Introduction
Recent revelations of extensive performance-enhancing drug use among elite athletes, as well as historical exposures of the rampant, state-sponsored drug use by athletes from East Germany, creates the impression that there is a natural – and extremely negative – connection between elite athletics and science.1 On a more positive note, most elite athletes today are provided with the legitimate assistance of physiologists, nutritionists, biomechanists, psychologists and other scientific experts in order to improve their performance. Athletes and scientists have worked with one another both formally and informally for more than a century, however, people outside these two worlds might not have been aware of these connections. Beginning in the middle part of the twentieth century, however, public consciousness was raised about the contributions of science to athletics through reports in a variety of popular magazines and newspapers.2
Despite this burgeoning public interest, few historical analyses have been made of the connections between science and elite athletics. The post-Second World War Olympics provides a fertile ground for examining such a connection. In particular, the years leading up to the XIXth Olympiad in Mexico City were the beginning of this modern relationship between science, medicine and Olympic competition. Although the attitudes and observations of the public and the press are significant in this story, the beliefs of the decision-makers, the men who ran elite sport, most influenced this connection.3 The approaches that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took to confront these issues during the 1960s reveal that critical policy decisions were made that needed to be based on highly technical scientific and medical knowledge. Despite the fact that only a few of the IOC members were trained in science and medicine, this group played a crucial role in connecting modern science, medicine, and elite athletic competition. This led to the creation of new committees to deal with the ever expanding amount of information to be processed, most importantly the IOC Medical Commission.
The 1960s are a transitional decade in the manner that the IOC handled scientific matters. A new way of coping with such increasingly complex information needed to be constructed. Of the three main scientific issues that emerged in the 1960s, altitude physiology, drug testing, and gender verification; only the study of altitude physiology remained a part of the old way of doing business. The IOC allowed outside experts to conduct research on the physiological aspects of athletics at altitude, but in the end it was the issue of amateurism that determined the amount of training that would be allowed before the Mexico City Games. Athletes were restricted to only 30 days of training at altitude in preparation for the Games. To remain an amateur in 1968, an athlete was supposed to have some sort of other profession, separate from athletics, from which they derived their income. Athletes were only allowed to leave that profession for 30 days in order to prepare for Olympic competition. Thus, any decision about altitude training had to fit within the parameters of amateurism.4 Drug and gender testing, however, were given over completely to the new IOC Medical Commission by 1965 – in preparation for the 1968 Games – but not without a struggle.
Historians have only recently begun to scrutinize the role of science in the study of human performance. Anson Rabinbach considers the work of physiologists like Etienne Marey, but he does not take up the matter of how – if at all – such work was linked to practising athletes.5 John Hoberman examined the effect that advances in scientific research have had on human performance.6 Hoberman's work focused on the research investigations of European scientists; but did not devote attention to the attitudes of policy-makers, athletes or coaches regarding the findings of science. Recently, some scholars have looked at the emergence of two important topics in sport science: sex testing and drug testing in the elite athletic world during the 1960s.7 Both Cheryl Cole and Ian Ritchie have closely examined the discourse surrounding the decision by the IOC and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF)8 to commence sex testing in particular, but drug testing as well, in the mid-1960s.9 What is missing from Cole and Ritchie's work, however, is an analysis of the internal perspective of the IOC, the people who were making the decisions. The sources for their studies are the popular press. Neither of these authors utilized primary sources such as IOC Executive Board Minutes, Avery Brundage's correspondence or the IOC Bulletin.10
In the popular media the confluence of all topics related to sport and science are increasingly of interest.11 Recently, some attention has been focused on the science of improving athletic performance. However, it is drug testing in elite sport, particularly in the Olympic movement, that is most often the scientific topic that is of interest to scholars, the general public and the International Olympic Committee. A number of sport scientists who were instrumental in shaping the field have begun to chronicle the events that led to the development of modern sport science. These works provide interesting details of the formative years, however, nearly all lack a critical perspective.12 In 1987 Terry Todd presented an extensive examination of the history of steroid use in elite sport, particularly within the Olympic movement. His analysis of the struggle within the IOC to include testing for steroid use is a significant element for scholars who are attempting to understand better the forces behind the inception of drug testing in elite sport.13
In their recent historical analysis of drug testing and the Olympic movement, Jan and Terry Todd present a comprehensive picture of the events that have marked drug use in the elite sport world, particularly the Olympics. The ‘road map’ that they have provided will indeed serve scholars interested in the history of doping in elite sport well for a long time to come.14 In their essay the Todds pose the question: ‘Once the knowledge is available, what type of policy needs to be established by sport governing bodies to provide for its fair use?’15 How did the members of the IOC, almost all of whom were not scientists or physicians, make policy decisions when faced with difficult scientific questions and competing expert interpretations? The IOC's efforts to tackle these issues defined the role that science would play in the modern Olympic movement.
