But the issue I want to raise here is this: does anyone think any of the players will have taken performance-enhancing drugs — and if so, does that matter — and if so, why?



Some will object to athletes using drugs on the grounds that it’s illegal. Athletes who use drugs should, therefore, be banned from their sport. Well, there are many things that are illegal — shouldn't we therefore ban from their sport every athlete who's ever done something illegal?

But why? Isn’t it sufficient that they pay the penalty determined by whatever country they live in? The NFL, NHL, IOC, and so on are not criminal justice systems.

Some will invoke the moral character point: athletes are expected to be of high moral character — or at least of higher moral character than the rest of us. But why? Well, one might respond, they're expected to be role models. But why? Why shouldn't we put the same expectations on, say, artists? Or CEOs? Or you and me?

And if we're going to call drug use immoral, well, let's consider reckless driving, negligent parenting, and a whole bunch of other questionable behaviours as well.

All of which is completely separate from the performance enhancement argument. So let's consider steroids. And vitamin C. And spinach. All of which enhance performance.

Is it a question of natural/artificial? But vitamin C tablets don't exactly grow on trees either.

Is it a question of degree? Okay, have we figured out exactly how much is too much? (Consider here flu medication and allergy puffers.) And too much for what?

For fair competition? Is that it — it’s a question of fairness? Okay, what's fair? Equal access to enhancements? Well then it's hardly fair for American athletes to compete with Ethiopian athletes.

Equal physical capacities? Well size 17 flipper-feet in the pool are hardly fair when others have only size 10. (Maybe there should be different classes of swimmers, according to foot size, just as there are different classes of wrestlers, according to weight.)

Yeah, but that's hardly his fault, he was just born that way. Hm. Would it matter if his parents had intentionally chosen the big feet gene?

What if he intentionally chose to grow bigger feet? Or — um — to grow bigger muscles? Merely by working out every day, one makes that choice. So are we back to the arbitrary line of artificialness? Or the very grey line of degree?

Let’s go back to the steroids. Testosterone levels vary among men, and testosterone increases aggression, which is important in sports, so to be fair, we should also have different competitive categories for different levels of testosterone, right?

Testosterone levels vary among women too, so it should be no surprise that in some of those categories, there will be both men and women. Which highlights the silliness of categorizing sport by sex.



On top of that, levels vary within the same woman, depending on where she is in her cycle. Surely many female athletes have felt it unfair that the Olympics or whatever happened to fall in the week during which they wouldn’t have that estrogen burst of energy, or the week during which they were sure to trip over every single hurdle, or the week during which it wouldn’t matter anyway because we’re all going to die.

Of course the level of performance-enhancing chemicals varies in men too, but without the red flag physical symptoms, they’re just that much harder to predict.

And let’s go back to the size 17 flipper feet. Buoyancy (bone density? proportion of fat? distribution of fat?), muscle mass, relative amount of fast and slow twitch muscle fibre, flexibility — all influence one’s success. So, to be fair, our categories should encompass all of the relevant attributes, right? Not just biochemical levels. If we get it just right, we should have a tie among everyone in a single category.

Or not. Because that’s where determination, drive, persistence, concentration, and so on come into play, right?

Right. So, we also have to include in our categories, specified ranges of a number of neurotransmitters whose names someone who is not me knows.

And then, of course, it’s not fair that the guy with the ‘try harder’ gene competes against the guy without that gene…

All of which is to say that prohibiting performance-enhancing drugs is just the tip of the fairness iceberg.

And to say that the whole idea of basing a win/lose decision (and the prize of a bowl) on hundredths of a second and tenths of a centimetre may be just a little bit — silly.

And here’s the thing. In the past, competition may have been considered fair in that the winner was simply the person who did the best with what he or she was given. But that was when ‘what was given’ was a black box. And, to mix metaphors, written in stone. Now that we can determine ‘what was given’ – ‘determine’ to mean both ‘figure out’ and ‘change’ – well, that changes the playing field, doesn’t it?

Enjoy the game.