Vest Christiansen
My doping research has followed two main branches: Doping in elite sports and recreational athletes’ doping in fitness and strength training environments. My Ph.D. thesis dealt with professional cycling. Through interviews with more than thirty elite cyclists the thesis focused on the athletes’ own view on their sport in order to understand the social and cultural mechanisms that have led doping to be a predominant parameter in cycling. Also in the research that followed, where the perspective was broadened to elite sport in general, I have addressed the athletes’ perspective in order to understand the motives and moral values that lie behind their decisions to dope or not to dope. In my ongoing research I concentrate on amateur and recreational athletes’ use of anabolic steroids in fitness centres and health clubs. Again long interviews are being carried out in order to understand the use of steroids in these milieus as a cultural rather than medical problem.