Temptation to cheat is strong, but real rewards lie in playing the game
Humble it may be, but it seems to be totally beyond my reach. I put a couple of decent scores together, make a bit of progress, think I’ve got the game licked, and then out I go one more time and it all falls apart.
Take last week. For the first time ever, I qualified to play in an intermediate scratch cup. Made a reasonable start, and even though there was never going to be a chance of the overall prize, around about the 14th hole, I began dreaming about maybe one of the minor prizes. Fatal mistake. A double bogey on the 15th was followed by another on 16, both of them caused by three-putting from a short distance. And as I faced another six-footer on the 17th, a thought occurred to me...
Suppose there were a performance-enhancing drug available for this situation. A tablet that would relax the hands and sharpen the eyes, so I could see and feel a bit better exactly what you needed to do. Even if it were totally illegal, would I take it? If you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where just one little bit of outside assistance would really help you to do something you’ve always wanted, would you do it?
Suppose, for instance, someone offered you Erythropoietin.
It’s a naturally occurring hormone, produced by the kidneys, which stimulates the body to produce more red blood cells. It is used to treat anaemia, which can be a disease in its own right or a symptom of another disease, such as kidney failure. It can be given to people with cancer who have anaemia caused by their disease or by their chemotherapy treatment.
Erythropoietin is generally given as an injection under the skin. It is a significant aid to recovery and it increases stamina. It makes strong people stronger, just as it helps sick people to deal with the most debilitating symptoms.
Now, there can be side-effects (varying from patient to patient, and many patients have none) - high blood pressure, dizziness, skin reactions, epileptic fits, headaches, flu-like symptoms and bone pain. For all these reasons, and also because it is expensive, it is only prescribed when necessary.
But you can buy it and have it delivered to you by post or courier. Not the naturally occurring hormone, but a synthetically produced one, effectively a clone. It has been synthetically produced for use in persons with certain types of anaemia - such as anaemia due to kidney failure, anaemia arising from the drugs with which AIDS is treated, and anaemia associated with cancer.
From that short description, you can see the value of the hormone, and the usefulness of cloning it. But the short name for the drug is EPO. And as we know, EPO has been found over recent years to have been at the centre of scandals involving cyclists, long-distance runners, speed skaters, and cross-country skiers.
When EPO is misused in such situations, it is thought to be especially dangerous (perhaps because dehydration can further increase the thickness of the blood, increasing the risk for heart attacks and strokes. But as I said, it also aids rapid recovery and greatly increases stamina - just the thing for a runner in search of ever-faster times.
I’m sure you’re very impressed by my detailed knowledge of banned substances. But the truth is I looked EPO up on the internet when I read about the Irish athlete Cathal Lombard. Not only does the web give you a lot of information about the drug, but it lists a number of places where you can buy it, and once you “add it to your cart” they ship it to wherever you want it to go.
It’s not cheap. One bottle I saw on the web, advertised as containing 50 units, cost over $900.
The funny thing about EPO is that those who investigate the use of banned substance know what it looks like. It can be detected in a urine sample, although testers admit they have to be lucky as the drug passes out of the body within days.
There are, of course, scientists, coaches and athletes engaged in the search for other drugs, ones that cannot yet be detected. And there is some evidence that the anti-doping authorities, with the best will in the world, have a bit of a way to go to catch up with the technology that’s out there.
That’s not to say that they are ineffective. The Irish Sports Council are especially to be congratulated for catching a cheat like Lombard. It seems clear that they had him under suspicion for some time, and that they had been reading the tell-tale signs - dramatic improvements in performance; constant moving around; other athletes, who were themselves suspicious, keeping their distance.
WHO are you cheating when you take substances like this?
At one level, you can argue that you’re only cheating the system. Haven’t we loads of examples in recent years of how a “culture” can infect a system, and absolve everyone in it from any sense of personal responsibility? A culture of corruption among a certain type of county councillor; a culture of dishonesty in certain types of financial institution; a culture of abuse in certain areas of religious life.
If there’s a culture of cheating in your sport, why not? If everyone is at it, who loses? And then it goes wrong and you get found out and it’s not OK to blame the culture any more.
The cheat in sport is shamed (to a far greater extent, actually, than some of our other cheats have been shamed). That shame extends to family and friends, sometimes to neighbourhood and country. It becomes a stain that won’t go away.
But more than that, when a cheat is uncovered, the many injustices he or she has done over the years are uncovered too. The world knows that Sonia O’Sullivan was probably cheated out of a gold Olympic medal by Chinese drug-taking. But the record books won’t show that. They will only show that she never won one.
Most of us go through life trying to play fair, as much as we can. Most of us have suffered an injustice at one time or another in our lives, and injustice rankles, sometimes very bitterly. When we think about it, we shy away from inflicting injustice. The cheat has to close his mind to that, has to persuade himself there are no victims.
So no, I don’t think I would take the golf-enhancing drug. It mightn’t matter very much to anyone else if I was caught cheating at something like golf, but I know a few people to whom it would matter, a few people who would feel obliged to support me, but would never stop wondering why I had done it.
In the end, the cheat always hurts his own. I’d rather be a bad golfer.
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