The Doping Confessions of Germany's Cyclists

[Sunblock]

The Doping Confessions of Germany's Cyclists [Opinion] Situation calls for open discussion and a scaling down of drug use Josef Bordat (DrBordat)   http://image.ohmynews.com/images/common/articlepage/i_email_10.gif  http://image.ohmynews.com/images/articleview/i_email.gif Email Article  http://image.ohmynews.com/images/articleview/i_printer.gif Print Article  Published 2007-05-29 12:04 (KST)

Germany is currently going through an important period in its sporting history. For the first time some of Germany's top athletes admit to having deceived competitors, the media and spectators by systematically using doping substances and applying forbidden methods. This too in a popular sport like cycling, which celebrates one of the greatest events in sport, the annual Tour de France.

There were already suspicions about the cyclists of Team T-Mobile (formerly Team Telekom), whose rise began in 1996 with the first Tour triumph by Danish Bjarne Riis, followed by the victory of German Jan Ullrich just 12 month later. Now suspicion has become certainty, and it seems quite clear that without the help of drugs nobody could join the Pro Tour successfully.

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Many Confessions, No Solution

The wave of doping confessions from German cyclists run from A (like Aldag) to Z (like Zabel) and are a relief but at the same time a little bizarre because the whole event ends in a stand-off. The athletes admit to having taken drugs but under the immense pressure of functionaries. In turn these functionaries refer to the personal responsibility of the athletes who have partly made their doping deals on their own accounts. "Yes!" The athletes say. "Because we had to." "No!" The functionaries respond. "Because you wished to."

In the end Tour-director Prudhomme had the brilliant idea to protect his baby Tour de France by blaming everybody and nobody at the same time. It is the "system" that causes the doping problem. So he calls all agents of this "system" guilty without having to draw any consequences, for they all are ensnared into the bad "system." Meanwhile the possibility to make an end to the criminal "system" as such, i.e. to cancel the next Tour de France, seems to be unthinkable. The show must go on. Prudhomme's intervention is quite clever but not helpful if and when the "system" wants to get rid of its corrosive problem. Instead of neglecting it there should be attempts to try to handle the problem in a constructive way, that gives consideration both to the athletes and the surrounding "system."


Doping Is Like Arming Yourself With a Weapon

The doping problem shows astonishing structural parallels to the arms race of the cold war:

1. Actually nobody really wants it. The confessing athletes emphasized again and again that they succumbed to a compulsion. The competitors take drugs, so I have to do it as well, in order not be taken off.

2. It is (self) destructive to the athlete's confidence, moral integrity and in the end the athlete's body. It guzzles resources and produces dependency. In the end, everyone loses, including the "winners."

3. It escalates with technological progress. Amphetamine, EPO, blood transfusion, genetic engineering .... The substances and methods are improved steadily, and so it is the case with this technology.

Analogically, a possible solution could be found by learning from the history of disarmament. Instead of following up radical approaches like libertarian legalizing or pitiless fighting, the most realistic way to get rid of the problem will be taking small "disarmament steps" as the result of negotiations with those involved in the issue -- athletes, doctors, team-managers, sponsors, and the media. To ask for doping-free cycling sounds like the failed radical demand to ensure "peace without weapons." Not without but with less "weapons," this should be a passable way which will have to be followed in the future.


A Fair Compromise?

There are many critics towards this position. They ask whether there can and may be "some doping" and whether the athletes as modern idols do not have a special function as moral examples for the sports interested youth. That is fairly true, but banishing doping from public space, ostracizing it on every occasion and hushing up the topic completely, does not help either.

It is this hypocrisy which corrupts young supporters because they see through this dirty work. It is also this hypocrisy which pushes the prices up because illegal substances cost a little more than those allowed. This hypocrisy promotes the abuse, because in a "system of silence" there can be no open discourse about positive and negative results and useful and not useful methods of application.

The number of those who suffer from the long term effects of doping increases in the end with the sneakiness too. Clearing the mess up is the commandment of the moment, starting with an open discussion about the possibilities, side effects and risks of doping. A ban on the worst substances and methods has to be accompanied by permission for at least those substances and methods that come without a significant harm to health.

The alternatives to this program are not really desirable: Keeping alive the "system of silence" or making an end to professional cycling. This would be a consequence that the irritated supporters have not deserved at all. Note the writer has been informed that his article has been placed here.

[pastapouch]

ok, what if the whole TDF field is/was positive?

[Sunblock]

isn't it?