawing on rich empirical material from elite French sport, this book offers a detailed history of how the concept of doping evolved from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. The first study to span the period from 1950 to 2010, it sheds new light on the extraordinary world of elite sport in France – a world governed by its own moral standards and defined by extreme expectations of physical performance and highly medicalised training regimes. Including exclusive insights from athletes and their doctors, it explains how the use of drugs became an integral part of training in elite French sport. Considering the complex and paradoxical moral arguments that frame this phenomenon, it explores the decades-long social and political process that resulted in the normalisation of this doping culture. Drawing on examples from cycling, athletics, weightlifting, wrestling and bodybuilding, this book compares doping practices in these sports and questions the effectiveness of anti-doping policies. This is fascinating reading for all those interested in the use of drugs in sports, the ethics and philosophy of sport, or sports history.