Here is one topic on which most people have a strong opinion. My own take on the matter is a bit mixed and the older and more cynical I grow, I seem to be leaning away from what I once fervently believed as a youthful sports fan. I have had some heated debates with others who hold a position on this matter more purist than mine. Now that the 2008 Olympics are in full swing, and we are dreaming of "Citius, Altius, Fortius" the issue is once again on many minds.
The world of sports may be the last bastion of perceived purity where we expect to see miracles of human ability, unaided by external tools or stimuli. While we tolerate smoke and mirrors in most other pursuits, we don’t like our modern gladiators to "cheat." I mean, we live in a world of widespread physical and psychological enhancements and tinkering. Ordinary folks as well as beautiful celebrities are often surgically altered for the sake of vanity and show biz; capitalists and so-called worshipers of the free market such as big corporations and hedge funders fix and manipulate markets to line their own pockets and rob ordinary working folks of jobs and pension funds; nations go to war under false pretenses and citizens support the aggression for the sake of patriotism; concert musicians take beta-blockers so their hands won’t waver during performances due to irregular heart beats; in-vitro fertilization and rented wombs produce "genetic" descendants for infertile couples. Medical interventions are available for numerous human appetites and disorders.
We have come a long way from the hypocrisy of "amateur" sports when talented but often poor young men and women were supposed to push the limits of physical achievement in the sporting arena and play by the rules set by aristocratic men of leisure. That silly notion of "purity" robbed many atheletes of a dignified life after they were past their physical prime. For example, all round outstanding sportsman Jim Thorpe was stripped of his Olympic medals and lived in abject poverty for not being "amateur" enough. Jesse Owens, the winner of four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics spent his later years racing circus horses because he couldn’t get paid as a sportsman. Two times Grand Slam winner Rod Laver languished outside the glamorous "amateur" tennis circuit until the advent of the Open Era when "professionals" were at last permitted to compete in the major championships. We have forever abandoned the obsession with "unpaid" athletes. The world of sports is now one of the most lucrative for those who excel. But we still cling to the fond belief of "naturalness" in athletic endeavor and any suspicion of performance enhancement by artificial means throws a shadow over sporting achievements. So what exactly is "natural" in sports when we constantly seek massive technical and technological advances that mostly favor athletes from wealthier nations ? While mechanical enhancement through space age equipment and gear is kosher, the one area where we cannot bring ourselves to accept outside tinkering, is the body of the athlete. Use of chemical agents to enhance performance is cause for heavy fines and dismissal in most sports, especially in the Olympics. Is it time to shed this last taboo which is often skirted by athletes who know which drugs to use and how to evade detection? If atheltes are fully informed about the ill effects of performance enhancing drugs and decide to use them despite the risk, should we penalize them? What is wrong with "doping" in sports? In a provocative article in the New York Times, columnist John Tierney says, "Let the games be doped." What do you think?
Once upon a time, the lords of the Olympic Games believed that the only true champion was an amateur, a gentleman hobbyist untainted by commerce. Today they enforce a different ideal. The winners of the gold medals are supposed to be natural athletes, untainted by technology. After enough “scandals,” the amateur myth eventually died of its own absurdity. The natural myth is still alive in Beijing, but it’s becoming so far-fetched — and potentially dangerous — that some scientists and ethicists would like to abandon it, too.
What if we let athletes do whatever they wanted to excel?
Before you dismiss this notion, consider what we’re stuck with today. The system is ostensibly designed to create a level playing field, protect athletes’ health and set an example for children, but it fails on all counts.
The journal Nature, in an editorial in the current issue, complains that “antidoping authorities have fostered a sporting culture of suspicion, secrecy and fear” by relying on unscientifically calibrated tests, like the unreliable test for synthetic testosterone that cost Floyd Landis his 2006 Tour de France victory. Even if the authorities manage to correct their tests, they can’t possibly keep up with the accelerating advances in biology. Some athletes are already considering new drugs like Aicar and GW1516, which made news recently when researchers at the Salk Institute used them to quickly turn couch-potato mice into treadmill champions with new, strong muscles.
“There’s a possibility that athletes in this Olympics will be using these drugs,” said Ronald Evans, the leader of the team at Salk, who has been fending off inquiries from athletes about these drugs. He has advised the antidoping authorities on how to detect these drugs, but whether they’ll be able do it competently this Olympics is far from clear.
If athletes didn’t have to cheat to win, they and society would be better off, says Bengt Kayser, the director of a sports medicine institute at the University of Geneva. In a 2005 article in The Lancet, he and two bioethicists argued that legalizing doping would “encourage more sensible, informed use of drugs in amateur sport, leading to an overall decline in the rate of health problems associated with doping.”
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