Flutterby™! : Schneier on drugs in sports

Bruce Schneier on Doping in Professional Sports:

In the end, doping is all about economics. Athletes will continue to dope because the Prisoner's Dilemma forces them to do so. Sports authorities will either improve their detection capabilities or continue to pretend to do so -- depending on their fans and their revenues. And as technology continues to improve, professional athletes will become more like deliberately designed racing cars.

I'd also add that as nutrition gets pushed further and further towards the wall, athletics will become a game about genetics. Athletes will, at some point, be required to consume a certifying authority's diet; pushing the body by tweaking diet will either cause results that are indistinguishable from drug use, or will be banned because it has the same sorts of side-effects. The limiting difference will become training, but similar restrictions will soon come into play on training, because there will be short-term versus long-term ramifications of training strategies.

After a while it'll be all about either genetics, or what you did growing up in some period prior to what changes could be measured in your body as a professional athlete. And sports will lose all meaning.