A Sporting Chance
What do you need to become an Olympic athlete? Are there people in Britain capable of competing in athletic events at world-class level who do not realise it? Why do sprinters never become marathon runners and vice-versa? How did East Germany in the last Olympic Games win more gold medals than the USA, a country ten times its size?
Improved selection, training and technique will help but there are much more dramatic ways.
Computers can analyse body movements down to the last detail. Blood doping can improve performance by up to ten per cent, the difference between coming 20th and winning. But perhaps the most serious issue in sport is the use of drugs. Is there a solution to this growing problem?
Science in sport is a powerful tool, but how far should it be used? Narrator PAUL VAUGHAN
Film editors
STAN LEVEN , CHRISTOPHER WOOLLEY
Produced for WGBHtv by PAULA s. APSELL Editor SIMON CAMPBELL-JONES Adapted for Horizon by CAROLINE VAN DEN BRUL
Coverage o/ the Winter Olympics begins on Wednesday evening