Abstract
In this paper we explain the maintenance of a practice that departs from acceptable standards. Drawing on the case of professional road cycling we explore the use of doping as a kind of institutionalized practice. Sports doping in general has the potential to destroy public trust in sport and its wider positive effects. In cycling doping to enhance human performance became established in response to harsh working conditions and the demand for results, and despite disruption from anti-doping authorities, and many scandals, has hardly lessened. To explain this we use a model of institutional types that provides a critical account of this contested and contradictory activity. We confirm the importance of efforts both to normalize and conceal doping; we stress an often overlooked technical dimension of maintenance in the application of medical knowledge, and we show how doping across the sport relied on actor interactions and a system of institutional support.
Published Version
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