I don't understand this argument. steroids, hormone, drugs, whatever.
If I want to see the fastest man (over 100metres say) then I don't give a crap if he has taken a shed load of drugs as well - just who is the fastest.
It's not natural you cry? Well neither is dedicating your entire life to running quick for a bit. Hours of training, gym work, diet, technique.
Why is it cheating? Its just another edge; its not like its getting onto a motorbike or something.
chemicals ingested into humans have given us an edge for millenia and some anthropologists even postulate that consciousness itself arose from proto-humans ingesting hallucinogenic fungi whilst we nomadically followed the ruminants on the plains of africa. This fungi apparently grew in the dung of the herds and heightened spatial awareness, movement perception and abilities in communication.
In other words it can be seen as a precursor to steroids. Those tribes that did not absorb fungi eating into their culture were soon by a process of evolutionary elimination weeded out, as they were less successful.
thus we evolved from drug taking primates into drug taking homo sapiens. And we learned to communicate.
any unwillingness to take drugs is merely people submiting to the verneer of contemporary culture, biologically your body and nervous system have evolved to ingest, respond and take advantage of a myriad of substances.
culturally at the moment this is considered abhorrent, as most sports are sanctioned by the more authorative regressive elements in society, and the use of chemicals has nearly always resulted in changes in consciousness and a resulting change in the fabric of society - witness the social upheaval and changes(some of them great liberal gains for people over governments and embedded policy at the time - protest marches, womens rights, black rights etc) that took place in the 60's.
Of course some of these drugs would have terrible effects for atheles, health wise, steroids being particularly bad. Which goes to show how dedicated and determined some of these people are to win. I'm not advocating taking drugs in sport (or not taking drugs in sport), just that it has a biological and anthropological precedent in the evolution of man and that its condemantion is merely a knee jerk reaction that has been taught to citizens by our culture, which condemns such things.
the same psychological motivation that puts them in the bracket of potential winners (i.e the drive to win at all costs) puts them in the same brackets as substance abusers (as is the modern inherently prejudiced parlance of the time).
still, I consider myself an advocate of sportsmanship (see dida), and no-one wants to see atheletes dropping dead on telly after too many steroids.
Perhaps the solution (the sporting solution) is to have two fields of competition - one without supplements the other with supplements. Regulation could warn against taking the really bad steroids etc. After that, the field is open.
I'd bet on the chemically assisted atheletes breaking all them world records real quick.
maybe the scientist could even invent a drug that could make me play footy well.
