Dope and Sport – What is cheating really?

 

See the picture above?

Yes, thats why I live for sport. I don’t remember how many times I jumped onto the sofa when Shevchenko missed that penalty. No, I don’t remember my decibel count at 2 AM in the morning…I just remember the moment.

Isn’t this what sport is all about? Its not about the big guns winning all the time. Its about sheer determination. Sport is about fairy tales. Fairy tales which are real. Which are true. Just like this picture. So real, you can still feel the emotions if you touch it.

So, when doping and sport come together in another one of those headlines – this time its Floyd Landis, I ask, is doping, cheating? The answer is yes. Its cheating. Its about gaining an unfair advantage over your opponent. Doping is as much cheating, as is betting in the Serie A, as in diving in Football, as in brake-testing in Formula 1.

1. Sport works with rules. And keeping within those rules, the players are supposed to play. If you don’t like rules, well, don’t play.

2. Rules can be changed as in  accordance with that particular moment. Theres probably no need to stick by rules, just because they have been there since eternity.

3. Taking drugs is cheating. Using performance enhancing drugs has been banned. No one should be above the rules.

But again when does an advantage become an unfair advantage? [Its important to note, that an average Indian Sports enthusiast doesn't care about drug abuse in sport. I have got these insights from the BBC forum]

‘Cheating is defined as an act of deception, mockery, fraud, imposture or imposition’

And that is exactly what Mr. Floyd Landis has done. Not only is this act of deception, but he has tarnished Tour-De-France – the premier cycling event in this world, the Vuelta does not come this  close. In a 100 years not once the champion has been stripped off his title. Thanks to Floyd Landis, that is a reality now. So, who won the Tour De France? Some would say , Oscar Parreira. But I say, Tour-De-France has lost. From next year on, everytime you see a rider winning stages 16 and 17, you will say, he cheated. Atleast at the back of your mind.

Until we decide to do away with human cyclists and create robotic figures with the same specifications – ala Formula One racers we are stuck with imperfect human beings who all have different physiolgical and mental abilites.

Agree here as well. Formula 1 today is not about the driver anymore. Since the day, the FIA decided to implement Traction Control, its a race only between perfect machineries. Although you still find the human instinct there to cheat. Getting robot cyclists is fair enough idea. Atleast there would be some even-ness in the whole concept of Tour-De-France.

But after all said and done, did you really think at Stage 17 that Floyd Landis was cheating? I wasn’t. I felt it was incredible to come out from that kind of setback and win one of the toughest stages in the competition. And I wish, I never knew that Floyd Landis cheated. I wish I never read the stories, never saw the news and never visited the internet website.

If I could just ask the A. C. Milan fan, did you think they were cheating when they won the Serie A? What are your emotions, do you think the team let you down, do you feel sad, angry, devastated that the performances where undeserved? Or do you prefer to live in that blissful existence, that it just never happened, or you are willing to forget it?   

Doping has badly hit those sports that do not command wholesome viewership, the money involved is not huge and the players are not backed by any financially sound associations. But do you really think that your sport is free of dope?

Shocking is the confession made by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, the doctor involved in cycling’s blood-doping scandal, who readily admitted that other sports, such as tennis and football are also involved in doping. Obviously, the International Tennis Federation doesn’t buy this. Although Dr. Fuentes also admits that the soccer and tennis players regularly dope, including players in Real Madrid Football Club.

Apparently, such disclosure had also opened up another news story about Rafael Nadal, when a French newspaper connected him to drug abuse. Eventually the Spanish government denied such allegations completely, saying all such stories were baseless

Dope and Serie A are no strangers to each other. A scandal arose in 1998 about doping in the league, when the Lazio coach said that doping was extensively followed in Serie A. It did bring out some shocking results, most notably Egdar Davids.
At least in cycling or Olympic events, the world governing body catches these sportsmen and women and provides proper punishments for such drug abuse. But I don’t think that in popular sports, where big boys are happily increasing their ticket sales, do anything or care anything about the drug abuse, even though evidence after evidence is piled upon. Isolated incidents in Tennis and Football sometimes crop up about doping incidents, but just because there hasn’t been high profile cases in recent years, it does not guarantee that there is no drug abuse in popular sports.

As such, Sport according to me, cannot be predicted. There is no written script which it follows. And that’s the exact reason why the world is so endearing to us. But when you hear stories such as these, speculations are bound to follow. If such stories start questioning performances in every area of sport, where does that leave us? Are we sure that the heroes we follow, the performances which we marvel at are true and genuine feats by extraordinary beings, and they do not involve cheating?
I guess I am willing to be ignorant and blissful…yeah, whatever it takes to keep the above picture real.