I have struggled -- why god only knows; it's not like i'm ever going to ride competitively -- to find an ethically consistent position on the whole "doping" issue in cycling. The hypocrisy of the vast majority of the cycling press and fans, hailing them when they win, heaping opprobrium and obloquy when they are caught "cheating" is a bit much to take.
Let's look at this pragmatically. The human body was not built to ride a bike for 100+ Km a day for three weeks straight. It was not designed to play an 82 game NBA season + 7-21 playoff games.
All the EPO and steroids in the world isn't going to make a guy like me, even in my "prime" (I'm either still anticipating it, or it came and went without my notice) a pro cyclist. To compete you have to have certain requisite physical abilities and self-discipline out the kazoo. The more you have of one, the less you need of the other (Jan Ulrich, e.g.) -- but either alone will not even get you on a team, much less to the podium.
It's entirely possible that the benefits of either EPO or steroids can be equalled or excelled by things like altitude training, oxygen tents, specialized diet, meditation, etc. But we'll never know, will we, unless the sports world grows up and acknowledges that this stuff is going on, that it's endemic, and attempts to regulate and monitor it without resorting to the zero-sum logic of the "war" on drugs.
So why not allow competitors to use what they are going to use (short of say, the blood of live virgins) and make them report it, and have it monitored and studied by qualified physicians. We might actually learn something: whether these things actually work, and what the risks really are. The data will only clear things up. Right now, everything is based on perception, hysteria and anecdotal evidence.
The ones who are using can wear a red triangle or something on their jerseys. Test everybody all the time. If you claim to be "clean" and are caught using, you're out, forever. If you tell the truth about it, you're in and you get to compete. This would be a powerful incentive not to use, to be "clean" and to actually win.
Retarded or unrealistic? How about the current system in cycling, which automatically suspends anyone arbitrarily with a hematocrit reading of 50 or higher, the presumption being that you are using. I wouldn't call that fair.
David Millar said that, when he was using, it made him train much harder, not because of any effect of the drugs, but because he realized he was in all the way, and no turning back. If he was going to take this risk, then he'd damn well better win.
All this brought on by the allegations of a former Lance mechanic/monkey butler, who claimed to find steroids at Lance's house. Interestingly, procycling.com (which is prickly toward Lance and vice versa) is running the story, although Velonews is ignoring it. This accuser's status as disgruntled terminated employee (oh to be gruntled once again) now filing a lawsuit makes him fail the first round of the cui bono test, but we'll see.
Your red-triangle plan sounds interesting. Feasible, I don't know, but we're in Cloud Cuckoo Land anyway, so go for it.
Ultimately it comes down to the question of "Why sports?"... If the goal is to ascertain the best innate athlete, we head one direction, and if it is ascertain the best trainer, we head another. Most folks, I suspect, don't entirely know what they're looking for. (Me, I'm really more interested in strategy, at least for tennis & cycling. The third sport I follow, sumo, is an outlier in pretty much every way.)
Posted by: meg | 01 April 2005 at 17:20