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TierneyLab: The Dont-Ask, Dont-Tell Olympics
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/the-dont-ask-dont-tell-olympics/
August 11, 2008,  5:30 pm

The Don't-Ask, Don't-Tell Olympics
By John Tierney

What if there were an Olympics in which no flunked a urine test
because no one had to take a urine test? I realize it's hard to
imagine the anti-doping police at the Olympics giving up their jobs
anytime soon. But what about a new anything-goes games, as I suggest
in my Findings column?

I'll award a copy of "Radical Evolution," Joel Garreau's excellent
book on human enhancement technologies, to whoever comes up with the
best name and slogan for for these new games. I threw out a few
suggestions in the column -- MaxMatch, UltraSports, Mutant Games --
but I'm not sold on any of them. I have a personal fondness for the
QuidQuid Games (from the Latin word meaning "whatever," which could
at least make a nice slogan for the games). But it's probably too
obscure. Maybe the Superhuman Games, or just the Super Games? You
tell me.

I also welcome thoughts on how these games might be run -- and
whether anyone would watch. My first instinct is to dispense with
testing altogether; my only restriction would be to ban athletes
under the age of 25, to ensure that these decisions are being made
by adults. If we wanted to further assuage concerns about corrupting
minors -- because some critics would argue that these athletes would
be encouraging teenagers to experiment -- we could ban anyone who
had been caught as a minor using substances banned by anti-doping
authorities.

In my Findings column, I cite the growing number of doctors and
ethicists who believe the current anti-doping system is a failure
because the tests are unscientific and the standards of what's
"natural" are arbitrary, anachronistic and unenforceable. Not all
these critics, though, support a pure anything-goes system. In the
British Medical Journal last month, Bengt Kayser, the director of a
sports medicine institute at the University of Geneva, and Aaron
Smith of La Trobe University in Australia, criticize the present
anti-doping system and then suggest:

  An alternative policy might involve making legal the use of drugs
  associated with low harm and testing health rather than testing
  for drugs. Implicit in this argument is that more athletes would
  use performance enhancing drugs if they were both legal and safe,
  thereby obviating both the moral and level playing field
  problems. This view holds that if health is safeguarded it does
  not matter how performance is supplemented.

Another approach is the one favored by Andy Miah, a bioethicist at
the University of the West of Scotland. He favors continuing the ban
on synthetic drugs, as he wrote in the Washington Post recently, but
he believes that "tailor-made treatments, based on genetic
modifications, and new medical enhancement techniques promise a
safer form of technology" to improve athletic performance. Instead
of decrying "unnatural" athletes who enhance their permance though
"gene doping," he suggests:

  Let us celebrate the rise of a new age of genuinely superhuman
  athletes, where the rules of sports are governed not by
  ever-present but ultimately unreliable doping police, but by a
  genuine concern for optimizing excellence. As technology gets
  better, athletes should, too.

As I say, my instinct is to have as few rules as possible, if for no
other reason than the impossibility of fairly drawing a line between
what's "synthetic" and what's "natural," and between what's harmful
and what's not. Defenders of the current anti-doping regime like to
imagine extreme scenarios -- like a magic pill that guaranteed you
victory today in exchange for certain death in five years -- but
these seem implausible to me (and I'd say to worry about that
scenario when it arises).

I suspect, though, that many Lab readers have different opinions.
Let the debating games begin.

55 comments so far...

* 1. August 11th, 2008 6:05 pm
Do we even know what is safe? We don't do any testing of drugs
for safety and efficacy if their purpose is enhancement rather
than treatment. To say "we will only allow safe drugs" is to
pretend that we have the knowledge to proceed safely, and
consign athletes to the consequences.
Perhaps we should be testing such drugs (along with "smart
drugs" and others that are intended to improve rather than
treat), but if so that should be the discussion, not encouraging
their use in ignorance.
-- Posted by JD

* 2. August 11th, 2008 6:10 pm
I like "Unlimited Class" events. "Unlimited Class Cycling", etc.
The overall events could be the "Unlimited Games"
-- Posted by secretivek

* 3. August 11th, 2008 7:21 pm
It's not only the direct effects of drugs that you'd need to
watch out for. Today I saw a young Chinese woman lift 130kg
(286.6 lbs), far over her weight, to win a gold medal. A few
(more) performance enhancers could see that go up to 150kg at
least, at serious risk to her spine. Or, imagine a sprinter who
could do 100m in under 9 seconds: thigh muscles so powerful, he
could shatter his femurs from the starting blocks... ow.
-- Posted by brian t

