Cathal Dennehy: Pressure to secure medals can lead down wrong path

Medals have significant value, but what is the cost?

PRESSURE: Ireland’s Eoin O’Callaghan competes in the shot put of the men’s decathlon during day three of the European U18 Athletics Championships in Slovakia. Picture: Coen Schilderman/Sportsfile

According to Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, the order from the Spanish government was this: “Do whatever you have to do, but we want medals.” 

This was what one of the great masterminds of doping claims he was told in the years before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Across the 16 previous Olympics that Spain competed in, they’d won just 25 medals in total, five of them gold. But in Barcelona, they suddenly became an Olympic superpower, winning 22 medals, 13 gold, moving from 25th in the medal table in 1988 to sixth in 1992.