The Athlete Biological Passport: Toward a Biopolitics of Sports
Introduction
One of the more under-researched topics in modern Academia is the question of Biopolitical governance[1]in sports. There is, to this day, no analysis of its real or potential presence, effects, as well as the possibilities for exposing and offering resistance to it. Despite the fact that Biopolitical critique is a theoretical framework that serves to show how individuals are controlled and manipulated through embodied practices, (as opposed to the classical model of ideology operating through communication, media, television etc.); the paradigm that focuses on how individuals are, quite literally, trained as Subjects, has come to ignore the most obvious field for its application: The body of the athlete. In order to draw up a general schema of the potential dangers that institutionalized biological management of human bodies may pose to the freedoms of athletes and the integrity of sports, I will provide an overview of a particular technological and bureaucratic artefact: The Athlete Biological Passport. The effects of ABP implementation have yet to be studied in various sports, as there is currently close to no available research on this topic. The following text aims first, to provide a working definition for ABP, second, to show how ABP’s are used, and finally, to discuss the hazards and issues involved in ABP use.
Summary
The paper will begin by offering a definition of the Athlete Biological Passport drawing on information retrieved from the Swiss Laboratory of Doping Analysis website and a paper published by Sergei, Kauppi et.al. It will continue to provide more detailed examples and sub-categories of the ABP which focus on various bodily parameters of the athlete based on various specific biomarkers. The ABP is much more than a scientific and technological instrument used to survey the state of the body at different moments in time. It is a bureaucratic document that provides an entire biological history of the subject. The body of the athlete is severely exposed to the power dynamics inherent in every sport through this artefact. The ABP is a dangerous implantation precisely due to the accuracy with which it can make a body calculable, manageable and subject to manipulation. The implications of similar technologies being deployed outside of the sport establishment are vast and highly questionable. Another paper published by Iljukov et.al. presents a study on what some would consider to be a successful implementation of the ABP. But the study only raises further questions and worries. Some of these include questions concerning health, safety and the notions of “normal” and “abnormal”. The result of ABP implementation has shown that there was more continuity in athletic performance despite the fact that there was also an overall drop in performance. This was one of the key indicators of “success”. The central issue at hand is whether an averaging out or optimization of data is the same as effective management in sport. In conclusion, the paper argues that the ABP is first and foremost a technique of governing athletes with only secondary and minor interests in their health, safety and sport integrity.
Discussion
The Athlete Biological Passport is a fascinating document for anyone interested in the biopolitics of sports. The biological passport is far more (and in a way much less) than just a record of an athlete’s doping test results, although functionally, that is exactly and exclusively what it is supposed to be. According to the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analysis, “The fundamental principle of the ABP is based on the monitoring over time of selected biomarkers which can reveal either the effects of doping or a pathology.” (Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analysis, 2020)
Another definition offered by Sergei, Kauppi et.al. reads: “The ABP is based on a collection of blood markers from an athlete in a longitudinal and individual way. Deviations from individually calculated reference ranges can indicate the use of forbidden substances or methods.” (2020).
One particular type of ABP is the AHP — the Athlete Haematological Passport. The AHP is used to identify data outliers in the athlete’s oxygen carrying capacity. In other words, it is supposed to reveal that the athlete was trying to boost his/her ability to absorb oxygen through artificial methods. In addition to the AHP, there is also the AEP — the Athlete Endocrinological Passport that traces the history of changes in various hormone levels, and in particular the ASP — the Athlete Steroidological passport which concentrates on the most prominent hormone in sports: Testosterone.
It goes without saying that the biological indicators that are used to reveal the presence, or a high likelihood; to be exact, of a performance enhancing substance, due to the inherent (in)accuracy[2] of the tech used, have to analyze and reveal almost everything about the athlete’s biological makeup in time. But this implies the knowledge of the entire history of the person-organism, including previous competition events, the use of over-the-counter medication, testosterone levels, a history of exposure to high altitudes and not to mention; basic demographic data like age, sex, height etc.
The ABP offers a method for locating serious disruptions and discontinuities in the patterns of biodata that could indicate the presence of a pathological rise in performance and vital signs. But while doing so, the ABP simultaneously produces a hyper-surveyable individual. A subject, whose body is entirely inserted into an abstract data-sequence. One that is entirely subjected to calculative manipulability. In a way, the ABP offers complete and ready-made algorithmic bodies, which is the modern political and economic dream of state and corporate power.
