One of the greatest disappointments at the Olympics so far was that British runner Dwain Chambers didn't stumble over his feet and fall flat on his face in the heats of the 100m. Other disappointments was seeing Kazakhstani cyclist Alexandr Vinokourov take gold in the road race and two of the medal winners in the men's 100m sprint, Justin Gatlin and Yohan Blake, stand on the podium with bronze and silver medals around their necks because all of them have been banned for drug cheating. I understand the argument that once they have served their ban they have fulfilled their sentence and should be free to continue but i don't agree with it, to my mind if you are found cheating than you should be out for good.
If i was an athlete and i was slogging away for years only to be beaten by a former drug cheat i would wondering if the advantage they have over me was due to any permanent physiological changes as a result of their drug enhancements.
Are their muscles bigger, stronger or in a better condition due to a lifelong advantage after taking growth hormones or other body-changing drugs?
That's why i smiled when disgraced British shot putter Carl Myerscough flopped in the first round and American LaShawn Merritt limped off the track with a pulled hamstring and British cyclist David Millar was far, far down the field when the road cyclists trundled home.
After the court case where the British Olympic Association lost their case to keep their lifetime ban for drugs cheats, you could be forgiven for thinking that the issue of drugs in sport is a complex one. It isn't. It is very simple. An athlete who takes a prohibited substance is cheating and should not be allowed to compete again.
If this was made clear, that if you are caught cheating then you are out for good, then maybe athletes wouldn't be tempted to dabble in banned substances that could possibly still give them an advantage after they have completed their two year ban and we wouldn't have the bad taste left in the mouth of seeing athletes celebrating winning medals when they should be sat at home watching it on TV like the rest of us.
3 comments:
The doping thing is a tough issue.
Take cycling, for instance. I know this guy who was a pro cycler for a few years. He wasn't especially good, but he was on a sponsored team for a few years, riding in state/regional-level races. Anyhow, he was telling us once that in and around the same year Lance Armstrong got testicular cancer, a whole bunch of pro cyclers came down with the exact same kind of cancer. He described it as a rash of 20-something males in peak physical condition suddenly coming down with testicular cancer...hmmmm...and then he said a bunch of them got caught doping (except, of course, Armstrong, so far).
So what do you do when a whole sport is totally mired in doping like cycling appears to be? The hard-line lifetime bans are a possibility, but I worry that in some sports the benefit of cheating is just too high for that to matter.
I imagine if somebody said you could take this pill/injection and it would make you an Olympic champion and bring you fame and fortune and it can't be traced so nobody would know, i can see how an athlete could be tempted.
But even if they knew for a fact they'd be caught and banned, so many athletes don't get caught until years after they acquire fame and fortune, so it's still worth it.
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