Make Golf Olympic in 2016
Golf is set to become an Olympic sport again in 2016,
but can it proof to the IOC to have doping under control ?
Golf is battling for one of two available spots for the 2016 Games. The decision to add Golf as a new olympic sport event is due at the International Olympic Committee session in Copenhagen in October 2009. One of the issues the IOC will be taking into consideration is the notion of drugs use in the world of Golf. It is well know that the IOC takes the issue of drug testing very seriously. It is therefore no mystery that both the European tour and the PGA tour, in their efforts to get golf on the Olympic calendar again, have announced they will start random testing at all their events from 1st July 2008. This regime that will eventually cover all four major championships. The PGA has compiled a 39-page Anti-Doping Program Manuel which includes a list of dozens of anabolic agents, hormones, drugs of abuse, masking agents, stimulants and other substances that are banned. It also included a list of permitted medications, those typically used to treat things such as asthma, high blood pressure, colds, allergies, muscle aches and pains. For years golf has prided itself on the uniqueness of its integrity. Only in golf, do competitors call penalties on themselves. The history of sport is full of instances of players calling a penalty on themselves when they could have kept their mouth shut and got away with it. It is doubtfull that this reputation is enough to impress and convince the IOC. According to the IOC, one of the biggest problems facing the Olympics is performance enhancing drugs (doping). In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to enhance their performance. For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas J. Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his coach, even during the race. As these methods became more extreme, gradually the awareness grew that this was no longer a matter of health through sports. In the mid-1960s, sports federations put a ban on doping, the IOC was to follow suit soon after. This ban came too late for - so far - the only Olympic death caused by doping. At the cycling road race in the 1960 Rome Olympics, the Danish Knud Enemark Jensen fell from his bicycle and died. The coroner's inquiry found that he was under the influence of amphetamines. The first Olympic athlete to test positive for doping use was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics, who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use. Seventy-three athletes followed him over the next 38 years, several medal winners among them. The most publicised doping-related disqualification was that of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who won the 100m at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but tested positive for stanozolol. Surely, George O'Grady, the head of the European tour, regrets his quick reply when he suggested that the sport need test only Tiger Woods. "If he's clean, what does it matter what the rest of them are on?" as he said earlier this year. Full remarks for his sense of humour, although perhaps not the most political correct remark to make with the International Olympic Committee listening with the all important golf in or out the Olympics decision on the horizon. O'Grady's American counterpart, Tim Finchem of the PGA tour, portrayed the introduction of testing as not so much a forward step as a loss of innocence, while the R&A's decision to postpone testing at The Open for another year raises the question if the world of Golf is ready to listen to the terms and conditions of the IOC. No doubt the overwhelming majority of players would never contemplate using performance-enhancing drugs but, because the rewards are so vast these days, it is naive to believe that some would not be tempted - or may already have been tempted - to seek an edge by using such drugs. The looks like golf needs to make a choice. It can chose to continue traditionally without drugs and for go it's chance to become an Olympic sport again, or it can choose to embrace drug testing. It would appear in the long run, only one of these options will protect the sport's hard-earned reputation for integrity. Moreover, it will be a case for the leaders in the Golf world to forfill the criteria set by the IOC to be considered as an new Olympic Event. Having doping checks in place is definately one of them.