Abstract
This article examines the trend toward risk-based, preemptive social control as it has developed in anti-doping regulation in professional cycling. Specifically, this research considers how the regulatory technologies of anti-doping surveillance have become a core component of the everyday routines of professional cyclists. Drawing from interviews with professional cyclists and analysis of mediated representations of anti-doping, we find that surveillance and disclosure have become not simply routine, but a central orienting practice in the everyday lives of professional cyclists. Blended into the everyday routines, surveillance technologies extend the gaze of those who watch and increase pressures to disclose. As athletes internalize surveillance and disclosure as consistent with their professional norms, the power relationships that surround sport performance become increasingly difficult to discern.
Keywords
Introduction
The public announcement of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Reasoned Decision regarding Lance Armstrong and the subsequent confessions of other high-profile riders not only exposed publically the depth and breadth of performance enhancing drug (PED) use within cycling but also the failure of anti-doping governance to curb drug use. Largely lost in the public discourse was recognition of a particular form of anti-doping surveillance that had been key in convicting Armstrong. Introduced by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 2008, the Athletes’ Biological Passport (ABP) collects and monitors athletes’ longitudinal biological and situational information. Anecdotal and indirect evidence of PED use collected by the ABP can trigger a doping violation or additional scrutiny despite not testing positive for a banned substance. The biological data collected from Armstrong raised suspicion, which under the ABP demanded additional scrutiny of other non-biological evidence. Currently, operating in most Olympic sports, the ABP signals a fundamental shift in anti-doping strategy from ex post facto testing toward precaution and preemption. Despite the significant increase in the cost and level of surveillance demanded by the ABP, there appeared to be little public consternation or resistance to the ABP from riders and sport officials, most of whom publically embraced the Blood Passport as a logical and significant step in anti-doping governance (“Franco Pellizotti Found Guilty of Doping,” 2011). Although some have investigated the legal (Amos & Fridman, 2009; Henne, 2010; Kayser, Mauron, & Miah, 2007), privacy (Halt, 2009; MacGregor, Griffith, Ruggiu, & McNamee, 2013), and ethical implications (Kayser & Broers, 2013; Loland & Hoppeler, 2012; McNamee, 2012; Møller, 2009) of the ABP, few have considered how this form of surveillance has become a core component of the everyday routines of professional cyclists.
In modern society, cycling like other professional sports is an occupation, complete with its own norms, values, and standards of practice (see Hughes & Coakley, 1991; Ohl, Fincoeur, Lentillon-Kaestner, Defrance, & Brissonneau, 2013; Thompson, 2008). Performance-enhancing drug use can be regarded as a kind of occupational deviance, and the systems for managing potential “dopers” have implications for control of workplaces generally. The ABP, then, is usefully understood as a form of workplace monitoring to discipline and condition the parameters of the sport. The ABP is far more than a test to ferret out doping as a form of occupational crime. Indeed, we contend that testing and overall surveillance have become fully aligned with good cycling practice and integrated into the professional identities of cyclists, proof positive that they are at the top of their game.
In sport, prohibition against PED use is traditionally justified though notions of fair play, or a “level playing field,” and bodily purity (see Møller, 2009). In sponsor-driven sports such as cycling, PED use also risks losing fans and sponsorship dollars that are believed to accompany PED use scandals. Although post-crime responses such as punishment for positive tests continue to play a major role in anti-doping’s response to these risks, an increased emphasis on preventive efforts including precaution, preemption, and protection now occupy a larger role in the anti-doping regime. This includes an assemblage of surveillance (Haggerty & Ericson, 2000) and social monitoring techniques that aim to preempt PED use by collecting and cataloguing considerable biological and behavioral data from a wide swath of athletes. Anti-doping also responds to perceptions of risk through the use of target hardening approaches, including more sophisticated testing and collaboration with pharmaceutical manufactures and federal and international law enforcement agencies (Owen, 2014). When testing for PED use becomes synonymous with racing clean, as it has for many cyclists, sport governance takes on a preemptive turn. Most importantly, for our work, collectively these anti-doping responses result in athletes internalizing and adopting a precautionary logic toward their consumption and behaviors.
Much work examines the technologies used from the perspective of the governing institutions; that is, how institutions use surveillance technologies to both govern and manage risk in diverse areas from school to work, from malls to national borders, and even elite athletes (Henne & Troshynski, 2013; Marx, 2005; McCahill & Finn, 2014; Staples, 2013). As a regulatory tactic, the use of preemptory surveillance technologies has produced significant consequences including the creation of an “exceptional” class of people wherein risk and responsibility is shifted onto individuals (Ericson & Doyle, 2003; Lyon, 2001, 2007; Stenson, 2001). As a risk object, the athlete is expected to heed warnings, be vigilant, and suspicious of all products. He is solely responsible for the results of his consumption, location, and associations. The use of preemptive surveillance technologies also creates new offenses while expanding the number of violations that fall under the at-risk group (see Ericson & Haggerty, 2006). For example, failure to report on your expected “whereabouts”—in essence, improperly completed paperwork—can now result in punishment traditionally reserved for a positive drug test.
