A lost cause? - Chinese doping admission

Some sports, or some expressions of values within some sports, can still move, inspire, or challenge. 

American footballer, Colin Kaepernick, who reignited the conversation about race in America by kneeling as his national anthem was played before games, is a recent example of how a sport can reach outside the stadium to do something greater than itself.

These gestures honour an old-fashioned integrity many sports lost long ago. There is hardly a game, a league, a competition, a race, or even an amateur-hour bout that can be viewed without wondering if forces beyond talent and simple hard work are in play.

The new evidence, as if it was needed, that all medals won by Chinese athletes in the 1980s and 1990s are invalid because of the systematic level of illegal doping at the time, justifies that ever-deepening cynicism.

We are at the point when we must decide if spectacle outweighs corruption, if performance trumps integrity. How sad that we have destroyed something that was often uplifting and sometimes beautiful.