All participants in sport look for that little bit extra that’ll give them an edge over their opponent. In most cases it’s simply being fitter, stronger or homing your skills more sharply. But for others it’s the illegal use of chemicals that does the trick.
Until recently, caffeine was included in this list of banned substances. But, hey, who should deny an athlete a satisfying brew before a game? So it’s no longer on the list. But if it’s a stimulant, perhaps it should be.
According to the BBC, British athletes use caffeine on a regular basis as a stimulant. 60% of cyclists and 33% of track and field athletes boost their performance levels by regularly using caffeine before competing.
The drug is no longer on the banned substances list. It was removed in 2004. But its use is still monitored. Basically because it was too difficult to define whether the drug was used normally, in coffee, for instance, or abused. And caffeine is found in so many foods it would be hard to continue it on the ‘restricted’ list.
Also, because caffeine is metabolised at different rates by different people, there was the danger of athletes facing punishment for simply having a social cup of coffee with a friend. Although, it was stated that the World Anti-Doping Agency had not been entirely clear about why they had removed it from the restricted list.
Athletes are reported to use caffeine in the form of pills, energy drinks, sports supplements and soft drinks. Those most likely to use it are sports people at the top of the tree, those athletes that compete at the highest level including the Olympic Games. And it’s the introduction of energy drinks that seems to have encouraged sports people to take the drug in higher doses.
The emergence of energy shots should make that inclination even harder to resist for those who feel they need an extra kick to perform at their optimum. Shots, of course, pack more caffeine per volume than energy drinks so you don’t have to imbibe as much liquid to get the same lift.
The effect caffeine has is to make athletes more alert but, more importantly, to boost their powers of endurance for endurance athletes.
However, it’s not that clear cut, some athletes don’t find the drug gives them any benefits at all while others agree that it does. It depends on the individual, their size, their metabolism and other variables. The World Anti-Doping Agency’s research showed the caffeine actually lowered performance if used in extreme quantities.
Now it has to be worked out whether caffeine is a performance-enhancing drug that needs to go back on the restricted list or whether it’s just too difficult to draw a line between normal social use and abuse.
If it can be proved that high doses of caffeine does indeed give certain athletes an advantage then it should be banned. But how do you specify what a ‘high dose’ is, especially as it reacts differently with different people. It’s a problem the World Anti-Doping Agency has to deal with. As long as the lines are blurred certain athletes are bound to take advantage of it.