The Speculist

The allegations against Lance Armstrong may have given US bicycling a black eye, but in that case it's undeserved. Lance has been cleared.

The jury is still out on Landis...waiting for one of the tests to come back for confirmation that he did or did not dope.

I'm certainly not suggesting that there are forces in France that will go to any measure to damage the reputation of US cycling, including raising charges that turn out not to be true, knowing that the initial charge gets a lot more publicity than the retraction. Heavens, no.

I liked James Taranto's assessment of the siutation: only in France would the presence of testosterone in a man's body be considered suspicious.

I'm glad to hear that Lance Armstrong was cleared. I'd feel worse about missing that news if NPR hadn't still been talking about the allegation a week or two ago - after that CBS story you pointed to.

The allegation was big news, the fact that he is innocent - not so much.

Lance has been cleared ?
By some lawyers in the USA may be ; but not in Europe ; for them Lance is a cheater as Floyd is another one.
It is time to open your eyes.

I wrote about this yesterday, albeit in blunter terms.

With athletes, these drugs are taken for their performance enhancement. However, if your survey on the singularity is any indication, pretty much everyone will be taking some sort of life-extending and life-enhancing drugs in the near future.

It is probably time to admit that the war on drugs has failed when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs. Instead of outright banning them, there should be a search for safe methods of performance enhancement.

Let it go Montesquiou. The man didn't dope.

You don't have to take the word of this American either. He was exonerated by the Dutch investigators.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/31/sportsline/main1671141.shtml

The basic problem driving this issue is that there are at least three competing imperatives in play.

1) The athlete's desire/need to improve his/her performance.

2) The sport/game organizers foundational proposition of fair play/competition.

3) The near-overwhelming influence of professionalism.

I submit that "professionalism"; ie: the generation of economic value from athletic endeavor, exists in all sports/games in which humans compete. If not directly by the athletes themselves then by others who recognise the opportunity. Always has, always will.

I suspect that eventually, as physical enhancement becomes a more wide-spread "medical" decision for the general populace, this issue will simply fade away and become one of contention for fans to argue over only. Nobody makes any big deal over Babe Ruth's "illegal" bat when comparing his record to modern baseball players, after all. Chemical/genetic physical enhancement will likely follow that model soon enough.

Which doesn't do much for Mr. Landis, I know, but I suspect that he is as much a victim of non-athletic competition as anything else.

Is it just me or is this something that's been successfully dealt with in sports for thousands of years?

One of the sports I used to participate in was archery. The bow I used was a straight stick of wood, with no pulleys, no rest for the arrow and no sights of any kind. Against any modern bow with all the bells and whistles I had absolutely no chance, no matter how much better an archer I was (well, except possibly in timed rounds, but modern archery competitions don't have them).

So what did we do? Create a committee that would ban all modern equipment? Err, no, that wouldn't have worked. What did work, and probably has worked for centuries was to create different divisions. Modern equipment over here, traditional over there. Enhanced athletes over there, un-enhanced over here.

Then just let market forces decide which is more popular and lucrative. The enhanced people going twice as fast, or the 'normals' going at current speeds.

Of course, I'm pretty anti-professional-sport, so it may be that I'm missing something that other people consider to be fundamental...

AndrewS:

I think your suggestion is exactly the way it will develop.

Imagine this scenario: some extremely talented but disgraced rider (lifetime ban from cycling because of doping let's say) puts out a challenge to race anyone at anytime anywhere. No testing. Just a flat out race to see who's fastest.

I'd watch that. I think many others would too.

That could be the beginning of a new "no test" devision.

Imagine this scenario: some extremely talented but disgraced rider ([snip] puts out a challenge to race anyone at anytime anywhere. No testing. Just a flat out race to see who's fastest.

The NHRA still hasn't regained the de facto monopoly on drag race sanctioning which they lost back in the mid-1950s thru a brief ban on fuels other than gasoline.

First. I hope the final finding on Landis is accurate.

A false positive ruins him just as much as a true positive. I see no reason to believe the testing or the association is biased.

Enhancing works. Just as much for endurance contests as for building strength.

Soon physical enhancement will present problems that may be harder to solve than drugging.

Suppose a so-so weight lifter is limited by weak knees. Surgery can make those knees not only as strong as normal but far stronger. Now the guy is beating everyone.

Unfair? Not to him. Rivals may not agree.

Three hundred MPH tennis serves? "well I waa having wrist pain and the Doctor said..."