BCCI argument has weak legs to stand on
Apropos the Indian Cricket Board’s refusal to comply with the new Wada code on random dope-tests, there can be no issue with the protest per se.
Apropos the Indian Cricket Board’s refusal to comply with the new Wada code on random dope-tests, there can be no issue with the protest per se. That right is vested in every association, every player and could be crucial in helping reaching a conclusion about a ruling that is, all said and done, contentious. But the logic of the argument should not be silly or specious.
To say that cricketers are ‘different’ and therefore deserve their privacy reeks of supercilious nonsense and betrays a lack of understanding of the big picture. The quick analogy one can draw is of the nakabandis that now haunt our lives. Nobody likes to be stopped in the middle of the road and for no apparent reason, but given the widespread instances of terror-related crime, everybody has learnt to adapt to this inconvenience.
No international sportsperson is comfortable with the whereabouts rule, as is evident from the huge number of objections raised. If Tiger Woods and Roger Federer — to drop a couple of mighty names — have still agreed to this rule without complaint, it is not because they relish telling the authorities where they will be over the next 365 days, but because they are willing to relent for the greater cause.
The crux of the matter is that drug abuse in sport has become endemic. Informal estimates suggest that 80 per cent of athletes use some performance enhancing drug, and that there are several cases of athletes – not all reported — ill or unwell (many with serious heart, lung and liver ailments and in the case of Florence Griffith-Joyner even premature death) with the use of drugs in the chase for fame for glory or money. If one discipline is exempt, the case to include any other has very weak legs to stand on.
The clamour against drug abuse might seem alarmist because sportspersons are expected to be careful about their health. But that is obscuring fact. For instance, John McEnroe in his autobiography Serious writes that he suspects steroids, etc were pretty rampant on the tennis circuit in the 1980s — sometimes even without the athlete’s knowledge. In an interview to the Daily Telegraph a few years back, the former Wimbledon champion was quoted as saying: “For six years I was unaware I was being given a form of steroid of the legal kind they used to give horses until they decided it was too strong even for horses.”
Everybody knows, of course, of Ben Johnson being caught for taking stanozolol at the Seoul Olympics, but the drug menace has multiplied manifold since 1988. Indeed, the masking of drugs has become so sophisticated that American sprint champion Marion Jones cleared every test in becoming a multiple Olympic medallist till her conscience wrenched her, and she confessed to using performance enhancing drugs. Which is why out of competition, random testing is deemed important.
There is, however, a contrarian argument to drug-testing which is not without merit. The premise of this argument is that drug cheats will exist, come what may, therefore the onus should be shifted on them for their well-being. Votaries of this theory say that performance enhancing drugs be legalized for professional athletes (non-pros and non-adults to be kept away) with their doctors/sports medicine experts bearing the cross for the consequences.
It is a radical thought which has found little acceptance yet. But at least it does not reside in absurd reasoning which seeks to distinguish between different sports disciplines as more drug-prone or not.
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Drug-testing authorities are not bereft of absurdity either. Tennis star Richard Gasquet, who had been suspended by the International Tennis Federation for testing positive for cocaine in May, has been cleared in the last week of July. The Frenchman was successful in proving to the tribunal that he got cocaine in his system after kissing a girl in a nightclub! The tribunal accepted that while Gasquet “was at fault in exposing himself to the risk of such contamination, that fault was not significant.”
Guess who’s the bigger dope in this instance.
To say that cricketers are ‘different’ and therefore deserve their privacy reeks of supercilious nonsense and betrays a lack of understanding of the big picture. The quick analogy one can draw is of the nakabandis that now haunt our lives. Nobody likes to be stopped in the middle of the road and for no apparent reason, but given the widespread instances of terror-related crime, everybody has learnt to adapt to this inconvenience.
No international sportsperson is comfortable with the whereabouts rule, as is evident from the huge number of objections raised. If Tiger Woods and Roger Federer — to drop a couple of mighty names — have still agreed to this rule without complaint, it is not because they relish telling the authorities where they will be over the next 365 days, but because they are willing to relent for the greater cause.
The crux of the matter is that drug abuse in sport has become endemic. Informal estimates suggest that 80 per cent of athletes use some performance enhancing drug, and that there are several cases of athletes – not all reported — ill or unwell (many with serious heart, lung and liver ailments and in the case of Florence Griffith-Joyner even premature death) with the use of drugs in the chase for fame for glory or money. If one discipline is exempt, the case to include any other has very weak legs to stand on.
The clamour against drug abuse might seem alarmist because sportspersons are expected to be careful about their health. But that is obscuring fact. For instance, John McEnroe in his autobiography Serious writes that he suspects steroids, etc were pretty rampant on the tennis circuit in the 1980s — sometimes even without the athlete’s knowledge. In an interview to the Daily Telegraph a few years back, the former Wimbledon champion was quoted as saying: “For six years I was unaware I was being given a form of steroid of the legal kind they used to give horses until they decided it was too strong even for horses.”
Everybody knows, of course, of Ben Johnson being caught for taking stanozolol at the Seoul Olympics, but the drug menace has multiplied manifold since 1988. Indeed, the masking of drugs has become so sophisticated that American sprint champion Marion Jones cleared every test in becoming a multiple Olympic medallist till her conscience wrenched her, and she confessed to using performance enhancing drugs. Which is why out of competition, random testing is deemed important.
There is, however, a contrarian argument to drug-testing which is not without merit. The premise of this argument is that drug cheats will exist, come what may, therefore the onus should be shifted on them for their well-being. Votaries of this theory say that performance enhancing drugs be legalized for professional athletes (non-pros and non-adults to be kept away) with their doctors/sports medicine experts bearing the cross for the consequences.
It is a radical thought which has found little acceptance yet. But at least it does not reside in absurd reasoning which seeks to distinguish between different sports disciplines as more drug-prone or not.
***
Drug-testing authorities are not bereft of absurdity either. Tennis star Richard Gasquet, who had been suspended by the International Tennis Federation for testing positive for cocaine in May, has been cleared in the last week of July. The Frenchman was successful in proving to the tribunal that he got cocaine in his system after kissing a girl in a nightclub! The tribunal accepted that while Gasquet “was at fault in exposing himself to the risk of such contamination, that fault was not significant.”
Guess who’s the bigger dope in this instance.