“From the earliest of times, societies have celebrated derring-do, athleticism, competition and victory. ” Photo: Brad Masters
Some professions are synonymous with unfettered behavior. Politicians and bankers come to mind. So much so that even though the culprit’s wrongdoings are collectively despised, public reactions to them are somewhat blunted. It’s as though it’s almost expected. After all, it’s just a politician being a politician or a banker being a banker.
The best way forward is to simply give the deck a shuffle and carry on as if nothing has happened. Yet for some reason, when athletes act unscrupulously, they are not afforded the same slack. It’s as though they have crossed an inviolable line and the only way that natural order can be restored is via summary execution of career and character.
Most people abhor drug-assisted athletic performance. It somehow violates the very nature of sport, which is preferred to be rooted in a notion of fair play and sportsmanship that harkens back to an era of Corinthian spirit and Greek Olympian values. While this is a commendable philosophy, in much the same way that an honesty box is, it is not grounded in reality – it is just an ideology. And how exactly this ideal came about is not very clear.
From the earliest of times, societies have celebrated derring-do, athleticism, competition and victory. Homer dedicated many words applauding Odysseus’s heroic deeds during the Trojan War and, in doing so, coveted not only strength, bravery and intelligence, but also cunning and one-upmanship. Odysseus and his fellow Greeks stuck it to the Trojans with such a staggering display of acumen and guile that it has been revered through the ages. They then put these traits to further advantage when they outsmarted the Gods and mystical creatures during their epic ten year return journey. These same Odyssean characteristics are shown in those modern day athletes who choose to dope. Dopers need to outwit the authorities, fans, media, friends, family and fellow competitors. They are five-move Machiavellian chess players and the stakes are high: careers, reputations and livelihoods are at risk. In choosing this route, however, no Iliad or Odyssey is written about them; instead their morals are viewed as opposing those accepted by society and, as such, they are labeled deviant. But not necessarily deviant in respect to the accepted lexicon.
In the process of doping, these athletes are displaying supra normal actions and are, on one level at least, only trying to enhance themselves and perform better. In isolation, these characteristics are normally considered constructive and are to be encouraged. Sociologists and academics refer to this sort of behavior as positively deviant to the mainstream. But it is not as simple as that. It is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate this so-called deviant behavior from the mainstream, especially when the drug-performance relationship is a prolific and well established practice in conventional society. Consider the middle aged man taking a blue pill to get him hard. Or the university student quaffing hyper-caffeinated drinks to help her cram for exams. Or the stressed businessman taking sleeping pills in order to prepare for an important presentation the following morning. All of these are examples of drug (ab)use with the sole intention of enhancing ability and performance (and in some instances of wanting to outperform contemporaries). Furthermore, there are commonplace advertisements promoting self-prescribed medications intended to mask pain and improve the quality of one’s life and the ability to accomplish–whether that be gardening, playing squash or playing with the grandkids. In this context, society condemning athletes for doping may, at best, be a pious knee-jerk reaction or, at worst, a hypocritical one. Sport is not a satellite to society; rather it is a subset of it. So if doping athletes are deviant, what does that make the rest of us? By definition, we can’t all be deviant.
The use of performance enhancing drugs in sport is often regarded as upsetting the level playing field. But to create a favorable bias is often the very nature of sport. The sole purpose of talent identification programs is to find those with an unfair natural gift that can be used to get one over on the competition. Sports science support, equipment development and elaborate training regimes are all about creating a sloping playing field that will disadvantage opponents. These endeavors to establish unfairness are accepted as wholly just, despite them only being the preserve of those countries that can afford them. When athletes from third-world countries with little or no resources are pitted against first-world athletes, few question the inequality of it all.
In the wider context, it is important to remember that sport is entertainment. And we all like to be entertained. I can vividly remember staring awestruck at the television set in my parents’ house when Ben Johnson won the 100-meter final at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. It was by far the best athletic performance I had ever seen. A paradigm shift occurred for me that day. As a youngster, it redefined the excitement and awe I got from watching sport. The laboratory results would later confirm that Johnson’s performance was assisted by the anabolic steroid Stanozol and he was subsequently stripped of his gold medal and sent home in disgrace. But back at my parents’ house in England, I could not un-see what I had seen. And I could not un-feel the exhilaration I had felt. And perhaps what is more noteworthy is the fact that I didn’t want to. It was a breathtaking experience – for those 9.79 seconds, I had been truly entertained. That day, Johnson had certainly fulfilled his job description as an entertainer. Yet he got penalized for it.
But for a quirk of human ethics, athletes receive a rebuke from society while other entertainers get their Odyssey for performing under the influence. It is widely believed that celebrated romantic poet Coleridge (among many others) wrote under the effect of opium. Likewise, Dickens has been linked to the same drug. Contemporary artists, songwriters, musicians and rock stars are notoriously associated with drug use, often crediting it for inspiring their creativity. Indeed, heavy drug use among rock bands is often lauded in folklore and almost a prerequisite for legitimacy in the genre. It would seem that the heroes and villains of the entertainment industry are created whimsically.
High performance sport, with its overarching emphasis on results, often creates a mind-body dichotomy for the athlete. Consider the free surfer who enters into the realm of competition. Initially, surfing was about enjoying the holistic existential experience of the pastime, but in competition, the leader board cares little about these values. Heats are judged on the physical aspects of performance. Under such circumstances, the body becomes increasingly taxed and its weaknesses exposed. It becomes a tool in the performance equation in just the same way a surfboard is. And, just like a surfboard, it is amended and updated using all available resources. Injuries become simple mechanical failures that need fixing, and they are addressed with little more moral thinking than that required to replace a broken fin. Performance enhancing drugs are just the latest epoxy for the body. The ethical transition to this mindset is not always the sole responsibility of the athletes as they do not entirely own their bodies; they have significant stakeholders in it. There are the fans, the media, the sponsors and even whole nations that need appeasing. There is a lot of momentum and expectation placed on their shoulders and, like any job, targets need to be met and boxes need to be ticked. Athletes are not always free to speak their minds; their contracts have them bound like hawsers while they have to toe the corporate line.
On a base level, the only reason why athletes dope in the first place is because they can. If it was guaranteed that a doping athlete would get busted and suitably penalized, then the dilemma would not exist. But the drug detection programs are far from robust – perhaps because it doesn’t really serve anyone’s interests if they were. The fans want to witness super human, not pedestrian, performances. So does the media. Often, the governing bodies simply want to appease both the fans and the media. Therefore, if the athlete’s dilemma is taken to its logical conclusion, the only way that an athlete can have a fair chance of winning is to take performance enhancing drugs simply because the other athlete will be taking them for exactly the same reasons. Those who follow sport will be familiar with oft-cited mitigation from the accused that everyone else is also on drugs. While this excuse is little better than the playground drug pusher’s excuse that if he didn’t do it someone else would, it is somewhat ironic that this intra-sport ethic does actually make for a level playing field.
It should come as no real surprise that the beyond-normal performance that we so desire requires beyond-normal behavior. So as we slake our thirst for faster, higher and stronger, maybe we should cut the doping athletes some slack – after all, they are just athletes being athletes.
