With Barry Bonds under the specter of steroids allegations on the brink of passing Babe Ruth in home runs, on another subject of sports and technology Arthur Caplan has a thought-provoking op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News about a new effort to classify sleeping in oxygen tents as a doping violation. He writes:

Should the bureaucrats who set the rules for the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports extend their critical eye to where athletes are allowed to sleep? This past weekend in Montreal, the bureaucrats, otherwise known as the World Anti-Doping Association, indicated that they are going to try to do exactly that. Bad idea. . .

Many athletes in amateur endurance sports such as skiing, running and cycling use altitude tents. These tents simulate thin mountain air. By sleeping in them, athletes who live at sea-level can get the benefits enjoyed by those who live in mountainous areas. Mountain air has less oxygen, so the body makes more red blood cells to compensate. Those extra red blood cells can provide a slight boost if you are running a marathon or skiing cross-country for 15 miles. That is one of the reasons the U.S. Olympic training facility is located in the Rocky Mountains at Colorado Springs, Colo.

So why is WADA worried about tents? There seems to be one main reason — sleeping in a tent is a passive activity producing benefits that athletes do not “earn” or “merit.” The idea that athletes ought to train to gain improvements in performance, not just lie snoozing in an artificial environment while their bodies make more red blood cells, is at the core of WADA’s concern. WADA is worrying about tents not for reasons of safety or even fairness but on ethical grounds — athletes should strive, not snooze, to succeed.

Linking the virtues to athletic success has some appeal. But when WADA uses a moral view of what makes sport worthwhile it is imposing a set of values rather than reflecting what athletes or the public want. Moreover, drawing a line at high-altitude tents is a boundary that cannot hold.

It is not possible to know who is sleeping in a tent unless WADA officials are prepared to get a lot more up close and personal with athletes than they are likely to tolerate. And if you ban altitude tents, are saunas, steam rooms, massages, ankle wraps and vitamins soon to follow?

Modern athletes long ago brought technology into their lives, and WADA holding its breath and pouting about those who are lazing around in altitude tents will not change that fact. We need to keep an eye on technology and its impact on sports. WADA has, however, nodded off at the switch with its threat to ban sleeping in altitude tents.

It would be a meaningless exhortation to say that athletics should be “pure,” and an unregulated playing field seems undesirable. How then should decisions be made about the role of science and technology in athletic achievements? Should some S&T sport policies be made democratically by government institutions, e.g., such as those focused on the Olympics or NCAA? Or should sport be a private affair internally policed, leaving open the possibility of competing professional sport leagues – the JMLB (Juiced- MLB) vs. the JFMLB (Juice-Free MLB)? (Though there is that anti-trust thing.)

I’m not sure what I’d recommend on where and how to draw lines in sport, but it does seem clear that the processed used to make decisions about S&T in sport are at least as important as the outcomes that result from such processes.