Four Good Reasons To Believe in Clean Sport
January 24th, 2013 | 
Author: First Off, Thank You!
To the readers of the last blog, and to all the passionate people who commented, whether you agreed with me or not, thanks for engaging. As I hoped, fair play still means a lot to people in a variety of sports, professional and amateur alike. I learned a lot from the things you posted.
My statement that 99% of professional athletes compete clean has received more WTF’s than any other statement I made in my Letter to Lance Armstrong on Thursday. Part of this response is because many people didn’t realize that I was referring to running and triathlon, the groups that would be most affected by LA’s potential return to sport. I wasn’t talking about cycling (although the clean athletes in cycling deserve to be recognized). A few people took the 99% number literally, which was a hyperbolic number derived from my ass, not from statistical equations. Just to clear it up, my point was the vast majority are competing clean.
Others objected to my statement because of an overall cynicism about sports in general, citing cycling’s implosion, the BALCO scandal in Track and Field of the early 2000′s, and the weak attempts of baseball and football to contain their drug problem. People think, Why would running be any different? I can’t blame them. In the past few days, I’ve read several other blogs and articles to understand skepticism specific to my sport. If you want to chime in after reading, whether you agree or disagree, go for it!
Aha Moment
Amby Burfoot of Runner’s World wrote a compelling piece that turned on a lightbulb for me. As a super speedy runner of his generation in the late 60′s who competed clean, and an influential voice in running today, he states that in his day he was confident nobody around him was cheating, but if they had, he could understand why it would be tempting to join them, as Lance did. Amby’s temptation would be driven by seeing only “two options: quit or join.” The third option which he later mentions as unlikely, is to choose to “be true to yourself and sport,” concluding that for most “it would make more sense to jog 20 miles a week for your health.”
I can definitely see how Amby’s stance applies to cycling, and Lance, where cheating had been so rampant at the top, and where it was internally coordinated and kept silent by all involved. Being a snitch was not a good option when the result would be the unraveling of your entire sport, the evaporation of your income, and perhaps having your personal and professional life destroyed in court by Señor Yellow Jersey. I can even see how that stance would apply to track and field at certain points in history. But the factors facing professional runners of my generation are different than those of Amby’s, and different from cycling, which leads me to a different conclusion about my sport today.
[note: Amby and I have since had an opportunity to discuss our thoughts on this. You can read some of that discussion in the comments section of his Runners' World article]The Four Main Factors that make fair play a viable choice.
First of all, it is important to point out that there are over a thousand professional track and field athletes that you will rarely, if ever, see on TV, especially if all you see is the Olympics. To get an accurate picture of anything, you need to look beyond those at the very very top. We wouldn’t judge the state of our economy on a sample group from the top 3%! Ah shit, maybe that is how we judge the economy! Let’s stick to my area of expertise.
Here are four main factors, outside of increased doping controls, that I see shaping the doping perspective of today’s generation of professional American runners, (maybe other sports, you tell me) making it easier to stay clean:
Factor 1: There are significant upsides to remaining clean.
Our sport is not so far gone that all hope of winning a medal or making a name for yourself is lost without cheating, which appears to have been the case in cycling. I personally know many athletes in my sport and in triathlon who have been top 10 in the world in their event, (myself included), and some have even won medals (most of them silver or bronze) without doping. There is still a real choice and real motivation for an athlete to remain clean.
I’ll never forget how it felt in 2005 to mourn the loss of my ultimate dream to break a world record or win a gold medal, realizing for the first time that such a thing was likely impossible without drugs. It hurt like a mofo to let that dream go, and it seemed pointless for a bit. But after a year or so I broadened my definition of success for my career based on the positive, outspoken examples around me. Most of the pro athletes I know have done the same, accepting that the playing field will never be level at the very top, but in championship style competiton, we know anything can happen.