The IOC, Science and Medicine
Some members of the IOC have historically been interested in the potential connections among sport, science and medicine. For example, Medical-Scientific Congresses were first held in conjunction with the Winter Olympic Games of St Moritz in 1928. Ironically, only 20 years later, at the IOC session in St Moritz in 1948, Dr Arthur Porritt, who would later head the first IOC subcommittee on Doping, recommended that the IOC not involve itself too deeply in questions of science and medicine. He believed they certainly should have an interest in these matters, however, ‘any direct action in this connection would but lead the Committee into spheres where it is neither justified nor equipped to enter… as a corporate body we have neither the right nor the machinery to play any direct or practical part.’16 For most matters scientific in the first half of the twentieth century, the IOC consulted the Fédération Internationale Médicine Sportive (FIMS), with whom they have had a relationship since 1952. FIMS Secretary-General Giuseppe La Cava corresponded with IOC Chancellor Otto Mayer and FIMS was ‘officially recognized’ by the IOC at its meeting in Oslo in 1952.17
The 1960 Olympic Games in Rome had a Medical and Scientific Committee that conducted a complete scientific study of the athletes taking part in the Games, by the compilation and drawing up of a basic bio-psychical card, and promoted a symposium of sports medicine from among the doctors of the various teams taking part in the Games.18 Seizing on this momentum of interest in scientific matters, IOC member Dr Ryotaro Azuma, proposed in June 1962 at the Committee's General Session in Moscow to hold the first ‘International Congress of Sport Sciences’ in Tokyo as a specific task to be added to the work of the Organizing Committee for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The plan was approved and warmly encouraged by the IOC.19
The inaugural Scientific Congress met in 1964. In his opening remarks to assembled delegates, IOC President Avery Brundage announced: ‘We have a double interest in this particular Congress. In the first place we have agreed to cooperate with the Federation Internationale Medecine Sportive in its project to conduct a continuing scientific medical survey of Olympic athletes.’20 Brundage also observed:
It is surprising, therefore, that a comprehensive international investigation was not started long ago. We may learn something new about heredity and how much of the race the athletes [sic] grandfather runs. Is it true we are what we eat? What about ‘athlete's heart’ on which there has been so much misinformation? What are the effects of temperature and altitude? What is the age to begin strenuous and violent exercise and what is the age to stop?21
The influence of science and medicine on elite sport that came to a head in the 1960s created a change in the structure of the IOC itself. This was not necessarily a change in the ‘chain of command’ in the organization. Instead it was a prototype for the way in which business was to be conducted by the IOC in the future. During the first half of the 1960s, from 1960–64, the IOC attempted to deal with scientific and medical issues on their own. They formed a ‘Doping Committee’, sometimes called the ‘sub-committee on Doping’ made up of IOC members who were physicians. Outside individuals and agencies were consulted, but were not included as part of the decision-making process in a substantive manner.22 Regular meetings of this group were not held. The reports this group produced were read into the minutes of the IOC meetings and published in the IOC Bulletin. After the reports were completed, Brundage instructed IOC members to return to their nations/federations and tell athletes and coaches not to break the rules.
There was a fairly dramatic change in the second half of the decade. In this period the IOC created a Medical Commission. This group had some participants who were IOC members, but they were not selected because they were physicians. In addition, the IOC found it absolutely necessary to include ‘outsiders’ on the Commission. Meetings were held on a very regular basis. Reports were generated and testing procedures were established for both doping and gender verification. The IOC believed that testing was absolutely necessary both to deter abuses and to catch violators.
The creation of the IOC Medical Commission was perhaps the event that foreshadowed the future direction of the Olympic Movement. The sheer size and complexity of the problems the Commission would face went beyond the scope of time and expertise of the IOC membership. It became necessary to create a committee that would be given a great deal of autonomy. Very quickly the IOC, and Avery Brundage in particular, lost autocratic control over this group.
A One Time Scientific Problem?: Altitude Physiology
The selection of Mexico City as the site of the XIXth Olympiad caused much debate and dissension in the athletic world. Long jumpers, shot putters and sprinters believed that they could possibly gain an advantage by competing at an altitude of nearly 7,500 feet. Distance runners, however, were certain that the ‘thinner air’ would impair their ability to compete effectively. The greatest concern expressed by distance runners was that their bodies would not be able to overcome what they called the ‘oxygen debt’ imposed by running at such a high altitude. Athletes and coaches from Western nations were vigorous in their objections to the new training advantage of the Kenyans and Ethiopians who, by ‘an accident of geography’, lived, worked and trained several thousand feet above sea level. Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute barrier in the mile, was one of the most vocal opponents of holding the Games at high altitude. He claimed to be astonished by the choice of Mexico City for the Olympic Games in 1968.23 The IOC rule limiting the length of altitude training preceding the Olympic Games was, for Bannister, a tacit admission of the blunder of holding the Games at such an altitude.
Historian Allen Guttmann has noted that the Olympic programme has remained essentially Western in character. African and Asian athletes have had to compete on Western terms.24 Although distance running is not a Western invention, the competitive forms included in the Olympics – the marathon, the steeplechase and other distance races – are Western innovations. Training methods up to the 1968 Games had been essentially Western in design. However, the success of athletes from non-Western nations in the Olympic Games held in the 1960s, particularly in 1968, would bring increased attention to the training methods employed by African runners.
Prior to the bidding in 1963, the Games had only been held in the United States or Western Europe. The 1964 Tokyo Games would be the first not to be hosted by a Western nation. The cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Lyons, France and Mexico City, Mexico were the main contenders for the Games of the XIXth Olympiad. All four cities were asked by the IOC to answer a standard set of questions about their bid. One question that was to prove significant to these Games was question ‘K’: ‘Please provide general information about your city, its size, population, climate (temperature and rainfall), altitude, and all reasons why it should be considered as a site for the Olympic Games.’25 The candidate cities responded in a variety of ways. In addition to a small book with black and white photos, Buenos Aires produced a pamphlet to answer the questions. Detroit also answered with a pamphlet and two large format books with colour photos about the city. Mexico City assembled an impressive bid book that answered the questions in French, English and Spanish.26
Prior to the final vote, representatives from Mexico City were directly confronted with the altitude question and the presumed problems of acclimation for the athletes. The Mexican delegates offered to defray the costs incurred in making physical adaptation possible for the athletes.27 In addition, a section of their bid book presented what they called ‘new’ medical evidence to repudiate the supposed dangers associated with the altitude. Officials from Mexico City also frequently referred to previous athletic events that had been held without problems in their city, such as the 1955 Pan American Games.28
The decision to award the Games to Mexico City was made on the first ballot. Brundage did vote for the American candidate city, Detroit, but perhaps he already was certain that Mexico City had an adequate number of supporters.29 Criticism of the decision to hold the Games in Mexico City began almost immediately. Brundage responded to one critic by asserting that ‘the elevation of Mexico City was taken into consideration when the Games were awarded – it is a fait accompli and the less said about it the better. Let us confine ourselves to positive announcements and not engage in polemics with every Tom, Dick and Harry.’30
Interestingly, the newly formed Medical Commission of the IOC seemed content to allow the IOC to deal with the question of altitude. Perhaps they were just too overwhelmed with the details of creating a doping control and sex control system to involve themselves in what was essentially a moot argument. The only real exception was an article in Bulletin 97 by IOC Medical Commission member Albert Dirix that claimed ‘many scientific experiments carried out on the sport by representatives of several countries have shown conclusively that about three weeks is required, sometimes a few days less, in order to obtain a physiologically valid acclimatization’.31 This was another step that led the IOC to its decision to allow a modification in the training rules for athletes that would allow them more time for training at altitude while remaining an amateur. For 1968 only, two weeks additional training at altitude was authorized. Now that the IOC had dealt with the problem of altitude by virtually ignoring much of the scientific evidence, the more pressing problems of creating drug and sex testing programmes move to the forefront of the IOC agenda.