* 4. August 11th, 2008 7:24 pm
Your idea sounds reasonable. We all know about "false positives"
amd "false negatives" vis-a-vis drug tests...
Some prohibited aubstances are dangerous. So is the excessive
use of alcohol and we all know that cigarette smokers (on
average) suffer disease and die earler than others. Inform, but
they are legal. It's the choice of the individual.
So, why not let people take whatever substances they wish?
Some players who are now taking drugs or other substances
labeled now called "illicit" are really taking placebos.
[Placebos DO WORK at times!]
So, what's wrong with the "don't ask, don't tell"?
If someone takes it and reports various effacious
drugs and they believe that it enhances performance, it will put
pressure on other athletes to do the same. And, possibly hurt
others who follow them.
Some of these substances are dangerous now; or,continued
use will have bad effects in years to come.
So, what do we do? Yes, `don't ask, don't tell.' But any drug
must be FDA approved and prescribed by a licensed physician.
?
-- Posted by David Chowes, New York City

* 5. August 11th, 2008 7:28 pm
The Opium Games (after the Opium Wars which were caused by China
trying to regulate drugs). The Unequal Games (after the Unequal
Treaties) might also work.
-- Posted by Sundeep

* 6. August 11th, 2008 9:11 pm
John
Don't be a tool. Read about what happened to the East German
athletes. How they were feed steroids without their consent and
the health effects that had on them.
Preventing doping isn't just about protecting the sanctity of
the games (I frankly don't care - I'm not going to watch them
anyway). Really, preventing doping is about protecting the
athletes, both directly (i.e. from their own governments) and
indirectly (from the pressure to win at any cost that would
arise if their competitors could dope).
That you can't grasp this dynamic is just another example of
that failure of the imagination that affects so many
libertarians.
-- Posted by Adam

* 7. August 11th, 2008 10:13 pm
Certainly there are ethical issues that we would have to
continue to worry about (safety and coercion chief among them).
Nevertheless we have the para olympics and the olympics. I know
I'm not the first to suggest a third branch, the "pharma
olympics," with doped but well-monitored athletes being open and
honest about their self-experimentation.
-- Posted by Brendan

* 8. August 11th, 2008 10:14 pm
I've always thought this should be done. The current system
simply rewards athletes whose governments back their doping with
sufficiently advanced masking technology.
Some names:
- Open Olympiad (goes with the rings)
- Free Olympics (or if that sounds too much like french fires,
then Freestyle Games)
- Adult Olympics (or Adult Games for the evening portion)
I have one disagreement with you. If the age to go to war is 18,
then so should every other marker of "adulthood" -- drinking,
driving, drugs, etc.
I don't see why someone can consent to having a halfwit general
send him off to get shot at 18, but not to increase the red
blood cell count in his body.
www.boldizar.com
-- Posted by Boldizar

* 9. August 11th, 2008 10:39 pm
I think that professional wrestling has few limits.
Is it sport?
Is it entertainment?
-- Posted by G Campbell

* 10. August 11th, 2008 10:39 pm
Before seeing your blog entry, I just wrote a comment here
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/sports/olympics/12re
cords.html?ref=sports) suggesting what you are suggesting, Mr.
Tierney.
But allowing athletes to do whatever they want, doping-wise,
will never happen. The cops-and-robbers mentality is too
ingrained in human beings. It is another game, much like the
Olympics, except that it goes on every day, year in and year
out, not every 4 years.
-- Posted by Rob L; N Myrtle Beach SC

* 11. August 11th, 2008 11:11 pm
Why start a whole new set of games that would probably be seen
as offensive to most, especially given the fact that most people
still claim at least to have some sort of morality, and would
not want to degrade the olympic spirit?
The only thing you need to do is to start another reality tv
show boasting the greatest athletes in the world, call it the
21st century games or some variation on -lympics; with all of
the other absurdities in television these days, there is no way
this could be shot down except for lack of funding.
-- Posted by Brandon