Although critical examination of surveillance as a governing practice has yielded significant insights, our article seeks to extend these analyses by focusing on the athletes’ experiences managing those systems of surveillance that govern their professional lives. We ask, in what ways does surveillance become integrated into riders’ everyday lives? As well, how can the contemporary form of athlete surveillance inform larger questions regarding sport regulation and governance? To answer these question, we adopt the logic of institutional ethnography, which enables us to map the “ruling relations” (Smith, 1999) that organize and coordinate the everyday activities of cyclists. Drawing from interviews with professional cyclists and analysis of mediated representations of anti-doping, we create a day-in-the-life portrait of a “typical” professional cyclist and how he orients his everyday routines to the expectations and demands of sport surveillance. Focusing on how athletes “do” surveillance offers an opportunity to better understand the success or failure of preemptory strategies. We are able to show that from the perspective of riders, technologies such as the Athlete’s Blood Passport (an arguably invasive form of surveillance) become banal, or at least uncontested, as they are assembled and performed to create an identity of a true professional. As surveillance becomes enmeshed into daily routines, it is “taken for granted,” invisible, and neutered of its moral content.
Surveillance in the Everyday
Building on the general insights of Foucault (1971, 1977), many have argued that surveillance has become the dominant organizing practice of late modernity (see Haggerty & Ericson, 2006; Haggerty & Samatas, 2010; Lyon, 2007). The growth of administrative power (Lyon, 2001) and the rise of new and emerging technologies including social media and other forms of self-disclosure that track and collect massive amounts of data about all of us require re-examination of traditional panoptic approaches to understanding and theorizing surveillance (see Haggerty & Ericson, 2006). The gaze now comes from all directions; agents of surveillance now include the self, peers, private regulators, as well as the state. Surveillance is not only more dispersed, it has become deeper and more powerful as it is integrated into the everyday (Staples, 2013). More and more, the micro-techniques of surveillance and social monitoring are embedded in routine organizational practice and exercised locally and automatically. They are powerful not only “because they are intended to entice, cajole, prod, discipline or outright force people into behaving in ways that have been deemed appropriate, normal, beneficial, productive of lawful” (Staples, 2013, p. 3) but also because they can weaken or strengthen traditional borders of all kinds and create new borders of inclusion and exclusion (Marx, 2005).
New forms of surveillance function to expand the number of possibilities for “risk” and who can become an “at risk” population. Following the actuarial logic of contemporary punishment (Garland, 1997; Simon, 1988) many have argued that modern forms of surveillance also function to render particular populations thinkable, measurable, and governable (Rose, 2000; Stenson, 2001). Accomplished via statistical algorithms and data management tools to determine and predict behaviors, those fitting the profile are assumed guilty without committing an offense. However, in their newer, postmodern form, these practices act upon not only traditional “risk” populations such as the drug user and the deviant but also exist in many aspects of modern life such as in the use of bodily screenings to determine employment and insurance, travel (McGuire & McGuire, 2012), cameras to monitor children, GPS monitoring of delivery trucks, Google Wallet to track purchases, and much more. With new forms of surveillance, the very concept of being “at risk” once reserved for particular populations and behaviors now extends to the whole (Barnard-Wills & Wells, 2012).
As watching has become so much a part of our everyday routines, disclosure takes on added importance. Indeed, technologies for extending the gaze of those who watch are easily matched by the opportunities to disclose and hide information. Individuals attempt to manage what is known about them. They may seek to “get in front” of the watchers by disclosing more or, in an effort to resist, find new opportunities to hide. In the world of new social media, reputations are made and unmade through selective disclosure (see the discussion of how fallen stars in sport use story-telling to manage their deviance in Yar, 2014, as well as Sefiha & Reichman, 2014). Surveillance can be experienced as fun, liberating, and even empowering when individuals expose their private lives (McCahill & Finn, 2014, p. 178).
Surveillance and Anti-Doping
The surveillance we analyze here is anchored in the anti-doping policies (WADA Code) promulgated by the WADA. Established after the first World Conference on Doping in Sport in 1999 and guided by general principles about the “spirit of sport,” defined as “the celebration of the human spirit, body and mind” (WADA.org), 1 WADA “coordinates” and “monitors” the global fight against doping in sport by promulgating model rules for the international federations, major event organizers, National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs), and national Olympic committees. Implementation remains largely in the hands of NADOs, typically part of a national Olympic committee such as the U.S. Doping Agency (USADA) and sport-specific governing bodies such as the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), which licenses athletes and governs the conditions of sport, including equipment, race length, rider contracts and salaries, and drug testing (Nafziger, 2011). Indeed, as part of its stated goal “to get rid of cheats (doping detection) and dissuade riders from resorting to doping (through education, communication, firm sanctions, biological passport),” the UCI has adopted WADA’s anti-doping rules as “part of the competition rules, i.e. sports rules governing the conditions under which sport is played” (http://www.uci.ch/clean-sport).