Doping and Sex Testing Prior to 1960
The IOC was aware of the issue of doping in sports, and concerns had already emerged about gender verification, more than a decade before they formed a ‘Doping Committee’ to study these issues. In 1950, in the IOC Bulletin, an item appeared suggesting that a Danish rower had been drugged while participating in the European Championships that year in Milan. According to the article, the oarsman took the drug ‘Androstin [sic]’.32
Further ‘informational’ articles were placed in the Bulletin over the next few years about the doping issue. These were both articles that asked scientific questions such as ‘Is the oxygenation of athletes a form of doping?’ and those that addressed the moral issue, including a pronouncement by Pope Pius XII entitled ‘Let us condemn the practice of doping.’33
The gender verification question did not simply emerge in the 1960s either. Stella Walsh (who competed as Stanislawa Walasiewicz for Poland in 1932 and 1936) was one of the stars of the 1932 Los Angeles Games and the 1936 Berlin Games. Her competitor in the 100 m race that year was American Helen Stephens. In the first recorded gender verification test, German officials ‘examined’ Stephens when a journalist claimed she was a man. Ironically it would turn out that it was Walsh who would have failed the sex test. Following her death in 1980 (she was an innocent bystander at a robbery in Cleveland), an autopsy revealed that Walsh had the sex organs of both a man and a woman.34
How do these early concerns about doping in athletics connect with sex testing? Prior to the inception of sex testing, members of the IOC were made aware of the connection between doping and women's athletics. A report in the 1961 Bulletin, by Marie Therese Eyquem claimed that the issue of doping among male athletes was being addressed, but female athletes were guilty as well. They were involved in ‘a particularly revolting form of doping… [taking] male hormones which lead[s] to castration of the functional cycle of women amount[ing] sometimes to an atrophy of the ovaries which may cause a chronic disease in the long run’.35
In the period from 1960–64, the IOC rarely discussed the issue of sex testing. Since the original committee of doctors was formed to deal with ‘doping’ it was natural that they would, at first, ignore the sex testing issue. The Doping Committee, and the newly formed Medical Commission, would soon change this approach.
Attempts to Use the Old Model
At the February 1960 session of the IOC the issue of ‘Amphetamine Sulfate’ (PEP pills) was introduced. At this stage the response of Brundage and the IOC was to ask members to ‘speak of this matter in their respective countries.’36 That summer, during the Rome Olympics, the IOC was forced to confront the matter of doping when a Danish cyclist died during the Games. According to the minutes of an Executive Board meeting held during the Games, the IOC believed the ‘responsible parties’ should be penalized.37 Brundage was most upset two months later when he learned that an Olympic gold medal was awarded posthumously to the cyclist.38
In November 1960, Brundage asked the members of the IOC for input on what to do about cases of drug use in the Olympics. He proposed the notion that doping would lead to the disqualification of the National Olympic Committee, not simply the athlete, coach or team, from the next Olympic Games.39 By the June 1961 Session of the IOC, Brundage had determined that there was a need to establish exactly what doping was and that medical advice was essential to accomplish this task.40
Brundage decided in early 1962 to begin an official investigation of doping. He wrote to IOC Chancellor Otto Mayer,
The problem of ‘doping’ is not a simple one and we must have professional advice on where to draw the line. This is a difficult problem. I shall appoint a subcommittee of doctors – Sir Arthur Porritt, Chairman, Dr. Gruss, Dr. [Ferreira] Santos and Dr. Sosa (I think these are all the physicians on the [International Olympic] Committee) – to deal with this subject.41
Brundage envisioned this as the group that would deal with all medical/scientific issues for the IOC in the future.
At the June 1962 Session, Dr Ferreira Santos reported on ‘The Fight Against Doping’ – his initial investigations into the doping question.42 The newly formed Committee was slow in its deliberations, however. By September, Brundage was inquiring into the whereabouts of any final report by the newly formed ‘Committee on Doping’.43 Without a final report, the preliminary statement on doping was published in the February 1963 issue of the Bulletin.44
Once again Brundage reiterated the fact that outside help, particularly from FIMS, would be needed when addressing the issue of drugs. In another letter to Mayer, Brundage advised that ‘it would be better for us to cooperate with organizations more competent to treat on the subject of “doping” than we are’.45 In the May 1962 issue of the Bulletin, an article by Giuseppe La Cava of FIMS examined drugs that were available to athletes and the effect that they had on performance.46
In 1964 the IOC met at Innsbruck and Tokyo. At the Innsbruck meeting, some members asked why the IOC was not conducting blood tests on ‘suspicious cases.’ Sir Arthur Porritt, the Chair of the Doping Commission, noted that ‘it was a little too soon to comment on the question. Probably next year there would be great benefits forthcoming from proved medical advice.’47 Clearly they could not wait a full year and at the Tokyo Games that summer Porritt proposed the following policy to the IOC. First, to ‘make a formal declaration condemning the use of drugs, [secondly to] make provision for sanctions against any NOCs or any person who directly or indirectly promoted the use of drugs [and finally to] request the NOCs to insist that athletes should be prepared to submit to an examination at any time’. It was also decided that the following statement would be added to the application form for competitors ‘I do not use drugs, and hereby declare that I am prepared to submit to any examination that may be thought necessary.’48 The Executive Board agreed and stated that it would begin to rewrite the text for the rules of eligibility.
