You’ve probably heard about the whole BALCO case in the news over the last week. You’re probably thinking that it’s all overblown or that I can’t add anything new to the discussion but this is one of the few issues that I am not neutral on.
A bit of background info first. BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative) head Victor Conte has recently given several interviews in which he has exposed the true nature of banned substance abuse among several top athletes. While much of the focus is on Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi their drug use isn’t suprising since they participate in a sport with little moral fibre.
One of the top athletes, and many would say a superstar in her own right, is Marion Jones. Marion won 3 Gold and 2 Bronze at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney and Conte has stated quite clearly that she was using drugs at that time. This statement is clearly quite disturbing for multiple reasons. First, there are 14 people who have been cheated out of a medal (3 Gold + 3 Silver + 3 Bronze, as well as 1 Bronze and 1 Bronze for the 4x100m) that they most likely deservedly earned. Second, when the medals are stripped (as they clearly should be based upon overwhelming evidence) there will be 3 teammates who will be stripped of a Bronze medal.
Athletes have to realize one things when they take bannned substances: they’re hurting everybody. Take Jason Giambi who has suffered from a litany of health problems in the last 3 years. Jones herself is probably suffering from a number of problems and that might be why she didn’t do well in the last Olympics…or it’s quite possible that she had stopped taking drugs and we saw the true Jones. In both cases they hurt themselves, their team mates, their fans, and most importantly the sport.
From now on, whenever somebody does extraordinarily well in any sport we will automatically assume that they were taking some banned substance. This is particularly true of running and cross country sports where performance enchancing drugs will improve the endurance of an athlete.
I’m still calling them athletes because it takes a lot of training to get where they are and the drugs only provide them with the tenth of a second they need to win.
The list of A list stars is even more troubling because younger and lower calibre athletes will assume it’s ok for them to take drugs. The problem will only get worse and will result in a tainting of the sport.
It just really bugs me and I hope you’ll consider what I’ve said and build up strength and endurance the natural way.