When did honesty die
a quiet, lonely death?
With the aftermath of doping allegations from the 2012 Tour de France and the proverbial “Other Shoe” which fell almost daily from the London Summer Olympics, the existing divide has only grown larger.
Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) in all levels of sports
are alive and well. From the Pro’s down
to the Amateur ranks, they are everywhere.
So bad is the penetration of PED’s, that even when someone is truly
clean, no one believes them. Heck, a
year ago I was at a local bike shop listening to some local racers proudly proclaim,
“If I had to take EPO (Erythropoietin) to keep up, I would do it.” Wow, and these are the local guys!
When I ran track in high school the subject de jour were steroids. There were rumors of some schools pushing it
on the athletes to get ahead. I paid it
no attention back then. Boy, I should
have.
We have become a society of skeptics and finger-pointers, and
investigations (a loose term, at best) like “Operation Puerto” only add to the
stigma which is cycling. Throw in the
suspension of Alberto Contador for a positive Clenbuterol test, the on-going
Lance Armstrong “Well, he must of taken something!” affair, to Frank Schleck's
recent Tour de France positive test for a diuretic, and the ramifications of
the sport’s image can clearly be seen. Heck,
there are even cases of Cat 3 and 4 local racers being busted for EPO!
The current “Busted” climate is not only scoring a positive
on a pee test, but apparently every little nuance and innuendo is enough to
trash a reputation and a career. Maybe
rightfully so, but must we be so rabid as to eat our own at a moments
notice? Some of it is pretty cut and
dry. Some of it is just too foolish to
watch.
A case in point – Lance Armstrong. Must this circus go on any longer? I mean come on, either the man is guilty or
he is not. A check of any story on Lance
has the ever present “He doped,” “No he didn’t dope” crowd in the comment
section of any on-line forum or printed media.
The longer this goes on the more the sport looks foolishly insane.
The main point of focus here should be where will it all
end? Then again, will it ever end?
The International Cycling Union (UCI) has not been asleep at
the proverbial switch, and they are well aware of the situation and public’s
perception of cycling. It is, however, just
like any other “operation” – The status quo will not only be tolerated, but it
will be encouraged as long as the positions of power in the organizational
structure remain and the money comes into the sport. This is true of many governing bodies, be it
Major League Baseball (MLB), National Football League (NFL), NASCAR (the France family
can write the book on this), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), you
name it.
The sport cannot look at itself objectively anymore, not
that it really ever did. When cheating
becomes the status quo, in any sport, do not think for a second one is fooling all
of the fans while organizations are busy fooling themselves.
The driving ethos becomes money not the spirit of
competition. Once this happens, it is
now a show and no longer a sport (again, see NASCAR).
Sadder still, cheating is all around us, whether it is your
kids’ soccer match, to cutting in a line at the theater, to telling a lie, to fudging
on a resume. Cheating has been, is now, and
as long as we tolerate it, will be with us well into the future. If we do no put a stop to it, expect the
future to bring a whole lot of asterisks’ next to individuals’ names, along
with the shattered dreams of those whom gave it an honest go.
Reality becomes fantasy, and fantasy become reality. Who really earned it, and who was only
putting on a show?
Maybe Shakespeare was right – The World is indeed a stage.
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