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This House would ban countries with very harsh training methods from participating in international competitions
This House would ban countries with very harsh training methods from participating in international competitions
With the Olympics fast approaching, we must ask, what is the price of gold? Professional athletes already sacrifice huge amounts in order to earn the ultimate prize, but some athletes endure untold hardships and abuse to get there. Particularly prevalent in gymnastics but present in other sports, athletes have been beaten, starved, physically and mentally abused and forced into unusually cruel and inhospitable environments in the name of ‘training’. These allegations tend to be directed towards Romania, China and Russia, although scandals have hit other countries. This house asks, should we allow this to go on? If not, is banning countries from participating if they do opt to subject their athletes to these methods the fairest or most successful means of tackling the issue?
If the policy were to come into place, it’d likely come from the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), who are the central body who currently rule upon international athletics. The policy would ban nations found guilty of using these techniques, indefinitely, until investigations are complete and evidence of reform is shown. That would be a definite change from the status quo where trainers are rarely exposed, and when they are, very little tends to happen. For example, despite the famous gymnastic coaches, Béla and Márta Károlyi, receiving multiple accusations of abuse, the couple are still prominent members of the gymnastics community and Marta Károlyi is the current USA team coordinator.[1] Under this rule, if the Karolyis were found guilty, the nation they coached would be banned from competing in the upcoming games and it’d be the responsibility of the nation to put in the necessary procedures to ensure abuses don’t happen again. The definition could go ‘hard-line’ and ban the entire country, including athletes who aren’t in the team where the abuses occurred, or could focus bans upon individual national teams. For example, if abuses were found in the Australian javelin team, you could either ban the javelin team from the Olympics, or the entire nation of Australia and all their teams. Let’s assume we’re going hardline.
The policy is drastic, but so are the scandals and allegations of abuse. So, how do we proceed?
[1] Hannaford, Alex, ‘Béla Károlyi: The somersault svengali’, The Telegraph, 27 March 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/gymnastics/9160224/Bela-Karolyi-The-somersault-svengali.html
Read more
| Points For | Points Against |
|---|---|
| Banning countries with harsh training measures from competing would be a strong deterrent | Harsh training methods aren’t necessarily abusive. |
| The suffering of those who are treated to harsh training outweighs banning the team | The policy is counter productive |
| Athletes are vulnerable to their coaches | Collective punishment is unjust |
| The IAAF and the Athletics commission have the highest burden to protect their athletes. |
Remember to choose a winning argument!
Banning countries with harsh training measures from competing would be a strong deterrent
Point
This measure introduces a strong deterrent against those who allow and facilitate abusive training methods.
Firstly, it incentivises national athletic and sporting bodies to diligently check the background of coaches before their employment and continue to investigate them throughout the year. It is now in the interest of every single member of national sporting bodies and teams to ensure abuse doesn’t continue. In most it is currently in your interest to keep quiet, lest you risk disturbing the national programme or being ostracised by your federation.
As a result coaches are far less likely to think these training methods will help them achieve success. Since it could see their athletes banned from the competition and lose their medals it makes using harsh training methods an immense risk to take. It would also mean they’re unlikely to ever get hired again if caught.
Improve thisCounterpoint
This isn’t necessarily true. Consider that currently coaches already are already disincentivised by the use of these training methods by the threat of losing their job. For example in South Korea fourteen Ice Skating coaches resigned after allegations of beatings.[1] Yet these practices continue.
Deterrents rarely work because people don’t think they’ll be caught, and focus on the short term benefit of what they are doing. For example, even if you explain to someone that smoking kills, they may still take a cigarette because they assume they won’t be the one that gets cancer and so the short term benefit can be taken guilt free.
The kind of coaches who already think like this and risk their job are unlikely to change as a result of this proposal. In this case, coaches are unlikely to think they’ll ever get caught, even if people like them are caught and punished, so they’ll think it is pointless to abandon the training methods they think will guarantee them success.
