As many sports are falling increasingly under the control of the technical scientist and medical practitioner, staggering improvements in athletic performance have been obtained at recent Olympic Games. These can be criticized as an elimination of chance, as the exploitation of the child and as the loss of fair competition through the use of drugs hypnosis and other ruses such a doping with the athlete's own blood. It is not possible to halt the progress of knowledge. Neither a description of the physiological dangers to the athlete's body, nor the policing of competitions have proved effective deterrents to such loss of fair play. Only modifications to the political context of sports competitions and to the philosophy of the investigator offer the prospect of a more healthy development of sports science.
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