Translated material
When the deceiver is honest
In society
When the deceiver is honest
July 1, 2013 Anton Oresh
The anniversary, hundredth, cycling Tour de France started. The greatest race in the world. The race is more famous than the cycling itself. The race, about which, if not all, then many of those who do not consider themselves a fan have heard. The French "tour" is always an event, and for France, also part of the national culture.
But it just so happened that on our days a large loop also became a symbol of doping, a symbol of sports deception and crook. The most famous doping applider is the seven -time champion American Lance Armstrong, whose exposure and whose confessions became a global bomb, overshadowing not only sports news, but at that moment all the news in the world! Over the past 20 years, 6 Tour champions have been caught at doping, 11 titles have been canceled (out of 20!). Moreover, two more champions were also not clean at hand (more precisely, if we talk about cycling, “on the leg”), but formally the titles were preserved due to the statute of limitations.
And just on the eve of the start of the hundredth “Tour”, another famous racer and an outcast (formally still denied everything) Yang Ulrich, “forever the second” and the main rival of Armstrong on the “tour”, confessed to the use of doping. In an interview with Focus magazine, Ulrich said these words:
“At that time, almost everyone used doping drugs and other drugs that allowed to achieve the desired result. I did not do anything that others would not do. Therefore, I do not consider myself a traitor and deceiver. In my opinion, the deception begins where you get an undeserved advantage with the help of prohibited substances. I just tried to achieve equal chances with rivals. I always knew that sooner or later it would all come out, that even Lance Armstrong would not come out of the water. He made too many enemies. And envious. We are both guilty. I'm no better, but no worse than him. The great heroes of the past were not impeccable. We will have to come to terms with this. ”
You see, what is the thing: Jan Ulrich is absolutely to blame. And he does not dispute this. But at the same time, it says that it is quite obvious to anyone who is unbiased and without pink glasses looks at the sport of higher achievements. The public needs records, we need rivalry on the verge, but better beyond the line of human capabilities.
What is the Tour de France? This is three weeks in the saddle. Without weekends. Every day from morning till night, riders pass not five, not ten or even one hundred kilometers. The shortest stage in the current three weeks has a length of 125 kilometers (I do not count short races with a separate start - this is a separate story. There are 30 km of intensity distance equivalent to 250 ordinary kilometers). And the longest stage is 242.5 kilometers! And in the morning - again on the road. The start in the heat on the plain, the finish in the mountains, where it is snowing and just above zero. These are inhuman loads. And I can’t imagine that without the use of special drugs, the athlete could deal with them. In cycling, the doping problem was simply more embossed and clearly appeared. But there are many other disciplines requiring prohibitive efforts, speeds, endurance.
And I, once again touching the topic of doping, is ready to repeat all the same theses. Doping is harmful to health? Yes, it is harmful! And 242.5 kilometers a day, and then another two hundred, and then more and more, and so three weeks - do not harm? Professional sport is not physical education. And his goal is not to strengthen his health, but to undermine him for a very good fee.
The list of prohibited drugs is replenished annually and consists of thousands of drugs. Moreover, many of them for an ordinary citizen are just pills or pills. These are medicines. Which are given even to children. But for athletes they are banned. And how to draw a line between those substances that are used as doping, and those that are “just for restoration”? American or Chinese pharmacists spend hundreds of millions on pharmacological “recovery” programs that are formally not prohibited, but essentially giving a huge advantage over competitors. But is it not for the sake of ensuring equal opportunities, including prohibited the use of doping? What are these equal opportunities?
What is the difference? The fact that these pills have already been banned, but these are not yet? After all, many previously legal drugs over time were on the list of prohibited. Now athletes are punished on the basis of tests made even eight years ago! Then they did not find any crime in their analyzes, and today they are already a reason for disqualification. The law in sports receives retroactive force!
And once again I want to quote Yana Ulrich: “I did not do anything that others would not do ... In my opinion, the deception begins where you get an undeserved advantage with the help of prohibited substances. I just tried to achieve equal chances with rivals. ”
It is sad, but the violator of the law is absolutely right. And absolutely honest. If everything is in equal terms, it turns out that for punishment it is just the one who turned out to be extreme, who was unlucky to get caught.