Should drug cheats be allowed to compete at the Olympics?
Columnist By Luke Doherty, 18 Nov 2011 Luke Doherty is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- 2012 London Olympics, 2012 Olympics, Olympics
In 252 days time the best athletes in the world will descend on London for the 2012 Olympics. Millions will watch the games without batting a suspicious eyelid, but some will always be skeptical about the feats on show.
Can they really run that fast, jump that high or throw that far without some sort of help?
The British Olympic Association has taken what is seen as a hard line stance when it comes to athletes who’ve tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Any British athlete who has served a drugs ban of six months or longer isn’t allowed to be selected for the Olympics ever again.
Former New South Wales Premier John Fahey, now in charge of the World Anti-Doping Agency, says he’s “disappointed” by the BOA’s stance and has asked them to fall into line with the rest of the world.
At the moment the BOA is the only association handing out lifetime bans.
Colin Moynihan, the chairman of the BOA, told Fahey via the media that he’ll continue to exclude athletes who have served bans, but whether he actually has the power to do so remains unclear.
British sprinter Dwain Chambers, who failed a drugs test in 2003, is believed to be considering challenging the lifetime ban following a recent ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The International Olympic Committee was forced to scrap a rule banning athletes who had served a drugs ban of six months or longer from the next Olympics after US 400m champion LaShawn Merritt felt he shouldn’t be punished for longer than WADA deemed appropriate.
CAS agreed branding the Olympic ban “invalid and unenforceable”. They clearly feel someone shouldn’t be sat in the naughty corner twice for the same crime.
The big question is this: Should redemption come so easy?
There’s something not right about watching an athlete compete at an Olympics who had previously turned to a substance stronger than a banana to get that extra bit of energy.
Merritt was banned for 21 months after testing positive to a banned steroid in early 2010, but completed his exile from the sport in July.
How would you feel about him taking to the top step of the podium in London and having a gold medal draped around his neck?
Merritt has served his time but like Chambers is finding the weight of his past sins hard to shake.
Should the Olympics be the domain of people who as IOC President Jacques Rogge recently said respect the spirit of the event? Or are past mistakes just that?
Recommend this story.
You can follow Luke Doherty on Twitter @Luke_Doherty and on Sky News Australia.
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The Crowd Says (12) | Page 1 of Comments
Have Your Say
- Explore:
- 2012 London Olympics, 2012 Olympics, Olympics
November 18th 2011 @ 8:38am
mushi said | November 18th 2011 @ 8:38am | Report comment
Look I think performance enhancing drugs are a blight but whenever I take a step back from the romance of sport for a second I really struggle to justify why I think that way?
The types of training regimes and nutritionist designed diets that are common place today are performance enhancing and resemble nothing that the common man endures. Sure the common man could take these programmes on (if they quit their day ob and ignore their family life) but they could likewise juice up too if that was their wish.
Athletes can recuperate in decompression chambers, train in simulated high altitude environments and have the advantage of imaging and diagnostics equipment that make Apollo 11 look like a 12 year olds science experiment. Once again hardly with the realms of a natural existence and yet perfectly acceptable uses of technology which not even the world’s best legal team could argue against being performance enhancing.
Ah but drugs are bad for you right? Yes performance enhancing drugs have a litany of harmful side effects. Um but so does the regime of a professional sports person. The wear and tear on joints and muscles not to mention the surgeries etc all have a potential detrimental effect on your quality of life. Then you look at contact sports particularly in the US –scrambling your brain to the point of altering your personality = perfectly okay, potential impotence = whoa step to far here people.
November 18th 2011 @ 2:47pm
dasilva said | November 18th 2011 @ 2:47pm | Report comment
I do agree that the fact that a drug is performance enhancing is not enough to ban a drug
I do think long term drug use as harmful to your health is a significant reason why drug used should be ban
THeir’s a difference between the risk to your health from simply participating in a sport (such as muscle strains, broken bones etc) and the risk to your health from taking performance enhancing drug. People accept that injuries as part of parcel of having an active lifestyle and the health benefits of an active lifestyle outweighs the risk to injuries. Although performance enhancing drug improves the chance of trophy, it wrecks your health and that’s not what sport and an active lifestyle is about. I do see sportsman as ambassador for an active healthy lifestyle.
