More variations upon an unfortunate sporting theme

Back in the day – I cannot recall exactly when, it was about 1980 I think – there was a sports magazine produced in London in which an article appeared imagining a future world in which taking performance enhancing drugs had long been legitimised.

The sting in the tail was that main character and narrator, a track and field athlete, admitted he “felt like a new woman” – only he wasn’t confessing a desire to be moving on from his then partner: he was revealing that, as a result of taking the drugs he was on, he was actually turning into a female.

I was reminded of it overnight when alighting upon this remarkable and disturbing interview conducted by Donald McRae with former boxer Larry Olubamiwo which appears today upon the website of The Guardian.

Despite all the brave words uttered by sports administrators and drugs-testing bodies around the world over the last thirty years – and indeed the steps taken to deter sports drugs-taking amongst elite athletes and “rogue” countries around the globe – Olubamiwo’s candid admissions, dripping with apparent insider knowledge of the endemic use of drugs in sports across the board, are a reminder to us all that the fundamentals of the very pastimes that stir the passions of both participants and spectators are constantly under threat.

The bottom line remains that – if you cannot be sure that the thrilling and uplifting brilliance of performers and teams at the Olympics, or in the Premier League or FA Cup, or the Six Nations, or in the boxing ring, or on the rowing lake, or on the ski slopes, or on the gymnastics floor are “above board”, honest and genuinely reflect the course of a competitive event or game between participants who are “on the level” – then the very essence of sport goes straight out of the window.

Sad to say it, but true.

Rusters can read the Olubamiwo interview here – THE GUARDIAN

Whilst I’m at it, for good measure, here’s a link to a five-week-old article by Tim Layden on the NBC Sports website in the United States of America on the recent widespread scandal in horse racing on the far side of The Pond – NBC SPORTS

So much work still to do.

Either that … or we may as well give it all up and concentrate upon the growing phenomenon that is the world of E-sport.