We called them cheats. The reality is far more complicated.
There have been plenty of books written about drugs in sport. Confessions, memoirs, exposés. But this one is different.
James Witts is a sports journalist and former editor of 220 Triathlon Magazine — someone I've known for well over a decade. His new book, Dope, isn't a first-person account of falling from grace. It's a proper state-of-play analysis of where the battle between dopers and anti-dopers actually stands in 2025 and 2026. Who's winning? How are athletes sidestepping detection? And what's driving people to dope in the first place — because it's rarely as simple as wanting to win.
We talk about Colin Chartier, David Millar, Team Sky, TUEs, blood bags, the Enhanced Games, AI, and why this issue reaches much further than elite sport. Including age-group athletes who will go to extraordinary lengths just to qualify for Kona. This is a nuanced conversation that will change how you see this subject.
5 KEY POINTS
- Doping is rarely just about winning — identity, imposter syndrome, financial pressure and team dynamics all play a significant role.
- TUEs are widely exploited — therapeutic use exemptions are legitimate in principle but have become a well-documented route to legal performance enhancement.
- The Enhanced Games raises an uncomfortable question — if records aren't broken when athletes can openly dope, what does that say about clean sport?
- Social media is a direct pipeline for dangerous substances — young athletes are being targeted by adverts for drugs like DNP, linked to over 30 deaths in the UK alone.
- AI cuts both ways — it could help create novel undetectable drugs, but also help anti-doping agencies crunch data faster than ever before.
3 TAKEAWAYS
- Look beyond the headlines — calling athletes cheats and moving on ignores the complex web of pressure and identity that leads many there.
- The line is rarely clear — from TUEs to grey-area supplements, the boundary between legal and illegal is often deliberately blurred.
- This isn't just an elite problem — age-group athletes and recreational competitors operate in the same ecosystem, with more similar pressures than we'd like to think.
KILLER QUOTE
"It's so damning if someone is found to have taken a prohibited substance — it almost feels worse than murder. At least with murder there's a sense of rehabilitation."
CONNECT with James James Witts is a sports journalist and author specialising in cycling and endurance sport. His new book Dope is available now from Waterstones and all major booksellers.
X/Twitter: @jameswitts
LinkedIn: James Witts
Buy the book: Dope - available at Amazon, Waterstones and all major booksellers
James's favourite book: Racing Through the Dark by David Millar
LINKS & RESOURCES Mentioned in the episode:
WADA Prohibited List 2026
Enhanced Games
Other blogs, Videos etc you might want to check out
Honest Sport Substack - Edmund Wilson
Icarus documentary - If you haven’t seen this you must. Film maker and amateur cyclist Bryan Fogel sets out to investigate the furtive world of illegal doping in sports and ends up revealing the biggest international sports scandal in living memory.
The hidden cost of doping sanctions on Kenyan athletes
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