Today, a draft of a German anti-doping law, which also contains conditions for going to prison, has been announced. It has been said by de Maiziere (minister of interior) and Maas (minister of jurisdiction) that sportsmen will be required to announce their place of being at any time. If this becomes law, it can have the most severe consequences for some or all tournament players that are Germans or attend German tournaments or events. However, IMO, the German federal constitional court would find such a law to violate the German constitution's basic rights to freedom and to informational self-determination as well as the principle of law of appropriateness of means. Sportsmen are not a priori and per se criminals, but this aspect of the law would treat them alike.

Not that I am a fan of anti-doping rules, particularly prison terms for taking legal substances or visiting a dying relative without telling WADA, but from the first few English articles I read I doubt this applies to Go players.



P.S. I'm a Go player not an athlete and Go is a game not a sport

Man, that Go tournament is coming up soon; guess I better dope soI can get more brain power and slam the stones harder.

The problem with this superficially sensible view is that mission creep occurs in just about every activity, especially those that can be controlled by self-appointed bureaucrats. Just think of parking restrictions: first introduced to ease traffic flow and avoid nuisance, it has turned into a money spinner to create jobs for parking enforcers. Think of the Olympics: it began with amateur field and track athletes and now encompasses professionals and just about every sport. Along the way it has spawned self-appointed officials who expect Presidents and government leaders to kowtow to them. Look at FIFA for an example of where custodians of the soccer's rules and morals have proven incapable of looking after their own morals.

As to go being a game and not a sport, we have plenty of people, including some influential in western go administration, who argue that it is a sport, just so that they can get their hands on funding.

As regards hobby athletes not being affected, hobby chess players already have to submit to body searches and other indignities.

In general, think how many changes are made because sponsors want things just so.

Where to next? Creep, creep, creep...

Sadly, there is no obvious answer without giving in to the cheats, who are not limited just to a brazen few seduced by potential riches. Even the ranks of ordinary go and chess players appear to include many who are prepared to cheat to get a higher (and quite useless) rating.

The conclusion being drawn everywhere, it seems, is that to combat such a huge and multifarious army of cheats, even more controls are needed. So yet more creep, creep, creep...

I heard that Germany was no longer recognizing Chess as a sport - is that true? If it is true, it renders this anti-doping stuff irrelevent.

Actually I too think that it is a game rather than a sport, but people who want money from the government disagree. There is corruption everywhere, you don't need an anti-doping rule to find it.

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North Lecale

In Germany, there is no 1:1 relation between the word "Sport" and recognition of a particular activity as a sport. It all depends on context. E.g., the WMSG participants are called "athletes", not because this would be the most appropriate term but because some hope to convice the IOC more easily. However, afar from law considerations, the usual common language word is Denksport [mind sport].