My question is: why bother? Why not have a juiced-up athelete taking home the gold medal, if he runs faster than everyone else? How humiliating it must have been to Carl Lewis, to finish the 1988 100m race watching Ben Johnson's back the whole way, only to be handed the gold medal himself a few days later. Lewis knows he didn't win. Johnson knows Lewis didn't win. Half the world was watching, and could see with their own eyes that Johnson demolished everyone.
I can hear people sputtering right about now: "But... but... that's cheating! And steroids are dangerous, and Lyle Alzado... and... and..."
Oh, come on, be serious. The only reason that Landis is facing pressure now over the Tour de France is that some people believe that he got caught. It isn't the doing drugs that is objected to, it is the getting caught.
And yet her world record stands - not because she didn't use performance-enhancing drugs, but because she didn't get caught. And neither does the vast majority of atheletes in the Tour de France, the Olympics, the NFL, CFL, MLB, NHL, and probably FIFA.
The anti-doping crowd isn't fooling anyone into thinking that they are making any headway in the world of sport - all they are doing is forcing atheletes to find better ways of covering up. It is long past time to admit that the drug war is lost, on every front. It is long past time to "protect" people from their own decisions. If people want to juice up and die at age 38 like Joyner or at age 43 like Lyle Alzado, by all means let them. The only ones they are killing are themselves, and before they die they amuse us