Organorama 5/4 [antikvár]

Editoria/ Note Soul-searching In this Olympic year the hackneyed question has been put countless times: "How long will man be able to keep on breaking records. Surely there must be an end to it one day?" Aware of the risk of being regarded as reactionary wet blankets, we wish to modify the question thus: "How long will medical science continue to serve the realization of sporting aims which have as much to do with sportsmanship as gambling has with healthy recreation ?" To prevent misunderstanding: we are fully convinced of the great value top sport has for physical education in generál, but in the recent past we have been too often confronted with unsporting practices to rejoice unreservedly about the "evolution" of sport medicine. Naturally, a great deal of the blame for the recent drug-taking scandals must be laid at the feet of irresponsible people who consider temporary success more important than the well-being of their pupils. But it is remarkable that great sportsmen regularly appeal to the intensive care of their personal physician and don't deny the occasional use of stimulating drugs. We do not regard ourself capable of judging the admissibility of this, and feel even less need of pronouncing judgement. We even wish to evoke understanding for the coercive position of sportsmen who cannot earn their daily bread without having recourse to stimulants. But if the International Olympics Committee feels obliged to set up stiff sanctions on the - obviously expected - use of drugs, there must be something wrong with the official medical supervision of the teams enrolled. We may not assume that non-doctors play the first violin. A short time ago we watched a top sport-team during the consultation with their doctor. We heard and saw no sporty, robust fellows but strongly built grumblers forever concerned about their own "expensive" skins; we recalled the sad stories of children who received too much attention. Should not all doctors in this supersportive year get down to somé honest soul-searching? After all, the Olympic and the Hippocratic oath came to us from the same point of the compass.