Most of us know that hard work and race tactics can still beat dopers. Many accept that our best chance at international success is sweeping past the mentally devastated, doped athletes who fall apart in the final straightaway once they realize they aren’t going to win the gold. It’s not ideal, but it’s the attitude that has allowed athletes to move from feeling sorry for themselves to achieving their honest potential, which is the whole point of sport in the first place.
Factor 2. Financial security for a greater depth of athletes.
We do not live in a country or play in a sport where ultimate success will make you exceedingly rich and famous. With very very few exceptions, medalists walk the streets in complete anonymity, and have to get jobs shortly after retiring from professional sports. This is a lot different from other nations where a medalist can be treated almost as a deity, or from the way American athletes in other sports can reach superstar status like Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, or LaBron James. With track and field being a true international sport with limited barriers to entry (you don’t even really need shoes), even with drugs it is nearly impossible to reach the level of consistant victory and fame that would make you into the next American hero. Basically I’m saying that the upside of doping dominance isn’t great enough to drag otherwise honest people onto the dark side.
Complementary to that, when a greater depth of athletes is financially supported at a reasonable level, you lose poverty as a driving force behind cheating. I believe poverty is the primary incentive behind cheating in many countries. When the only options are “get rich by winning” or “remain in poverty,” it’s a pretty straightforward choice. Significant sponsorship dollars over the past 10 years in America, (and government funding in places like the UK and Canada) have kept our best talent comfortable enough to continue to do things the right way. They may never get rich, but they will make just enough money to justify the sacrifices and commitment required to be a pro athlete. There is a change in the industry right now that may change this for the next generation, but that’s a topic for another day. Suffice it to say that an intermediate level of support is crucial to help athletes be steadfast in their commitment to clean sport.
Factor 3. Social Taboo
My generation of athletes was shaped by the highly publicized drug scandals of the early 2000′s. I watched Marion Jones fall from grace as the face of a much larger doping problem. I was on the USA World Championships team with her in 2003 when most of our teammates knew she was dirty, and most wouldn’t sit with her or make eye contact, a type of ostracizing that took me by surprise. Other established pros in the athlete village spoke openly about their disgust, and it was obvious to me as a rookie that fair play was taken seriously by successful athletes in all event areas of my sport. This made a big impact on my choices as an athlete.
My generation of pros watched Marion Jones’ confession on Oprah; we watched her go to jail. While many people have made a valid point about the never-ending disgusting media circus surrounding Lance Armstrong, I would argue that these types of cultural events are critical to establishing strong social taboos for future generations of athletes. The young people are watching to see how this plays out…trust me.
Factor 4. Individual Sports are Different
In individual sports like track or triathlon, we view one another as competition first and foremost, and are more likely to be whistle blowers. It would take less than a hot minute for any woman in my event area to turn me in for cheating. If I fall, I fall alone, and my competitors benefit from my absence.
Team sports are another story. Snitching on a teammate could implicate you simply by association, destroy the reputation of your coach, and adversely affect the financial backing of your team and sport. A team environment, by nature, encourages silence. With clubs being a relatively new trend for pro runners in the USA, this is something we will need to keep an eye on. The ethics of the coach are of paramount importance, and the coach helps determine how athletes view the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law when it comes to doping.
Wrap it Up Already!
I believe athletes today are faced with three viable choices, not two, when they get their ass handed to them by a cheater:
- Cheat
- Broaden the definition of “winning” and let go of an attachment to world records and medals.
- Quit
Most are choosing #2. There are people who will view this as “settling,” and as a horrible degradation of sport – that it is a shame to let go of records and release our grip on gold and gold alone. Maybe. But it is also a necessary adaptation that ultimately opens the door for the best possible clean performances given certain realities in modern sport.
Weigh in folks! Which factors do you think help foster clean sport? Which factors threaten it most?
