A Farewell to Charm?

Amit Varma had recently written about the issue of doping in sports
arguing with 2 reasons to relook at doping. The first was that it will become impossible to catch dopers and
the second was that using performance- enhancing drugs will no longer seem an ethical
problem. While the latter seems more possible, as Amit himself argues,
we may be looking at the wrong glass. Amit’s idiomatic, (schizophrenic!) glass (half-full/half empty?) being represented by a lot of dopers being caught these days and its pessimistic twin - that of doping being a lot more widespread. But then again, the glass Amit is looking at is not the same as what we should look at, according to me.

Sometime ago, my sports fanatic buddy, H and I had this long argument on the same issue, before work intervened to ensure we justified our salaries and returned to more worldly matters;) H's argument then was similar to Amit's. H though has had a rethink on his stance now.

My reasoning is based on a rather old fashioned attitude. The reason a lot of us follow sport is that it offers vicarious victories and defeats to us. We grow up admiring sportsmen and some of them become role models for us. We see the reflection of a part of ourselves in our heroes and perhaps think we could have done something with our talents had we had 100% control over our lives. Now, if that aspiration is left at the mercy of doping, there is little else to
look up to sports for. I think Amit's argument is largely economic. I don't think performance in sports must be viewed only from an economic lens.

A recent incident where Sachin donated a bat from one of his historic knocks to the Bradman museum drummed up the argument against purely economic reasons for decision making. Would it have been more economic for Sachin to open his own museum and place this as one of his exhibits?

Similarly, would you rather look at Mark Taylor's bat from his knock of 334 where he declared at the same score that Bradman had set and express your admiration for the same or would you rather be pleased looking at Hayden's bat for the (currently) highest individual
Australian score? Your answer to this question would largely determine your stance on the doping argument. It is about making the choice against charm. It is known that Taylor declared fully aware that he was level with Bradman's score and one more would have taken him past
that Australian icon. Hayden went about his business overhauling the same score with little fuss. It is not that Hayden has any less respect for the history of Australian cricket but I would argue that his sense of charm for the sport is not comparable to Taylor's.

Further, there is a certain charm in competing on fair grounds.
There is a definite contentment derived from knowing that your hero is unblemished. Surely Ben Johnson's legion of fans (if there are any left) cannot be comparable to that of Michael Johnson. Surely you would rather support Paula Radcliffe (in a sport close to my heart)
rather than support Katrine Krabbe, regardless of which nation you belonged to.

If doping is legalized, the Olympics will largely turn into a contest between pharma companies if you asked me. In that case, I would say lets do away with the concept of nations competing against each other and just decide on performance of molecules.

And finally, the other argument of legalizing something only because it is difficult or impossible to catch up with the wrongdoers, is a whole can of worms waiting to be unleashed. For one, we should then invite the legendary Pakistani hackers to Janpath and make them admin
for nic.in since we can't match their wits anyways.

However, one note of anxiety which dominates my own mind these days, is that of whether I will soon read about the ungracious fall from glory of yet another sporting hero of mine. A recent case in point being Alexander Vinokourov who had ascended a pedestal in my mind due
to his tribute to one of his Kazhaki comrades a few years ago. However when the unthinkable happens, I shall perform my own mental funeral service to my fallen hero, I will continue to argue for keeping doping away from sports. It is fine if I don't find newer, cleaner ones
to fill that space.