So you know tonight’s news. Lance Armstrong is giving up the fight against USADA and in doing so he’s being banned for life from athletic competition and being stripped of his Tour titles. As a huge Lance fan who ran alongside him up Mont Ventoux in 2009, I’m disappointed. Not necessarily in Lance, either, but more just in “the system”. A quick summary of the doping saga in cycling includes:
-Lance under suspicion for years, despite years of negative test results
-Years in which Jan Ullrich, Lance’s biggest rival, did not compete because of suspicion of drugs (and I *think* that Ullrich may have eventually tested positive…I’ll get to that uncertainty later)
-Years in which Alberto Contador, the next-great-thing after Lance, has not competed because of drug suspicion (and he’s been caught, but I don’t think he’s had to give up all of his titles retroactively. Pretty sure he gave up 2010, though, that epic duel with Andy Schleck)
-Years in which the guys who have won haven’t been all that impressive (Carlos Sastre for sure, and I’d put Cadel and Wiggo the last two years in that group) if only because the competition hasn’t been to the same level
-Floyd Landis losing his 2006 TDF title due to drugs, fighting it for years, then finally admitting that he did it and turning on Lance, a former teammate
-Similar behavior from other Lance teammates including Tyler Hamilton
And here’s where that leaves us. I’ve followed the Tour closely since Lance’s third title run in 2001, after I read his book “It’s Not About the Bike”. So over 12 Tours that I’ve watched, Lance’s five, Landis’ one, and one of Contador’s titles have since been vacated; Conta had two others that are pretty damned suspicious; Sastre won an unremarkable title; and most years the field has been thin because so many guys were sitting out for drugs or just suspicion of drugs. My question:
How the hell is this good for the sport?
More than half the Tour wins I’ve watched in my life don’t count now. And like I said, I don’t even know for sure whether some of the biggest names in the sport were actually banned for doping or just suspected of it. And I’m a big fan. The pursuit of doping has ruined the sport, and yeah you could say that doping has ruined it but think about what we reward in sports. Epic sacrifice in training; technological innovation in equipment, nutrition, and methods; “laying it all on the line”‘ etc. Steroids and EPO just happen to fall on the wrong side of an imaginary line that we’ve drawn through all that.
So even independent of my opinions on Lance in particular, I offer these reasons why the sports world’s War on Drugs is as costly and ineffective as the American government’s war of the same name.
1) The war on drugs seeks to level the playing field, but that isn’t the effect.
Theoretically, getting rid of dopers would level the playing field. But the problem is this – we know for a fact that we’re not catching everyone…far from it, in fact. And we also know that the guys we “catch” are getting caught retroactively, years later. This war on drugs isn’t making sports fairer, it’s just making them more confusing. The guys who win may be clean, or they may just not have gotten caught. I’d argue there’s some of the former and a ton of the latter, depending on the sport. And as long as that latter group exists, we’ll never solve the problem – athletes will be willing to take that risk for the glory, the money, the lack of alternatives. And we’ll continue with an uneven playing field, and worse…
2) The results are less conclusive than more.
Today doesn’t prove that Lance doped. He’s had years of clean tests and the one test that they have on him these days is from his comeback after retirement, in 2010. Years after his victories, in a Tour in which he placed third behind his own teammate (Contador, in fact). USADA’s case against him was a lot of witness testimony, and testimony that USADA was dealing for in the form of clemency for those who testified against Lance. Hearsay, bargained testimony, and one positive test in a sea of thousands of negative tests (probably well outside the tolerance of effectiveness for the tests…you could well argue that Lance was DUE for a false positive.
Now, it doesn’t prove that he didn’t dope, either. But here’s what we have after the years of persecution of Lance, of Roger Clemens, of athletes all over the place:
We don’t know.
Clemens just won his case in federal court. Does that mean he’s innocent? Did he test positive? Was that a civil case? Criminal? Ask 100 sports fans and I doubt more than half will know, and that’s conservative. I honestly don’t know, but I just heard on ESPN that he’s mounting a comeback.
And Lance? We’ll never know for sure if Lance doped. The tests, even, cannot directly test for the presence of drugs or not. They simply test for symptoms – hematocrit or testosterone levels outside the normal tolerance. The tests aren’t conclusive but they do suggest the possibility of drugs. But we’ll never know. With Lance, he’s a freak of nature to begin with – nearly all his measurements are above the 99th percentile. So there’s one test out there for which those numbers are even crazier. Do we really know?
The current system’s end result is confusion. Who really won? Did the guy who inherit the trophy after the winner was dethroned really win cleanly? Or are we just not testing him as scrupulously because he didn’t, you know, really win?
And those we caught…did we really catch them, or did they fall into a trap? Amy Van Dyken, the swimming gold medalist, was talking about Lance on the radio tonight, recounting a story of how she lost a world record because she tested positive…for asthma medication. Her paperwork wasn’t on file at the doping office, and she had to fight to prove that she was allowed to take that drug for real medical reasons. She almost lost that – and a year of competition – for a clerical error on the doping agency’s end. Is this really fair?
3) The doping witch hunt ruins the sports experience
So did Roger Clemens really pitch those epic innings for the Yankees in playoff runs during his career? Or do those not count? Which seasons do we need to pretend didn’t happen?