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26 Responses to “Four Good Reasons To Believe in Clean Sport”
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As a looong removed ex low level D1 walk on it was all about #2. You take that out of the mix and you can almost say, well why bother? #2 and the shared experiences, friendships (some in place 25+ years later) was more than enough for me. We were all clean (well, save for the occasional post-run adult beverage) and enjoyed every last moment!
Ed, that is an excellent point! Traveling the world, meeting people, and having fun are incredibly motivating perks of the sport. The lifestyle is a great one.
Years ago, when I was a young lad in high school just picking up running, I used to think athletes doped mostly for money. However, a recent rash of doping cases in athletes that are pretty far from the top tier in their sport (e.g., a few master’s cyclists busted for EPO, the dubious case of Christian Hesch, and even rumors of steroid use among senior citizen track runners) made me realize that it is much more complicated than that. Some personality types are just drawn to use any means possible to win. It can come down to something as simple as ego and a desire to appear superior to others and the attention that comes with it. I have no idea how you combat or discourage that. Maybe some people are just cheaters, period?
However, I do think that much of the time it does come down to money. Since I am painfully average in terms of ability and would never crack the elite ranks no matter what drugs I took, I may not be the most qualified person to speak on the subject of how much more a typical pro runner’s earning potential is increased by doping. However, given what I know about sponsorship contracts and appearance fees from a few athletes that have spoken out about it, I do know that besides a handful of individuals at eh very top of the sport, the earnings of a pro runner are rather modest, and most could do better working a desk job just like mine, even if they doped up. So I would guess most pro runners aren’t in it for the money. That, and the more stringent testing, does give me hope that running is cleaner than say, the MLB or NFL.
It is hard to find a better example of what doping can accomplish in the big money sports than Melky Cabrera. The guy went from a 4th outfielder most teams did not want to an MVP candidate. Until that is, his bust for steroids. After his positive test and 50 game suspension (a joke of a penalty, by the way), he still scored a 16 million dollar deal. So, with the rewards so high and the risks so low, where is the incentive not to cheat, besides personal integrity many pro athletes seem to lose in the face of millions of dollars?
I agree with you most heartily. As a coach of middle school runners I tell them that it is not about winning it is about improvement in ones own performance through hard work and dedication to their goals. I have had a runner that used 5 hr energy and put B 12 in his water or drank goo before he ran and I explained to him that in the long run those only help for a short time and that the 5 hr energy was actually harmful for his health due to the effects it has on his organs. The parents where the ones pushing these products and when I approached them the father said it was his son and to keep my nose out of it. Unfortunately this runner has been driven to the point he no longer cares to compete or in that case even run. I wish he would have chosen option 2.
I think that factor #2 is the most mature attitude and is similar to the same attitude that the majority of working people have in their day to day jobs and lives.
Maybe it’s time for a non profit organization to collect tax free donations and distribute significate funding gifts to clean pro athletes in addition to what they receive from sponsors? That way we can encourage and reward right behaviors instead of just punishing wrong behaviors.
I have been following your blog for awhile, but have never taken the time to respond. I really want to commend you for your recent posts (both here and on LetsRundotcom). I, for one, truly appreciate your complete honesty and willingness to get beyond the naysayers. I learned a long time ago that there are a lot of dumb people in this world. After reading the negative comments that your Lance Armstrong generated, I felt that this view was confirmed. I wish you the best in all that you pursue (motherhood, entrepreneur, competitor, solid human being…).
I retired from track a year after college because the cost to my health and sanity (lack of financial security, no health insurance, anxiety, stress, eating disorder) was outweighing the benefits. I know I made a good decision now, but it was a tough one at the time, and I was only into it for a year (from 2003-2004). I think some people get in so deep and have no other option financially. I know a few former elites who are now in their 30s and working at a running store trying to support a family. It’s hard to make up for ten to fifteen years when you could have been building your résumé, but instead you were chasing your dreams. Maybe others in that position see doping as an option when they’re faced with a mountain of bills. I also think that some runners truly become chemically addicted to the adrenaline and endorphins from competition. I’ve met people locally who seemingly cannot function unless they race every weekend. I don’t think they’re doping, but after hearing the story about Christian Hesch, who knows?
