For me it’s always a horrible day, whenever I read such a comment, imbued with moralistic attitude; I totally disagree; I am 55 years old and it hurts me too much whenever I face some (young?) moralists; provided the world which we live-in and the sport we have inherited, I am very sad that many of the members of this forum still think that the sport must be treated in the same way of other social phenomenons; in my opinion, provided the professional sport we have inherited , all our beloved sports disciplines should be considered as a world apart, a world where there is still the hope that more than one Guinean or one Malagasy or one Bhutanese can participate to the Olympic Games and arguably not thru the hideous qualification system !
Considering that this site and its threads unintentionally contradict this dream and stick to the cruel reality of contemplating the EXCLUSION of an incredible amount of athletes (maybe it’s the young average which leads this forum’s members to believe there is always a future Olympiad or a future chance !), I dare saying that moralism and exclusion get along well.
Few things I know,but one is that I would like to INCLUDE all the athletes (even the “assholes”): this does not mean EVERY supposed athlete of the world (there is an evident difference between a “couch potato” like me and a real athlete, it’s just a matter of using common sense); it means MANY MORE athletes and their Nations and autonomous Territories (even Bonaire, Sint Maarten and Saba !) into the Olympic Games and according to the ancient wise rules (please do not say that now it’s impossibile or the Countries’ number has greatly increased ! Without corruption, it would be easily possible; with common sense nobody would claim that the first Moussambani or the Afghan girl who “walked” the 100 m. in 18:37 at the Paris 2003 WC – I was there –, can make the Olympic squad ! But there should be a place for for-the-time-being-excluded Kyrghyz wrestlers or for the two or three Central African wrestlers or for a dozen of Venezuelan track-and-field athlets just barely missing the Olympic minima, or even for Valentina Vezzali and Alice Volpi in foil, shouldn’t be ? ); I would like to INCLUDE the former disqualified athletes ( for doping or other “real” crimes – remember the New Zealander boxer who was a former convict and perhaps killer ? –); somebody would find-out that the invoked thoroughly clean atletes could dramatically decrease in number, if only some serious investigations could be made. How many hundreds of GDR and USSR doped athletes still hold an Olympic medal ? How many USA and European sportsmen one could discover among the “gedopt” ? Are you sure that Enith Brigitha, Ria Stalman, Hennie Kuiper and the magnificent Dafne Schippers (how much I’d like she could repeat the achievements of the Flying Mom Fanny Blankers-Koen !) were/are not doped ? Am I sure that some of my heros were thoroughly clean ? I guess the answer is always NO, we cannot be sure ! So, if this is the sports situation, with an extremely high ratio of athletes of all the disciplines using prohibited substances, wouldn’t be more … moral to treat the sports without any moralism and EXCLUSION ? Wouldn’t be fairer to consider the sport a world apart and leave the moralism aside, at least until we can reach some certainties about the now failing controlling system ? I am not ingenuous and I am not stating that there must not be rules in this world; I am not supporting anarchy but the sport – in my opinion, of course – must be maintained apart! Thanks to the moralist hypocrites stating that … “the sport is integrally part of life”, I have been witnessing (and I cried even when I was an adult) 4 boycotts from 1976 to 1988 ! Isn’t it indeed for this nasty mixture of politics and sport that some members sometimes discuss about Kosovo and other geographical entities (I would not long to see Lombardy or Sicily independent ,but I would try to see it as an opportunity to INCLUDE). As far as doping is concerned, there are NO sure things (“what is really doping for each of us ?”,wrote the greatest Italian sport writer Gianni Brera, after the Ben Johnson scandal), are we sure we can thoroughly define what is really dangerous ? Do we really believe in WADA ? Many years ago, when I was a subscriber of “Track & Field News”, a great biochemist wrote that he could NOT scientifically demonstrate to the athletes that the doping was absolutely (not probably, absolutely) dangerous.In future couldn’t we consider morally rejectable even athletes who smoke or atlete who drink beer or Gatorade or athletes who are … porn-consumers ?
It hurts me too much to read in the Italian sports … Bible (the pink “La Gazzetta dello Sport” – by the way, congratulations to the Dutch Peoples for being so nice towards the “Giro d’Italia” –) a young guy’s statement: “If I steal, I am fired; so, Schwazer had to be life banned”. I believe it’s a real shame to compare Schwazer to a thieve ! With all the terrible problems we face, with all the bandits, terrorists, pedophiles, politicians and supposed managers we stand ? Schwazer must be life banned ? If he is despicable (maybe even”asshole” seems inappropriate), how can we define those above ? Must we have recourse to Dante Alighieri and his “Inferno” to classify their crimes ? Who are the “victims”of Schwazer ? Tallent or Diniz(I am still wondering how he was able to walk 3:32)? Bernard Hinault (and the first Lance Armstrong) stated that doped cyclists steal somebody else’s bread ! Hinault (he seemed a motorcycle in the mountains) and Armstrong ? And Pantani and Merckx ? What about Carl Lewis receiving reprimand for stimulants (only?) from his own federation? I was personally at the 1991 Tokyo WC and he (still the best athlete of the history for me) had his body structure altered and his face heavily pockmarked and he was already 30 years old.
My post is too long but I hope it can be considered NOT a pompous speech; I am too sad when I see all these EXCLUSIONS and (young ?) persons who wish to EXCLUDE and to sentence to death (life-ban is death for an atlete).
All the opinions can be expressed but some of them must be disputed.
Ciao,
Fabio Majocchi