Fake Plastic Watering Can

And a fake plastic IV bag, and fake plastic flowers for the Tour de France victor. I'll be the first to say I really will be glad that Andy Schleck has a tour victory to his name, however I would have preferred to see him win it outright. I never like to see professional cycling in the mainstream media as the main stream usually is the one carrying all the trash and filth and plastic 6 pack rings. Speaking of floating plastic...today the AP was kicking up a storm of 'things in Contador's blood' stories. In the near future if Contador eats asparagus and his pee smells weird the NYT will link it to doping. He's done for, mark my words. But did Contador dope? Did Armstrong? Is everyone in the ProTour peloton cheating the sport? Hell I'd have kept doping myself if I were still racing, but instead I prefer having the occasional beer and riding slowly to nowhere in particulars: its more amenable to my delicate system and beer either comes in aluminum or glass...no plastic.

Just when it seemed that the sport of cycling was resurrecting itself through the biological passport, increased controls, virtuous sermonizing of the 'highroaders' et al, we're back in the mire with a potential second Tour de France overturn in what is really a handful of years. Some will decry the integrity of the sport and insinuate that cycling represents one of the lower steps in the caste system of professional athletes: "They're all cheats!" some will argue. And these pessimists might be right, yet we've heard Olympic medalists admit to doping, we've seen major league sluggers carted before Congress to testify as to their use of steroids and we've got a full on investigation into Lance and the glory days of American cycling's past. It seems professional athletes will do just about anything to win, even if it means cheating or damaging their bodies. But doping aside there are other headlines which call into question the integrity of 'sport'; play and call stealing accusations, college athletic scandals, NFL players cited for violence off the field (against men, women and even dogs), adulterous sexual exploits of one pro golfer, etc, etc. Some unscrupulous characters are attracted to professional athletics.

But aren’t there unscrupulous characters everywhere? Certainly there are cheats in every arena. However I would suggest that what separates the industrial or political cheat from the athletic one is that whereas industry operates within certain parameters and guidelines, conduct wherein somewhat subject to the sentiment and mood of the people, games and sport have clear rules. If you know the rules then everyone can play the same game, and on some levels aspire to the same greatness as that of the professional: fair is fair. We then take the exemplars of sport and hold them up on a pedestal in a manner different than heads of business or other successful professionals. There is something to the achievements of an athlete that any lover of sport believes they can relate to; as we’ve all tried to the play the game and can therefore appreciate the magnitude of success for these rare, gifted individuals. So it’s a bitter taste to choke down the discovery of impropriety in our sport.

And the real cynics might argue, "Well, what do we care?" And as jaded a question as that may be, its actually worth asking. What type of conduct do we expect of professional athletes? Are we really attracted to the integrity of the competition or the spectacle? While many might suggest that it is the integrity of sport and honest competition that attracts us to watch grown adults play children’s games, we cannot deny the degree to which sport has become a very lucrative spectacle. And to this extent perhaps we’ve essentially allowed the snake into Eden. Are we really naive enough to presume that the million (if not billion in some cases) dollar industries of professional athletics could be conducted 100% in the clear and above board? No longer is the bedrock of sport just the contest of one athlete or team against the other; there’s a lot of money underlying that contest. And while the NFL, PGA, MLB and UCI would like to uphold a standard of competition that promotes fair and honest sport, does the monetary aspect of professional sport make this all but impossible? Its one thing perhaps to enter an event where the winner takes the prize. It becomes quite different with team sports involving sponsorship deals, salaries, bonuses and expectations of victory far different than the simple enter and win athlete. Even in amateur athletics, as in the case of the Olympics, athletes drawn by the power of the sponsor’s dollar do some intriguing things. Once they get Lance maybe they’ll go after that sub-sandwich peddling swimmer guy; he can’t be natural either.

So Contador gets tossed out of cycling along with Floyd and Lance and the countless others who ‘cheated’ and played that game and lost it. Maybe while they’re at it they can drag down all of the other idols like George Hincapie, Jens Voigt, and Carlos Sastre. Then what? The reputations of all the heroes are marked by caveats. Schleck gets an asterisk title in a race he did not win, but now technically did. And then next year everyone will suspect him of cheating, or at least they’ll hold their breath and hope that he’s not all the while secretly ‘knowing‘ that he did should a test come back positive. Will we get to the point where we can no longer watch two racers climb a mountain and think that one is, if not both are, cheating? Will we soon be able to watch home runs fly out of baseball stadiums and records fall without that nagging thought in our head: was that real? Or will sport become like magic acts: we all know we’re being deceived yet we seem to go along with it for the sake of entertainment. That’s what we’re all paying for in the end isn’t it: the sponsor, the athlete the fan? We’re paying for entertainment and I suppose that’s indeed what we’re getting. “Are you not entertained?”

I stole that last quote from the movie Gladiator. I also stole the title of this post and theme for the first sentence from Radiohead. As a talent-less, hack writer I felt compelled to do so. I know it was wrong. I feel really bad about it. I will never do it again.  You can have my Heisman and my Yellow Jersey if I ever get one.