I think you’re setting an excellent example for young athletes, and I hope other athletes will take your lead. They are so damn impressionable and what might seem like a passing comment can stick with a 14 year old. You have a lot of courage, Lauren!
I’M JUST PISSED THAT I DIDN’T THINK OF YOUR COMMENTS FIRST. GOOD JOB!!!! JUNE ISN’T FAR AWAY FOR YOU-KNOW-WHAT.
Super thoughtful, interesting post. I love the reasons…they ring true. And for sure, in that space between cheating and quitting there are so many amazing facets…achievement, strength, skill, friendship, family, a damn good life! Another reason to believe is simply peace of mind. Sleeping well at night. Knowing, in your heart of hearts that you did what you could with what you had. In contrast, cheaters become the athlete version of Lady Macbeth…guilty, tortured…”out, out damn spot” and yet it never comes clean. Better to start and stay clean. And for all of us, better to believe that it’s possible.
To me, it’s sad that someone would call making realistic, obtainable goals “settling.”
As you said earlier in the piece, “It’s not ideal, but it’s the attitude that has allowed athletes to move from feeling sorry for themselves to achieving their honest potential, which is the whole point of sport in the first place.”
The first priority for every professional athlete is winning, and the second is probably to be the BEST winner of all time (World Record). But, our priorities (wants & desires) as athletes and people are seldom a reflection of what is truly valuable. So, what is truly valuable?
Being the best that you can be today, right now, regardless of who or how good you were yesterday.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I spent a long time chasing my athletic dreams, only to fall well short and be left feeling sorry for myself. It’s only when I adjusted my dreams to obtainable goals that I began to rise to my potential.
I think “settling” is better defined by not giving yourself a chance to be the best that you can be without drugs.
Sorry for the longwinded reply,
Andy
LOVE THIS. YOU ROCK.
It’s hard to disagree with any of the factors you list for the athletes, except social taboo. You claim that the media circuses have a preventative effect, yet these circuses, from Ben Johnson to Marion Jones to Lance Armstrong don’t seem to have changed the culture all that much. And also, these circuses only exist for the huge international superstars, and elsewhere in your post you argue that it’s basically impossible to become a huge international superstar anyway. I’d also imagine that the types who are inclined to cheat (excluding the desperate to escape poverty types) would love to be dominant enough that their fellow athletes ostracize them. They’d take riches, media attention and their own hand picked horde of admirers and hangers-on over the friendship of those sucker clean athletes anyway.
Also, the fans who support and make pro running possible also have a choice to make. It may be viable for an athlete to choose #2, but why would a fan who acknowledges those same realities want to continue watching the sport? I love watching track & field, but I’ve got to admit, it sucks. At the highest level, you know the winner is probably doping, and you hope to see amazing performances but immediately suspect they’re tainted when they do happen. The only real fun part is the consistently banal excuses of the athletes after they get busted for doping.
I think the best thing for track & field would to be to borrow a few lessons from pro wrestling. Make the dopers wear all black and demon makeup while the clean athletes are decked out in white and rainbow glitter. Then we can cheer our hearts out for the good guys even as the big bad dopers consistently kick the crap out of them. Every now and then someone on the white team will win and we’ll have a new hero. And then when the hero is inevitably busted for doping themselves, instead of all the scandal and devastation, it will be kind of fun to watch them put on their black uni and join the dark side.
Your intelligence and honesty should be rewarded with a high paying job at Stanford or perhaps taking the reigns of the USATF!!! Well done, Lauren.
