The news that Martina Hingis tested positive for cocaine at this year's Wimbledon, and would therefore have faced a two-year ban from tennis had she not taken matters into her own hands by retiring, highlights one of the glaring absurdities of sport's anti-doping regulations. If Hingis did indeed take cocaine—and it is a charge she denies—then it is patently obvious that she didn't do so for performance-enhancing reasons. Cocaine—along with cannabis, speed, LSD, ecstasy and all other recreational drugs—would only retard an athelete's performance. Surely, the sole purpose of drugs testing should be to determine whether athletes have taken substances that will enhance their performance—in other words, to determine whether they have been cheating. Whether they take drugs recreationally should be between them and their consciences—or between them and the police (if they are caught). Why, then, are recreational drugs such as cocaine even covered by the doping tests? I can't see any justification for it.