Surveying an athlete’s ABP is (allegedly) a simple matter of verifying or evaluating scientific evidence. But of course, drawing normative ethical judgments or prescriptions for the athlete from the given data is far from objective and in fact, tainted with economic interests and bias. As mentioned before, the biomarkers serve to transcribe the body of the athlete onto the mathematical plane and to make the body quantifiable. Through the use of standard statistical tools, like Bayesian Statistics, researchers can compare an athlete’s ABP to “natural” fluctuation of biomarkers in an artificial laboratory setting, as well as, to a fluctuation of “abnormal” biomarkers through the use of volunteer trials who are given doping products in controlled environments and recording the results.
Several further issues arise here. What constitutes “normal” and “abnormal” in a field and (unfortunately) an enterprise where everyone is constantly trying to push the limits? Does an averaging out of athletic performance offer the right solution to the problem of cheating? Hard to say, and yet, what we do know about statistics and the problem of averaging out or optimizing human life, is that it has proven to be a very effective form of governance outside of sports.
Through the method of biological tracing, the bodies of athletes are exposed to extreme forms of surveillance and monitoring; information which could jeopardize their lives if it were to fall in the hands of overly enterprising coaches, managers and promoters. Through the framework of what we may term the biopolitics of sports, there are several problems that we can point to concerning the use of ABP.
Quite interestingly, doping is precisely one of the more pronounced intersections between sports, politics and biology; or, sports and biopolitics. An article published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance by Sergei Iljukov, Jukka-Pekka Kauppi, Arja L.T. Uusitalo, Juha E. Peltonen and Yorck O. Schumacher presents data describing the results of the implementation of the ABP and its impact on female professional runners’ performance.
In the introduction, the article mentions the key historical moment when doping became prevalent in the 20th century; during the Cold War, when governments began to see the value of utilizing sports for political purposes. In fact, doping was institutionally encouraged and supported in some countries. “In the middle of the 20th century with the instrumentalization of sports for political purposes during the Cold War, the scale of doping changed and, in a number of countries, was supported by state-run organizations” (Sergei, Kauppi et.al. 2020).
1928 seems to mark the moment when official bodies first created a somewhat comprehensive list of banned substances in sports. The list was compiled by the International Association of Athletic Federations. Later, “Anabolic steroid testing was introduced in 1974 and regular out-of-competition tests in 1989.” (Sergei, Kauppi et.al. 2020).
The research was conducted by choosing two time intervals before and after the introduction of the ABP. Performance data was accordingly split into groups G1 and G2, which stand for before and after ABP respectively. The null hypothesis — H0, was no change in performance after the introduction of ABP and their alternative hypothesis H1, was decreased performance after ABP.
The results (summarized in data-tables below) showed that in four out of five types of running competitions (distances of 800-m, 1500-m, 3000-m steeplechase, 5000-m, and 10,000-m), there was a significant decrease of performance (H1) after the introduction of the ABP. As is typical of similar statistical analyses, the exception was simply explained away as an error resulting from the particular contextual circumstances of the event (the 3000-m steeplechase), not to mention that the final conclusion of the research was that ABP is an effective method for curbing doping practices in professional sports, based solely on the fact that its implementation helped average out outstanding levels of performance.
Conclusion
We are faced then, with several problems concerning the Athlete Biological Passport and athletic performance. It seems that the ABP is at least as much a bureau-scientific apparatus for the management of human life as it is a method for maintaining fair-play in sports and bodily health for the athlete. The ABP serves to help maintain an overall continuity throughout an athlete’s biological history of performance, but whether that is something that either the athlete or the audience is willing to prioritize, is a different question altogether. Research done by Iljukov et. al. goes even further, demonstrating that a successful implementation of the ABP implies an overall decrease of athletic performance, this raises some controversial questions. The biopolitics of sports confronts us with the same problems that biopolitics at large tends to offer: Are we willing to sacrifice an outstanding performance (our freedom essentially) in the name of health and security? An unsettled hypocrisy seems to surround the world of sport: On the one hand, significant amounts of money, athletes exchanged like commodities on the market, their bodies subject to constant surveillance and supervision; on the other, the expectation of excellence and an entertaining spectacle. As far as the pockets of coaches and managers are concerned, the bureaucracy of the sport runs like clockwork, inserting athletes into increasingly complex relations of power, while their bodies are subjected to an increasing algorithmization and control.
Notes:
[1] ‘Biopolitics’ is a term coined by the French theorist Michel Foucault, that serves as a cluster concept to signify the various dispersed governmental techniques (often merging with economic decision-making) used to manage and administer human lives.
[2] As mentioned before the ABP is highly accurate in one sense, but very flawed in another. It is very accurate in tracing the fluctuations of blood-markers, but it is virtually impossible to tell the difference between the results of effective training and subtle micro-dosing techniques. These discrepancies are easy to monopolize on. One may draw different conclusions from the same data.
References:
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