Unfortunately, I believe there to be a much higher percentage of track & field athletes that are cheating. I’ve been around the sport for quite some time, and I can tell you that the whispers, discussions and finger-pointing is increasing. When we have athletes (2 of which won medals in London) actively and publicly acknowledging their association with someone who was banned from the sport for 10 years for supplying drugs, well, there’s something wrong with the system. Yet, that same person sat in the Nike box at the Olympic Trials this past June.
Until the sport adopts a one and done policy, we’ll never ever begin to get a grip on doping. That Justin Gatlin, a 2-time loser, was allowed to compete, wear a USA singlet and win medals at the Olympics, made me and many fans of the sport, sick to our stomachs.
I hear you on all of that Linda. In 2011 when Gaitlin rejoined the USA team at worlds in Daegu, there was a very mixed reception among the pro athletes. Some people really embraced him right away as teammates, and another group avoided him, clearly uncomfortable with the laxity in the system allowing his return. What keeps one and done from becoming the standard? Is it legal repurcussions? Is it “protecting the athletes” from false positives? What’s the deal?
I don’t know, a lifetime ban for a first offense seems awfully harsh to me, especially since I am pretty sure the labs can’t guarantee 100% accuracy with their analysis.
If we look at the criminal justice system, false convictions do happen, and the burden of proof is higher than for an athlete charged with a doping violation. I would hate for someone to be handed a lifetime ban if they are actually innocent.
Alex & Lauren,
It’s not harsh if athletes are warned in advance by the IAAF, USATF and their agents. If they choose to cheat, then they pay the price. Stiff penalties should also be levied, including repayment of all monies earned during their career, a fine up to one million dollars depending upon the level of athletic performance. You have to make it very painful for those willing to take a chance.
Lauren, I believe many athletes welcomed him back because they feel that that’s what they would want, if they were busted themselves. Just look at pro baseball and football. Athletes welcome back violent offenders to their teams; why? Because all rhey care about is winning a championship and they don’t give a rat’s ass how they do it. Can you say Ray Lewis???
What agency would be doing the fining of this $1 million, and what legal authority would they have to enforce that fine? I honestly don’t know the answer to that, but have always assumed that these governing bodies have no legal authority but get their fines paid because they have the leverage of either banning you or refusing to reinstate you if you don’t pay. If you’re banned for life no matter what, how are they going to collect?
Regarding your second paragraph, I understand that 1) doping athletes who haven’t yet been caught would have sympathy for other doping athletes who have been caught. I also understand that 2) team sport athletes are willing to withhold moral judgment of their teammates with criminal histories if they can help the team win. But what I don’t understand what 1 & 2 have to do with eachother. They seem entirely unrelated to me.
Thanks for speaking so insightfully and honestly, Lauren. Amby Burfoot’s rationale for understanding why a doper would dope was repugnant. In a somewhat recent RW blog post he lauded Mary Slaney as a “pioneer” while never mentioning her drug conviction. To this day, one of my favorite races was outkicking Slaney for the win at the ’96 Olympic Trials 5000m – the race at which she tested positive and was STILL allowed to compete at the Games. Infuriating! If you dope, you are a doper and for that you deserve every penalty that can be thrown at you. Dopers deserve to be ostracized. The rest of us did it the right way.
This is a great post – as was the last one. When did it start being about money and glory? What was the tipping point? I remember being pissed off about The Dream Team. I remember naïvely thinking that everyone competing in the Olympics was there because of #2 and not to get rich and famous. All of the Olympians I know (more than a handful) made their living outside the sport (not running) except for some who coached. It took me 7 years of hard work to make a US team. It never even occurred to me to use “assistance.”
It’s easy for you not to cheat Lauren. You have nothing to lose – with all that Picky Bars money plus your dad is a Hollyweird bigshot!
Seriously though. Before reading your blog when I thought of “professional athletes” I only thought of the elite ones that are on TV every week like Lance, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, etc.
It is nice to know there are better role models out there for athletes than those creeps.
Can you please post a list of athletes that are clean and are good role models that we should follow ?
