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Practice dictation & shadowing on the daily life story: The Dubin Inquiry
The Dubin Inquiry
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The Dubin Inquiry
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The Dubin Inquiry was a Canadian federal government inquiry into the state of amateur sport in Canada, more specifically into the use of performance enhancing drugs by Canadian athletes.
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The inquiry followed in the footsteps of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson's disqualification in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
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The inquiry was named after Charles Dubin, a Canadian judge who presided over the proceedings.
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Johnson won the Olympic men's 100 meter final in a world record time of 9.79 seconds.
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However, his post race mandatory drug test was positive.
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Johnson was found to have taken the steroids to nozzle.
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All the subsequent stripping of Johnson's gold medal turn into probably the most famous case of drug use in the history of sports.
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It also sent shockwaves rippling through the Canadian sports establishment, with various members of government and the sport bureaucracy pointing fingers at each other.
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Many observers of the sports establishment around the world followed the Dublin inquiry and the Johnson case.
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Several countries were dealing with a growing problem of their own athletes using drugs to enhance performance, so the results of the inquiry were eagerly anticipated.
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The inquiry heard testimony from a large number of athletes, coaches, sports administrators and others.
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The most interesting submissions were made by Johnson's coach, Charlie Francis, its physician, Jamie Estefan, and of course, from Johnson himself.
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The inquiry disclosed drug taking on a scale never before suspected.
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It was discovered that besides the common practice of coaches encouraging athletes to take drugs, many others were guilty of turning a blind eye to the problem and ignoring it.
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In the aftermath of the inquiry, a new organization, the Canadian Center for Drug Free Sport, was created to combat the problem.
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This organization has taken various measures in its attempt to combat drug use by Canadian athletes.
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However, critics of the Dublin inquiry have accused the inquiry of being little more than a government inquisition, the real purpose of which was to direct attention towards individual athletes and coaches and away from the government itself.
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Increasingly in the 1980s, Sport Canada, the governing body responsible for the administration of elite amateur sport in Canada, had taken a successoriented approach to Canadian sport, emphasizing winning medals above all other goals.
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The result, critics have pointed out, was to put immense pressure on Canadian athletes, leading in turn to drug use, among many other extreme measures to enhance performance.
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The Dubin Inquiry, in other words, has had mixed reviews.
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A further indication of the effectiveness of the Dubin Inquiry can be seen in the state of Canadian sports since the inquiry.
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Despite attempts by the Canadian Center for Drug Free Sport to educate athletes and coaches on the dangers of drug use, there is little doubt that rampant drug use continues.
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This has led some observers of the Canadian sports scene to claim that drug use is less a reflection of individual athletes who cheat, but more a reflection of a cultural and institutional epidemic in sport.
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Drug use has perhaps become so common in the culture of elite sport that dealing with a problem by punishing individual athletes might be ineffective.