The Olympics

[Marion Jones] “Good afternoon everyone. I’m Marion Jones-Thompson, and I’m here today because I have something very important to tell you, my fans, my friends, and my family. Over the many years of my life, as an athlete in the sport of track and field, you have been fiercely loyal and supportive towards me. Even more loyal and supportive than words can declare has been my family, and especially my dear mother who stands by my side today.”

The woman is Marion Jones, an American track and field superstar who won three gold medals at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. This is her on October 5, 2007, giving a public press conference broadcasted by HLN.

[Marion Jones] “And so it is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust. I want all of you to know that today I plead guilty to two ‘counts of making false statements to federal agents. Making these false statements to federal agents was an incredibly stupid thing for me to do, and I am responsible fully for my actions. I have no one to blame but myself for what I have done.”

Seven years after becoming an American hero, Marion Jones plead guilty to steroid use during her olympic career. She joined a list of all too recognizable names: Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and so many others who used steroids to catapult their performance to an elite level. And now she has “no one to blame but herself for what she has done.”

Except, she is wrong. She does have someone to blame: an entire culture of athletic competition designed to produce the best physical performances mankind has ever seen. She did not betray herself; the Olympics betrayed her.

I might be the only person who thinks that Jones is actually the victim here, but somebody has to take the unpopular side. Buckle your seat belts, it’s about to get controversial.

I’m your host Logan Boal, and welcome to Rules Rule, where today I’m going to tell you why the Olympics should make steroids mandatory.

(“All That” plays)

Thank you bensound.com for that jazzy sax.

I’m sure you’re still arguing with yourself over whether or not I actually just said that, so let me repeat it. The Olympics should make steroids mandatory.

Before I begin telling you why, I first need to establish what I mean by steroids. When I say steroids, I really mean anabolic steroids. According to a 2018 report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), anabolic steroids are a synthetic variation of testosterone designed to build muscle and treat diseases such as hormone imbalances, AIDS, and cancer. It just so happens that to an already healthy person, anabolic steroids boost sport performance. A lot. It’s like a magic juice that can turn a ‘97 Volkswagen into a ‘64 Mustang. This is the reason why anabolic steroids are classified as performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). Unfortunately, there are some downsides to the juice. Says NIDA, abusing anabolic steroids can lead to a whole slew of kidney, heart, and liver problems along with an extensive list of medical terms I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce. Anabolic steroids are without question dangerous when injected by the wrong hands.

It was these dangers that, according to a 1999 press conference by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), prompted the newly established Medical Commission to ban PEDs from international competition in 1967. The Medical Commission cited the following 3 reasons for their decision:

1. The protection of the athletes’ health
2. The sanctity of sport morality and ethics
3. Equal and fair competition

The only problem is that these reasons aren’t as rational as they appear.

Reason number one—the protection of the athletes’ health—is a stop sign in an empty parking lot. Sure, it was designed with benevolent intent, but what is it really accomplishing? Olympic athletes are world class superstars who have trained for years just to make the cut. Almost every single one of them is surrounded by a highly qualified team of experts specifically handpicked to maximize the athletes’ health and performance. These teams control the athletes’ workout regimen and diet, so it should come as no surprise that in the hands of these teams, steroids are given without abuse, with the focus on the athletes’ health as much as their performance. Health concerns have done virtually nothing to stop athletes from doping. According to a 2016 post on ProCon.org, from 1968 to 2012, the Summer Olympics have held a total of 26,900 drug tests, 119 of which resulted in being positive; the Winter Olympics have—from 1968 to 2010—have administered 7,783 tests, 22 of which turned out positive. That may not seem like a lot, but consider this: these numbers do not reflect the hundreds of athletes who tested positive for doping before each Olympics, and these figures also do not consider the athletes who tested positive after each Olympics; these figures only represent the athletes who did not test positive at a certain time one point in a year. Plus, these statistics only go to 2012. There have been one Summer and two Winter Olympics since then. And if there is any indication of what modern Olympic athletes are doing with steroids, we need only to look at Russia. According to an August 6, 2016 article by BBC Sport, 118 of Russia’s 389 athletes were banned from the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro due to a nationwide doping scandal. The few athletes individually cleared by the International Olympic Committee were forced to compete under a neutral flag with no affiliation to the Motherland. Clearly, banning steroids hasn’t stopped people from taking them.

