Dorian Yates has never hidden the fact that steroids were part of bodybuilding when he won six Mr. Olympia titles. What may surprise people is what he says next: a world without them would be great.
In this clip from his 2018 London Real episode, Evolution Of The Shadow, Brian Rose brings up the documentary Icarus and the Russian doping scandal, and asks Yates whether performance-enhancing drugs really are in every sport. His answer is a frank look at doping, drug testing and the competitive mindset.
▶ Watch the full episode: Dorian Yates – Evolution Of The Shadow
Why athletes do it
Yates believes it is in all competitive sport. If you are a driven athlete and hormones can help you be the best you can be, and they are available to everyone, he says, people will use them.
He questions whether drug testing makes things fair. A country, team or individual with more sophisticated knowledge of what to take, when to take it and how to clear it from the system has an advantage over an athlete without that information. In his view, that can make the playing field even less level.
The “even field” argument
Yates came into bodybuilding in the mid-1980s, when steroids had already been part of the sport since around the early 1960s. He estimates they give an advantage of a certain percentage, especially for building muscle and recovering from training. Say it is 20%, he suggests: if everyone stopped, everyone would drop by 20%, and “it’s still an even field.” The best would still win.
That is why he says a world without steroids would be great for bodybuilding: nobody could point at the athletes and say they only look that way because of hormones. He recalls a drug-tested Mr. Olympia in 1990. The competitors came in noticeably smaller, the fans were disappointed, and the organisers concluded the experiment would not work.
A story he cannot confirm
Yates then shares a second-hand story from a sports conference in Canada, where he met the sprinter Ben Johnson, who lost his 1988 Olympic gold after a positive test. What he heard there, he says, suggested Johnson had been singled out while others went unpunished. He is careful to add, more than once, “I don’t know if it’s true or not.” But it shapes his view that Johnson was made the villain for something far more widespread.
What about fighters?
Brian asks about combat sports, where some say the stakes are higher. Yates says he does not know what testing is in place, but his view is the same: if people can do it, they will. He says he knows from people around certain fighters that some have used them, without naming anyone, and points to athletes who gain size quickly and sometimes lose it again. It all comes back, he says, to “a competitive mindset.”
What to take from it
Yates is not cheerleading for drug use. His point is that the incentives in elite sport are powerful, and that testing does not remove them. For anyone thinking about steroids, his other London Real clips are a clear warning about the health costs he paid.
This is Dorian Yates sharing his own experience and opinions, not medical advice. Anabolic steroids carry serious health risks and their non-medical use is illegal in many countries.
Who is Dorian Yates?
Dorian Yates won the Mr. Olympia title six years in a row, from 1992 to 1997, and is one of the most successful British bodybuilders of all time. Known as “The Shadow”, he trained out of his Temple Gym in Birmingham and became famous for short, intense HIT workouts. Since retiring he has turned to yoga, meditation and plant medicine.
He is one of London Real’s most popular guests, and the subject of its first feature film, Dorian Yates – Inside The Shadow, which you can watch free. On steroids and health, see Steroids, Testosterone & Ageing.
See everything Dorian Yates has done with London Real on his guest page: Dorian Yates on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Dorian Yates – Doping, Drug Testing And Why A World Without Steroids Would Be Great
0:00 Brian Rose: That movie Icarus that came out, did you watch that? It was about the Russian doping scandal, and it was just all about how the Olympic team had…
0:08 Dorian Yates: What’s it called?
0:09 Brian Rose: It’s called Icarus. And it was done by a guy that was kind of a cycling aficionado in the States, and he tried to game the cycling system, and he found a guy in charge of the Russian doping agency, and he put him on a whole steroid process. And while the same thing was happening, they were trying to get Russia to dope for the whole Olympics, and they later got expelled from the Olympics because of it. But it just showed how widespread this was. And it also kind of demonised Russia, and it made everyone start asking these questions. And something you said when you were first on the show: that it’s something that’s in all sports.
0:43 Dorian Yates: Yeah, I believe so. If you’re a competitive individual in a competitive sport, you’re very driven to do absolutely the best that you can do. And if hormones or whatever can help you do that, and they’re available to everybody, then they’re going to do it. And of course you can do drug testing, but I’m not sure how fair that makes it, because maybe you’ve got one country or one team or one individual that is more sophisticated in which kind of drugs to use and when to use them and how to clear them from the system and all this kind of stuff. Or you’ve got some guy from Africa that doesn’t have any of this information, or somewhere like that, then it becomes even more unfair.
1:31 Dorian Yates: I was introduced to steroids, obviously, through bodybuilding, but they had been used in that sport since, I guess, the early 60s. So I came in in the mid 80s, so it was already ingrained in the sport. And it gives you an advantage of a certain percent, especially in building muscle mass and recovering from the exercise, which is very important in bodybuilding. So let’s say it gives you 20%. So if everybody stopped taking them, everybody went down 20%, then it’s still an even field. The guys that win would still be the guys that are winning.
2:14 Dorian Yates: So if there was a world where there were no steroids available, or whatever available, I think that would be great. And it would be great for bodybuilding, because nobody then could point the finger and say: hey, look at all these guys, they’re only like that because of using hormones. Obviously the level would drop down. They did do a drug-tested Mr. Olympia in 1990, and I think one guy failed, but most of them passed, and they went down very noticeably. And the fans were like: hey, we saw something better before, we don’t really want to see this. And so ticket sales and everything… So they realised that wasn’t going to work in bodybuilding.
2:52 Dorian Yates: But I believe if it gives somebody an advantage, if it’s a sport that requires increased strength, muscle mass, recovery, then people are going to try to get away with what they can get away with. And athletes don’t see it as cheating if everybody else is doing it; they’re on an even field. So that’s just the way it is. And drug testing: does it make it fair or not? That’s definitely a question there, if you don’t have the sophistication, and people still using them still clear.
3:27 Dorian Yates: I’ve got a story about Ben Johnson, but I don’t know if I can tell it. Maybe I can, because he told me. So him and his doctor, I met them in Canada at a conference there, which was about sports and weight training and injuries. And I was there as a bodybuilder, Bill Kazmaier was there as a strongman and powerlifter, and Ben Johnson was there with his doctor, and they had a whole forum on drugs and sport and so on.
3:56 Dorian Yates: And what I was told there, I’m not going to say who told me, what I was told there was that every runner in that final that Ben Johnson lost his medal and his placing in for a positive drug test, every runner tested positive. That’s what I was told. I don’t know if it’s true or not. That’s what I was told. And CBS were the American TV show that were sponsoring, and they said, obviously: you can’t, you’re going to destroy the whole thing if we expose this. So just pick one guy and make sure he’s not American. That was a story I was told. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I could definitely believe it.
4:41 Dorian Yates: So Ben Johnson was held up to the world as this bad guy that cheated to win and everything, but I definitely don’t think that’s the case. If we’re all doing the same thing here, we’re all in the same boat, still the guy that wins is going to be the best.
5:02 Brian Rose: Right. What about fighters, like UFC fighters? Some people say the stakes are higher there.
5:09 Dorian Yates: Yeah. Well, I don’t know what kind of testing they have in place and everything, but again, if people can do it, they will. And I’ve seen some fighters that I don’t know personally, but I know their trainers and I know people, and I know for sure they were. Not naming any names. But sometimes you can see guys put on a lot of muscle size pretty quick, and sometimes they might lose it and whatever. But yeah, if it’s going to give you an advantage, then I think people are going to do it. A competitive mindset.