People may say this is the individual choice to damange your own health. However I’m not too sure what will happen to professional sports if the only way an individual can be a professional sportsman at a competitive level is to take performance enhancing drug and damage their own health. The idea that telling kids growing up aspiring to be sportstar, that the only way you can reach that level is to damage your own health in the process. It really does destroy the whole idealism of what sport is about.
Then again there are drugs that are ban that aren’t too bad for people’s health. Stuff like beta-blockers where doctors can legally prescribed to treat anxiety due to public speaking (as it slows your heart rate and treat an effect of anxiety) is banned for concentration type sports like golf (it does have some bad side effects but the side effect are not common enough to stop doctors from prescribing to people for performance enhancement in other areas of life). I think there is a case for the legalisation of performance enhancing drugs like that.
November 18th 2011 @ 8:39am
sheek said | November 18th 2011 @ 8:39am | Report comment
Luke,
The banner headline is a rhetorical question….. right?
November 18th 2011 @ 10:17am
Hoy said | November 18th 2011 @ 10:17am | Report comment
I didn’t appreciate the bloke who beat Hackett coming back early from a drug ban to do so. And I am no Hackett fan.
November 18th 2011 @ 10:32am
Nate Hornblower said | November 18th 2011 @ 10:32am | Report comment
I think the poms have it right, the olympics if they are to remain the pinnacle of sports should ensure PEDs have no place & those cheats should be ineligible
November 18th 2011 @ 12:04pm
Holbrook said | November 18th 2011 @ 12:04pm | Report comment
I would like to see a separate competition where performance enhancing drugs are legal so we can really see what man is capable of. You won’t compete for a country but for a branded lab. This could all be in the name of science & could benefit the medical industry the way F1 does to the automotive industry.
November 18th 2011 @ 12:38pm
sheek said | November 18th 2011 @ 12:38pm | Report comment
Holbrook, love your thinking,
Deliciously wicked…..!
November 18th 2011 @ 8:13pm
dasilva said | November 18th 2011 @ 8:13pm | Report comment
It’s interesting. What would the population rather see?
I have a feeling that seeing the limit of mankind would be more appealing to the population to watch then any perceived flaws in “purity”
November 18th 2011 @ 10:25pm
WoobliesFan said | November 18th 2011 @ 10:25pm | Report comment
Steroids are here to stay.
November 19th 2011 @ 12:49pm
RedsNut said | November 19th 2011 @ 12:49pm | Report comment
Once proven guilty – out for life.
No ifs, no buts
November 20th 2011 @ 1:30pm
damos_x said | November 20th 2011 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
So no do the crime do the time for you hey ?! hope you never do anything wrong because it’s a harsh take on life you’ve got there RedsNut.
November 21st 2011 @ 8:58pm
peter care said | November 21st 2011 @ 8:58pm | Report comment
The solution is simple,have 2 contests, one drug free and one anything goes. No testing whatsoever in the anything goes one. Full testing in the drug free one with blood and DNA testing. Store all these samples for up to 20 years and re-test every 4 years. If you fail the test anytime in the next 20 year, your medal is stripped from you, all clean records and titles are stripped from you for 2 years prior to that performance, and a lifetime ban from participating in the drug free contests. However you may participate in the anything goes contests,and you wont be tested. Competitors and teams may nominate which contest they participate in. If you nominate the anything goes one, you are there for life, even if you no longer use drugs. You can be stripped from the clean contest at any time. Oh and one more rule, you must sign a disclaimer that you will not sue the IAAF or other bodies against these rules. If you do not sign this disclaimer you will not be allowed to participate in the restricted contests (but you will be allowed to participate in the anything goes one).