* 12. August 11th, 2008 11:21 pm
Adam: The problem with the East Germans is that they were doped
without their knowledge and without regard for their safety.
Bringing doping out of the shadows would enable better
monitoring of health effects, and people who were informed would
probably not do to themselves what the East German coaches did.
The pressure to win at any cost is already there. Doping is
already widespread. I vote for putting it in the open where it
can be properly monitored. I think that will do more to protect
the health of athletes than fighting a losing battle against
doping.
brian t: There are drugs to promote bone density, although
cartilage is still a problem.
In general, the one problem I have with body modification for
sports is deciding when the people competing are no longer
strictly human. After all, if you need stronger bones wouldn't
carbon fiber bones be even better? Do you simply limit people to
a human shaped body plan?
On the other hand doping's not really even against the Olympic
spirit. In the ancient games, people took whatever herb or
potion they thought might give them an edge.
Names: when I've discussed this idea with friends in the past
I've called it the "All Drug Olympics" but it's not a very
catchy name. How about the Transhuman Olympics? Because, really,
that's where this is all headed.
-- Posted by DB

* 13. August 11th, 2008 11:22 pm
I am compelled to object to the suggestion of "Ultrasports" as a
name for your drug-fueled follies. The term `Ultra' has long
association with endurance athletics, most especially running.
It is quite likely that ultrarunning is, among all significant
athletic endeavors, the least tainted by artificial performance
enhancement. Your suggestion is an undeserved insult to all or
virtually all ultrarunners.
-- Posted by John Rainey, Leadville CO

* 14. August 12th, 2008 12:14 am
High Olympiad of Natural and Enhanced Sports Technology (acronym
HONEST; it would be shortened to the Honest Olympics, and the
refrain could go, "HO, HO, HO.")
www.boldizar.com
-- Posted by Boldizar

* 15. August 12th, 2008 12:29 am
Consider the following scenario: somebody invents a device that
can deliver painful electric shocks to the bearer and can
possibly cause a heart attack, but whose main effect is making
the bearer run inhumanly fast, such that even an untrained
amateur has a chance for the gold.
Would such a device be allowed in the competition? If no, why
not?
-- Posted by MB

* 16. August 12th, 2008 1:04 am
If artificial pharmaceutical enhancements are to be allowed, how
is this different from allowing swimmers to use fins or a
motor-driven propeller? The whole point is to see what people
can do. That is also the beauty of it. If we just want to be
"faster, higher, stronger" than the next guy by any means, we'd
enter dolphins or machines in these competitions. Thank goodness
Giuliani and Bloomberg didn't have your attitude toward crime.
-- Posted by Kevin

* 17. August 12th, 2008 1:08 am
"Quis quid", whatever. "Quid quid?" sounds like a few dollars
more, made in England.
-- Posted by David Galbraith

* 18. August 12th, 2008 1:24 am
The Human Performance Games.
-- Posted by SA

* 19. August 12th, 2008 1:44 am
How about "The Unlimited Games"? Sounds good to me.
-- Posted by Mike M

* 20. August 12th, 2008 1:45 am
How about the "Ludi Curious"? Curious for voyeurs, and
sociologists alike, perhaps. Ludicrous in concept, but as the
Ludi Curiae, they would be central to all. Motto: "Per quisquid,
ad astra" of course!
-- Posted by David Galbraith

* 21. August 12th, 2008 1:59 am
I have been talking about this very subject for years. While the
name X-Games has already been claimed by ESPN, an all-drug
Olympics might be rightfully called the Extreme-Games. (I know,
not very creative).
I like the sound of an Unlimited Games though...
-- Posted by Jason

* 22. August 12th, 2008 3:22 am
Tierney, your meds are wearing off.
Sports aren't real life. They're about artificial limitations,
arbitrary rules. What we really need is to drug into a coma the
folks who want to turn sports into something that requires
cheating to win.
-- Posted by JimG

* 23. August 12th, 2008 3:26 am
My suggestion: Xtreme Games
But there would be added ground rules:
- full disclosure of all the chemicals taken or techniques used
- the stipulation that they be made available to every athlete
participating and, here's the kicker:
- your medal is presented to you 10 years after the event only
if you're still alive.
I envision a scenario like NASCAR or Formula 1, where every
athlete is plastered with the logos of drug companies that have
sponsored him, her or it.
-- Posted by Ben

* 24. August 12th, 2008 3:43 am
Wow, what a "brilliant" idea. Why even have human athletes
compete? Let's just turn them into android "Borg" and see who is
the best enhanced robotic athlete. Even better, let's just have
androids compete and forget the human competition altogether. We
can call them the "Cyber-games."
-- Posted by Mike

