LONDON, (Reuters) – Unprecedented levels of skill, intensity and endurance have transformed global sport into spectacular mass entertainment and handsomely rewarded its leading exponents.
Now that the euphoria of last year’s acclaimed London Olympics has dissipated, however, a spate of troubling stories in the first quarter of 2013 show an altogether darker and more disturbing side to a glamorous, multi-billion-dollar industry. In January, American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview that he had doped before each of his record seven Tour de France victories.
His confession after years of denial followed the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) decision to strip him of the title and accuse him of being at the centre of the “most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.
A report from Australia’s top criminal intelligence unit linked doping in sport with money-laundering and match-fixing after a year-long investigation. Six leading rugby league clubs, from one of the country’s four football codes in a sports-obsessed nation, confirmed they were under scrutiny.
And Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, on trial in Madrid for allegedly running a doping ring in cycling, said in his opening testimony that he also had clients in soccer, tennis, athletics and boxing.
Fuentes, who said outside the court this month that he might be willing to co-operate with anti-doping authorities, is appearing in court almost seven years after steroids and blood bags were seized in an investigation code-named Operation Puerto.
“The same people who are trafficking in steroids and encouraging athletes to cheat by doping are the ones who are engaged in illegal betting,” said World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general David Howman.
