[MUSIC] Hello, my name is Fabien Ohl and I teach at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. I'm a Professor of Sociology of Sports and I work at the Institute of Sports Science of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, which is an institute that trains sports specialists in a variety of subjects, namely doping. The institute itself is nestled in an exceptional environment with Lake Geneva on one side and The Alps on the other. On a campus with great sports installations, top notch training and research facility but also because Lausanne is the Olympic capital. In a city where many international federation including the Olympic Committee are based. This has encouraged us to focus our expertise of doping. I am launching this course on doping sports organization and sciences because the issue of doping is a fascinating phenomenon. Research into it is never boring. Doping is fascinating, because it is a crossroads for many different fields of scientific research. This course will allow you to grasp the many dimensions of doping in sociological, psychological, legal and biological perspectives. The more you know about doping, the more you realize that it is often portrayed in a caricature and oversimplified way. It is true that doping scandals are a godsend for the media [INAUDIBLE] great audience figures who [INAUDIBLE]. Just look at Oprah Winfrey, the famous talk show host who said that in terms of publicity, Lance Armstrong's confession was one of the most important moments of his career. It is also a boon for moralists who claim to understand dopings from binary vision of reality. For them, there are the teachers, on the one hand, and ethical atheists on the other. This is why one of the objectives of this course is to overcome this often sensational, oversimplifying, moralizing, and often character approaches to doping. First, it will allow you to identify the cultural dimension of doping. That is, as a practice that has a history, linked to the transformation of social norms. The second objective is to go from a binary way of thinking, for or against doping, to an understanding of the complexity of this phenomenon which is biological, psychological, and sociological all at the same time. The third is to understand how the social and organisational context influences individuals' decisions and how this can be changed by preventive measures. Finally, one must understand the institutions, the agents but also what is being done to fight against doping to understand how it works and how tests are carried out. I have just stated that doping was often presented in over-simplified caricatured ways. Let me explain, it is often seen as an individual deviance, cheaters will go against poetics. Leaders, journalists and trainers are eager to state that doping has nothing to do with sports and that triathletes do not use substances. At times, however, it is said that doping is everywhere and that there are no clean athletes that sports haven't corrupted. Sports institutions, notably federations, often have been complicit with the generalization of doping. Of course, there are athletes without morals that cheated their whole career. Doping has also been organized by teams, federations, and even nations. But then we see the individuals and every single organization and institution is exaggerated for several reasons. Firstly, because does not help to really understand doping. You cannot simply say that the athletes, leader, physicians, and trainers have nothing to do with sports. Secondly, because stating that everyone is complicit is not realistic. Obviously, not every institution and federation has been implicated in doping. Sport institution are also involved in the fight against doping by putting into place measures of repression or prevention. Moreover, even in the most questionable organization there are and have been people committed to fighting against doping. The third, is that it isn't just athletes and federations that are concerned. The situation is far more complex. You need to take in account all the agents involved in the world of sports. Nations, for instance, have been complicit with doping, namely, during the Cold War. The media, sports journalists, who were well aware of what was going on, did not write about it. [INAUDIBLE] also mentions sports fans, or even ordinary persons [INAUDIBLE] that call out injustice every time the national champions are suspected of substance use. The fourth, is that history shows us that ordinary athletes, people with values, use substances. Some regret and repent. In a context of wide distribution of performance-enhancing products, particularly, athletes that were neither cheaters or immoral to begin with use substances. Imagine that you are a 20 year old athlete, and that you have been training intensively for ten years. That you dropped out of school, that your life ambition is to be a professional athlete, and that your whole life is organized around this passion. Now, imagine that everyone in your team using performance enhancing substances. What would you do? Personally, I'm totally against doping, but I honestly do not know if I would be strong enough to resist. The idea is to desense yourself from sensational and moral views and to try to understand doping. This is why we have organized this course in four modules around four main subjects. The first module is about, How people identify with doping. There is a lot of talk about doping but few people really know anything about it. This course will allow you to know the definitions of doping, but also to put them into perspective. Doping corresponds to a stabilization of legal norms that defines legitimate ways of producing athletic performances. The second module is about, What makes people use substances. History shows us that ordinary, good willed athletes gave into doping. It is therefore necessary to understand why people, while not initially in to doping change their personal standards and start to use doping substances. The course will study motivation but also the effects that athletes' social and institutional context has by trying to understand what makes athletes' relationship to doping evolve. The third module, will analyze the ways the fight against doping is organized. If doping is identifiable, it is because there are institutions such as the World Anti-Doping Agency, federations, the court of arbitration for sport that take care of organizing the fight against doping and fixing the rules that make it possible to accuse athletes or to defend them. Interviews with leader of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the UEFA and from prevention organizations. We will help you to better understand what these sports organizations are doing to fight against doping. Finally, to fight against doping you need laboratories and techniques that allow you to find traces of substances and to prove that they have been used. This is why the first module we call up an specialist of bio-analytical and forensic approaches to doping. We will explain how this methods of testing work and how is able to adopt to new doping techniques. To facilitate your understanding and learning process, each video comes with questions and each module ends with a quiz. You're also invited to participate in the course forum. Apart from watching the videos and on top of your optional reading, you will need approximately two hours of extra work for each module. I hope you will enjoy this course. Let's begin module one. [MUSIC]
