Athletes and Drugs
The author, George Orwell, once said, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.” (Tribune, 1945) In the world of sports, many athletes look upon victory as their only possible option, too, resorting to unethical behaviors just to be crowned champion.
Lance Armstrong was born on September 18, 1971 in Plano, Texas, near Dallas. He was athletic from an early age, running and swimming at 10 years old, and competing in cycling and triathlons (which combine a 1,000 meter swim, 15-mile bike ride and three-mile run) at 13. He was so good, that, at 16, he became a professional triathlete and became the national sprint-course triathlon champion in 1989 and 1990. He left high school early with an invitation to train with the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team in Colorado, during which time he became the U.S. national amateur champion and beat out many professional cyclists to win two major races, the First Union Grand Prix and the Thrift Drug Classic.
After finishing only 14th in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, he turned pro, and the following year he won cycling's "Triple Crown" — the Thrift Drug Classic, the Kmart West Virginia Classic, and the CoreStates Race (the U.S. Professional Championship). That same year, he came in second at the Tour DuPont, a position he repeated in 1993. Highly upset at his failure to win, he devoted himself to rigorous training. He won the Tour DuPont in 1994 and repeated his win in 1996, setting several event records, including largest margin of victory (three minutes, 15 seconds) and fastest average speed in a time trial (32.9 miles per hour). He went on to ride for the U.S. in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, but supporters noticed he seemed uncharacteristically fatigued there, and earlier that year he had also been unable to finish the Tour de France because of bronchitis.
The following October, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had spread to many other parts of his body. Doctors then found tumors on his brain, and his odds of survival dropped to only 40 percent. However, doctors declared subsequent surgery to remove his brain tumors successful, and after many rounds of chemotherapy, Armstrong finally beat the disease in February 1997. He returned to cycling, and he went on to win the prestigious Tour de France an unprecedented seven times in a row, from 1999-2005, and in the process gained a large following of admirers for his courage, determination, athleticism, and the charitable foundation, Livestrong, he established with his family to help others with cancer. He retired from cycling after the Tour de France, but he came out of retirement in 2009, to compete again in that race; he placed third.
Starting in 1999, though, the USADA (U.S. Anti-Doping Agency) began to speculate that Armstrong was using performance-enhancing drugs to achieve his victories, but it wasn’t until 12 June 2012 that they had enough evidence to bring formal charges against him, threatening to strip the highly admired cyclist of his Tour titles. They said he had won them “from start to finish by doping,” and he “also trafficked in banned substances, pressured teammates on the U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling team to dope as well, and threatened those who would testify against him or any of his close-knit circle of suppliers.” (Clarke, 2012)
In response, Armstrong released a statement describing the allegations as "baseless" and "motivated by spite," highlighting that the U.S. Justice Department had decided not to pursue charges after a two-year investigation and that he had never failed a drug test in all that time (Reuters, 2012). However, according to Clarke (2012), there are three aspects of the USADA’s report that provide considerable evidence for the charges against him: 1) a growing number of his teammates were now coming forward with first-hand accounts of his use of EPO, a blood doping agent, cortisone, testosterone, and blood doping itself (i.e. transfusions or dilutions); 2) statements were on record that he pressured a number of his USPS teammates, who were essential to his Tour de France victories, to take part in what USADA called a “highly sophisticated doping program;” and 3) testimony was offered that Armstrong threatened those whom he believed would expose him or testify against him. That testimony came from 26 people, including 11 of his teammates.
That proof also included the U.S. Postal team doctor Pedro Celaya, who had been caught smuggling in a bag of saline to the World Championships in 1998, ostensibly to dilute Armstrong’s blood before he had to undergo a blood test so the hematocrit level (a measure of the amount of oxygen the blood can carry) wouldn’t register too high (Guardian, 10 October 2012).
USADA sent over 1,000 pages of documents, which it labeled as its “reasoned decision,” to the International Cycling Union (UCI), the World Anti-Doping Agency, and the World Triathlon Corporation detailing the evidence. Armstrong sought legal action to prevent the USADA from pursuing its investigation, but the courts denied his requests, and by 23 August 2012, he publically announced that he was tired of the all the fighting and would no longer contest the charges. The authorities took this as an admission of guilt, and on the following day, the UCI stripped Armstrong of all his cycling titles dating back to 1998, including his seven Tour de France wins, banned him from cycling for life, and declared they would not consider an appeal of the verdict.
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to this day, Armstrong denies the allegations of doping of any kind, including using performance-enhancing drugs, and of manipulating his teammates into using them, as well. On 17 October 2012, though, he announced he would step down as chairman of the Livestrong cancer charity he founded. This move came on the same day that Nike, one of Armstrong’s major sponsors, announced it was terminating their contract with him, due to "seemingly insurmountable evidence" that he participated in doping. Armstrong, however, said his decision was made to "spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding my cycling career," (Pearson, 2012).
Despite his protestations of innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the question remains why he or any other star athlete – i.e. track and field’s Marion Jones and baseball’s Barry Bonds, both of whom have been convicted of doping – would feel the need to use enhancements to achieve victory. Has sport become less of an athletic competition and more of an Orwellian vision of war? Has winning become so important in and of itself that we feel we need to resort to illegal means to ensure we achieve it? Do we all have such low self-esteem that we have no confidence in our abilities but feel we can find it in a bottle or a needle? What does this behavior demonstrate to all the fans and supporters of these supposed “superstars,” that cheating is acceptable if it helps you get what you want? Perhaps we need to take a closer look at ourselves and at the system we’ve set up to see where we’ve gone wrong, and how, just possibly, we can fix it. The answers might prove quite illuminating.
References
(2012 October 10). Lance Armstrong v USADA timeline: how cycling's doping scandal unfolded. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/10/lance-armstrong-usada-cycling-doping-scandal
(2012 October 11). Lance Armstrong: doping denials flushed away in USADA's flood of detail. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/oct/11/lance-armstrong-denials-usada-detail
Biography.com. (2012). Lance Armstrong Biography. A+E Television Networks, LLC. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/lance-armstrong-9188901
Clarke, Liz. (2012) USADA says it has ‘conclusive and undeniable proof’ of Lance Armstrong doping conspiracy. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/othersports/usada-says-it-has-conclusive-and-undeniable-proof-of-lance-armstrong-doping-conspiracy/2012/10/10/b8dafd3e-12fd-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html
Orwell, George. (1945). The Sporting Spirit. Tribune. Retrieved from http://orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e_spirit
Pearson, Michael. (2012). Lance Armstrong resigns from Livestrong cancer charity. CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/us/lance-armstrong-doping/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Reuters. (2012). Lance Armstrong v USADA timeline: how cycling's doping scandal unfolded. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/10/lance-armstrong-usada-cycling-doping-scandal
