Jeremy
Rozansky -
“Performance-enhancing drugs do not merely inflate the
outcomes for batters, pitchers, and cyclists, allowing us to nullify the
offense by paring back the outlandish records of the last decade. Instead, they
fundamentally change the character of the act we witness when we cheer on our
sports stars. Perhaps Barry Bonds’s clever chemists helped him hit twenty more
home runs in 2001 than he otherwise would. Home runs and other statistics, like
wins and losses, are not the activity we value, they are only valued as the
outcome of superior human performance — athletics done well. But Bonds’s
steroid-aided blasts into the sky and the yellow jackets that Armstrong won
with even the smallest lift from erythropoietin were instances of something
other than human athletic excellence. In choosing to use performance-enhancing
drugs these men chose to participate not in sport but in a spectacle that bears
only a mocking resemblance to true athletic achievement. As such, we cannot
induct them into our temples of great sportsmen, nor can we consider them the
best sportsmen in a corrupted era. Armstrong, Bonds, Clemens, and the rest all
chose to be supermen rather than sportsmen. They cannot be both.”
Thought-provoking
essay on how we should look at our drugged-up athletes.
The
interesting bit to me is this – what happens when drugs become safe enough to
be mainstream, and nothing more than just a coffee (caffeine-boost) in the
morning?
Why
shouldn’t humans be allowed to use pharmaceutical advancements in order to
improve their physical abilities? Should sporting improvements be limited only
to what exercise and training that each individual can do?
It
cannot be disputed that certain races have genetic advantages over others when
it comes to physical abilities, ergo “white
men can’t jump”. This includes the ability to recover faster from physical
activities, more strength or quickness, and higher natural ceilings for
improvement through physical exercise alone.
I’m
of course discounting certain sports which require more skill than huff-and-puff,
e.g. cue sports, darts, etc. To excel in these sports would clearly require
lots of practice and training and the effect of PEDs in such activities would
be insignificant.
However,
for most sports out there, given such natural limitations placed on some of us,
why shouldn’t the proverbial “white man”
be allowed to improve by using technology which is available and safe?
Why
should someone with genetically inferior physical traits be forced to accept
his lot in life, and refrain from taking PEDs so that he can improve himself?
Isn’t
that the whole point of humanity, to live and to continually strive to push our
frontiers and to seek out limits we haven’t seen before?
/ac
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