Each winter the World Anti-Doping Agency publishes an updated list of prohibited substances. Last year it made one major change, though no one really noticed them do it. It decided to lift its ban on alcohol, which had been in place since the agency was formed in 1999. Wada argued that you don’t need a laboratory test to tell whether someone’s drunk, and besides the change affected only the four sports – archery, air sports, automobile racing and powerboating – who rigorously enforce the ban on the understandable grounds that aeroplanes, arrows, speed boats and sports cars don’t make great chasers.
Of course Wada isn’t in the business of regulating performance inhibitors. And, after many centuries of diligent research, there’s now a broad understanding that while alcohol may do wonders for your libido, temper and estimation of your own talents and abilities, it doesn’t do much for your athletic prowess. Different sports reached this conclusion at different times. Marathon runners were still using booze to fortify themselves during races in the 1900s, footballers were still taking occasional snifters of brandy to revive themselves at half-time in the 1950s, cyclists were still swigging champagne on mountain climbs in the 1970s. The list gets shorter every decade.
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