New books on sport

A new book highlights the symbiosis of cycling and doping and the seriousness of the connection.

The book “Doping in Cycling” (Doping in Radsport) by sports journalist Ralf Meutgens analyses how the use of doping substances works in cycling today and how the media relates to the matter.

Anti-doping experts and experts on cycling contribute to the book, outlining the history of bicycling and doping, from the first case of doping in cycling in 1886 to EPO scandals in the 1990s and current doping cases in 2007.

The book builds a basis for understanding today’s problems of doping in cycling.

“Until today the active athletes, others involved in the wider field, spectators, and representatives of the media do not indicate any willingness to recognize the seriousness of the matter. Until today, personalized scandal cases are described as exceptions. However, in the meantime the entire field of sport is affected. Our task is to change the structures that have been responsible for the sport of cycling to turn into what it really is: a parallel world with organized and comprehensive doping that has life-threatening and life-shortening consequences, something outsiders cannot even imagine,” Meutgens writes in the prologue of the book.

The book raises a lot of questions. How will the sport of cycling develop from here?

“The purpose is to deal with structures, not with individual people. Those who have actively shaped the sport of cycling have not achieved, despite many assurances, any reform. The sport of cycling cannot reinvigorate itself from within, just as it is impossible to pull oneself out of a swamp. The sport of cycling needs help from outside. It deserves to receive this help. But it also must want to receive this help. This is so far not the case at all because far-reaching and painful measures are necessary,” the prologue adds.

Contributors to the book include: former cycling professional Rolf Wolfshohl; anti-doping specialists Dr. Jean-Pierre de Mondenard and Paul Köchli; the leading EPO-analyst Dr. Andreas Breidbach; Rolf Järmann, the successful former Swiss cycling professional; Andreas Singler (Master of Athletic Sciences); and Professor Gerhard Treutlein.

Read the informative prologue of the book in English here

New book about the German Football World Cup 2006A new book looks at the German Football World Cup in 2006 and at the media relations with the event. In the book “The Football World Cup 2006 – Analysis of Sports Media,“ researchers from different ländern (statelands) in Germany study the World Cup from several angles and with different scientific methods.

The book give various views on the World Cup through studies of the print media, the public’s reception of the public service television viewing, private televison gatherings and the community in sports pubs.

The book also includes contributions thematising German sports reporters utilization of media. A larger study explores the function of experts in sport tv broadcastings. Another text looks at the aspect of globalism in football world cups.

The book is available in German called “Die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 2006 - Analysen zum Mediensport.” There is more information about the book at publisher Thomas Horky’s webpage www.horky.de