What's the difference between:
A: The first one is banned in sports and the rest aren't.
Now, let's look at the reasoning here. Steroids and other banned substances are the dirty words of the day, eliciting foul cries of cheating even where their use has not been proved or when that use began before the substances in question were actually banned. It's an admirable attempt to level the playing field (and secondarily to claim the high ground by pretending to care about athletes' health, which is a very unstudied subject anyway).
In the next lane over we have a good Christian athlete who undergoes a massive supplement regimen including precursors to human growth hormone (HGH), creatine, highly-refined protein powders, energy-boosting formulations, time-release endurance compounds, anti-inflammatories, analgesics for pain, and a Chinese medicine's shop full of stress relievers, strength boosters, and a dozen other things the IOC hasn't gotten around to banning.
Athletes no longer wear baggy shorts and t-shirts. Oh no, they wear one-piece Lycra leotards that would make Michael Jackson blush (or rush out and buy one). They shave their heads, their legs, their arms, their chests - all to reduce that critical percent or two of drag. They cycle in wind tunnels to fine-tune their on-bike positioning. Far from being true amateurs, they are identified early in life by the net of biometrics and surrounded by a team of trainers who sculpt their muscle-to-fat ratio, their cardiovascular efficiency, their diet, and their athletic technique to perfection.
Where lung capacity contributes greatly to success, such as in cycling, training is performed at very high altitudes where oxygen is thin, the idea being that the more oxygen-rich environment on race day will make the contest a walk in the park, both physically and psychologically. Nearly all pro cyclists and runners do this, and it works. It's a bit like swinging a bat underwater or jogging with ankle weights, or playing Ninja Gaiden on the insane difficulty level.
Another area where the playing field is obviously uneven is in the use of technology to precisely map an athlete's performance via sensors affixed to their body while they train. A computer model is then constructed and an army of trainers can step through the performance one frame at a time and identify any inefficiencies in technique. Likewise, doctors and physiologists always seem to have plenty of time on their hands to perform batteries of tests on these "amateurs," like measuring their pulmonary 'headroom', bone density, fast-to-low-twitch muscle ratio, VO2 max, etc.
One of the things I hear most often about allowing steroids into athletic competitions is that it will "uneven" the playing field. Well let me tell you something, Barbara: that playing field ain't level now and it never has been. One of the most important factors in determining an athlete's performance, if not the most important, is his or her genetics. Some people are simply faster, stronger, more coordinated, or have greater endurance than others, given the exact same training regimen. How is that "unfair advantage" supposed to be eliminated? Create an army of genetic clones?
As you can see, trying to take the concept of fair to its extreme conclusion becomes absurd. I rather like the way there are so many variables involved; it increases the importance of old-fashioned strategy and makes for huge upsets and other surprises on race day. Do I condone steroids or other medical substances that are proven to harm the body? No. But many things like Human Growth Hormone are regularly prescribed legally by doctors for legitimate ailments and have not been shown to be detrimental to long term health (the jury's still out on many other substances of course). The arbiters of fair competition only use that specter of bodily harm to hide their real motivation, which is the fear that the haves will gain yet another advantage over the have-nots.
One last point about steroids: They don't magically make you stronger. What they do is decrease your recovery time and make you more aggressive so that you can train more often and more efficiently. You still have to do all the work. How is this different from many of the other legal training techniques?
Is an intense regimen of 30 amino acid tablets a day, a scientifically controlled diet, cross-training in adverse conditions, massive injections of recovery and performance enhancing compounds timed so they'll wash out of the body before testing time, cutting edge visualization and relaxation techniques, and all the rest of the "legal" routines we cheerfully cajole our modern athletes through in order to win that gold medal for our country - are these practices really any different? The object is and always had been to gain an unfair advantage over the opponent, regardless of what PR types will tell you or ABC sob-story profiles will have you believe.
Sports is a huge business. When money is at stake, athletes will always to look for ways to get a leg up on the competition - sometimes literally. Ty Cobb wore longer (and sharpened) spikes so he could take out the second baseman on a steal or double-play breakup attempt, which led many a nervous second-sacker to back off just that little bit. This in turn inflated Cobb's steal total. Was that unfair? It wasn't against the rules at the time (they changed said rules in quick order). My point is, it's impossible to realize that elysian dream we seem to aspire to of a fair competetive field for all. Humans come in different shapes and sizes, different physiological and mental makeups. We all have more or less financial and scientific resources at our disposal. Steroids are just the latest wrinkle in the age-old game of "I'm better than you." And if the athletes themselves know the risks involved and choose to accept them anyway, how exactly is that different from smoking or drinking or training in the Alps or doing two-a-days in full pads under a 100 degree Florida sun, activities which are manifestly notbanned by Olympic organizers?
Our ideas of "fair" seem unrealistic and outdated. Sure, I would like to see a bunch of Beavers and Wallys and Eddies (ok, not Eddy) compete merely for pride in an arena where no one cared who won or lost, only how hard their boys and girls tried. But that's not the way it is. I don't think it ever was, honestly. So I say get rid of this testing business altogether and let athletes do what they want to their bodies like they do in every other walk of life. Cut the fake Pollyanna crap that surrounds the Olympics, and let them go at it with everything they can muster at their disposal. It may lose some of it's supposed nobility, but at least it would be honest.
Oh, and for those who would pine the loss of chivalry, pluck, and true athletic purity, there's always the Paralympics. As long as some enterprising athlete, looking to shave a few seconds off his racing time, doesn't start using a molybdenum-graphite wheelchair or something.
- Steroids
- Legal supplements
- Computer bioanalysis
- High-altitude training
- Sports psychology
- Superior genetics
- Any other means of gaining a competitive advantage
A: The first one is banned in sports and the rest aren't.