Historically, doping control involved in-competition testing and occasional law enforcement assistance. Competition results and prize money were rarely forfeited when tests revealed that an athlete’s performance was compromised. Punishments were extended only to those athletes and administrators breaking the rules. The introduction of the ABP and Athletes’ Whereabouts system fundamentally shifted the anti-doping gaze from ex post facto testing toward precaution and preemption. “[If] doping cannot be proven in a drug test, then the objective of the Athlete Biological Passport is to monitor and identify possible doping in order to intelligently target an athlete for traditional doping controls” (“World Anti-Doping Agency,” 2014, p. 10). A cyclist can be found “guilty” of a doping violation based solely on inferences drawn from fluctuations observed in blood tests administered over time. The Whereabouts system supplements testing. It requires athletes to make quarterly reports on their “whereabouts,” including where the athlete lives, works, trains, travels, and so on and to specify a 60-min time slot between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. every day, 7 days a week, when they are available for testing. A “whereabouts failure” occurs if athletes are not where they say they will be in that time slot. Athletes are allowed two of these failures in an 18-month period; a third failure counts as a doping violation. (See Halt, 2009, for an in-depth discussion of privacy implications of this rule.)
The anti-doping shift from a system of reaction to precaution is observable not only in policies and agreements but also in the cultural and symbolic representations of sport governance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the symbolic meanings associated with the emerging “clean cycling” movement. In recent years, the term has been deployed by anti-doping institutions, sponsors, riders’ union, and teams as a rhetorical device designed to symbolically align themselves with general anti-doping efforts (see Sefiha & Reichman, 2014). The precautionary logic of clean cycling is manifest in calls for continuous disclosure and transparency of athletes’ bodies and activities as well as faith in the ABP as a “preventative” testing mechanism.
In some cases, athletes subjected to anti-doping policies projected suspicions outward, often onto fellow competitors and the anti-doping programs operated by other countries (see Henne, 2014; Overbye & Wagner, 2014). Although many athletes feared false positives and viewed their experience with anti-doping as time-consuming and a violation of privacy (see Dunn, Thomas, Swift, Burns, & Mattick, 2010; Elbe & Overbye, 2014; Sefiha & Reichman, 2014), the vast majority accepted the existing regulation, viewing it as justified in light of the history of “drug problems” in sports (Hanstad & Loland, 2009). It is important to note that many of the studies referred to above used surveys of elite athletes, some of whom had not directly experienced all aspects of the Whereabouts system. Nevertheless, these findings indicate that while not wholeheartedly embracing all aspects of current testing regulations, athletes have largely internalized the notion of testing as a component of what it means to be an athlete. In their study of two “risk” groups subject to participatory surveillance, elite athletes and paroled sex offenders, Henne and Troshynski (2013) found that the surveillance they experience profoundly shapes their self-identity. Both groups internalized the view of themselves and others as suspect subjects and generally accepted their governance. Henne (2014) argued that anti-doping surveillance joins with the institutions of law and medicine to instill in athletes a form of “responsibilized citizenship” by which testing becomes a core component of contemporary athlete identity. Her findings remind us that anti-doping surveillance should be viewed as far more than simply frequent testing; rather, we see that anti-doping compliance orients athletes’ daily lives and reflects who is, and is not, a responsible athlete citizen.
Although these and other studies extend our understanding of the surveillant assemblage in sport, what is lacking is a fine-grained analysis and understanding of the ways that sport surveillance informs and orients the everyday lives of athletes on and off “the field.” Unlike previous cycling generations that viewed PED use as a near requirement and testing as a privacy violation (see Thompson, 2008), the new preemptory, participatory surveillance at all levels has become a major component of cycling’s occupational culture.
Method
Since its introduction in late 2008, the ABP and Athletes Whereabouts system have received considerable attention as researchers have examined its implications for privacy rights (Halt, 2009), governance and regulation (Hardie, 2011; Sluggett, 2011; Warren, Palmer, & Whelan, 2014; Warren & Zurawski, 2014), individual affect and self-surveillance (Henne, 2014; Henne & Troshynski, 2013), and as a site for potential for resistance (Teetzel & Weaving, 2014). Our interest lies in extending this research by making sense of the everyday experiences of those subject to the system. How do these technologies map onto the everyday lives of those subjected to them? How do athletes make sense of them? Is surveillance necessary or problematic? Most importantly, we asked these questions after the USADA Reasoned Decision, arguably a time of “spoiled identity” (Goffman, 1963) for the sport as a whole.
To most effectively answer these questions, we interviewed 15 professional riders, performed a content analysis of media regarding PED use, and observed races and numerous cycling events to create a composite picture of a “typical” professional cyclist and how he orients his everyday routines to the expectations and demands of sport surveillance. To be clear, the “day-in-the-life” narrative of our composite cyclist was constructed from the reoccurring themes and concepts that emerged from our data. As the totality of surveillance in riders’ everyday lives was a core theme emerging from the data, we determined that presenting a composite “day-in-the-life” narrative most effectively conveyed not only the totality of surveillance experienced by riders but also the ways in which surveillance becomes a key orienting principle of riders’ daily routines. Our narrative approach should not be read as an exact record of the daily lives of all professional cyclists. Not all cyclists will experience the exact same daily routine. Still, our day-in-the-life approach that compresses the surveillance experienced by our composite rider into a single day reflects that riders certainly can experience each of the events on any given day, a fact that underscores the totality of surveillance.