* 25. August 12th, 2008 3:47 am
chemlympics, chemicalympics, chempics?
-- Posted by paul bowers

* 26. August 12th, 2008 3:49 am
What type of person would we be to support this type of
spectator sports where people are killing themselves for the
sake of entertainment. The argument that it is their choice
holds no weight. It is peoples choice to go on crack and all
other types of drugs, but we can't in our right minds support
that can we? It is true that people have the right to choose,
and that is in itself very important. As moral people, I think
we should allow people the freedom to have their
experimentations as they see fit. We can not however glorify and
support this type of nonsense for the sake of entertaining
ourselves through the idiot box.
-- Posted by Steves Vanderpool

* 27. August 12th, 2008 4:04 am
What your well-reasoned article really shows, to my mind, is
that mediatized national and international sports are inevitably
a freak show that debases both participants and observers. And
what really dopes them are the obscene amounts of money to be
won-if not through astronomical salaries, then through
endorsements, television appearances, and the like. The whole
business reeks.
-- Posted by Steven Rendall

* 28. August 12th, 2008 4:10 am
The choice games
What else will be controlled? Eating fat food .smoking,
drinking, staying up late .etc... All can be harmful to our body, 
hypocrisy is the only reason
they are testing athletes
Many world records were set long ago and most of the athlete
setting these records were caught after a while and tested
positive for anabolic steroids
It should be a personal choice for the athlete and it should be
monitored by doctors and scientist to prevent any damage to the
system
Isn't it better to be supervised by a doctor than a drug dealer?
Isn't it better to buy these performance enhancing drugs from a
pharmacy than an underground lab?
It is a personal choice
as
-- Posted by ahmed

* 29. August 12th, 2008 4:41 am
Because no one will ever be able to draw a fine line between
what is considered drug enhancement or what is not, it is a fine
idea to imagine an Olympics with no drug testing. Athletes all bring 
advantages and disadvantages, and to quantify
what is an unfair advantage or not is subjective. An objective
Olympics would be one where all the participants were cloned at
birth, and then all are pitted against each other when old
enough. Now how purposeful would that be?
Drug testing attempts to cap advantages of athletes born with
one, and to hinder athletes who work so hard but still can't
quite meet the bar of those who were just "born with it".
-- Posted by C. McKiver, Irvine CA

* 30. August 12th, 2008 4:42 am
Adam's point is well-taken. If doping is legitimized, we must
accept what totalitarian governments will do with that freedom.
In some cases, openness would result in better health monitoring
for doped athletes. But for poor people with limited access to
quality health care and athletes in repressive countries, it
could be a nightmare. The only thing saving these potential
guinea pigs is the limited policing efforts currently in place.
Plus, nobody has made it clear how these drugs could become
permissible for adults, but forbidden for children. Tierney
certainly doesn't lay that out.
He over-simplifies the case and, in relying on Dr. Fost and the
University of Texas article about Landis' case, he overlooks
serious flaws in reasoning and factual evidence.
The problems with the UT article begin, but hardly end, with the
fact that the author belives that flaws in the T/E ratio test
mean that Landis' positive result on the more sophisticated test
should have been negated, too. He treats the first test as if it
were the evidentiary basis of a search warrant, which is a
faulty analogy. The more sophisticated test should be conducted
on an initial analysis, but it isn't because of the expense. As for Dr. 
Fost, he has said American swimmers used a greasy
swimsuit material that was kept secret from the East Germans,
and he equates the suit with the "unfairness'' of the DDR's
doping program. One problem: That material didn't exist until
1992, when East Germany no longer existed.
I agree that antidoping measures may ultimately be a losing
proposition, but I find it interesting that the libertarians
have come out in force at just the time that athletes are
actually getting caught in substantial numbers. Where were they
when non-Americans got busted?
-- Posted by maggie kain

* 31. August 12th, 2008 5:04 am
I don't like the idea, but find it intriguing nonetheless. How
about "The Asterisk Games"
-- Posted by J.S.

