Examination of Witness (Questions 60-64)
30 MARCH 2004
MS MICHELE
VERROKEN
Q60 Ms Shipley: So it is regulation,
is it not?
Ms Verroken: Unfortunately yes.
It is difficult with a golf club. Perhaps with a golf club the
immediate question would be what sort of substances could I take
to improve my golf, and if I could answer that question I would
be extremely rich! The situation, of course, is what is it that
may happen in a golf club? There might be over-use injuries because
you are always using the same muscle groups, in which case what
other support programmes are there about training properly for
golf. I do not suppose anybody who plays amateur or recreational
golf trains properly.
Q61 Ms Shipley: With the golf one, which
seems a bit of a joke, the answer is they could take promotions
of particular supplements even though it will not actually enhance
golf just because they will get money for doing it so they will
allow a promoter into their premises to do so and that is bad
practice from what we are looking at, so really these things need
to be licensed.
Ms Verroken: Licensing is one
way—
Q62 Ms Shipley: —But the self-regulation
did not work in Darlington.
Ms Verroken: It did not work.
Achieving certain standards like a form of charter marking could
be another way in order to promote best practice. Certainly in
a golf club, there ought to be somebody who is able to provide
assistance on the kind of programmes for developing balanced muscular
performance, a sports nutritionist would be very useful, and of
course somebody to deal with the injuries.
Q63 Chairman: Could I ask you one final
question to try, from my point of view at any rate, to set this
question into perspective. Obviously there has been recently a
huge amount of public discussion about this issue, and for those
of us who are not totally familiar with it we can look back on
some decades in which this has recrudesced, as it were, but how
far back does it go?
Ms Verroken: Gosh, when did Tommy
Simpson die?
Q64 Derek Wyatt: 1967.
Ms Verroken: 1967. Way back. We
are going back to Greece to the Olympic Games where there were
all manner of odd delicacies being eaten by the Greeks then. Do
we not all feel that we have got certain things we would do because
we would feel that sets us off better for the day? Maybe you woke
up this morning and had a cup of tea before you got out of bed—and
some of it becomes a habit if we are not careful. It comes back
to the very value of what sport is about. How much are we prepared
to accept? We have accepted so far that there should be professional
coaches in sport, that you can wear certain sports equipment,
although that has to be regulated, some for safety, some for modesty,
and obviously there still would be people who would try and improve
their sports equipment to get the maximum out of it. Where do
you draw the line? The difficulty has been with the drugs issue
in actually trying to make it very clear, black and white, what
is actually acceptable and what is not acceptable.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
I am sure I speak on behalf of the Committee when I say that we
are greatly obliged to you. We have benefited enormously from
your knowledge and experience and it gives us a very good start
for our inquiry. Thank you.
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