The various International Federations (IF) granted that something needed to be done about doping, however, each IF pointed fingers at the others, not wanting to be the sole agency held accountable for the controversy over doping. In spite of their squabbles, the IFs had an interest in drug testing. For example, preliminary drug tests were conducted on cyclists during the 1964 Games in Tokyo. Brundage warned members that what he called ‘degraded’ sports would be expelled from the Games.49 Of course Brundage had wanted to get rid of cycling for a long time because of what he believed were its ‘professional’ elements. The International Cycling Union (UCI) was upset that cycling was the only sport tested. However, since a cyclist had died at the previous Games from what was strongly suspected to be drug use, it was logical that this sport would be targeted. Brundage and UCI President Rodini exchanged a series of letters. Rodini was defensive because he claimed that ‘others’ were doping too. Prince Alexandre de Merode, who would soon lead the newly constituted Medical Commission, was already involved in the testing process at the Tokyo Games. At the April 1965 meeting of the IOC Executive Board (EB), the sub-committee on Doping finally produced an extensive report entitled ‘Prevention of the Use of Dope’. This report, written by Dr Ferriera-Santos and Dr Porritt, was read into the minutes and was subsequently published in the IOC Bulletin in 1965.50
By the July 1965 meeting of the EB, IOC leaders were well aware that some athletes were taking drugs as they had discussed the matter at EB meetings since at least 1960.51 It was now necessary to establish penalties. The athlete's entry blank would need to contain a statement condemning drug use. At the full meeting of the IOC in October 1965, delegates were unable to reach a decision about sanctions. Brundage once again raised the issue of whether it was the individual athlete or the whole team who should be punished if drug use was discovered.52
A New Model Emerges: The IOC Medical Commission
At the October 1966 meeting of the Executive Board, it was determined that action needed to be taken on doping for the 1968 Games. Mandatory testing for drugs and sex testing would be put on the agenda for the next meeting of the IOC in Teheran.53 In a March 1966 ‘Circular Letter’ the ‘Report of the Committee on Doping’ by Porritt and Ferriera-Santos was published. The report had been previously published as part of an extensive article entitled ‘Doping’ in the May 1965 issue of the Bulletin.54
Change was on the horizon when Porritt resigned from the Committee on Doping in the summer of 1966 to take a new position as Governor General of New Zealand. Because nearly all of the other original doping committee members had passed away or resigned from the IOC, an entirely new committee needed to be created. De Merode, the sole remaining member of the committee, lobbied for the position of chair. He visited J.W. Westerhoff, the secretary of the IOC, to ‘discuss the composition of the medical commission’.55 Westerhoff recommended De Merode's choices to Brundage, all of whom ended up on the Medical Commission. Only the President, de Merode, and Vice-President, Arpad Csanadi, were IOC members. Physician Eduardo Hay of Mexico would later become an IOC member, but the other members were all from outside the IOC. De Merode immediately brought up the issue of reimbursing the Commission members for the time that they would spend travelling to meetings. ‘The more we increase our activities and the more we need technical assistance from outside the IOC members circle, the more we have to deal with people who most probably will devote their time to our problems but are not in position to pay their own… expenses.’56
In spring 1967, Westerhoff asked Porritt for suggestions on his successor, despite the fact that Westerhoff had already recommended de Merode to Brundage. Westerhoff hinted that de Merode, though not a physician, had shown ‘much interest into the matter’.57 Porritt responded that he thought that de Merode would be an excellent choice. Porritt strongly recommended, however, that ‘it would obviously be wise to have some medical opinions on this sub-Committee even if they have to be co-opted from outside our membership’.58
In August 1967, the newly formed IOC Medical Commission was officially named. This group included Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium as Chairman and Mr Arpad Csanadi as Vice-Chairman. The other original members were Professor Arnold Beckett, Department of Pharmacy, Chelsea College of Science and Technology, London; Dr P. van Dijk, The Hague; Dr Albert Dirix, Belgium; Dr Eduardo Hay, Mexico; a representative of FIMS (still to be named – but it would be Giuseppe La Cava) and Dr R. Genin of Grenoble. The agenda for their first meeting was to include two items. The Commission planned to debate the medical controls and tests necessary for meeting the provisions of the new entry form. They were also determined to consider the drugs and dope list to be circulated to the National Olympic Committees and the International Sports Federations.59 As stated earlier, the Medical Commission did not concern itself with the altitude debate. When the IOC informed athletes they would be allowed two additional weeks of training at altitude their comment was, ‘The Commission notes with interest this decision.’60
Their first meetings were consumed with decisions about sanctions, types of testing to use, which athletes would be tested, and the construction of a list of banned substances. The Commission favoured excluding athletes who tested positive from the Games. They would use gas chromatography to test for sympathomimetic amines, stimulants of the central nervous system, narcotics, anti-depressants, and tranquillizers. The Commission prepared the list only for the forthcoming Grenoble Winter Games and focused on ‘products which are detrimental when used by healthy athletes in competition, but which on the other hand are used for therapeutic reasons’.61
The work of the IOC on creating drug and sex testing programmes was not the first among major sport organizations. The IAAF was ahead of the IOC in dealing with sex and drug testing, chiefly because they had large-scale track meetings on a more regular basis and thus met much more frequently. By 1967 their handbook already included a requirement for ‘medical certification’ of female competitors. According to IOC member, and long-time IAAF President, David [Lord Exeter] Burghley, the test worked so well at their European Championships that track-and-field officials ‘managed to keep out six who were hermaphrodites’ [and] ‘frighten[ed] the doubtful ones away’.62
In addition, the IAAF utilized doping controls at the International Sports Week in Mexico City in October 1967. Because of the sheer size of the Olympic Games, the IAAF acknowledged that the tests would need to be randomly applied. They hoped that there would be ‘extremely heavy penalties for transgression of [the] rules’, established by the IOC in conjunction with the IAAF.63 The IAAF did not question the ‘medical technique’ of the testing procedures for doping or gender; rather they wanted to be involved in case there were ‘questions arising over the application’.64
At the 1967 European Track and Field Championships, held in Kiev, 100m runner Eva Klobukowska of Poland, became the first woman to fail the sex test. Klobukowska, who won the bronze in the 100 m run and a gold in the {\rm 4 \times 100 \hspace{0.167em} m} relay at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, was a co-world record holder in the 100 m with a best time of 11.1 seconds. She failed the chromatin test, according to newspaper reports, because she had ‘one chromosome too many to qualify as a woman for athletic competition’.65
What was the IOC's response to this incident? Monique Berlioux, editor of the IOC Newsletter, in an article entitled ‘Feminity’, declared that this issue needed to be discussed openly in order to keep women's athletics on what she called ‘the road to progress’. She mentioned both Klobukowska and Austrian Erika Schinegger, the 1966 women's world downhill champion, who underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1968 and became Erik Schinegger, linking them together despite the fact that their cases were indeed very different.66
Berlioux also linked gender verification to drug use by athletes. She claimed that some women athletes had been given ‘injections of male hormones’ that caused them to grow stronger; and also to begin to develop secondary sex characteristics of men, including a deepening of the voice and hair growth. However, she claimed, that this drug use did not change a woman into a man. If a person's basic chromosome formula was XX, then she was a woman.67
Physicians and scientists immediately began to question the efficacy of the new gender verification test. One physician claimed that ‘[The test] seemed grossly unfair if other criteria of sex conform with the person's social sex’.68 Dr Keith Moore stated in the Journal of the American Medical Association that there were actually nine components of sexual phenotype. Measuring only one of them, such as chromosomal sex – which was the test used by the IOC via buccal smears – was not a good indicator of true sex.