Over a 2½-year period, 15 tape-recorded, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with current professional riders. Because existing friendship networks and snowball sampling were used to increase the pool of interviewees, we recognize that this approach may have produced uncharacteristically homogeneous responses. The revelations of drug use by Armstrong and other high-profile athletes coupled with the sensational tenor of media coverage has contributed to a current climate that makes open and frank discussion of drugs in sport challenging. Given this situation, it is understandable that some professional cyclists would be reluctant to speak openly. Thus, we focused primarily on lesser known domestic professionals, racing primarily in the United States, who were not as much in the media spotlight but nonetheless under the shadow of the USADA Reasoned Decision. Interviewees ranged from young riders to veterans. Interviews lasted between 45 min and 1½ hr. Efforts were made to ensure that informed consent was freely given with verbal assurances by researchers of confidentiality. Each interviewee provided verbal and written consent to be interviewed and tape recorded. Notes were taken during the interviews. Although interview questions were intentionally open-ended, several core questions regarding the current state of PED use in cycling, their understandings and explanations of “clean cycling,” and their experiences with anti-doping regulation were asked of all participants. This approach provided flexibility to pursue emerging issues and themes as the interviews progressed (see Fontana & Frey, 1994).
Across a range of topics, analysis of media products consistently reveals that the framing of accounts tends to legitimate and reinforce the status quo while making alternate constructions of reality challenging (see Altheide, 2002; Cavender, 2004). Beginning from an orientation that views the ability to define a situation as a significant act of power, we analyzed media coverage of the term “clean cycling” to understand how and by whom the term was used. In a related article (Sefiha & Reichman, 2014), we highlight how the very term “clean cycling” remains inchoate, one that institutional actors struggle to define and take ownership of. Media accounts play a significant role in the definition of clean cycling.
We analyzed articles from a range of international print and Internet sources, including the New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde and major cycling-related websites including cyclingnews.com and velonews.com. These news sources were chosen because of their frequent and consistent coverage of PED use in sport. Our online searches included foreign-language articles that were translated using Google Translate. Given the limited online translation services, the majority of the articles analyzed were in English.
“Clean cycling” was our keyword search. To analyze media products, we used what Altheide (2002) termed “tracking discourse,” which involves following certain issues, words, themes, and frames over time, across different media sources (p. 34), with the goal of understanding the themes and discourses that surround (in our case) “clean cycling.” We began our search with articles published on January 1, 2008, the year that Garmin-Slipstream became a top international team and ushered “clean cycling” into common parlance, and ended on December 31, 2013. We also reviewed the depositions from USADA’s Reasoned Decision (2013). We narrowed our analysis to articles containing riders’ quotes and eliminated articles that simply updated or reprinted existing quotations. A total of 47 articles were analyzed. As articles were analyzed, brief thematic “codes” were created to further develop and refine these nascent categories, which were used as a means to situate subsequent analyses. This process allowed us to develop increasingly descriptive, analytical categories. We concluded our media-focused data collection when we reached saturation and no new categories or themes emerged. Although not a representative sample of the whole media coverage of clean cycling, our review provided us with a sufficient representation of the range of contemporary media narratives on the issue.
Active participants in cycling culture and racing for over a decade, the authors also drew from their experiences to both situate and inform the collection of data. During the course of 2½ years, the authors attended and participated in numerous cycling-related events, including acting as an anti-doping chaperone for national-level events, group rides, and team presentations during which detailed field notes consisting of personal observations as well as conversations with riders, team directors, sponsors, and sport organizers were taken. Our observations offered an additional layer of analysis facilitating not only new themes but also the opportunity to directly observe what many participants had discussed during interviews (Silk, Slack, & Amis, 2000). Although never complete, contextualizing oneself within, and against, larger cultural systems can make manifest and offer insight into these distinctions (Giddens, 1986).
The Everyday of Surveillance in Cycling
The following narrative describes how our composite professional cyclist engages with the systems designed to monitor his behavior. Detailing a “day-in-the-life” of our composite professional cyclist subject to anti-doping rules and regulations makes manifest how cyclists experience regulation and construct their own governance. Our narrative is drawn directly from our empirical data. We believe that the narrative structure presented below offers a most fruitful method for conveying the omnipresence of surveillance by illustrating how contemporary surveillance practices of cyclists have become embedded into a range of daily routines.
Our composite cyclist, named DR, is a member of a Continental team, one step removed from the top international teams that compromise the UCI World Tour. He demonstrated considerable promise as a junior cyclist and was chosen to join a development team while still in high school. Subsequently, he earned a professional contract with a Continental team allowing him to race full-time. As a typical North American professional rider, DR is in his early to mid-20s, comes from a middle to upper-middle-class family, and picked up cycling in his late teens. DR spent a few years as a university student, identifies as “White,” and does not view himself as a member of a marginalized group. As a professional, DR trains and competes up to 40 hr a week. His goal is to join one of the UCI World Tour teams next year, and he has been tapped to ride in a number of international races. Primarily, he will ride top domestic and a handful of international events. DR knows that despite having a professional contract, his status remains tenuous, highly dependent on his consistent performance, lack of positive drug test, and sponsors’ consistent funding. Riders on Continental teams are not typically subjected to the amount of testing and monitoring of the UCI World Tour teams.
