Athleticism, Commercialization, and Legal Ethics in Sports

Athleticism vs. Commercialization

Athleticism is a sporting style that has been shaped over the course of modernity and thus finds its justification internally in the satisfaction that the participants derive from their own performances or in the attainment of a specialized skill that is unrelated to any other social code.

The Olympic Games are the most important athletic games organized globally due to the participation of such large numbers of athletes and national teams and also to the fact that very large numbers of people from all around the world watch them via the media. Television plays the most important role in this respect, given that it transmits images from the Olympic Games to billions of people worldwide because of the enormous profits arising from commercial advertising.

Law and Sport

For most of history, the majority of sports organizations and authorities believed that they were free from legal obligations or even above the law. The sporting movement grew and matured under the principles of self-organization and self-regulation. This was perfectly acceptable as long as sports associations' internal rules, policies, and practices were defined and applied in conformity with domestic and international law.

For a long time, both the specialist and the public at large believed that the use of illicit performance-enhancing products was a phenomenon uniquely affecting adults. In fact, in ancient Greece, child athletes aged about 12 years were selected and sent to sports schools to become professional athletes, where they were offered drugs to increase their performances.

Today, the media reveal increasing cases of youth doping, such as 15-year-old Bulgarian tennis prospect Sesil, who was caught in 2005 using nandrolone, a banned substance. The use of doping by young athletes isn’t surprising as many factors tend to push them into this practice; for example, children are so strongly influenced by the behavior of their idols who act as role models. Young athletes can obtain doping products through different means. International law also requires that children be treated with dignity, and children using doping should be perceived and treated more as victims than as criminals.