In October 1966, at a meeting of the IOC Executive Board, held in Mexico City, it was decided to begin sex testing at the 1968 Olympics. Establishing testing procedures was at first given to the ‘Sub-committee on Doping’ and was quickly transferred to the IOC Medical Commission upon its inception.69 At the second meeting of the IOC Medical Commission on 20 December 1967, the procedures for sex testing at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble were established. IOC officials determined that random testing would occur with only one athlete in five to be tested. The IOC decided to employ the random process because of the ‘high cost’ of testing. The Commission believed that this method would ‘assure ourselves of the facts and avoid any unnecessary scandal’.70
If an athlete ‘passed’ the sex test, than she would receive an ‘Olympic certificate’ verifying her gender and she would have to undergo no further sex testing.71 If some ‘irregularity’, as the IOC described it, were found then the team's medical officer, and the Medical Commission President would be informed. The utmost care was to be taken, it was argued, to not unduly upset the athlete.72 All athletes tested in Grenoble, randomly selected from sports ranging from figure skating, to speed skating to alpine skiing, passed the sex test.73
In a press release following the Games, de Merode explained how the gender tests were carried out with the greatest respect for the dignity of the athletes. Although some were apprehensive at the idea of the test, once they learned how simple it was they ‘submitted themselves to it with a smile’.74 Following the Grenoble Games, Giuseppe La Cava reported that he was opposed to testing only random participants as that practice had ‘no logical or biological foundation’.75 He also cautioned fellow members of the Medical Commission from speaking to the press about their work, as it appeared some of them had done.
The Controversy Just Before the 1968 Games
A power struggle ensued just before the start of the Mexico City Games between Brundage, perhaps holding on to the old ways, and de Merode and the new Medical Commission. In early 1968, Brundage continued to make it clear that it was the IFs who should be in charge of the testing for drugs and sex. The IOC President insisted,
As I wrote before, I do not think that the IOC should directly handle the dope and sex tests. This would establish a bad precedence. The actual testing, in my opinion, should be handled by the respective International Federations, as directed by our Medical Division.76
Brundage, concerned in part with potential financial responsibilities, wrote a circular letter to all IFs and NOCs that the sex testing of female athletes and drug testing was their responsibility. Brundage declared that is was
a technical matter that must be handled by the International Federations and the National Olympic Committees, which have the obligation to comply with Olympic regulations, in co-operation with the Organizing Committee; however, the Chairman, Prince Alexandre de Merode and his colleagues of the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission are ready to advise any of the International Federations or National Olympic Committees which may desire, in pursuing this subject, the benefit of their studies and their experience.77
In an article published simultaneously in the Bulletin, ‘The IOC and Medical Problems’, Brundage hammered home the point that the Medical Commission was ‘a body whose job it was to investigate and study… it [was] by no means an executive body’.78 Brundage also wrote to General Jose Clark, Chair of the Mexico City Olympic Committee and termed the situation regarding who was in charge of the testing as a ‘serious misunderstanding about the duties of our Medical Commission’.79 Brundage likened drug testing to the starting and timing of races, which had always been the purview of the individual sport Federations.
Brundage's circular letter outraged de Merode. Within days de Meorde fired off a reply to the Executive Board and to the full membership of the IOC. He claimed to be ‘surprised’ and extremely disappointed that the Medical Commission's role was now being altered.
The absolute confusion that this statement has caused in everybody's minds is a serious blow to the work we are trying to achieve. This change of opinion brings us back to the question of how much we can depend on the decisions of the IOC… these decisions cannot be changed unilaterally without first consulting the qualified authorities who decreed them. Any other means would risk appearing to be an abuse of authority and would be a serious mortgage on the work we would have liked to foresee in the future.80
Giuseppe La Cava, Secretary-General of FIMS, urged the IOC to establish the role of the Medical Commission quickly. La Cava insisted that this was necessary in order to, ‘… invest [the Medical Commission] with sufficient authority and prestige’.81 Brundage backed down during the Mexico City Games claiming that he had sent the letters simply to protect the legal position of the Medical Commission. Brundage continued to argue that this work was indeed still a part of the IFs' job and that sport federations needed to provide their consent in writing before the work could move forward.82
Beyond Mexico City
The Medical Commission, which felt it had quite successfully accomplished its mission at the Mexico City Games, was now ready to expand its role. De Merode asked Committee members to think beyond drug and sex testing to other problems in which the Medical Commission could involve itself. De Merode contended:
This would conform to the aims defined by the IOC at the ‘fresh start’ of our Commission, i.e. giving the necessary opinions on medical problems in sport and acting as a bridge in order to give information to the IOC who must be kept up to date.83
The most immediate problem on the horizon was anabolic steroids. These performance-enhancing substances had not been tested for at the 1968 Games. The Medical Commission determined that it would give priority to the study of steroids and that each member would report back on their findings at the next meeting of the Commission.84 Steroids clearly were an issue in the public eye. In late 1969 Brundage wrote to de Merode to ask if the Commission was considering the impact of anabolic steroids. A journalist had asked Brundage how the IOC was going to find out if an athlete was taking steroids if he stopped taking them during the competition itself.85
Following the Games, Brundage tried to regain some semblance of control over the Medical Commission. He rarely corresponded directly with de Merode, however, but usually through Monique Berlioux; asking her to forward to de Merode items such as Bil Gilbert's 1968 Sports Illustrated article on ‘Drugs in Sport’ and a cartoon from the magazine Punch, which critiqued the IOC's decision to conduct sex tests.86 Brundage also continued to complain to whoever would listen that the Medical Commission was meeting too frequently and that it was costing the IOC too much to host the meetings. He finally wrote to de Merode and reminded him that all expenses incurred by the Medical Commission, whether for meetings or the upcoming brochure they were publishing, needed to be approved in advance by the Finance Committee of the IOC.87 Other IOC members sometimes protested as well that the Medical Commission was meeting too frequently. Brundage reassured Lord Killanin that the Italian Federation was covering the costs of a late 1969 meeting with laboratory technicians. Brundage grumbled to Killanin, ‘This is another example of the confusion from which we suffer as a result of the profusion of departments and commissions.’88