Pre-Race
On waking, DR logs onto the WADA’s Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) website to complete his mandatory quarterly update of his “whereabouts” (see http://wada-ama.org/en/ADAMS/). DR submits his primary residential address, training locations, and dates and times of his training. Also, as required, DR specifies a specific 60-min time slot and location where he must be available daily for any unannounced testing, 365 days a year, even though, as he knows, testing can occur at any hour between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m., not only during the nominated hour. DR thinks that providing details of his plans even during the off-season seems a bit “over the top,” considering his status, yet he also recognizes that it is a badge of honor to be subject to the level of surveillance and an indication that he has “made it.” He recalls his early experiences with testing: I thought it was kind of cool. It shows you’re a pro. I felt like that last year that was the first year I was in the out-of-competition testing pool. So that was kind of cool. I got the e-mail. I was on the Tour of [cycle race] in the competition testing pool, I was like, that’s kind of cool. Now it’s just part of it [being a professional cyclist]. (Interview 3, interview on file with authors)
DR is excited to take advantage of an unplanned break in his race schedule to take a camping trip with friends and considers leaving some details out of his Whereabouts reporting. Not only will his team disapprove of his time off the bike, he will need to minimize the likelihood that he will be tested while away. Although DR thinks “random testing is good because it’s not random, you’re gonna get tested” (Interview 3, interview on file with authors), he also remembers his teammate telling him what he did when presented with a similar situation.
[I] told them [Whereabouts] where I was gonna be, and it was in a tent at 10,000 feet. How do you tell them where you’re gonna be when you’re camping? I have an orange and gray tent and I’m gonna be in the XYZ wilderness. This is my planned route . . . there you go. [laughs]. I basically gave them no chance to test me. Resource-wise, they’re not gonna come find me on a 10-day backpacking trip. There’s no way they can do that. And I could tell them I’m gonna be there, knowing full well that—say I wanted to go to Mexico. I would tell them I’m gonna be in a beautiful mountain range for 10 days. I could do that. (Interview 1, Interview on file with authors)
DR knows that providing testers with relatively inaccessible locations too often will raise red flags and trigger additional scrutiny. Still, judicious use may allow DR to fly “under the radar” of the Whereabouts surveillance for a few days. DR is also careful to refrain from posting evidence of his trip on social media. Although DR believes in full transparency via the Whereabouts system, like many young people, he occasionally skirts the formal rules to do what he wants.
After reviewing his tentative race schedule, he lists the competition locations, dates, and accommodation details. However, worried that he does not have the correct details, DR sends a text message to his team director to confirm. He has it right this time, but given the peripatetic nature of the sport, updates and rescheduling have required numerous texts and voicemails in the past. His attention to detail is critical. DR knows that he can be sanctioned for improperly completing his passport (filing failure) or missing a test, regardless of the test outcomes. Three missed tests and/or filing failures within an 18-month period is an anti-doping rule violation that typically results in sanction of 1 to 2 years depending on the circumstances of the case (WADA.org).
Thirty minutes later, he is done. With some annoyance, DR notes that all this “paperwork” has cut into his training time. However, on further reflection, he recognizes that [t]he blood passport is good. The whereabouts system is good as long as you’re continuously getting tested. If there are people cheating, they know they can’t do it at a race, because there’s a lot of controls. So if people are cheating, they are doing it at home. That when’s the testing needs to happen, and [with the current system] that’s what’s happening. (Interview 11, interview on file with authors)
Satisfied that he has finished entering the relevant information into the WADA database, DR turns to his breakfast options. Settling on pancakes, he reflexively scans the ingredients list on the pancake mix, which to his dismay contains a number of unknown substances that DR fears may trigger a positive test. The concern of an inadvertent positive test is echoed by nearly all of the riders we spoke with and is consistently reflected in the sport literature (see Elbe & Overbye, 2014; Lentillon-Kaestner, 2013; Lentillon-Kaestner & Carstairs, 2010). Knowing that athletes are solely responsible for what they consume and inadvertent use is not a defense within WADA’s strict scrutiny standard (see Amos & Fridman, 2009), he consults the WADA mobile app. He does not see any of the ingredients he was concerned with listed there. DR remembers when he was racing out of the country the challenges he faced with reading ingredient lists. He remembers often worrying that he had inadvertently consumed a banned substance.
Next, he examines his supplements. Because there is little regulatory oversight of the supplement industry, his team requires that riders take only those vitamins, supplements, and pain relievers provided directly from the team doctors. The bottle provided by his team is empty, and he looks in the plastic bag he used when he last traveled to see if any are there. Like some of his fellow riders, he was forced to procure his own vitamins and supplements during a periods of increased travel. He thinks, “I still have this apprehension every time I give a sample, where I’m like, ‘What if one of my supplements got contaminated? What if one of a million things happened that are beyond my control?’” (Interview 14, interview on file with authors). Despite knowing that he will be responsible for any positive test that may come from these supplements, he decides to consume them anyway and hope for the best.
While waiting for the team to pick him up, the DR checks his email inbox to confirm that his team will be competing in next month’s big race. Although he has never received a Passport violation or a positive test, he knows that race organizers and the sport’s governing body, the UCI, have “disinvited” teams to races based on less than objective criteria such as associations with particular doctors, managers, coaches, or teams. He has just read that the new 2015 UCI rules “are more emphatic in stating that any association by riders with a banned individual ‘in a professional or sport-related capacity’ can result in an ADRV [Anti-doping Rule Violation]” (cyclingnews.com, 2015). The article is a daily reminder that he must monitor not only what he ingests but also his personal and professional relationships as well.