[1] MacIntyre, Donald, ‘Breaking the Ice’, Time Magazine, 15 November 2004, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,782168,00.html
Improve this
The suffering of those who are treated to harsh training outweighs banning the team
Point
This ban is, admittedly, highly punitive and may be called harsh. It will punish hundreds of athletes and coaches who aren’t implicated in cases of abuse. Yet, on a balance of harms, the disappointment those people feel can’t be compared to the suffering of an athlete who is beaten and starved and conditioned into a mode of thinking where they accept this without putting up a fight.
According to Melanie Lang of Metropolitan University harsh and over intensive training “removes the element of fun that first attracts so many youngsters to sport. It can inhibit bone growth, cause physical and mental burnout and increase the potential for injury and dropout.”[1] And worse the coercion can lead to injury and even death; American gymnast Christy Henrich became anorexic and as a result died weighing only 3st 5lb while Chinese gymnast Sang Lan was paralysed after being cajoled into attempting a vault.[2] It’s more important to ensure all athletes can train in a safe environment free from physical and mental abuse, than it is to safeguard against the disappointment of professional athletes who want to compete. Given that there are major sporting events annually or bi-annually, usually, it’s not as if those forced to miss out can’t compete again soon.
[1] Cassidy, Sarah, ‘Olympic swimming training ‘too hard on young athletes’, The Independent, 4 September 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/olympic-swimming-training-too-hard-on-young-athletes-918054.html
[2] ‘Beijing Olympics: The Games are not child’s play’, The Telegraph, 16 August 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/2571096/Beijing-Olympics-The-Games-are-not-childs-play.html
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Counterpoint
Most athletes can only compete at the elite level when they hit their peak. And the ‘big’ competitions, like the Olympics, don’t come around very often.
So because a coach, in a team they’re not part of, used harsh training methods, they now miss their only chance to compete in the highest competition possible and receive the biggest payout (in terms of wage and sponsorship) opportunity of their career.
Now, this may not weigh against the harm suffered by a beaten athlete, but when you multiply that number out and consider how many people you’re taking this opportunity away from, the harms stack up.
Improve thisAthletes are vulnerable to their coaches
Point
Athletes dedicate their lives to their sport and becoming the world’s best at what they do. They are willing to put their body and minds through all sorts of punishment to do this. As such, they’re not in a position to judge what is and isn’t an acceptable training method. If they’re told that starvation makes them more likely to win gold then their intense desire for Olympic glory often clouds their judgment and ability to make rational choices for themselves. Their coaches are authority figures who assumed to have their best interests in mind, and most athletes also assume their coaches know more than them about how to achieve glory. So, if a gymnastics coach tells her athlete that she needs to starve herself to win gold, the athlete will think themselves a bad athlete if they refuse.[1] This is shown by the long history of drug use in the Olympics where both coaches and athletes know it is wrong to use drugs but still do so in the hope it will bring them gold.[2]
Because of this, the IAFF has to make this decision for them. It also means that the chance of whistleblowing is low, since athletes cannot rationally consider whether the training methods are acceptable. So it has to set an incredibly punitive deterrent to make sure coaches aren’t tempted to use a training method they probably won’t be caught for.
[1] Harris, Paul, ‘Secret world of a gymnast: starvation, sex and fear’, The Observer, 27 April 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/apr/27/athletics.usa
[2] ‘Historical Timeline History of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports’, ProCon.org, 28 February 2012, http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002366
Improve this
Counterpoint
This simply shows that it is the coaches that are to blame and therefore it is unfair to punish the athletes for what their coaches are persuading them to do. Young manipulatable, athletes do not necessarily know what their coaches responsibilities are and what should be considered abuse. Instead this is the responsibility of the coaching team who therefore are the ones who should be penalised.
Improve thisThe IAAF and the Athletics commission have the highest burden to protect their athletes.
Point
Just as an employer has a responsibility to provide a safe working environment for their employees, the IAAF has a duty to provide a safe environment for their athletes. The sports medical team is responsible for ‘preventing illness and injury’,[1] clearly something that is caused by harsh training. As do all those who are involved in sports.
These athletes only exist in a professional capacity because bodies created the positions for the athletes to exist. If the world wants to pay people to perform and compete for them, then once that offer is made they have a moral duty to ensure that work is safe, since they are culpable in creating that work.