Brundage continued to grouse about the costs associated with the Medical Commission up to the end of his tenure as IOC President.89 When Killanin became president in October 1972, he wrote to de Merode asking if, in the Medical Commission chairperson's opinion, the Commission had become too large.90
Conclusion
It appears that drug testing, which began in earnest at the 1968 Grenoble Games, only attacked the tip of the performance-enhancing iceberg. Genetic engineering may well be next. Dr Jacques Rogge, Belgian surgeon, former member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Council, former vice-chairman of the IOC Medical Commission and current IOC President believes that ‘genetic manipulation would be extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible, to detect using current methods’.91 The problems of doping have gone so far beyond what Brundage and the other members could have imagined in the 1960s, that WADA was created in 1999 following the IOC organized World Conference on Doping in Sport. WADA was formed as an independent organization that could manage drug testing across a variety of sports, most especially the now essential out-of-competition tests.92
As for sex testing, scientists and physicians who had protested against the testing since its inception have been able finally to make inroads with the major sport organizations. In 1985 Maria Jose Martinez Patino, a Spanish Olympic hurdler, was reinstated after protesting her disqualification based on a sex test. Patino has a chromosome alteration called ‘androgen insensitivity’.93 Thus, she tests genetically as a man, but is female as one writer described it, in ‘body, mind and athletic ability’.94 By 1992, the IAAF had dropped genetic testing for female athletes. The IOC, however, has moved at a much more deliberate pace. In 1992 they dropped the ‘buccal smear’ chromosome test in favour of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. In 1999 the IOC provisionally withdrew all sex testing beginning with the 2000 Games in Sydney. However, the IOC has not ended sex testing because if anyone questions a competitor, tests will be conducted by what the IOC calls ‘appropriate medical personnel’.95 It is important to note that not one male posing as a female competitor has been detected since sex testing began in 1968.
According to Dr Patrick Schamasch, Director of the Office of the Medical Commission, the role of the Medical Commission has changed little in the last 30 years. They are still guided by three basic principles: the health of the athletes, equality of opportunity, and the ethic of fair competition. But the ever-increasing size and scope of the Olympic Games has led the Medical Commission to make some changes. Dr Schamasch reports that it is the job of the Medical Commission to make the complex information comprehensible for the members of the Executive Board and the IOC. They must get the important information across without too much scientific detail. The IOC Executive Board listens to reports from the medical commission presented by the Chair of the Medical Commission just as it listens to any other subcommittee. They do not turn down advice on ‘scientifical’ [sic] basis, only for political or economic reasons.96 Today the IOC has become a complex organization with a multitude of subcommittees and commissions.97 This long line was initiated by the IOC Medical Commission, reflecting the transformation – albeit forced at times – of the IOC, from a nineteenth-century ‘Gentlemen's Club’ to a twenty-first-century multinational corporation.
Acknowledgments
Research for the project was funded, in part, by the Postgraduate Research Grant Programme, 1999, of the IOC Olympic Studies Centre and the Olympic Museum.
Notes
1. See, for example, J. Longman, ‘Drugs in Sports Creating Games of Illusion’, New York Times, 18 Nov. 2003; and S. Ungerleider, Faust's Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001).
2. See, for example, citations in: A.M. Wrynn, ‘The Scientific Study of American Athletic Performance, 1920–1932’, Proceedings: North American Society for Sport History (1993) and A.M. Wrynn, ‘The Grand Tour: American Exercise Science and Sports Medicine Encounters the World, 1926–1966’, International Sport Studies: Journal of the International Society for Comparative Physical Education and Sport, XXIV (2002), 5–19.
3. The IOC has been a male-dominated group throughout its history. The first female member was not added to the IOC until 1981. Currently (2003) there are 10 female members out of 125 active IOC members.
4. A.M. Wrynn, ‘Postgraduate Research Grant Report’, Olympic Studies Center, International Olympic Committee, Sept. 1999; A.M. Wrynn, ‘“A Debt Was Paid Off in Tears”: The Debate about High Altitude at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics’, Proceedings: North American Society for Sport History (1995).
5. A. Rabinbach, The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue and the Origins of Modernity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1990).
6. J. Hoberman, Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport (New York: The Free Press, 1992).
7. When the testing for female athletes was initially implemented at the 1968 Grenoble and Mexico City Games, it was referred to as: ‘Controle de Feminite’, ‘Sex Control’, ‘Sex Verification’, and ‘Sex Testing’. For the sake of consistency throughout this article I will refer to this testing as ‘Sex Testing’. Today, the Medical Commission of the IOC refers to this examination as ‘Gender Testing’. See, for example, A. Dirix and X. Sturbois, The First Thirty Years of the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission, 1967–1997 (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee, 1999).
8. Reflecting the end of the amateur era, the name of the IAAF was officially changed in 2001 to the International Association of Athletics Federations.
9. C.L. Cole, ‘One Chromosome Too Many’? in K. Schaffer and S. Smith, The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics and the Games (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000); C.L. Cole, ‘On Issue: Testing for Sex or Drugs’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, XXIV (2000), 1–2; I. Ritchie, ‘Sex Tested, Gender Verified: Controlling Female Sexuality in the Age of Containment’, Sport History Review, XXXIV (2003), 80–98.
10. While a trip to the IOC Archives in Lausanne, Switzerland is necessary to examine the full range of primary sources on this topic, some of these are more widely available. These include Avery Brundage's correspondence which is available on microfilm in a number of locations in North America. In addition, the IOC Bulletin is now available on the website of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. See ⟨http://www.aafla.org⟩.
11. See, for example, the articles in ‘The Why Files’ which was founded in 1996 as a project of the National Institute for Science Education with funding from the National Science Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See ⟨http://whyfiles.org/019olympic/⟩. Accessed 17 May 2001.
12. See, for example, E.R. Buskirk, ‘From Harvard to Minnesota: Keys to Our History’, Exercise and Sport Science Reviews, XX (1992), 1–26.
13. T. Todd, ‘Anabolic Steroids: The Gremlins of Sport’, Journal of Sport History, XIV (1987), 87–107.
14. J. Todd and T. Todd, ‘Significant Events in the History of Drug Testing and the Olympic Movement: 1960–1999’, in W. Wilson and E. Derse (eds.), Doping in Elite Sport: The Politics of Drugs in the Olympic Movement (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers, 2001).
