Jan Ove Tangen
University of South-Eastern Norway
The ski jumping scandal during the World Championships in Trondheim, which has been widely covered in traditional and social media over the past weeks, has primarily focused on hunting down scapegoats and virtually coercing athletes, coaches, support staff, and former leaders to admit they have been involved in cheating. In my opinion, this is the wrong focus.
Cheaters or lackeys?
The media should instead have turned the spotlight on the ‘sports system’ – on modern elite sports and its pursuit of boundary-breaking performances.[1] Then they might have seen that the ‘cheaters’ are essential ‘lackeys of the system’ – loyal and faithful servants who, without questioning, do everything they can to fulfil the desires for spectacular performances of sport from the audience, journalists, sponsors, and politicians.[2] If this had been done, it might have sparked a necessary discussion on what kind of sport we want in today’s society, given the world’s geopolitical and environmental challenges. It would be timely. Let me elaborate on why I assert this.
A pathological article of faith
Today’s international elite sports align with the Olympic motto “faster–higher–stronger” (citius–altius–fortius) – a utopian belief in the limitless improvement of human performance and athletic achievements. This belief is practiced at all levels and in every corner of elite sports. Everything is tried to gain a slight advantage over competitors.[3] Every stone is turned to run a hundredth of a second faster, lift one more kilo, jump one centimeter further or higher – and, as we know now, even learn to use a sewing machine. Both legal and illegal means and methods are used to become the best and break boundaries. Cheating provides an advantage; hence, it is also considered good. The motto is pathological, and it has pathogenic consequences.[4] Running 100 meters in 0.01 seconds is physically impossible, yet athletes are encouraged to try. Encouraging ski jumpers to jump the hill and land on the flat part is cynical, considering the injuries they risk. If it turns out that the athletes’ suits are manipulated without their consent, it is boundlessly unethical. It approaches East German conditions where athletes were doped without their knowledge or consent.[5]
Everyone is responsible
Skis are prepared for optimal glide in waxing buses that not all countries can afford. Athletes train on the most minor details of techniques with the help of various technologies. Knowledge from research is used in physical and psychological training preparations and diet and equipment development. This knowledge is guarded like ‘state secrets.’ These efforts are resource-intensive, and therefore, sponsorship funds must be obtained. Sponsors see the massive media coverage as essential for promoting their products, etc. Hence, Nammo, Toyota, Bildeler, and Help Forsikring appear on the ski jumpers’ suits. Elite sports’ collaboration with, and dependence on, science, technology, business, politics, social media, mass media, and the public enables and reinforces the boundary-breaking pursuit of ever-better performances. Especially media coverage – emphasizing extraordinary performances, unexpected losses, and heartbreaking scandals – drives the pursuit of medals. And the spectators cheer and wave their flags. Boundlessness leads to injuries, cheating, inequality, corruption, discrimination, sportswashing, greenwashing, undemocratic leadership, and doping. It trumps health, fair play, and community.
Amoral systems
The hunt for cheaters in sports is a moral endeavor. Athletes, coaches, and leaders are judged and criticized based on whether their actions are ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ They are expected to be upright and flawless but are rarely praised for being so. However, if they break the rules and are disrespectful and dishonourable, they are subjected to intense public criticism and almost persecution.
According to German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, moral judgments cannot be directed at social subsystems like politics, science, and sports.[6] Social systems are amoral in that the fundamental logic of politics to get into position and avoid being in opposition cannot be morally judged as either ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ Science’s distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ knowledge also cannot be determined based on this moral differentiation. Similarly, in sports, a win or a loss cannot be determined based on whether the athletes’ performances are morally ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ Here, it only matters who crosses the finishig line first or jumps the farthest.
More fundamentally, using moral criteria to criticize the fundamental codes of social subsystems will threaten the existence of these systems. If sports were to set aside its fundamental—and morally ‘evil’—code of winning and performing ever better to become morally good instead, sports as a social system would cease to exist. Furthermore, if media or politics begin to criticise the fundamental code of sports, it will quickly become evident that these systems’ codes can be criticised similarly. Their codes, like the code of sports, reflect modernity’s belief in progress and growth. Metaphorically speaking, the subsystems of society carry the DNA of modernity. Therefore, any moral criticism of a social subsystem becomes a critique of society. The function of morality in society has, over time, been reduced to merely ensuring that the codes of functional systems are not sabotaged. This is achieved by mobilizing the public to condemn doping in sports, corruption in politics, and fraud in research by pointing fingers at the individuals who commit these ‘immoral’ acts.
My analysis and critique of the Olympic motto pose a threat to the codes of sports, mass media, and politics and are, of course, promptly rejected by these systems. These subsystems instead shift the problem of cheating onto individuals, as described above. Athletes, coaches, and leaders are portrayed as ‘evil’ cheaters who threaten the existence and legitimacy of sports rather than as loyal and self-sacrificing lackeys, as a systems-theoretical analysis would emphasise.
The downfall of sports?
The only thing threatening the modern sports code and its existence as a social subsystem are factors outside society—namely, climate change and other sustainability challenges. These are the biggest and most pressing problems sports – and society – face.[7] Sports seem not to have heeded the warning from 1972 that “there are limits to growth,”[8] nor the discussion on Earth’s threatened sustainability following the Brundtland Report in 1987.[9] Local, national, and global sports are increasing their climate footprint at an alarming rate and cannot be considered sustainable – particularly related to travel and transport across borders and within individual countries. The global sports climate footprint is estimated to be as large as Spain or Poland.[10] Ironically, the boundless pursuit of sports contributes to its downfall. The problem is further exacerbated by the new global geopolitical order that is now developing. To quote environmental activist David Brower: “There is no business to be done on a dead planet!”[11] Nor politics, nor sports!
Copyright © Jan Ove Tangen 2025
[1] A system-theoretical description is given in Tangen, J. O. (2004). Hvordan er idrett mulig? Skisse til en idrettssosiologi. Høyskoleforlaget.
[2] The concept of «lackey» is introduced in Tangen, J. O. (2015). «Nasjonale strateger»,«familiemedlemmer»,«spillets spillere» eller «systemets lakeier»?-–Norsk idrettspolitikk i lys av Slagstad, Selle, Bourdieu og Luhmann. Sosiologisk tidsskrift, 23(4), 215-237.
[3] Pielke, R. (2016). The edge: The war against cheating and corruption in the cutthroat world of elite sports. Roaring Forties Press.
[4] Tangen, J.O, (1988). Idrettens patologiske trekk – tilfeldighet eller konsekvens? Kroppsøving, 31(4), 15-21
[5] Dennis, M. (2012). Securing the Sports ‘Miracle’: The Stasi and East German Elite Sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29(18), 2551–2574. https://doi-org.ezproxy2.usn.no/10.1080/09523367.2012.719881
[6] Luhmann, N. (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft: Bd. 2. Suhrkamp.
[7] Tangen, J. O. (2021). Is Sport Sustainable? – It Depends! Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 3, 679762.
[8] Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens III, W. W. (1972). The limits to growth. Club of Rome.
[9] Brundtland, G. H. (1987). Our common future world commission on environment and development.
[10] Goldblatt, D. (2020). Playing against the clock. https://www rapidtransition.org/resources/playing-against-the-clock/
[11] https://www.patagonia.com/stories/solutions-series-part-4-solutions-in-business/story-17959.html