Moreover, we give the IAAF power in the promise that by giving up localised power of judgement over sport, they can better protect athletes and creating a fairer sporting environment.
Abusive training methods are a huge failure on the part of the IAAF and as such they must use the most powerful disincentive possible to them.
[1] “Principals and Ethical Guidelines”, IAAF, http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42039.pdf
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Counterpoint
First this is not all the responsibility of the IAAF to police; the same guidelines state “Athletes must be instructed in health and safety practices and must bear a large degree of responsibility for their own welfare”.[1] The IAAF has already passed laws about what constitutes ‘proper training methods’.[2] The IAAF has therefore done what it needs to do to protect athletes. This duty of responsibility does not extend to a right to impose collective punishment.
Most people wouldn’t argue with the fact that we should try to reduce the amount of harsh training methods being used, where we can. The debate is about how appropriate and effective this punishment is. This policy may lead to less whistleblowing, while simultaneously punishing lots of athletes unfairly. So no matter how high the IAAF’s moral burden is, this policy should not be enacted.
[1] “Principals and Ethical Guidelines”, IAAF, http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42039.pdf
[2] ‘Principles of Training’, International Association of Athletics Federations, http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42038.pdf
Improve this
Harsh training methods aren’t necessarily abusive.
Point
Consider that athletes already subject themselves to the kinds of environments that most people actively avoid, and would probably be considered ‘harsh’ by the average person. These routinely involve long days, week after week, often planned out years in advance, practicing special diets and routines[1] and in some countries this may mean being isolated from home and family for years at a time.
Athletes consent to having very harsh training in order to reach the prize, they’re used to putting themselves in extreme discomfort to achieve their goal. To the average person these things may seem abusive but an athlete considers these physical and mental demands differently.
Communist teams used these kinds of training methods frequently and achieved lots of Olympic success,[2] why can’t an athlete choose to emulate these methods in the pursuit of their professional and personal dreams?
[1] Dusen, Allison Van, ‘How To Train Like An Olympian’, Forbes, 8 July 2008, http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/08/training-perfect-athlete-olympics08-forbeslife-cx_avd_0708health.html
[2] ‘Olympics: planned economies and the need to succeed’, euronews, 20 July 2012, http://prod-euronews.euronews.net/2012/07/20/planned-economies-obsessed-by-the-need-to-succeed/
Improve this
Counterpoint
Firstly, this argument assumes consent on the part of the athlete. That’s somewhat unfair as most of these ‘harsh’ training camps are fairly secretive. We know this because even though the Karoyli’s were called out, no punishment could be made due to the difficulty in obtaining conclusive evidence. So it is unlikely athletes really know what they’re getting themselves into.
You can’t consent to abuse, not like this, we wouldn’t let you sign a contract to allow someone to starve you. Moreover, just because athletes would do anything to get gold, doesn’t mean we should let them. Some people would happily sell an organ for money, but we stop them doing that and morally are right to do so. Individuals don’t always know what’s best for them, that’s in-part, why the state exists.
Improve thisThe policy is counter productive
Point
If your goal is, ultimately, to reduce the amount of coaches using this method, this policy is massively counter-productive. For people to get punished, you need athletes to report abuse, this policy makes that less likely to happen.
The athletes being abused won’t want to report their coaches as the abuse is happening, because that means they and their teammates all lose their chance at and competing in the biggest sporting stages which in turn is likely to reduce their chances of ever achieving glory or getting a big payday from sponsorship. It is already the case that sometimes whistleblowers suffer for calling time. In India Dr Sajib Nandi was first removed from his position as a medical officer and then beaten up as a result of whistleblowing about doping.[1] This policy simply makes the stakes and the risks of whistleblowing much higher.
At least now after they’ve been abused athletes come out and report abuse. Why would an athlete do this under this policy? It damages their stock as they become the one responsible for shaming sport in their country. Also, they’re likely to personally know and have training with people still on national programmes, so they’re not going to want to ruin their friends chances of earning more and competing for the top prizes.