15. Wilson and Derse, ‘Introduction’, Doping in Elite Sport.
16. A. Porritt, ‘Report on a Proposed Scientific Congress Regarding Medical Sporting Questions’, presented at the session of the IOC in St Moritz, Jan. 1948, Historical Archives of the International Olympic Committee, Olympic Studies Centre, Lausanne, Switzerland (hereafter cited as OSC Archives).
17. O. Mayer, Lausanne, to A. Brundage, Chicago, 18 Sept. 1952; O. Johansen (ed.), Sport and Health: International Conference on Sport and Health in Connection with the VI Olympic Winter Games, Oslo, 25–26th February 1952 (Oslo: The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Education, 1952), OSC Archives. Otto Mayer was Chancellor of the IOC during much of Brundage's tenure. He ran the day-to-day operations of the organization from Lausanne while Brundage was in the United States.
18. ‘Medical and Hygiene Services’, The Games of the XVII Olympiad Rome 1960, Volume 1 (Rome: Organizing Committee of the Games of the XVII Olympiad, 1960), 621–640, OSC Archives.
19. ‘International Congress of Sport Sciences’, The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964, Volume 1 (Tokyo: Organizing Committee of the Games of the XVIII Olympiad), 102–103, OSC Archives.
20. J. Wolffe, Valley Forge, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 30 Dec. 1964, OSC Archives.
21. Ibid.
22. A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 26 Feb. 1963, OSC Archives.
23. R. Bannister, ‘The Punishment of a Long Distance Runner’, New York Times Magazine, 18 Sept. 1966, 78.
24. A. Guttmann, Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
25. ‘Replies to the Questionnaire to be Answered in Presenting Buenos Aires as Site for the XIX Olympic Games 1968’, Buenos Aires Aspira a Los Juegos Olimpicos De 1968, OSC Archives.
26. Buenos Aires Aspira a Los Juegos Olimpicos De 1968; Detroit 1968, An Invitation to the International Olympic Committee to Celebrate the XIX Olympiad at Detroit, Michigan, USA; Mexico, Demade-Requests-Solicita, XIX Jeux Olympiques-Olympic Games-Juegos Olimpicos, 1963, OSC Archives. Lyons' ‘Bid Book’ has not been located by the author.
27. Minutes of the 60th Session of the International Olympic Committee, Baden-Baden, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 Oct. 1963, OSC Archives.
28. Mexico, Demade-Requests-Solicita.
29. A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 22 Nov. 1963, OSC Archives.
30. A. Brundage, Chicago, to E. Jonas [public relations person at the IOC], Lausanne, 13 Jan. 1965, OSC Archives.
31. A. Dirix, ‘The Problems of Altitude and Doping in Mexico’, Bulletin du Comitee International Olympique, No. 97 (Feb. 1967), 43–46, OSC Archives.
32. G. Mullegg and H. Montandon, ‘The Danish oarsmen who took part in the European Championships at Milan in 1950 [sic] were they drugged?’, Bulletin du Comité International Olympique No. 28 (July 1951), 25–26, OSC Archives.
33. ‘Is the oxygenation of athletes a form of “doping”’? Bulletin du Comité International Olympique No. 45 (April 1954), 24–25; H.H. Pius XII, ‘What other People Say… Let us condemn the practice of Doping’, Bulletin du Comité International Olympique No. 53 (Feb. 1956), 65, OSC Archives.
34. P. Sheil, ‘Five Ring Circus: The Twisted Tale of Stella Walsh’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 Sept. 2000. Accessed 17 May 2001, available online at ⟨http://www.abc.net.au/olympics/s177264.htm⟩. In order to understand the creation of doping and sex testing, it is important to note that communication among IOC members in the 1960s was a fairly cumbersome process compared to today's instant messaging society. Executive Board meetings were held every six months to a year, or as necessary. Full IOC meetings were basically an annual affair, except during Olympic years. If there was an emergency, telegrams were sent. For regular communication, ‘Circular Letters’ were the major mode of information dissemination. One certainly could fault the IOC for taking so long to deal with these issues. However, 40 years ago the IOC was a different organization without the money or the technology available to it today.
35. M.T. Eyquem, ‘Women Sports and the Olympic Games’, Bulletin du Comité International Olympique No. 73 (Feb. 1961), 48–50.
36. Minutes of the 56th Session of the International Olympic Committee, San Francisco, 15 and 16 Feb. 1960, OSC Archives.
37. Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Rome, 10 Sept. 1960, OSC Archives.
38. A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 10 Nov. 1960, OSC Archives.
39. A. Brundage, Chicago, to Members of the International Olympic Committee [Circular Letter to Members of the International Olympic Committee], 17 Nov. 1960, Ref. No. 167; A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 9 Jan. 1961, OSC Archives.
40. Minutes of the 58th Session of the International Olympic Committee, Athens, 19 and 20 June 1961, OSC Archives.
41. A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 8 Jan. 1962, OSC Archives.
42. Minutes of the 59th Session of the International Olympic Committee, Moscow, 5, 6, 7 and 8 June 1962, OSC Archives.
43. O. Mayer, Lausanne, to A. Brundage, Chicago, 17 Sept. 1962; A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 24 Sept. 1962, OSC Archives.
44. J. Ferreira-Santos and M. Pini, ‘Doping’, Bulletin du Comité International Olympique No. 81 (Feb. 1963), 56–57, OSC Archives.
45. A. Brundage, Chicago, to O. Mayer, Lausanne, 26 Feb. 1963, OSC Archives.
46. G. La Cava, ‘The Use of Drugs in Competitive Sport’, Bulletin du Comite International Olympique No. 78 (May 1962), 52–53, OSC Archives.
47. Minutes of the 61st Session of the International Olympic Committee, Innsbruck, 26, 27 and 28 Jan. 1964, OSC Archives.
48. Minutes of the 62nd Session of the International Olympic Committee, Tokyo, 7, 8 and 9 Oct. 1964, OSC Archives.
49. Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Tokyo, 16 Oct. 1964, OSC Archives.
50. Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Lausanne, 11, 12 and 13 April 1965; ‘Doping’, Bulletin du Comité International Olympique No. 90 (Aug. 1965), 47–50, OSC Archives.