Reason number two—the sake of ethics—is just hypocritical. According to Dr. Larry Bowers, the former Chief Science Officer of the United States Anti-Doping Agency who was featured in a 2013 post on ProCon.org, doping in the Olympics began along with the Olympics. The ancient Greeks were notorious for using PEDs during the original Olympic Games from 776 BCE to 393 BCE. In fact, the word “doping” comes from the Dutch word “doop,” a highly potent and saturated opium solution the Greeks were known for slugging before competitions. To the ancient Greeks, any form of what we would nowadays consider cheating—aside from outcome fixing—were perfectly acceptable to them. If the goal of the IOC is to maintain the athletic ethics of the Olympics, then we should be following in the Greeks’ footsteps, because they did after all create the Olympics and thus established the ethics of the event. The other hypocrisy in the IOC’s reasoning is that we use technology. In the days of the ancient Greeks, they ran in sandals on dirt roads; their equipment would be considered just as ancient as them by today’s standards. Now, we have specialized materials for every event. Rubber tracks, starting blocks, and engineered running shoes with spikes in them are used to propel runners faster; olympic pools are kept at a certain range of pH, temperature, and salt concentration levels to maximize swimmers’ buoyancy; weightlifters wear specialized gear to help them lift more; and every sporting event is played on a perfectly tailored field with zero impurities, and every player is using the newest and most advanced equipment they can find. We have allowed ourselves to superficially change the entire dynamic of the Olympic Games. Why can’t we start changing the athletes themselves?

Reason number three—equality amongst athletes—is just plain stupid. In the ideal scenario, not a single athlete would be doping. Unfortunately, reason number one already showed that that will never happen. Therefore, the Olympics are dealing with the real scenario: some athletes are going to take PEDs and some are not. The only true way to make every athlete equal and to make competition fair is if every athlete is on juice. And how do we make every athlete start doping? Make it mandatory. If anything, the Olympics would be fairer and more equal if PEDs were made mandatory.

The IOC banned steroids and PEDs to try and regulate olympic culture. What they don’t understand, however, is—well, olympic culture. These are the Olympic Games, the worldwide phenomenon that athletes spend their entire lives training for. They are the only competition between the best of the best each country has to offer. They are the representation of the pinnacle of human performance. What athlete wouldn’t feel pressured to perform? Olympic culture is counterproductive: it aims to be extremely competitive, yet it is so competitive that athletes feel it is necessary for them to achieve an edge, no matter how immeasurable it may be.

In fact, this is not just olympic culture: this is sports culture. Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, Diego Maradona, Hulk Hogan, Maria Sharapova—and so many more that I could probably waste ten minutes reading through them all. Every sport has dopers; and almost every doper has a record. Not a record as in a drug record. I mean a sports record. Barry Bonds holds the record for most home runs in Major League Baseball, Lance Armstrong has the most Tour de France victories of all time, and the others all hold records of their own. These athletes were some of the greatest to ever lace up their respective shoes. Why? Because—like the olympic athletes want to do—they found an edge, and in their culture of competition, they were rewarded for it.

Athletes are a different breed of human. They do not think and they certainly do not act like regular people do. They strive for greatness and they will stop at nothing for perfection. If you deny them the opportunity to improve themselves, they’re going to overcome that barrier and find that opportunity anyway. It’s time to tear down the separating wall and inject steroids into the Olympics.

It’s just so unfortunate that it won’t happen though. I get it. There is no way the IOC is going to allow steroids in the Olympics. It’s just not on the table.

Except, I may have found a compromise.

(“Semi-Funk” plays)

The sport of bodybuilding has two groups: natural and unnatural. Unnatural bodybuilding makes PEDs legal during competition. The Olympics should follow suit.

It’s not like the Olympics aren’t used to having different groups. The Special Olympics were created to give all athletes a chance to compete regardless of disability. This is just another direction.

The Olympics needs to make an unnatural division for the athletes, for the fans, and for humanity. Until olympic athletes are allowed to perfect themselves with PEDs, humanity will never achieve its full athletic potential and we will continuously slip and squabble on the ladder to greatness.

I’m Logan Boal for Rules Rule, and thanks so much for listening.

(“Acid Jazz” plays)

REFERENCES

[HLN]. (2013, January 17). 2007: Marion Jones admits to doping. [Video file]. Retrieved May 2, 2019 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkQpTdVK1cc

BBC Sport. (2016, August 06). Rio Olympics 2016: Which Russian athletes have been cleared to compete? Retrieved May 2, 2019, from https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36881326

National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2018, August). Anabolic Steroids. Retrieved May 2, 2019, from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/anabolic-steroids

ProCon.org. (2016, May 08). Doping Cases at the Olympics, 1968-2012. Retrieved May 2, 2019, from https://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004420

The International Olympic Committee. (2016, July 21). IOC MEDICAL COMMISSION CONCLUDES THREE DAY MEETING. Retrieved May 2, 2019, from https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-medical-commission-concludes-three-day-meeting