* 32. August 12th, 2008 5:04 am
For possible names of the enhancements-allowed sports event:
"SuperChargers"
"Adults Unlimited"
"Trophies or Bust"
"Competition for Dopers"
"Open Doping Open"
"Our Money or Your Life"
-- Posted by DCH

* 33. August 12th, 2008 5:27 am
I would call them "Ultimeet". We may already have one Ultimeet
event, the Tour de France. But remember, in the instructions to
the participants of the Tour de France of 1933 it reads: the
organisation will cover all travel, meals and hotel accomodation
but the cyclists have to take care of their own doping. So,
what's new.
Ger Rijkers,
Mill, The Netherlands
(big cycling fan)
-- Posted by Ger Rijkers

* 34. August 12th, 2008 7:00 am
I don't do drugs. The idea that drugs are "good" or "bad" is
cultural, not based on science - and illegal drugs kill far
fewer drugs than legal drugs. All people have the right to control their 
bodies, despite legal
trends otherwise. Athletes have the right to control their
bodies. Face it: many athletes participate in activities that
will reduce their life spans and are bad for their health.
Should those activities be banned? The folks who want to ban
drugs should figure out how to ban dangerous training regimens -
oh, they can't? The current fad of drug testing is just that, a
fad that is popular because it is easy to do.
-- Posted by Bob

* 35. August 12th, 2008 7:02 am
Bodybuilding has been running shows that are either "natural" or
"use all the drugs you want" for years. The audiences prefer by
far the "use all the drugs you want" shows. The men are much
more spectacular looking in the no-limits show. Any bodybuilding
contest broadcast on TV is one enhanced by steroids. All the
comic action heros, most TV wrestlers, and many Hollywood bodies
are the product of setroids or growth homrome. The public loves
this unnatural look. Bodybuilding has not been allowed to be an
Olympic sport because of the drug use issue. But it is kind of
silly. Who thinks that a body that has been given all the
medical treatment of modern medicine -- e.g., Tommy John
surgery, antibiotics -- is "natural"? Steroids are
over-the-counter drugs in most countires. If they are so harmful
to athleses, why are they manufactured by drug companies for
human use and prescribed by doctors to treat multiple
conditions, including being prescribed for immuno-suppressed
AIDS patients? It's time for the "legalization" of the safer
drugs in sports. Just like with mind-altering drugs (which can
be much more dangerous), if athletic-enhancing drugs were legal,
more doctors would know about proper usage amounts and cause our
athletes to be healthier than if the athletes are reduced to
buying them black-market and of questionable purity.
-- Posted by Carl Smith

* 36. August 12th, 2008 7:05 am
Yesterday morning I watched two underage, illegal immigrant,
boys helping an older man apply walkway "treatments" to an
apartment building. The kids (15-16 year olds?) didn't wear
masks or gloves. The old guy wore long gloves. Last night, when
I returned, I picked up the fibers that were left all over the
ground from the treatment. I tested it, it's two inch staple,
flattened, fiberglass. People will kill people, for a profit.
Why not increase the number of red blood cells in a body.
Because it increases the odds of having a stroke. Why not take
steroids? Because it interferes with the body's delicately
balanced endocrine system.
Let the olympic games be a contest of the healthy.
-- Posted by jackie aldridge

* 37. August 12th, 2008 7:06 am
I'm a guy who doesn't enjoy baseball anymore, because I can't
watch a home run without thinking about steroids and HGH.
Still, Tierney has a point. The system is irretrievably broken,
and even if tests improve, technology has become so advanced
that we will never more be able to be sure about athletes and
who does or doesn't do what. At least, if there is no penalty
for doping and enhancing, it is more likely that we will hear
about it and then take it into consideration in choosing whom to
admire or not. AND there will be serious adverse reactions. Tierney makes 
the
argument that few people have serious reactions to steroids. He
misses the point. Serious adverse reactions are by their nature
rare. Who would use a drug if serious reactions were common?
But there will be, rarely, fatalities and permanent disabilities
- and along with them emotional and physical pain. A few such
reactions, well documented, reported and publicized, may do more
to hold down drug use than tests.
-- Posted by Richard

* 38. August 12th, 2008 7:07 am
Well, John, the state of Ohio is way ahead of you, at least in
high school competition. We do not ban or check for medically
enhanced athletes. Parents find doctors who will administer
steroids and testosterone to enhance athletic performance. They
also hold their children back a year or two before starting
kindergarten so that the kids have two years of growth on fellow
athletes. Ohio high school sports have become a medical freak
show driven by parents seeking college athletic scholarships.
The testosterone induced "man face" is common among the female
soccer and basketball players. They all hit a wall when they get
to college, where the drugs are illegal. The Ohio High School
Athletic Association refuses to address the issue.
-- Posted by Anthony Weishar

