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Stop making excuses for dopers

I read a letter in the Globe and Mail this morning that had me fuming and definitely required a reply. A bit of background.

Recently Cathal Kelly, a Globe and Mail sports reporter, wrote an article in which he essentially said it was silly that everyone was upset about A-Rod and his doping (A-Rod, a baseball player for the Yankees, is returning from a two-year ban) because we would all do the same thing due to the amount of money at stake. And that he assumes most professional athletes dope anyway, so he would do the same and would openly lie about it without any qualms. I can tell you that my first reaction on reading the article was that I wouldn’t want this guy at my back in a knife fight, he might put one through my ribs to get ahead. With an attitude like that to doping who can ever trust you? (“It’s not about A-Rod being clean, it’s about him coming clean,” Kelly wrote.)

In reply Adam van Koeverden – multi-time Canadian Olympic kayaker – wrote a well-written reply in the Globe, rebutting the idea that all professional athletes dope and that it is about the money. He equated doping to other crimes, such as corporate fraud and asked Kelly whether he would plagiarize to win a Pulitzer. This guy I would want at my back in the knife fight. (“You’re wrong, Cathal Kelly: It is about being clean,” van Koeverden wrote.)

Now to the letter I read this morning in answer to van Koeverden’s article. The letter writer’s conclusion was that the choice to dope is about the money (because there is so much at stake for the elite), not integrity. He called van Koeverden “naïve” for taking a principled stand on doping, mainly because as a kayaker he can’t make big super-star dollars and so can’t understand the decisions made by A-Rod and the Armstrong types (Letters, Nov. 13).

The letter writer is “willing to commend” van Koeverden for his training, which I think shows a complete disregard and dismissiveness for the commitment and work that goes in to becoming one of the best athletes in your field in the world. Does this workload alone not deserve the respect of being able to compete on a level playing field? What does money have to do with it?

What is missing in the analysis that “it’s about the money” is that money is relative. One thousand dollars when you are poor is a fortune, is that enough to make cheating OK? By the letter writer’s analysis, when an amateur athlete cheats at a local event to win it isn’t all right, but if Armstrong or A-Rod cheat to make several million it is something we should agree with. We can’t make it OK to cheat because there is lots of money on the line. As van Koeverden said in his article, it isn’t OK for a financial expert to cook the books. Why is it OK for an athlete to cheat on his or her performance and gain at the expense of others? There is no difference between the two acts.

The real reason I got angry this morning is that I don’t understand why this is still being debated. There are no shades of grey in cheating, particularly of the sort under debate in the case of athletes such as Armstrong or A-Rod. These athletes actively searched out and invested in the best doping products and methods available. They did not accidentally take pseudoephedrine in a cough medicine. What is worse is that if the elite cheat, their actions trickles down into the lower ranks. And at the lower ranks, it isn’t about money, it is about ego and prestige among your peers.

Cheating should not be normalized or tolerated. Regardless of your job, you would not want your competitors taking an unfair advantage that deprives you of opportunity or income. The best example would be bribery: no one would argue we should tolerate that. Why can people who write letters defending dopers not see that without a moral code in society they too would be at risk of being cheated?

Perhaps worst of all is the social and personal cost to the dopers themselves. A lifetime of addiction and lying is no life at all. I want my son to be able to choose his path, and should he choose to be an athlete, I don’t want him to have to choose between doping and living a fulsome, positive life.