AUG 23 — As I was writing at the computer, I had half an eye on the 12th IAAF World Athletic Championships. In particular I was watching the 100m Women’s Hurdles finals, in which 34-year old Bridgitte Foster-Hylton of Jamaica won the gold by a fraction of a second.
That’s right, 34. If I lose this gut within the next two years, create a new sport and use standard underhanded IOC tactics to get it approved, maybe the Olympic Dream can be reignited, in time for 2012.
With footballers considered past their prime at 29, and swimmers peaking at 21, it’s nice to see people my age still pulling in medals. Of course, there’s always Jamaican-born sprinter Merlene Ottey to spur the silver athletes on (49 years old and still competing!) but on a boxplot she is a clear outlier.
What fascinates me — and I use the word “fascinate” in both the awe-inspiring and utter disbelief sense — the most about athletics is how it reflects human nature at its best and at its worst. For the most part, there is minimal equipment.
90 per cent, if not more, track and field events require nothing more than basal human ability: running, walking, jumping... the most basic of skills that determines survival. Sure, you need to learn technique; you need to be taught how to pace yourself... but if you’re slow, no matter how many hours spend under the tutelage of the best of coaches, you will still not be the next Usain Bolt.
Speaking of whom, did you catch his latest world record run at this very athletics championship? We didn’t, quite, driving back from a weekend of football and cycling in the Peak District, but we heard all 9.58 seconds of it on the radio in the car and it was all we could do not to let our jaws drop onto the floor. But as I applaud the feat — the aptly named Bolt left silver medallist Tyson Gay by more than 0.2 seconds behind, which, in 100m parlance, is as good as two full seconds — a niggling question kept popping in my mind. Was that natural talent, or is he on performance-enhancers?
I was only eleven when Ben Johnson (the sprinter, not the poet — I am not that old) was stripped of his gold medal and world record in the 100m in Seoul in 1988, but in that fell swoop, my awe and innocence at the human ability to compete was also stripped. Just like how the whole Malaysian football scene in the 1990’s has denied me the ability to believe any M-League scoreline is valid. By the time Marion Jones got stripped her medals, I was done believing in the honesty of human nature. These days, any athletic performance that defies logic or standard norms automatically has me slapping on my cynic hat.
Of the sports that I actively follow, athletics is only second to cycling when it comes to cheating, be it in the form of performance-enhancing drugs or gender reassignment (when men compete as women, rarely if ever vice versa). It begets the age old question — why do people cheat?
I have had many a navel gazing moment reflecting upon this, and I’ve boiled it down to two possibilities. One, because they can. In other words, the opportunity presents itself, and the risks associated with punishment if caught is miniscule. Second, because the potential rewards that are associated with the manipulation of the outcome outweighs the costs associated with being caught. Often, an amalgam of the two.
It’s like sending an extra bus of phantom voters when no one is likely to look very hard for them, or cheating in an exam. If the answers suddenly fell on your lap, you’d need major willpower to resist the temptation to take a peek; if losing an election means the loss of future potential earnings, that bus will get there, phantom or not.
Sure, Ben Johnson was caught, but imagine his fame (as opposed to infamy) as the world’s then-fastest man had the stanozolol he used not been detected. Athletes don’t win money at the Olympics, but prize money is not what rakes in the moolah: it is the associated sponsorships that come with the position of being the best.
For instance, David Beckham, upon his move to LA Galaxy, would earn US$10 million (RM35 million) a year in wages, but twice that amount from sponsorship deals. Tiger Woods’ income is 90% endorsement: he makes US$11 million from winning tournaments, US$100 million from endorsements*. You get where I am going with this.
Which brings me to greed**, the downfall of all and sundry. We are all greedy, we prefer more to less, all else equal. Even the most altruistic of souls would prefer an extra thousand ringgits a month if offered with no additional terms or conditions. Does competing in sports encourage this, I wonder. After all, at the top, the difference in talent is marginal. What shaves off that final tenth of a second?
But overall, should we even discourage doping? At the end of the day, however much anabolic steroids I take would never make me a world record beating 100m sprinter, so it has to boil down to human ability. Instead of stopping people from doping, why not get everyone on steroids and run the race that way?
At least the pharmaceuticals would be officially in on it, widening participation and all that jazz. It would save time taken to see to urine tests and competitions having to embarrassingly revoke medals from famous people, for starters. Sure, the lab people would be out of jobs, but I am sure they can be gainfully employed on the other side, producing the drugs instead. Besides, what’s the difference between taking drugs that induce more red blood cells and sleeping in an oxygen tent to generate more red blood cells. And while we’re at it, why the fuss about hi-tech swimming suits that help propel swimmers in the water?
All this cynicism, why do I still watch sports, then? Ah, simple. Because beneath this veneer of disbelief is a kid who still hopes showboating aside, Usain is 100 per cent Usain. Welcome to my column. It will be about sports, if you haven’t noticed yet.
* Of course this varies from sport to sport. Sports Illustrated list of richest athletes in 2007 had boxer Oscar de la Hoya in second place, but of his US$55 million income, only US$2 million are endorsement related. Which begets the question, why is Woods worth more to the sponsors, but the economics of that would merit a piece on its own.
** It needs to be said, though, that it’s not just greed or the pursuit of personal fame that propels athletes to use anabolic steroids. Political regimes have also used doping as a means to further their agenda, as in the case of East Germany, where a programme of systematic doping unbeknownst to some of the athletes involved was undertaken.
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