"This book is about protection in elite sport. More specifically, it is about protective policies that regulate athletes' bodies by biocultural categories-age, weight, sex, impairment, "natural," and "enhanced" (doped). These categories are, at once, scientifically oriented and socially constructed. What seem to be obvious, organic, and quantifiable ways of measuring variations of human diversity are, in effect, historically and contextually specific constructs, dependent upon systems of measurement, methods of analysis, and the motivations of people who create and sustain them. What appear to be biological characteristics only manifest under the cultural conditions by which they are determined and made meaningful. One's age depends on the way one marks time. One's weight depends upon the manner of scale. One's impairment (disability) status requires meeting socially-constructed standards. Even more, competition classes based on age, weight, and impairment are demarcated by manufactured limits or "cut points" that change over time and place. So, too, do conceptions of "natural" and "doped," of what we prohibit and permit in elite sport"-- Provided by publisher.