Lance Armstrong: Sports Drug Cheat or just another athlete seeking an unfair advantage

The whole Lance Armstrong saga has shown a great many people do not want to revere a champion who has taken an unfair advantage through performance enhancing drugs.

However, the modern professional sporting world is filled with situations where champions are champions because of an unfair advantage.

The Australian AIS was the envy of the world in the 90s and it led to Australia dominating in rugby, cricket, and becoming a force in football. Much of the funding was meant for the Sydney Olympics and as a result Australian soared to its highest ever rank in the medal tally in the Sydney Olympics and then again in Athens. The Chinese did the same for Beijing and the British for London. Huge money was spent on giving their athletes the best chances of winning.

Clearly the athletes of the Australian, Chinese and British Olympic teams had an unfair advantage over their rivals. They had better access to training, better coaches, better nutrition, and better performance enhancing technology.  

Athletes funded by the Government could dedicate their lives entirely to their sport. Athletes living in poorer places or countries that put less money into sports could not hope to compete with this, creating once more an unfair advantage

Rowers in state of the art boats could never be caught by teams using basic wooden craft. Swimmers using the latest space age swimming suits, on strict diets and coaching regimes, using vitamins and recovery drinks and protein powder for muscle growth are never going to be caught by those without assistance, let alone the African without access to a pool.

Now in Lance Armstrong’s case, the general consensus seems to be that we ought not to celebrate a cheat who had an unfair advantage by blood doping and performance enhancing drugs. Yet in all sport we celebrate the champion that had an unfair advantage by their country of birth or their access to training and equipment. Without even conscious acknowledgement we celebrate the sporting champion that soared to the top through unfair advantage brought by wealth.

Yet why the uproar when it comes to the use of performance enhancing drugs and blood doping? Sure it’s an unfair advantage which not all athletes which to choose, one that gives them a competitive advantage over their rivals that don’t dope, but this is prevalent in many aspects of sports and in may type of advantage.  Eating certain foods – egg whites or protein, drinking water or hydrating fluids, using protein powder, or training at altitude – are all examples where one sportsperson can choose an advantage over their competitors. At what point does it become cheating? When does the unfair advantage become unacceptable?

It would be easy answer to say that performance enhancing drugs are unacceptable because they are against the rules or outlawed by the sport.  But then many performance enhancing substances are being invented right now and are yet to be banned in sports. Is an athlete a cheat by taking these before they get banned? And if they are then it becomes a moral argument – and as soon as it is a question of right and wrong then all advantage should be removed and rich countries using their wealth or technological advantage to win world cups and bag vast numbers of gold medals are just as bad as Lance and all those cyclists caught up in an era where winning was everything and any advantage was worth taking.

Walking with one foot in two paths.

A human life is divided into two paths - The path of social interaction and the path of self-reflection. 

The path of Social interaction leads one into contact with other people and allows one to function within the broader society that surrounds us. The path of self-reflection leads one away from society, allowing one to spend time alone, introspecting and reflecting upon one's personality, and developing accordingly. 

One must walk with one foot on two paths for if you choose to walk fully in one you will end up lonely of purposeless.

If one walks fully and solely down the path of social interaction then one’s existence will be defined by how one is perceived by others. Although this path can provide entertainment and company, it also leads to a purposeless existence as one derives purpose from the acceptance of others and not oneself. If you look at a person that finds all their fulfilment through their acceptance by the society around them, you will notice how they require company and often live a life without purpose.

Conversely the path of self-reflection leads one to discover their true being and to develop accordingly. This provides one with purpose to existence, however, this path also leads one away from society and the path of social interaction. If one continues solely and fully down this path one will eventually be cast out of society. You will often see people that have spent too much time alone and introspectively seeking purpose at the expense of social interaction - They are often unable to function in society and forgotten. Being cast out by society and is cold and lonely as we are social beings... Society us like an open fire – it warms you from the cold. 

To be happy one must function within society and also have a purpose to one'e life. To live a purposeful existence one must spend time alone, reflecting on their purpose. To live a social life one must be a social being, interacting with others around them. Walking fully in either path will lead to unhappiness as both a purposeful existence and social acceptance are necessary for happiness - The happy person will walk with one foot in both paths - living socially and with purpose. 

Interested People Make Interesting People

A person should be both interested and interesting  – however one need only be interested because ‘interested people make interesting people’. If one is interested then they will naturally become interesting because their interest will lead to questions, experience and learning – and thus more knowledge, and the more one knows then the naturally more interesting one becomes. If one is interested then one learns from the experiences of others. This allows one to be empathetic or compassionate which in turn leads to kindness and generosity.

Empathy is listening to another’s experience and understanding and relating to that experience through ones own experience. It is the basis of all friendship and conversation. A conversation involves people communicating about their own experience, whilst relating to the experiences shared through their own understanding and experience. A friendship is a good mutual understanding of shared experience – this allows two people to relate. As empathy is learnt through listening to other people’s stories then this allows empathy and thus kindness and generosity, which are necessary for friendship.

The relating of experience allows people to communicate freely – both verbally and non-verbally. The more one understands another, the more one will communicate. The innate understanding that defines friendship enables this communication to be silent. One could say that ‘it is not the sharing of conversation that defines a friendship but the sharing of silences’. It is within these silences that friends understand their shared experience and reflect upon it in an introverted way. Thus to develop friendships one must be interested and interesting. Being interested will lead to one being interesting. It will also lead on to the development of empathy and compassion and thus generosity and kindness.