Cheaters
I know that this discussion is attempting to answer a question that does not likely have an answer, but I felt the need to ask it anyway…..why do people cheat?
I am watching the coverage of the Tour De France, the only cycling race I watch all year. I enjoy watching these guys bike for a hundred miles and still have enough to sprint to a finish. But recently, two riders were booted from the Tour for doping. And Floyd Landis, the presumed winner of the Tour in 2006, was found to have doped during his win and has summarily been dethroned (I think). So what makes these guys dope up especially in this day and age of detailed tests? I get the fact that athletes feel they need an advantage to remain competitive but are drugs the answer? The same could hold true of baseball as well. Roger Clemins and Barry Bonds — two of the best players in the game — have been forever tarnished and their accomplishments soiled for allegedly using drugs to improve their games. I find it scary that we have become such a competitive society that we feel the need to drug up to win. When I want to exceed at work, I learn more and do more work to show my worth. I usually receive a reward in the form of a boost in pay. I guess that acknowledgement is not enough for some athletes.
I guess since I do not participate in team sports that it is hard for me to understand what they are up against. I guess they feel inclined to dope up in order to gain some sort of reward be it fame or monetary.
And while I do not want to go too far down this path, there are other non-athletic cheaters too in our society. You now the ones who mooch, take advantage, and try to weasel their ways into things. (New Orleans anyone?) Something for nothing. Oh, and line/gore jumpers on the roads are cheaters too. (In the spirit of disclosure, I am a roadway cheater too. Smirk.)
By the way, I am glad I did not rely on sports to live. I am glad I have a brain.
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This entry was posted on July 17, 2008 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Barry Bonds, baseball, cheaters, roadway, Roger Clemens, Tour De France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 17, 2008 at 6:59 pm
You forgot one, the “template modifiers” in NASCAR. Amazing that they’ll still try in the day and age where lasers do the measurements.
In any sport it devalues not just the participant but the entire venue. Sports are supposed to be great because its “ideally” an average person accomplishing remarkable feats. Once you stray from the being average by doping the entire value and entertainment is lost. In NASCAR the point of a template is an “average” car competing in a level field.
Cheating on the road often results in a twisted pile of metal.
July 24, 2008 at 3:27 am
I think cheating on the bleeding edge of sport happens because people devote their entire lives to something, only to realise they can’t quite achieve it. I’ll run with the cycling example.
So you’re a professional cycler. You skipped school and university to focus on your cycling. But as your professional career reaches its peak, you realise that you’re falling just short of what it takes. You have two options. First, throw in the towel and try another career. Second, take drugs. If you take drugs, the worse case scenario is that you get caught, have to throw in the towel and try another career. So why not take drugs? The worst-case scenario is exactly the same as your alternative. And if you get away with it, you achieve your dream. It’s a pretty good risk assessment!
I think the same thing happens in brain related fields. If I can’t quite get through my law degrees, my options are the same. Give up, or cheat my way though. Where is the incentive to do the ‘right’ thing when the risk analysis leans towards cheating?