Dag Vidar Hanstad (born 03.12.62) comes from Elverum. He has a master degree from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in 1991 and additional studies from the University of Oslo. He is a former handball player at the national team, and was until 2004 sports editor and commentator in the leading Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

 

His supervisors have been Professor Sigmund Loland and Professor Ivan Waddington.

 

The aim of the study was to analyze in a systematic and critical way the many more or less interconnected processes shaping anti-doping work at different levels since the doping scandal in the Tour de France cycle race in 1998.

 

More specifically, this dissertation was an investigation of anti-doping policies in international sport with a particular emphasis on the power relations between units at different levels.

The study was comprised of four qualitative case studies. Because of the complexity of the development of anti-doping policy it was necessary to confine the study to some key units and the relationships between them.

 

This was done by picking out one case study at each of the following levels; the global (paper I on the establishment of World Anti-Doping Agency), international (paper II on organizational change in the International Ski Federation), national (paper III on Norwegian sport policy) and the individual athlete’s level (paper IV on the whereabouts system). The papers are published in international scientific journals.

 

The number of organizations involved in anti-doping is growing
In sum, the study shows that the number of organizations in what is defined the anti-doping figuration has increased during the last decade. At global level the establishment of the world Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the involvement of governments have resulted in what may seem to be a more effective fight against doping.

 

The involvement of governments has included increased funding of anti-doping activity on the global, international and national levels, and a legal framework in which all governments can address the prevalence and use of doping in sport. Since 1998 some of the most extensive doping scandals, such as BALCO and Operación Puerto, have been unmasked by police.

 

Politicians as ‘hostages’ to the sports movement
Nevertheless it may be asked whether representatives from public authorities have the expertise that is needed, or whether they operate, within the WADA, more or less as ‘hostages’ to the sports movement? Unlike representatives of most sporting bodies, most public representatives ‘come and go’.

 

Most politicians or bureaucrats are members of the Foundation Board, WADA’s supreme decision making body, for just a short period of time. This gives the representatives from the sports movement with much more stable positions an advantage because they have the knowledge and experience their colleagues are missing.

 

Has the quality of the anti-doping work increased?
Within the sports movement there seems to be a general impression that the quality of the anti-doping work has increased, but there are still many national Olympic committees, international federations and anti-doping organizations that do not comply with the World Anti-Doping Code.

 

Among the international federations some of the more commercial IFs have also resisted the implementation of a harmonized set of rules and regulations. The same can be said of some of the world’s strongest elite sport nations. 

This causes significant challenges to a core aim of anti-doping activity which, according to WADA, is to protect the athletes’ right to participate in doping-free sport and thus promote health, fairness and equality – or what is called ‘the spirit of sport’.

 

Even though more athletes than previously can compete with athletes who are part of an anti-doping regime, athletes find it unfair that anti-doping work is not fully harmonized. And athletes also find some of the tools in the expanding anti-doping regime are having negative consequences for ‘clean’ athletes. The whereabouts system seems to have produced outcomes that probably were not planned or expected by the WADA.

Based on the four case studies, this dissertation gives a better understanding of the roles of different actors in the anti-doping figuration by focusing on the more comprehensive interdependencies which have developed since 1998.

 

Professor Kari Fasting, Norges idrettshøyskole, leader
Professor John Hoberman, University of Texas, 1. opponent
Professor Verner Møller, Universitetet of Aarhus, 2. opponent

 

Program
10.15 – 11.00 Trial lecture: "Journalistikk versus forskning. Drøft vesentlige forskjeller mellom kritisk journalistikk og kritisk samfunnsvitenskapelig studier om idrett."

13.00 – 16.00  Defence and discussion of the Thesis