51. Minutes of the 56th Session of the International Olympic Committee, San Francisco 15 and 16 Feb. 1960; Minutes of the 62nd Session of the International Olympic Committee, Tokyo, 7, 8 and 9 Oct. 1964, OSC Archives.
52. Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Paris, 9 and 10 July 1965; Minutes of the 63rd Session of the International Olympic Committee, Madrid 6, 7 and 8 Oct. 1965, OSC Archives.
53. Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Mexico City, 22 Oct. 1966, OSC Archives.
54. A. Porritt, to IOC Members, International Federations and National Olympic Committees [Circular Letter], 3 March 1966, OSC Archives.
55. J.W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, to A. Brundage, Chicago, 12 Sept. 1966, OSC Archives.
56. Ibid.
57. J.W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, to A. Porritt, 7 March 1967, OSC Archives.
58. A. Porritt, to J.W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, 13 March 1967, OSC Archives.
59. J.W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, to the Members of the Medical Commission of the IOC, 11 Aug. 1967, OSC Archives.
60. Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Medical Commission, Lausanne, 26 and 27 Sept. 1967, OSC Archives.
61. Agenda of the Meeting of the IOC Medical Commission, Lausanne, 20 Dec. 1967, OSC Archives.
62. D. Burghley, Stamford, to A. Brundage, Chicago, 30 Dec. 1967; D. Burghley, Stamford, to J. W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, 10 Jan. 1967, OSC Archives.
63. D.T.P. Pain, London, to J.W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, 14 Dec. 1967, OSC Archives.
64. D. Burghley, Stamford, to A. Brundage, Chicago, 30 Dec. 1967, OSC Archives.
65. ‘Polish Sprinter Fails Sex Test, Out of Meet’, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sept. 1967, pt. 2, p.1.
66. M. Berlioux, ‘Feminity’, Lettre d' Information, Décembre, 1967, No.3, 1–2, OSC Archives.
67. Ibid.
68. ‘Sex Test Inconclusive’, Science News, XCIV (28 Sept. 1968), 312.
69. Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Mexico City, 22 Oct. 1966, OSC Archives.
70. Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Medical Commission, Lausanne, 20 Dec. 1967; Minutes of the Meetings of the IOC Executive Board, Lausanne 26 and 27 Jan. 1968 and Grenoble 29, 30 and 31 Jan. 1968, OSC Archives.
71. ‘General Report by Dr. Eduardo Hay’, Medical Commission of the IOC, Oct. 1968, OSC Archives.
72. Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Medical Commission, Lausanne, 20 Dec. 1967, OSC Archives.
73. ‘Liste de concorrentes ayant satisfait au controle de feminite’, Medical Commission of the IOC, Grenoble Games, 1968, OSC Archives.
74. ‘Press Release’, Controle de Sexe, Doping 1967–68, Jeux d'Hiver 1968 Grenoble, OSC Archives.
75. G. La Cava, ‘Report on the Activity of the Medical Commission of the CIO at the Winter Games of Grenoble’, Medical Commission of the IOC, 4 April 1968, OSC Archives.
76. A. Brundage, Chicago, to J.W. Westerhoff, Lausanne, 11 Jan. 1968, OSC Archives.
77. A. Brundage, Lausanne, to International Federations, National Olympic Committees, International Olympic Committee [Circular Letter], 27 Aug. 1968, OSC Archives.
78. ‘The IOC and Medical Problems’, IOC Bulletin Newsletter, No. 11 (Aug. 1968), 355, OSC Archives.
79. A. Brundage, Chicago, to J. Clark, Mexico City, 9 Aug. 1968, OSC Archives.
80. A. de Merode, Rome, to the Members of the Executive Board, the Members of the IOC, the Members of the Medical Commission [Circular Letter], 10 Sept. 1968, OSC Archives.
81. G. La Cava, ‘Report on the Activity of the Medical Commission’, OSC Archives.
82. E. Hay, ‘General Report’, Medical Commission of the IOC, Oct. 1968; A. Brundage, Chicago, to A. de Merode, Bruxelles, 14 Sept. 1968, OSC Archives.
83. Minutes of the Medical Commission of the International Olympic Committee, Lausanne 25 and 26 January 1969, OSC Archives.
84. Ibid.
85. A. Brundage, Chicago, to A. de Merode, Bruxelles, 16 Sept. 1968, OSC Archives.
86. A. Brundage, Chicago, to M. Berlioux, Lausanne, 7 July 1969; M. Berlioux, Lausanne, to A. Brundage, Chicago, 11 July 1969, OSC Archives.
87. A. Brundage, Chicago, to A. de Merode, Bruxelles, 12 Aug. 1969; A. Brundage, Chicago, to A. Takac, Lausanne, 12 Aug. 1969, OSC Archives.
88. A. Brundage, Chicago, to M. Killanin, Dublin, 29 Aug. 1969, OSC Archives.
89. A. Brundage, Chicago, to A. Takac, Lausanne, 8 April 1971, OSC Archives.
90. M. Killanin, Dublin, to A. de Merode, Bruxelles, 12 Oct. 1972, OSC Archives. I was unable to find a response in the archives as those letters are still embargoed.
91. J. Longman, ‘Pushing the Limits: Getting the Athletic Edge May Mean Altering Genes’, New York Times, 11 May 2001.
92. ‘WADA History’, World Anti-Doping Agency (no date). Accessed 5 Dec. 2003, available online at ⟨http://www.wada-ama.org/en/t2.asp?p=30408⟩.
93. A. Carlson, ‘When is a Woman Not a Woman’? Women's Sports and Fitness, XIII (1991), 24–9.
94. D. Grady, ‘Sex Test of Champions: Gender Testing of Female Olympic Athletes’, Discover, XIII (1992), 78–82.
95. B.D. Dickinson, M. Genel, C.B. Robinowitz, P.L. Turner, and G.L. Woods, ‘Gender Verification of Female Olympic Athletes’, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, XXXIV (2002), 1539–1542; J.C. Puffer, ‘Commentary to Accompany Gender Verification of Female Olympic Athletes’, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, XXXIV (2002), 1543.
96. Dr Patrick Schamasch, Director, Office of the IOC Medical Commission, interview by author, 17 Aug. 1999.
97. See, for example, R.K. Barney, S.R. Wenn, and S.G. Martyn, Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism (Salt Lake City, UT: The University of Utah Press, 2002).