Race Time
While in route to the race, DR monitors his phone for a possible unannounced test while hoping that he correctly entered into his Whereabouts the correct location of the race. On arriving at the race, he signs in with the race officials and completes a waiver of liability as well as consent to possible drug testing before or after the event. These forms must be signed to compete.
Although he hopes to be one of today’s top three finishers, DR feels that it is not necessary to actually reach the podium to be a winner. He takes to heart what top international rider Dan Martin said in an interview.
That’s one of the reasons I signed for Slipstream Sports, which is now Garmin-Sharp [, he says]. It fitted my philosophy on cycling; that you can do it clean and you can perform to your best clean. It doesn’t matter if you’re not winning. The most important thing is that you’re trying to ride at your physical best in a correct manner. (http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/11/news/poster-boy-dan-martin-links-his-success-to-cleaner-sport_309006)
The Garmin-Sharp (formally Garmin-Slipstream) team re-affirmed the relationship between clean cycling and winning in its press release following the 2012 USA Pro Challenge race stating, We won the 2012 USA Pro Challenge, clean. But for Slipstream, it’s never been about winning. The real victory is showing the world that clean sport is a reality, and we are devoted to it.
As he prepares to race, DR activates on his phone an application that uses satellite technology to monitor the pace, distance, elevation, and miles he rides. DR is reminded of recent newspaper accounts of how the National Security Agency was collecting data by tracking phone calls and local law enforcement agencies were able to “ping” phones to locate potential “suspects” in real time (Curtis, 2014). He knows that warrants are not always required. Given WADA’s relationship with law enforcement in numerous countries, he wonders whether these data could ever be used against him. He shakes off that thought quickly, thinking “who would bother?”
Sadly, DR did not place in the race, but his teammate came in second. The UCI requires top finishers to provide urine samples, and DR notices that the UCI chaperone, recognizable by the badge she wears, is among the riders that are being interviewed by the local media. He overhears his teammate broadly confirming that he has raced clean. Nevertheless, DR knows that a chaperone must keep “eyes on” cyclists selected for testing even as they weave through the crowd, accepting congratulations from family and friends. Athletes selected for testing are expected to report to the doping control station as soon as possible and at the latest within 30 min of finishing the race. The length of time may be extended if the athlete needs medical attention, is expected at a medal ceremony, or needs extra time to obtain the necessary documents or an interpreter. Chaperones are expected to have eyes on the athlete throughout.
Even though DR did not finish in the top of the pack, he worries that he may be one of the randomly selected competitors subject to immediate testing and that the chaperone has failed to locate him. Failure to provide a requested sample can constitute a missed test and other sanctions. He hangs around the finish line for an additional 10 min just in case. The amount of post-event drug testing varies with the level of the event. At major international cycling events, generally the top three competitors are tested as are at least one “randomly” selected competitor.
DR moves on to lead a training ride with junior cyclists. He accepts his responsibility to act as a role model for the next generation of riders. He agrees with the North American rider Andrew Talansky that we have a responsibility to represent the new generation of American cycling, to represent clean cycling to the fans in the U.S., and to give them something to be excited about and believe in. It’s not so much pressure as it is excitement to be a part of that. (http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/07/news/new-generation-americans-taking-tour_334336)
Checking his watch, DR notes that he must return home quickly as the hourly testing window for making himself available to testers is rapidly approaching.
Home
Once at home, DR turns his attention to updating his social media accounts. In a sponsor-driven sport such as cycling, his online presence can be as important as athletic success for contract negotiations, and riders have been known to get hired and fired based on their online postings. Sponsors routinely monitor the activities of “their” athletes, using programs such as Google Analytics. Although social media can be an important marketing platform for sponsors, it can easily turn into a negative if the postings reveal less desirable behavior. DR remembers when local racers lost their sponsorship when members of the public complained to the sponsor that their riders were bullying cyclists on the recreational bike path. Online, DR thanks his sponsors, posts a brief review of the race, and assiduously tags himself in posted pictures from the event.
The near ubiquitous posting of race results and locations allows DR to monitor from afar the performance and locations of fellow competitors. A competitor’s recent series of race results arouses suspicion of PED use and reminds DR of earlier discussions with fellow riders in which many believed the competitor’s results were “impossible” without PEDs. This form of peer-to-peer surveillance has been observed among our interviewees and is also found in numerous “tell-all” books by confessed PED users.
DR follows a link to USACycling’s RaceClean website. He reads, It is everyone’s responsibility to fight for a clean sport . . . Our team welcomes the increased testing and we hope that this will help to ensure a fair and level playing field for competitive cyclists in America. Members and non-members alike can actively participate and show their commitment to clean competition by making a donation to the USA Cycling Race Clean fund HERE. (USA Cycling Announces ‘RACECLEAN™’ Program, 2013).
Proud of generating a clean performance, DR makes a donation to support monitoring athletes.
