Abstract
In the third chapter, we first consider the main characteristics of the illegal suppliers of doping products in Italy, develop a typology of them based on their profession or occupation, and single out their motives. As we draw our information almost exclusively from law enforcement sources, we speak of illegal suppliers—that is, people who import, distribute, or administer doping products and have been at least suspected of a doping-related offense under Italian law. As will become clear in the course of this and especially the following chapters, however, there is a very thin and ambiguous line between illegal and legal suppliers, so much so that we will drop the adjective “illegal” in the following chapter, when we consider distribution chains and market relationships. On the basis of Italy’s anti-doping investigations, we conclude that illegal suppliers of doping products are predominantly male Italians and have a legitimate profession or occupation. Many of them, in particular, belong to the world of gyms, health care or human, and horse sports. For most of them, the primary motive for engaging in the supply of doping products is private (or, more rarely, institutional) profit. Staff members of sports teams and sports federations are however often motivated by the same overconformity to a sports ethic that also drives elite athletes to dope (Sport in society: Issues and controversies, Boston, 205–214).
Although the chapter only analyzes empirical data on Italy, the findings here presented can be considered illustrative of the suppliers of doping products in other countries, even if similarities and differences must be ascertained empirically in future projects.
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Notes
- 1.
The Database on NAS Investigations contains data on 80 closed investigations. However, nine of them concern athletes’ consumption of doping products, which is criminalized in Italy, and we have therefore excluded them from the current analysis. Through the interviews, we have also become aware of several, mostly ongoing, investigations that are not included in the database.
- 2.
A higher number of arrests and reporting emerges from the answers to a questionnaire filled in by all the 38 NAS branch offices at the request of the NAS Headquarters. For the comparison between the two datasets and a detailed analysis of the offenses, see Chap. 7.
- 3.
The NAS officers state that they would focus on the exact relationship between V.G.F. and these health care bodies in a “possible later phase of the investigation” (NAS Bologna 2000: 269). However, this was never done, given the very scarce chance of finding evidence backing charges against the pharmaceutical companies in the absence, back in the 1990s, of anti-doping criminal provisions.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Although not a credible academic citation or claim to legitimacy, the entry under his name in Wikipedia provides evidence of the mere existence of an allegation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Santuccione.
- 7.
See his personal webpage at http://docente.unife.it/francesco.conconi/curr.
- 8.
Analogous transfusions were not prohibited in Italy until 1985 when they were banned by a Decree of the Italian Ministry of Health. Even before that decree, it was clear, though, that analogous transfusions were not a standard therapeutic or research practice and that they might de facto constitute doping, as recognized by Conconi himself. In an interview quoted in an official document of the Ferrara Prosecutor’s Office, Conconi stated: Analogous transfusion “may be doping but before classifying it as such we need to analyze the reasons why the technique of analogous transfusion is carried out on an athlete. If one aims to treat a subject who has a hemoglobin level lower than average and to raise that level to the average, then an analogous transfusion performs only a therapeutic function, because it ‘normalizes’ an anomalous situation. If instead, one deals with a subject with normal hemoglobin values and adds up blood to enhance performance, then this operation can be seen as doping”“ (Donati 2012: 37–38).
- 9.
According to the prosecutor’s charges, Conconi himself was listed in the database under a pseudonym—and took EPO too. On one occasion in September 1994, his hematocrit was recorded as recorded as high as 57. In that period, Conconi raced together with Francesco Moser, whom Conconi was preparing to break the hour record a second time, ten years after Moser’s success. Under Conconi’s guidance, Moser, who was then 43 years of age and had already retired from professional cycling, eventually rode 51.840 km in 60 min, thereby riding 689 m beyond his record set in 1984 (Josti 1994). Even more surprisingly, Conconi, who was then 59 years old, finished only two minutes behind Moser in a mountain race in South Tyrol (cyclingnews.com 2000).
- 10.
Over 8,100 doses of doping substances were seized in the 2001 raid by the Florence NAS Branch Office at the Giro d’Italia in San Remo (Int-NAS-16, NAS Firenze 2002). Over 38,000 doses of doping products were seized in the searches conducted during the “Oil for Drug” investigation (NAS 2011; NAS Firenze 2002).
- 11.
For biographical details, See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primo_Nebiolo.
- 12.
Whereas the use of testosterone and steroids had already been banned by the IOC and, in Italy, by the Ministry of Health , blood transfusion was then not prohibited, although it had all the characteristics of doping—a fact that led Donati to reject it.
- 13.
UNIRE (Unione Nazionale Incremento Razze Equine) is a public body established in 1932 and charged with the promotion of horse breeding and the organization of horse races (for further information, see http://www.unire.gov.it/).
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Paoli, L., Donati, A. (2014). The (Illegal) Suppliers of Doping Products. In: The Sports Doping Market. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8241-3_3
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