Wednesday, December 07, 2005

More on Drugs in Sports

This is no longer news, but I still wanted to comment on Roberto Heras' positive drug test (both A and B samples) following this year's Vuelta a Espana. As with Tyler Hamilton's positive test, I want to believe that Roberto's test is faulty, but at the same time I do believe that drug testing, properly administered, is the only unbiased arbiter in deciding if an athlete is clean.

I still feel that the spectre of drug testing is not enough of a deterrent because if it was bicycle racers would have stopped using performance-enhancing drugs many years ago. Instead, there is still enough rationale and reward to use drugs for the purpose of winning. We need to start eliminating the reasons that exist for using drugs.

Are the tests perfect? Are the testers saints?

The answer to both of those questions is probably no. Yet we don't have anything better at the moment.

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