Now, let's look at the reasoning here. Steroids and other banned substances are the dirty words of the day, eliciting foul cries of cheating even where their use has not been proved or when that use began before the substances in question were actually banned. It's an admirable attempt to level the playing field (and secondarily to claim the high ground by pretending to care about athletes' health, which is a very unstudied subject anyway).
In the next lane over we have a good Christian athlete who undergoes a massive supplement regimen including precursors to human growth hormone (HGH), creatine, highly-refined protein powders, energy-boosting formulations, time-release endurance compounds, anti-inflammatories, analgesics for pain, and a Chinese medicine's shop full of stress relievers, strength boosters, and a dozen other things the IOC hasn't gotten around to banning.
Athletes no longer wear baggy shorts and t-shirts. Oh no, they wear one-piece Lycra leotards that would make Michael Jackson blush (or rush out and buy one). They shave their heads, their legs, their arms, their chests - all to reduce that critical percent or two of drag. They cycle in wind tunnels to fine-tune their on-bike positioning. Far from being true amateurs, they are identified early in life by the net of biometrics and surrounded by a team of trainers who sculpt their muscle-to-fat ratio, their cardiovascular efficiency, their diet, and their athletic technique to perfection.
Where lung capacity contributes greatly to success, such as in cycling, training is performed at very high altitudes where oxygen is thin, the idea being that the more oxygen-rich environment on race day will make the contest a walk in the park, both physically and psychologically. Nearly all pro cyclists and runners do this, and it works. It's a bit like swinging a bat underwater or jogging with ankle weights, or playing Ninja Gaiden on the insane difficulty level.
Another area where the playing field is obviously uneven is in the use of technology to precisely map an athlete's performance via sensors affixed to their body while they train. A computer model is then constructed and an army of trainers can step through the performance one frame at a time and identify any inefficiencies in technique. Likewise, doctors and physiologists always seem to have plenty of time on their hands to perform batteries of tests on these "amateurs," like measuring their pulmonary 'headroom', bone density, fast-to-low-twitch muscle ratio, VO2 max, etc.
One of the things I hear most often about allowing steroids into athletic competitions is that it will "uneven" the playing field. Well let me tell you something, Barbara: that playing field ain't level now and it never has been. One of the most important factors in determining an athlete's performance, if not the most important, is his or her genetics. Some people are simply faster, stronger, more coordinated, or have greater endurance than others, given the exact same training regimen. How is that "unfair advantage" supposed to be eliminated? Create an army of genetic clones?
As you can see, trying to take the concept of fair to its extreme conclusion becomes absurd. I rather like the way there are so many variables involved; it increases the importance of old-fashioned strategy and makes for huge upsets and other surprises on race day. Do I condone steroids or other medical substances that are proven to harm the body? No. But many things like Human Growth Hormone are regularly prescribed legally by doctors for legitimate ailments and have not been shown to be detrimental to long term health (the jury's still out on many other substances of course). The arbiters of fair competition only use that specter of bodily harm to hide their real motivation, which is the fear that the haves will gain yet another advantage over the have-nots.
One last point about steroids: They don't magically make you stronger. What they do is decrease your recovery time and make you more aggressive so that you can train more often and more efficiently. You still have to do all the work. How is this different from many of the other legal training techniques?
Is an intense regimen of 30 amino acid tablets a day, a scientifically controlled diet, cross-training in adverse conditions, massive injections of recovery and performance enhancing compounds timed so they'll wash out of the body before testing time, cutting edge visualization and relaxation techniques, and all the rest of the "legal" routines we cheerfully cajole our modern athletes through in order to win that gold medal for our country - are these practices really any different? The object is and always had been to gain an unfair advantage over the opponent, regardless of what PR types will tell you or ABC sob-story profiles will have you believe.
Sports is a huge business. When money is at stake, athletes will always to look for ways to get a leg up on the competition - sometimes literally. Ty Cobb wore longer (and sharpened) spikes so he could take out the second baseman on a steal or double-play breakup attempt, which led many a nervous second-sacker to back off just that little bit. This in turn inflated Cobb's steal total. Was that unfair? It wasn't against the rules at the time (they changed said rules in quick order). My point is, it's impossible to realize that elysian dream we seem to aspire to of a fair competetive field for all. Humans come in different shapes and sizes, different physiological and mental makeups. We all have more or less financial and scientific resources at our disposal. Steroids are just the latest wrinkle in the age-old game of "I'm better than you." And if the athletes themselves know the risks involved and choose to accept them anyway, how exactly is that different from smoking or drinking or training in the Alps or doing two-a-days in full pads under a 100 degree Florida sun, activities which are manifestly notbanned by Olympic organizers?
Our ideas of "fair" seem unrealistic and outdated. Sure, I would like to see a bunch of Beavers and Wallys and Eddies (ok, not Eddy) compete merely for pride in an arena where no one cared who won or lost, only how hard their boys and girls tried. But that's not the way it is. I don't think it ever was, honestly. So I say get rid of this testing business altogether and let athletes do what they want to their bodies like they do in every other walk of life. Cut the fake Pollyanna crap that surrounds the Olympics, and let them go at it with everything they can muster at their disposal. It may lose some of it's supposed nobility, but at least it would be honest.
Oh, and for those who would pine the loss of chivalry, pluck, and true athletic purity, there's always the Paralympics. As long as some enterprising athlete, looking to shave a few seconds off his racing time, doesn't start using a molybdenum-graphite wheelchair or something.
1 comment:
Thanks for the comments. Yeah, the longer ones are probably daunting to read, but I appreciate it when people do since it took some effort to write. I don't see how the last paragraph contradicts anything...oh, the wheelchair deal. Well, I was just being silly there.
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