Before retiring for the night, a nagging thought regarding the potential for a positive test for unintended substances pushes him to check his email one more time. He is relieved to receive his negative test results from today’s event. For DR, a negative test is proof positive that testing works.
Discussion
The contemporary anti-doping regime provides an especially apposite site for exploring governance though risk and its effects on those subject to it. Our composite “day-in-the-life” sketch of a typical athlete subject to sport surveillance makes clear that anti-doping measures involve more than testing biological material in attempts to “catch” violators. Rather, anti-doping has emerged as a totalizing system for governing sport that recognizes the disciplined athlete as continually enacted through a network of systems of surveillance. This research shows that testing in all forms is much more than the biological artifact that it produces; rather, testing and surveillance become the primary way that athletes orient their daily lives. The athlete’s self-management of his surveillance has become aligned with good professional practice and is increasingly intertwined with disclosure to operate as a key form of identity management, while the taken-for-granted banality of surveillance masks its power. In this way, our athlete is located within a complex architecture of control that includes preemption, self-discipline, and occupational socialization. Contemporary sport surveillance with its embrace of a preemptive logic can offer timely insights into more general practices of risk-focused, preemptive control.
Surveillance and Disclosure as Professional Practice
As more and more groups in society become suspects, notions of guilt based on after-the-fact analysis of events shift to an assumption of guilt that then requires disproving through disclosure (see Zedner, 2007). For riders living in the “post-Armstrong” era, a time in which all riders are suspect, sporting success is no longer a sufficient condition for employment. Riders must now “get ahead” of any accusations of PED use. They must demonstrate that they are “clean” by not only participating in the ABP and Whereabouts but also promoting themselves as “clean riders,” a task that often involves publically supporting these surveillance programs. In this environment, providing a sample of bodily fluids is no longer seen as an invasion, but as a triumph.
As our narrative highlights, from waking to sleeping, cyclists are engaged in some form of surveillance. Throughout their day, pro cyclists “do” surveillance both as observed and as participatory subjects. Testing casts a long shadow as cyclists engage surveillance systems when doing ordinary tasks such as making breakfast. More specific sport-related tasks, such as turning on their training applications, expose cyclists to a host of additional possibilities for being watched. Characteristic of contemporary occupational risk, as the potential for being observed increases and more data are captured, so too does the risk of getting caught. As members of a generation that has grown up with social media, online disclosure has become not only a strategy for connecting with friends and fans but also a tracking system for sponsors and governance authorities.
As surveillance and disclosure become aligned with good cycling practice, the penetration of surveillance into everyday routines functions to normalize, if not legitimate, the concept of preemption. One’s status as an elite athlete justifies being monitored, irrespective of any a priori evidence of wrongdoing. Indeed, for many young professionals, surveillance often begins well before they acquire knowledge about or access to banned substances. Although drug testing is rare, athletes organize their everyday lives in anticipation of the test. We have seen that Continental professionals live as if they are to be tested at any moment. In this way, surveillance becomes more than an expected and routine activity as surveillance techniques radiate well beyond the particular moment of being watched to penetrate everyday routines. Much as an air traveler packs a suitcase in anticipation of airport security, cyclists anticipate a potential drug test when making breakfast, planning a vacation, and so on. A key difference is that while the traveler knows that her luggage and her in person will be subject to a search before boarding the plane, the search for which the cyclists prepares is indeterminate and relatively infrequent. However, in practice, this distinction makes little difference, as the responsible cyclist must prepare as if the search will occur at every opportunity.
In the span of a few years, the widespread adoption of these surveillance strategies underscores that preemption has become a core governing practice of professional cycling. Surveillance and disclosure is now good cycling practice as participation and publically supporting it becomes an occupational requirement. Our analysis illustrates and extends the point made by Zedner (2007) and others regarding the logic of preemption guiding contemporary governance practice. By exploring surveillance in contemporary cycling, we see that governance guided by a preemptive logic extends well beyond traditional crime control strategies to include occupational deviance and “work” styles.
Surveillance and Disclosure as Identity Management
Unlike other forms of intensive monitoring, surveillance in cycling is not only “put upon” subjects but also actively deployed by subjects for a range of goals and purposes. Whereas much surveillance of risk populations involves passive collection of data, the Whereabouts system is unique in the volume of self-disclosure information required. Likely reflective of athletes as a privileged risk population, their participation functions as a form of identity management, to mark one’s status as a professional cyclist of the top tier. Cyclists who identified as White and from middle- to upper-class backgrounds internalized much anti-doping regulation that acted to further push toward compliance among this demographic. Announcing one’s participation in the ABP and Whereabouts becomes evidence of responsibilized citizenship (Henne, 2014), a means for demonstrating physical and ethical skill, and a key measure for distinguishing one from less talented riders unworthy of such close scrutiny.
At the same time, engaging in surveillance also functions as a preemptive strategy to neutralize stigma associated with cyclists in the “post-Armstrong” age. When professional cyclists celebrate their engagement with surveillance, as when DR proudly announces that “winning is racing clean” and when cyclists post negative test results, they manage a collective “spoiled identity” (Goffman, 1963) and distinguish themselves from the former “Armstrong era,” at the same time justifying themselves as legitimate representatives of contemporary cycling.
