July 17, 2008

Riding high

When the only time people pay attention to your sporting event is to read about which athlete -- or, now, which team -- dropped out because of drug test results, you're probably doing something wrong.

So, what, exactly is the Tour de Lance doing wrong? In my opinion, it's that they've banned performance-enhancing drugs.

At this point, they should really consider dropping any pretense of being drug-free and just allowing riders to take whatever substances they want. May the best man+steroid+blood thinner win. I'm a huge sports fan, and I think completing the Tour has to be one of the most incredible athletic feats. But unless there's an American in the top spot, I've never given a crap about the race. Make it more interesting - let 'em get geeked up and let's see some records fall.

(The first story I read about this today was an AP piece on Yahoo Sports, but the article was so poorly written as to be unintelligible. Maybe those wire reporters need performance-enhancing drugs. Like something that helps with punctuation and reliance on cliches.)

Anyway, every time the topic of steroids in sports comes up lately, I'm reminded of a late-'80s Saturday Night Live sketch in which Kevin Nealon is covering the action at the All-Drug Olympics. (It's short -- just watch it.) Favorite part is when he describes the list of pharmaceuticals that Sergei Akmudov (played by Phil Hartman) has taken prior to the competition.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

well, unless you're being snarky, i can't believe you feel that way. if athletes can't compete "as is" then they shouldn't be winning anything. really. just work at your craft by exercising, practicing, staying in shape, eating well, living a good lifestyle and be ROLE MODELS to others...but taking drugs to win isn't the right way about it.
now, you should write about the athletes promoting botox - did you see that?!
and, the SNL clip was fun up until the stupid part when his arms stayed attached to the barbell with blood oozing out - did you pass out when you saw the blood?!

Your escalator operator said...

I'm more serious/less snarky than you assume. I don't think there's a lot of evidence that the stuff the're taking is bad for healthy male adult athletes. So how much worse is it than taking vitamins? What about nutritional supplements? Should those be illegal? If someone's eyesight is bad, should he be allowed to wear contacts or get laser surgery, or is that performance-enhancing? They're not in the Tour to be role models; they're in the race to win.

Anonymous said...

so then what are the competitions about? who has access to better drugs?

Your escalator operator said...

Well, isn't a lot of it already who has access to most advanced training equipment and techniques ... and supplements? Should they all have to train using the same weights, same treadmills (only allowed to go to a certain incline?) at the same altitudes? Should they be able to have surgery if they get injured?

Anonymous said...

you're a pain in the ass

JBhumitra said...

your joke about the wire reporters needing drugs reminded me of another article i read in the Times a while back on doctors using "brain-enhancing drugs" (as the article referred to them) - stuff like your Aderol and Provigil to keep the docs awake and alert for research, etc. sort of tangent, but did u know that docs play music in surgery? my cousin recently had surgery and told me they let her pick the music! they played elton john.