My dad used performance-enhancing drugs – it nearly killed him | Emma Fowle
26 March 2018 11:56
For athletes, winning is everything, no matter what the cost. That is why it will be so hard to rout drug abuse out of sportIn 1988 Linford Christie failed his first drugs test at the Seoul Olympics. That same year, my dad, Arthur White, won the first of four world titles in a powerlifting career that almost cost him – and us – everything.Sometime in the early 80s, when I was still at primary school and the world of performance-enhancing drugs was still a crude and embryonic one, he sustained an injury. A bloke at the gym suggested steroids might speed his recovery. He was reluctant, but he needed to get better fast; he had a competition coming up. Over the years, steroids led to amphetamines, and amphetamines to cocaine. Before anyone knew it, everything imploded.We knew it wasn’t quite normal, but who ever gets to be world champion by being normal? Related: Ethics and sport have long been strangers to one another | Kenan Malik Continue readingread full article