Identity management can also involve resistance to surveillance technologies. Forms of minor resistance to the Whereabouts program, illustrated by DR’s lack of complete disclosure, underscore that new surveillance technologies can be simultaneously oppressive and liberating, for example, when DR’s friend omitted his impromptu vacation from his Whereabouts or by making his Whereabouts location particularly inaccessible to testers. This “double-edged sword,” or what Giddens (1986) termed the “dialectic of control” reminds us that the Whereabouts system is not foolproof. Indeed, gaming the system opens up a space for resistance against the Whereabouts’ demands for disclosure and transparency. Because the opportunities exist to subvert the Whereabouts surveillance system, to be effective, athletes’ must internalize the ethos of clean cycling.
Surveillance and Disclosure as Banal
In their examination of the social life of CCTV in contemporary Britain, Gold, Loader, and Thumala (2013) noted that once surveillance technologies cease to be noticed, their effects can be heightened. Once seen as banal, they can be placed beyond critical discussion and become inimical to both security and the quality of democratic governance. Our research demonstrates that the Blood Passport and Whereabouts system has become a taken for granted and largely uncontested part of the elite athletes’ life. Like CCTV, the ABP and Whereabouts system has come to be viewed as a minor inconvenience and an unfortunate but justifiable response to the wrongdoings of previous generations. Unsurprisingly, public officials have called for the Whereabouts system to become a model for preventive surveillance in larger society (see Hardie, 2014).
The paucity of cyclist challenges to these surveillance systems reinforces the ABP and Whereabouts as a banal technology largely immune to critical discussion. The Czech rider Roman Kreuziger (2014) is one of a handful of cyclists to challenge their suspension for Blood Passport abnormalities, and his situation offers rare insight into how riders negotiate public discussion of surveillance technologies. Following his Passport violation, Kreuziger recruited a legal defense team that included medical experts to challenge the interpretations of his biological profile while also launching a media campaign complete with a website presenting his longitudinal biological data. Importantly, Kreuziger’s (2014) challenge is with the scientific interpretations of his blood profile and not the ABP as a practice or the penalties attached to the ABP, stating on his website, “I consider the biological passport to be an excellent tool.”
The ABP has become a taken-for-granted component of the professional cyclist lifestyle. When viewed as a banal technology, it is unsurprising that little public discussion exists regarding who has access and what can and is being done with Whereabouts and ABP data. As our narrative makes clear, it is not that athletes are unaware of surveillance; rather, as emerging contenders in professional cycling, they must publically support these surveillance technologies. For domestic riders, this position has become ideologically necessary following the USADA Reasoned Decision. In a 2010 blog post describing the inconvenience of drug testing and the whereabouts program, Meredith Miller, a champion cyclist, notes that while it can be quite frustrating to always remember to provide USADA with my whereabouts at all times, the program is in place to keep sport clean and fair for everyone . . . and THAT I fully support. (MMcyclist.com)
For Miller, as for many we interviewed, complying with the administrative processes has become synonymous with racing clean. (For a more elaborated discussion, see Sefiha & Reichman, 2014.)
Conclusion
Much of our analysis is based on media accounts by the top international cyclists and interviews with lower tiered professionals striving to reach the top. What we do not know is how one’s position in the sport informs public and private attitudes regarding these surveillance practices. Those at the top of the sport, many of whom have much to gain by distancing themselves from the Armstrong doping era, publically embrace the ABP and the Whereabouts Program as the moniker of clean cycling. Yet, the newness of clean cycling makes it difficult to assess whether riders’ actual practice matches their rhetoric. As athletic entrepreneurs, cyclists have historically been on the forefront of innovative enhancement techniques and have always found ways to subvert and game the system (see Thompson, 2008). History suggests that practice may not correspond with rhetoric. Ironically, perhaps, those who have yet to reach top levels of success and are subject to less surveillance may be the most aggressive in their personal engagement with surveillance technologies. Interviewees’ overall willing acceptance of existing surveillance also encourages researchers to examine more closely the relationship between riders’ background and their experiences with surveillance. Riders that identify with groups that have historically been a target of surveillance may express less enthusiasm for anti-doping policies.
Still, the implications that can be drawn from this specific occupational niche of cyclists may be viewed as a cautionary tale. Staples (2013) suggested that with the introduction of contemporary surveillance technologies, the “gaze” (p. 42) shifts from authorities within disciplinary mechanisms like prisons to a more generalized community. The penetration of surveillance into everyday routines (as distinct from making surveillance part of the everyday) opens up the community of watchers to include consumers of social media as well as chroniclers and followers of the sport. Distinctions between internal and external or organizational and non-organizational surveillance (as discussed in Marx, 2012) have become blurred.
As we have illustrated, nearly all of DR’s activities are organized in response to the possibility of being tested. As such, preempting a negative test shapes professional routines and activates a network of control that is not only limited to traditional drug testing and the Athletes’ Whereabouts system but also to a much larger surveillant assemblage that includes social networks and peer-to-peer surveillance. Riders both embody and actively participate in the creation of a web of surveillance activity that casts an increasingly long shadow. Although DR is “racing clean,” his life is organized in preparation for testing by which the ultimate offense in not doping, but a negative test.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
Author Biographies
References
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