Gene-talk and sport-talk: A view from the radical middle ground

Abstract

In this paper, we explore and reflect critically on what elite sport may expect or fear from genetic technologies. In particular, we explore the language in which we (where ‘‘we’’ denotes scientists, sports scientists, the media, sports coaches, academics) tend to speak about genetics, elite sport, and the human body – we call this language ‘‘gene-talk’’ – which imagines the world of elite sport as one in which genes were always dominant in athletic performance. The dominant question here seems to be whether what is thought to be possible ought to be, and can be realized. We unpack the question by asking whether the practices needed for genetics to intervene so powerfully in elite sport exist in the straightforward and uncomplicated manner that the ‘‘gene-talk’’ literature seems to suggest. We argue that there is a lack of relevant studies to support and analyse the notion of sports performance as an immensely rich and complex practice.We conclude that elite sport may be more complex and heterogeneous than ‘‘gene-talk’’ has imagined to date.

Notes

¹The reasons for our focus on elite sport only are two-fold. First, high-profile elite sportspeople enjoy such extensive coverage in the media that their influence in society generally has become the topic of both popular and academic debate. A second, and related point, is that much of what goes on in elite sports eventually filters “down” into amateur sports (e.g. drug taking; new techniques such as the double-handed drive volley in tennis; fashion such as lycra running shorts in athletics) rather than “up” into elite sport.

²For the classical notion that laboratory knowledge is not applicable just like that in the “outside world”, but needs to be translated and matched, see Latour and Woolgar (1987) and Latour (1988).

³The view that we are “post” or “trans” human if we have transgressed the boundaries between animals, humans, and machines with, for example, an electronic pacemaker, an artificial limb or an implanted corneal lense.

⁴Data come from ethnographic fieldwork performed by one of us (Bernike Pasveer) among Dutch professional speedskaters in 2003.

⁵With klapskates, the skate disconnects from a skater's boot. A hinge beneath the ball of the foot between the shoe and the blade allows the foot to rotate while the blade remains gliding on the ice. This way, the skater stays in contact with the ice longer than with traditional skates. It allows plantar flexion of the foot at the end of the push-off (van Hilvoorde, Vos and De Wert, in press). It is held that those who learned to skate on klapskates have embodied the technique in a more natural manner than those who started to skate on them midway through their career (fieldnotes of Bernike Pasveer).

⁶Meier (1985), for example, suggests there are some sports – in particular the 100 m – where athletes are able to neutralize or negate deliberately, distracting or restrictive human characteristics or qualities. Loland (2001, p. 130) claims that since “record sports” are highly specialized – in particular the 100 m – they are the kinds of sports where “the potential for improvement is reduced to one or a few basic human qualities”.