Drugs, Sport, And Justice

The storyline in far too many sports these days goes something like this:

Athlete A sets a record of some form or another in Sport B. Athlete A has never failed a drug test mandated by his/her sport. The general public can’t believe that a performance like this is possible without the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Questions start to accumulate, and people start to wonder if their much-beloved Sport B has been tarnished by a drug cheat.

The governing body of Sport B doesn’t have very good drug testing policies, or perhaps doesn’t enforce them very stringently, or perhaps just doesn’t really care when everything is said and done. Those that run Sport B are pleased that tickets are being sold, or TV contracts are being negotiated – or both.

Performance-enhancing drug use in Sport B is only illegal based on the rules of Sport B, not the fact that they are illegal to use in the United States. Now we introduce Group C – those with their own agendas that don’t want Sport B to be soiled - try to dig up the dirt on suspected drug cheat Athlete A.

Anything sound familiar here? Name the sport – and read on. The storyline has just begun.

Millions of dollars of taxpayer money is then spent by Group C to find some type of smoking gun - which should have been found by the governing body of Sport B themselves (with private funding, of course). Suspected drug cheat Athlete A then gets caught in a myriad of lies and half truths, coercion, and “he said, she said” diatribe. But Group C wants Athlete A to be penalized and would be pleased to have Athlete A behind bars for any reason whatsoever. A federal offense based on a federal investigation (and federal dollars) would work just fine, thank you very much.  At least Sport B’s reputation won’t be soiled and the “truth” will be told.

Athlete A goes to court to be tried for, of all things, perjury. Athlete A gets nailed by Group C for everything BUT the actual suspected (and yet unproven) drug use. “Justice” is served, right?

The public perceives the issue to be one of performance-enhancing drug use (not perjury). “How dare he spoil our sport”, ticket-buying fans proclaims. Fans throw tomatoes at Athlete A, who has yet to fail a drug test mandated by Sport B. But that doesn’t seem to matter, as long as there is the Court of Public Opinion.

Those that run Sport B are still selling plenty of tickets while they have turned and looked the other way.

End of storyline. Change the names, change the sport, the storyline stays the same.

Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of athletes in Sports A through Z that have tested positive and broken the rules of their sport’s governing body. I certainly don’t support or approve of the use of drugs in sport.

But then there are plenty of athletes – Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, and Roger Clemens to name but a few – who have yet to fail a drug test. They are being put under federal scrutiny simply because Group C thinks that the athlete must be guilty (but as yet unproven), and that the federal government has the money to do the investigation properly. What happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? The presumption of innocence?

I wish we’d put those same federal dollars  - there are obviously lots of them floating around - towards an educational program or two. How about spending these same federal dollars on sports science programs that would continue to push the current limits of training methods. This way, sports science solutions, combined with natural, hard work, could lead the way forward as they should. Optimal training methods, combined with hard work, mental training, and sweat equity, have yet to push the outer limits of human performance.

Or we could spend millions of dollars on an “obstruction of justice” offense or two or three. “Who’s justice” remains the question.

Photo credits: Wikipedia