What's it all about?

In the summer between my senior year in high school and freshman year in college, I competed at the only Junior National Swimming Championships I ever went to.  I earned what I did to get there, but I didn't qualify for the meet.  At the time, the standard for men to qualify for this meet was 54.39 in the 100 meter free, and that season I went what would be my lifetime best of exactly 55.00 seconds, and in retrospect, that's not too shabby.  I swam relays at this meet, and it was perhaps one of the most interesting experiences in athletics I have ever had.  For those who don't know, Junior Nationals is, perhaps, the point at which elite level swimming begins, and for those that go on to bigger levels, a stepping stone towards the pinnacle of the sport.  So, I earned what I did to get there--my time that season was used to put in the qualifying time for our team for relays to compete in that meet, and I chose to go to this meet over the Zone Championship that I qualified for in the process of swimming that time.  However, it never felt like I belonged there--the literal pool of talent so far exceeded anything that I was capable of that I felt like an outsider, and that I had somehow cheated my way into the meet--officially I was not even registered in the meet, since relay only swimmers were in a different classification.

As time went by, when I would talk with other swimmers about this, I would always have to qualify my description of that meet with "I only swam relays." Sometimes I have said that it killed the experience for me, but the reality is that I always appreciated being there, and being able to participate in the biggest athletic event I've ever been in. But it's only been by putting it in the context of "I earned getting there--I just didn't get as far as I dreamed I wanted to."

So, I wonder what it is with all of the people in athletics that take every shortcut possible--every avenue, including the use of performance enhancing drugs to climb their way up the ladder to international glory, or professional level sporting. What is it that drives a person to want to achieve something that they didn't earn?

People have their theories--there are many explanations that have been proposed about what causes one person to decide that it's ok to cheat. Certainly, once money becomes a significant factor in racing, there's a stronger likelihood that someone in the field is doing some sort of drug use to get there.  That major motivating factor is likely what drove the ring-leader of the US Cycling scandal to do what he did, and it probably has led to countless others in lesser funded sports.  Fame, glory, the desire to stand on top of a podium and be told that you're the best--that's an explanation that holds water.

At the forefront of today's headlines is the story that the country of Russia was banned from competing at the Winter Olympics.  A process was put into place that allowed Russian athletes that had not been involved in this particular systematic doping scandal to still be allowed to compete, but not as a member of what would have been Team Russia.  In this case, it's easy to believe that politics and the desire of a country to prove that they are the best at any cost is what went into this.  No doubt that Russia applied pressure to its athletes to force some of them to participate in the doping plans either against their will or with the promise of significant incentives--that doesn't make them any less guilty of what they did, but it does paint the picture of what a massive national organization is capable of to "prove" that their team is the best.

At a lower level, and something that has shocked me since I learned of it, is that there has been a rise in doping at the amateur and age group level in sports such as triathlon.  There is no money in this sport--well, there is some money at the professional level, but for an age group competitor; the type of which I compete against?  No.  No money.  That part of the equation is immediately removed.  I would venture to guess that I have never been in a race with someone who is participant of a systematic doping program....well, except for the possibility that Lance Armstrong was in small triathlons that were not sanctioned by USAT while his final fate was being decided.

Estimates of doping in the amateur triathlete population are difficult to get a handle on.  A study done in 2013 based on anonymous surveys of triathletes showed results of 13-15% of those athletes admitted to doping (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0078702).  That's somewhere in the ballpark of 1 in every 7 athletes is actively taking banned substances.  This study did much more than just try to establish if and what number of athletes are doping--it looked for things like correlations between people taking illicit doping substances and their use of legal substances, such as caffeine, that serve as performance enhancers.  The point, however, is that 1 in 7 athletes is huge.  Why are these people doing this?

Some may be trying to break into the professional ranks of triathletes--that doesn't explain the high numbers, since only a fraction of triathletes are in a position to potentially cross that threshold.  Some may be doping to qualify for the age group world championships.  Some may be doping just because they want to win.  Whatever the case, there appears to be a huge number of athletes that are actively cheating and racing in the amateur ranks.

I can't get my head wrapped around this--the study was 2997 triathletes, which means that 13% of that number is close to 400 athletes with admitted (but anonymously admitted) doping. Does 13% of the field really feel that the most important thing is to win at all costs? 

I've always thought that if I got there, and I didn't earn it, I simply didn't belong there.