(P.S. Hopefully Tom Brady is on that list, he may be a little bit arrogant but I really don’t think he’s cheated or done anything morally wrong)
(P.S.S – I forgot he is as baby daddy with another model he was with – but don’t hold that against him, he gets bored during the off season).
This is a very interesting post, but I have one thing that sits a little funny. It seems like you hint that it’s impossible to win a gold medal without doping. Does that mean that you think most gold medal winners are doping or that you think you are not talented enough and you as an individual would need to dope to win gold, but others may not? Maybe this is me being idealistic, but I’d like to think that not all gold medal winners and world record holders in track and field are doping. There are obviously some people that everyone is suspicious of, but there are a lot of others that really seem genuine.
Yeah, I do have to tag on to Rachel’s question–your post still makes it sound as though the tip-top of T&F is likely doping. If you knew of a doper in the U.S., would you feel comfortable “outing” them? I like your point that often it’s a way to (justifiably) get rid of a competitor, but what about someone in another event? Or a member of your track club or someone sponsored by the same shoe company? I see lots of suspicion on places like–yes, I know–Let’s Run, but I wish some would chime in to say, no, those groups/places are totally clean.
I’ve struggled with mixed sentiments between the general and athletic public being fed-up with the LA media saga, but I think you present a good point. Doping is something that needs to be talked about more prevalently, and is most certainly something that should be treated as a big deal. If episodes like this simply blow over with not much more than a slap on the wrist, and a temporary ban, what kind of message does that send athletes who are tempted by doping?
Let’s face it, this “cheating” thing is way too arbitrary to get the panties in a bunch for. Nike is coming out with a proprietary foam that returns all energy and weighs negative weight. Picky Bars ver 2 contains some enhanced proteins extracted from the jurkara rubber tree that makes your farts add propulsive force to every stride. Mascara has had this skin coating on the market that actually reduces arodynamic drag by 20%. And your kids were genetically selected to break the world record anyways. Don’t get me wrong, professional athletics are really neat. In fact, the next generation will probably be all athletes because robots are going to do all of the other stuff. But who is considered the cheater is going to look considerably different, and who cares? I think we just need to go for a long trail run…
Lauren, this is all super interesting, thanks for posting.
I think it’s tough as a fan, because we don’t have any way of knowing for sure who’s doping and who isn’t. This is also complicated by the fact that Factor 2 that you listed applies a lot less to East African athletes, who are a lot of the ones who win medals in distance events. When an Ethiopian runner who I’ve never heard of before wins the gold medal, I have no idea how to interpret that. I know that Kenya and Ethiopia are VERY conducive to producing world-class runners, and there may be some slight genetic advantage as well. But their culture towards doping has no reason to be the same as ours, and it’s not hard for me to imagine agents convincing a talented Kenyan or Ethiopian athlete, who’s relatively naive about the whole process, to dope. As we know, it’s very easy to beat the tests; it’s probably harder than it was, but if you’re smart about it, it shouldn’t be that difficult.
I can see how, as an athlete, continuing to compete makes sense, given all that you’ve said. And I (tentatively) believe you when you say that most athletes, especially looking outside of the very top of the sport, aren’t doping. But it’s tough as a fan, especially given the factor of East African athletes. I don’t want to dismiss all of them and say that all of the top Kenyans and Ethiopians are doping, because I don’t think that’s true. But it’s a lot harder to have any sort of guess about who is and who isn’t, so there’s a ton of doubt when watching big races. Athletes from other countries show more signs of doping (e.g. Ramzi), so it’s easier to walk away saying “well, I’m pretty sure the top guy doped.” But with so many Kenyans and Ethiopians at the top, it’s really hard to even guess, which I think leads to some American fans’ decreased interest in the sport due to East African dominance. If I could say that all of the Kenyans and Ethiopians were clean, it’d be a lot easier to jump on board and root for some of them. But I just don’t know enough, so I walk away with this icky sense of uncertainty.