[1] NDTV Correspondent, ‘Dope mess: Whistleblower doctor attacked, Sports Minister assures a meeting’, NDTV Sports, 13 July 2011, http://sports.ndtv.com/othersports/athletics/item/175835-dope-mess-whistleblower-doctor-attacked-sports-minister-assures-a-meeting
Improve this
Counterpoint
The reason athletes don’t report the abuses is because they don’t think the abuse is worse than losing their place on the team. This policy changes that by sending a strong message out. Athletes will attach the gravity of the punishment to the crime and might finally begin to understand that this kind of treatment is utterly unacceptable.
It’s also fairly easy to get around the worry of being blamed for the repercussions by having anonymous tip-offs or witness protection.
The IAAF can compensate for lack of earnings too, but ultimately actually this potential makes abuse less likely to happen. If everyone knows what a risk using harsh methods is, then that’s a good thing. Athletes will be less likely to take it and allow it to continue, and coaches won’t want to risk using them.
Currently it’s worth everyone’s while to shut up and let abuse continue, these changes would mean the risk is too high to let that happen.
Improve thisCollective punishment is unjust
Point
Under this policy the victim is punished for the crimes of coach. This seems unfair, why should someone have their professional dream denied to them because somebody else did something wrong? Banning an entire nation from a sporting competition expands this, individuals with no or little attachment to cases of abuse will also be punished and suffer, when they have taken no steps that deserve punishment.
Punishments should fit the crime and this means punishing those who are responsible not innocents. It is right that the punishment should be harsh as it needs to deter coaches but this deterrent should be through steep penalties for the coach not for others.
Improve thisCounterpoint
It’s simply untrue to claim that ‘unconnected athletes’ have done nothing wrong. It is the responsibility of every member of the national team to ensure standards are met, because abuses only go tolerated so long as they are allowed by athletes and other coaches to continue. In the case of the victim if they did not whistleblow early then they clearly are responsible for allowing that abusive practice to continue. It is the victim who the harsh regime was supposed to benefit through driving them to glory and if they acquiesced to the treatment then this is likely the reason.
Improve thisVoting Results
Bibliography
Cassidy, Sarah, ‘Olympic swimming training ‘too hard on young athletes’, The Independent, 4 September 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/olympic-swimming-training-too-hard-on-young-athletes-918054.html
Dusen, Allison Van, ‘How To Train Like An Olympian’, Forbes, 8 July 2008, http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/08/training-perfect-athlete-olympics08-forbeslife-cx_avd_0708health.html
‘Olympics: planned economies and the need to succeed’, euronews, 20 July 2012, http://prod-euronews.euronews.net/2012/07/20/planned-economies-obsessed-by-the-need-to-succeed/
Hannaford, Alex, ‘Béla Károlyi: The somersault svengali’, The Telegraph, 27 March 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/gymnastics/9160224/Bela-Karolyi-The-somersault-svengali.html
Harris, Paul, ‘Secret world of a gymnast: starvation, sex and fear’, The Observer, 27 April 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/apr/27/athletics.usa
“Principals and Ethical Guidelines”, IAAF,
http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42039.pdf
‘Principles of Training’, International Association of Athletics Federations, http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42038.pdf
MacIntyre, Donald, ‘Breaking the Ice’, Time Magazine, 15 November 2004, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,782168,00.html
NDTV Correspondent, ‘Dope mess: Whistleblower doctor attacked, Sports Minister assures a meeting’, NDTV Sports, 13 July 2011, http://sports.ndtv.com/othersports/athletics/item/175835-dope-mess-whistleblower-doctor-attacked-sports-minister-assures-a-meeting
‘Historical Timeline History of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports’, ProCon.org, 28 February 2012, http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002366
‘Beijing Olympics: The Games are not child’s play’, The Telegraph, 16 August 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/2571096/Beijing-Olympics-The-Games-are-not-childs-play.html
Vicki Michaelis, Vicki, “SEALs push U.S. Olympians to limit in their training”, USA Today, 24 April 2012, http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/story/2012-04-16/navy-seals-olympics/54506732/1
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