Lance’s “positive” sample is from 2010. But we’re supposed to ignore his titles from 1999-2005? Who won those? Ullrich, like I said, might have doped. Does he get credit for his second place finishes? Is he the winner now?
Think back three weeks to the women’s 400 IM at the Olympics and the Chinese girl who won that race going away. Within seconds the commentators were speculating about drugs. How could she have won that convincingly? Been that fast that late in the race? Now every epic performance is suspect. Was Alistair Brownlee doping in the Oly tri? That was an amazing performance. Did Bob Beamon performance-enhance that legendary long jump? Jesse Owens in ’36? Are we supposed to question every great performance?
The sad thing is that that’s where we’re headed, and it’s a no-win situation. As Lance has often said, you can’t prove a negative. If everyone says you doped even though your samples are clean, then the world assumes you’re guilty until we finally get our “proof”. And maybe you did it…but if you didn’t that’s a long time to carry that burden. And for us as fans, it’s a terrible way to live. We can’t watch sports innocently now, because if someone is just a little too great we can’t enjoy it, we have to doubt. And that’s a bummer, because my main point here is…
4) We shouldn’t really care.
Listen, these athletes are genetic freaks of nature. They’re not you or me, or our kids someday. They’re off the charts, winners of the genetic lottery. LeBrons – 6’8″, 280 pound guys who run like the wind and seem to see 360 degrees around them…they’re almost not real. Lance and his resting heart rate of, what, 9? He’s only human because we haven’t defined him.
And they’re all on something. If it’s not an illegal supplement it’s a barely legal supplement. They get IVs for dehydration (while they advertise Gatorade to us); they have teams of trainers working on them after each workout; they use every supplement up to that line of “legal”, assuming that they don’t cross it entirely. They’re using equipment that you’d have to mortgage your house in order to buy. Sports isn’t a level playing field – it’s played by the genetically gifted with every technological advantage they can get. So why is there an imaginary line on “EPO” or “steroids”. EPO provides similar results to sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, and that’s legal.
The argument is usually “health of the athlete”, but do we really care? The Lance sage tonight was covered in between football highlights on ESPN – highlights that included huge hits (“he got…JACKED UP!” we celebrate), injury reports, and players who probably: 1) have been involved in bounty scandals and 2) will end up with degenerative brain conditions from their experience. But we still watch football even after Dave Duerson and Junior Seau and Mike Utley and countless other brain/spine/suicide situations. We don’t care.
And as for “what about the kids?” – ask Louis CK for his take on how that plays with the gay marriage debate: “What should I tell my kids? I don’t know…it’s your fucking kid. Talk to him.” If your 17-year old is taking steroids because he thinks he can play in the pros…odds are you’re a bad parent, because not that many kids are close enough where that will make a difference, and if it’s even suspected you should be following that situation closely.
So why do we care? Someday I’ll post my article on how I think it’s all Rocky 4 and Ben Johnson (in which cases the hardworking American had to face the juiced-up foreigner). But my main point is that we’re chasing a shadow with the doping pursuit. We’re not stopping it and in doing so we’re ruining sports. Because in summary…
5) I know sports aren’t real.
They’re an escape – they’re soap operas for dudes, mainly. The Kardashians, Situations, Snookis and Sheens of the entertainment world are terrible people but they serve the same purpose as the gladiators and lions did in Rome. They entertain us. They give us something to look forward to at the end of a long day of work. They give a random day in July, or January, or September, some extra meaning; they spark some adrenaline in us that we’ve lost over centuries of farming and office work. We don’t fight for our food, shelter or safety. Our senses are dull. Entertainment allows us to feel. It’s not real but it’s necessary. So if we need to turn a blind eye to some artificial performance enhancers, well, it’s not like we haven’t turned blind eyes to some pretty disgusting off-the-field situations with Michael Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, Kobe Bryant, and others.
One last word on Lance. A lot is being made of the negative effect that today’s events will have on “his legacy”. Here’s Lance’s legacy:
The Lance Armstrong Foundation and Livestrong have raised over $500 million dollars for cancer research.
That’s real. Sports are not. I don’t know if Lance doped or didn’t, but if a couple syringes and extra red blood cells put him in a position to raise more than half a billion dollars to fight the disease that nearly killed him and that may well try to kill all of us, I say it’s a pretty good tradeoff for mankind. Not to mention the millions who have been inspired by Lance to get out on a bike; train for a marathon; try a triathlon; and make fitness a priority in their lives.
My aunt is running her first marathon in October; she’s a cancer survivor and got into endurance sports because of her experience with Livestrong. My father, sister, and I will be running with her.
I picked up a bike because Lance inspired me, as I watched his Tour stages and read his book while training for my first marathon in 2001. I was a lazy, binge-drinking recent college grad, and I’ve since done something like 15 marathons and a couple Ironman triathlons, and fitness is a major part of my life.
I don’t know what Lance did. And to a pretty large extent I don’t care. His impact on the world’s health and fitness supersedes whether he cheated to beat a few other cheaters or he was just that good. So because he’s an Armstrong, I’ll proclaim his antics this way – whether his step toward fairness was a small one in the right direction or the wrong direction, his contributions to cancer research and world health have been a giant leap for mankind.
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