This isn’t going to be a popular opinion, but hear me out.
I think when it comes to professional sports, there should be no limits on cheating, doping or whatever needs to happen to win. I mean it.
Sure, I would certainly rather everyone compete as natural human beings, but cheating, using performance enhancing drugs and the like, is so widespread and common in sports today, that it’s actually unfair to those who choose to compete honestly. It makes me not enjoy watching sports anymore.
Look at any sport out there, and you’ll find scandals involving top athletes cheating to gain that high ranking. You’ve got your Lance Armstrongs, your Ben Johnsons, and pretty much the whole Russian population, apparently. And when these folks get caught (after first denying it vehemently), these athletes say they do it to stay on a level playing field with everyone else who is cheating.
We’re now waiting to see if the Russian team will have their Rio Olympics ban overturned following revelations of a massive and sanctioned doping program, allowing its clean athletes to compete.
But you know there will be other countries with athletes who are likely using performance enhancing stuff, so already those supposedly clean athletes will be at a disadvantage.
So, I say the heck with it. Let ’em all cheat.
Don’t you want to see someone break the one-second mile… and then have their steroid-packed legs just fall off or explode? Or maybe a basketball game where they slam-dunk from four miles away? I don’t know about you, but it’d be rad to see 16-foot-tall players, or hell, let’s go for broke and put extra arms and legs on ’em, too. Give them knives and guns, and let them really battle it out to see who the best is. It’d be darn fine entertainment, I say. No? And why is that?
It’s because we watch sports to see the pinnacle of human performance. We want to see what hard work, determination, and perseverance can accomplish. We want to celebrate the achievements of worthy, honourable competitors. We don’t want to watch cheats, and feel cheated in our hero adoration.
So, despite there being clean athletes in the Russian program, and despite the fact it may hurt the Rio Games, I think the ban should be upheld and Russia be left to sit out this time as both punishment, and to let other countries know this type of thing won’t stand in professional sports. There has to be real consequences, or it will happen again and again. Either everyone competes honestly… or we let drug-enhanced cyborgs compete. Either way, make it fair and I’ll start enjoying sports again.
