Ah, the Olympics, not long now until the greatest of international sporting events gets underway in the revitalised and reinvigorated east end of London. In all of the build up I have read with interest that they have allowed athletes to compete who had previously been kicked out of the competition, indeed all competitions for having taken a banned substance, or drugs as they were once known.
This can’t be right? How can it be that people who have lied and cheated, who’ve gone out of their way to buck the system and have brought the good name of sport into disrepute be allowed to compete again, surely this makes a mockery of the whole spirit of the games. It can’t be fair on the decent and upright sports men and women who have stuck to the rules. Can they ever be trusted again? Who knows, they still may be taking illicit goods with stamina enhancing properties.
But of course it is right. Surely every person deserves a second chance, every one knows that. They made a mistake, got caught and have been punished. They’ve paid the price, done their time and can’t be expected to keep serving the same sentence in perpetuity. Any modern society that is just must allow people who have broken the rules to atone themselves and, in sport, that means by competing again at the highest level. After all, that is what they are good at and to not allow it would be to rid a person of their right to work – a human rights problem if there ever was one.
There is another way though in which athletes that are clean and those that are a little tainted can compete and that is by running separate sporting competitions, a clean series and an anything goes series.
In the clean sports no drugs or performance enhancing substances are allowed. Athletes are tested and screened after every event and anyone with even a sniff of an antihistamine in their veins is kicked out. Punishment is swift and harsh with no right of appeal and no opportunity to return. It is a snake with no ladder.
But they can always go to the anything goes series. In this parallel competition the athletes can take whatever they want, roids, jellies, angel dust, horse or even Brasso if that is their thing. There is no testing, no screening, no questions asked and as long as they can make it over the line alive then they get to compete again. Cheating will be positively encouraged and those that lose will be assumed not to have taken enough substances. It will be fast and furious and gladiatorial. Who wouldn’t want to see the two minute mile, or the weightlifter that can lift two Shetland ponies on a bar, or someone jump over a double decker bus or throw a javelin out of the stadium? That would pull in the madding crowds and the baying hordes.
The simple answer then is to have two sets of competitions, one for the purists and one for the thrill seekers and that will put an end to all the performance enhancing problems.
By the way, this is not a serious suggestion so don’t write in.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 