[hitaEtela]

This is the one topic that could make me turn away from the Olympics forever. It's so sad to think of all those wonderful, inspiring athletes faking it. Being the hopeful person I am (like you, Emma), I like to think that there isn't any benefit to doping in skating, though of course someone who wants to cheat can always find some way to get an advantage over someone else with the same goal. In a sport like skating or gymnastics, the real effort comes from skill, finesse, and (in the case of women's gymnastics especially) sheer bravery. All the banned substances in the world can't give you the sense of balance to do double flips backward to a blind landing on a four-inch beam, for instance. The same is true of something like synchronized diving. While I love track and field, especially running, I can see that this category is the one that is most vulnerable to the temptation of some kind of doping, because speed and/or muscle mass are the most important factors in shaving seconds off a record or adding millimeters to a distance. In sports where artistry and beauty of line have some importance, I tell myself that there hasn't been a substance invented to endow a person with those traits. So, as frustrating as judging can be, at least the scandals in those sports have been mostly the fault of people other than the athletes themselves.

I do remember the documentary done about East German swimmers, which was heartbreaking. The athletes in that case had little or nothing to do with the doping. The scheme came from the top down. The athletes just did as they were told. They were the ones who suffered afterward, with strange ailments, children born with health problems, and so on. One young woman was so damaged by the drugging that eventually she had sex reassignment surgery and became a man. She felt there was nothing left of her womanhood. All that for a few discs of gold or silver and a name in the record books.