There I said it so everyone can calm down because quite frankly…I am sick of hearing about it. News hit yesterday that Austria’s Bernhard Kohl failed is drug test due to the use of a blood booster called CERA. Do I care? No and here is why…
Everyone is doping and this is not limited to cyclists.
Why is everyone doping?
It is really our fault as the spectator. Every year we expect (not hope) for faster times, more home runs, more touchdowns, etc. than the year before. When it comes down to it, the human body can only do so much. Every person can only have so much talent, drive and heart to make it to that level. Once you achieve the top of your game…that’s it…unless you take a substance that brings your body above its natural level of performance. That is where doping comes in. It takes the best of the best and makes them better.
What does this do for sports?
Faster times and more home runs mean more spectators and higher ratings. What fun would the Alps stages of the Tour be without the final sprint? After watching the last two years, the Alps stages are a full out sprint to the top over the entire course of that stage. There used to be a day when the racers actually got tired.
The news media, major broadcast stations and everyone watching love this kind of action. It brings you back wanting more. When a athlete breaks a record, everyone gets excited and feels like they are a part of something special. You can hear old men across the world talking about when they saw some xyz player at the top of his game. These moments, almost always, come from pure greatness at the game. To beat the previous best, you have to be even better.
The Level Playing Field
Part of the issue is making sure there is a level playing field for all of the athletes. At this point, isn’t the playing field level again? Every single one of them are using the same edge as the next. What we get instead is what the audience wants…more excitement. Who cares if it is terrible for their bodies or bad for the sport? They should just be able to do it and compete…none of us would know the difference and we would get those blazing fast times that we all yearn for.
The Reactions
The best part about this entire ordeal is the reactions from the press and spectators. Every time, we act surprised and believe lines like this.
“I want to come clean,” a tearful Kohl told a press conference at Vienna airport. “I fell to temptation. The pressure was incredibly strong. I’m only human and in this exceptional situation I showed weakness.”
Give me a break. You didn’t do it because the pressure was strong and you are “only human”. You did it because you wanted that edge over the next guy for the better sponsorships, better results and faster recovery times. I am not going to feel sorry for these guys when they have a job that the rest of us would kill for. You get to do what you love for a living and you made a mistake. Own up to it and move on.
What does the future hold?
More and more drug testing, and this leads to more and more drugs that get past the numerous drug tests. As much as I would like to think we are going to have a completely clean sport, it is not going to happen. Everyone is always going to be looking for that undetectable edge over the competitor next to them. It is just the nature of the beast as we expect these athletes to perform at a level that might not be naturally possible.
Maybe, if we lower our standards just a little bit, we can get the drugs out of sports and start to enjoy our past times the way they were supposed to be enjoyed. This assumes that everyone is going to play by the rules…which we all know is not true.