Wexford Science Café hosts successful talk on drugs in sport
Wexford Science Café hosted a well attended talk last week at Wexford Library on the subject of performance enhancing drugs in sport. Chaired by Prof. Brian Trench, science communications writer and academic and convenor of WSC's monthly talks, the discussion was anchored by two guest contributors, SETU lecturer Bruce Wardrop and Clean Sport lead Dr Elizabeth Egan.
With the talk lasting just over an hour, this event was never going to have time to take a deep dive into the hows, the whys and wherefores of performance enhancing drugs in sport. It did, however, succeed in giving an up-to-date snapshot of what is an ever-evolving situation. Bruce and Elizabeth spoke of doping in its many guises, how drugs may improve performance, the risks to health of taking drugs, ways to avoid detection by the testers, technical exemptions and their occasional misuse, penalties for those caught doping, athlete education and so on. Throughout the evening, there was a lively and entertaining discussion as the pair fielded questions from the floor.
Bruce is course leader of the BSc in Sport and Exercise Science at SETU. He formerly served as lead sports physiologist with Paralympics Ireland. He is currently completing a PhD investigating the cellular mechanisms of angiogenesis in trained vs untrained individuals. A naturally vivacious communicator, Bruce hosts a popular podcast on behalf the Irish Sport and Exercise Science Association.
Elizabeth Egan, originally from Bree, has a background in exercise physiology, having completed a PhD looking at bone mineral density in female athletes, and now works as a life coach with high performance sportspeople. She is a UK Anti-doping Clean Sport educator, and the Clean Sport lead at University of East London. An active athlete herself, Elizabeth runs the resource website www.trackathletes.ie with international athlete Louise Shanahan.
The talk was supported by Menapians Athletics Club.