* 39. August 12th, 2008 7:24 am
I suggest the name Pharmalympics. I also suggest to award the
medals to the sporter's pharmacist, for it is he who
accomplishes the remarkable feats, and not the guinee-pigs on
two legs that run for him: the sporters in your free-doping
sports are just chemical waste.
-- Posted by Dirk Bosmans

* 40. August 12th, 2008 7:28 am
There are some really bad analogies here.
1-Climbing K2 and doping for competitive sports are not
comparable in terms of risk.
Doping is an added and unnecessary risk, not an inherent part of
swimming, running, cycling, etc. Eliminate doping, and these
sports will still exist.
It is, however, impossible to climb K2 and avoid the risks of
climbing K2.
2-Lasik and antidepressants treat real medical problems, and
they are unlikely to be abused. (I'll take a third round of
Lasik, Doc.) Athletes live to overdo things. Let them take
steroids, and they aren't going to stop at reasonable doses, or
even triple that amount.
The best analogy is cosmetic surgery. Hence, my suggestion for
the alternative games: The Joan Rivers Invitational.
-- Posted by marie

* 41. August 12th, 2008 7:30 am
This discussion brings back fond memories of the Saturday Night
Live skit -- the "All Drug Olympics" -- during which a doped up
Russian weightlifter had both arms pop out of their sockets as
he tried to clean and jerk "over 1,500 pounds, more than
tripling the current world record." The video is available on
several websites. Saturday Night Live was very often much ahead
of its time.
-- Posted by Josh F.

* 42. August 12th, 2008 7:32 am
Why not the "Track and Fueled Games"? Or, in light of the fact
that most banned substances are injectible, "The Olympricks"?
-- Posted by Carl Smith

* 43. August 12th, 2008 7:50 am
How about calling them the Pharma Games?
Perhaps instead of having the athletes represent countries, they
could represent drug companies. So you could have, say, Team
Merck competing against Team Pfizer. It would be sort of like
auto racing where you have participating car companies providing
their race cars with the latest and greatest technology.
-- Posted by Todd Corenson

* 44. August 12th, 2008 7:51 am
Why stop at chemical performance enhancers? What about
electrical and mechanical devices? I can envision a pacemaker
which can get the heart up to 250 beats per minute.
What about the athlete who so tunes his body that it is good for
one race only - he runs a 2 minute mile and drops dead 1
nanosecond after crossing the finish line.
-- Posted by Richr

* 45. August 12th, 2008 7:53 am
a friend of mine who played tennis on the pro circuit said
everyone dopes, period, full stop.
He said he couldn't compete at the top levels without doing
that, and he didn't want to go down that road, but that everyone
in the top tiers did.
i'm not saying it's true. but if it is, the debate has to
acknowledge the fact that it's already happening anyway.
let's face it- look at guys playing tennis now (like bulls) and
look at the guys in the seventies (not). do you really think
it's all better nutrition and organic veggies: come on.
-- Posted by Bob

* 46. August 12th, 2008 7:55 am
a friend of mine who played tennis on the pro circuit said
everyone dopes, period, full stop.
He said he couldn't compete at the top levels without doing
that, and he didn't want to go down that road, but that everyone
in the top tiers did.
i'm not saying it's true. but if it is, the debate has to
acknowledge the fact that it's already happening anyway.
let's face it- look at guys playing tennis now (like bulls) and
look at the guys in the seventies (not). do you really think
it's all better nutrition and organic veggies??
-- Posted by Bob

* 47. August 12th, 2008 7:59 am
The idea is, as Bugs Bunny would say, "Despicable."
-- Posted by C. Alexander Brown, Canada

* 48. August 12th, 2008 8:01 am
Consider using names taken from drag racing - denoting different
levels of modification - "funny cars", stock modified...
What about "double helix" awards for the most creative, greatest
advancements in sports genetics to be awarded every four years
at the Modified Games? Athletes as science projects. An article in Omni 
magazine in the mid-1970s considered the
Olympic games in a future when genetic modification was
commonplace. The American and Soviet teams had members that were
genetically adapted for specific sports. The Olympic officials
did not have specific tests to prove the modifications, so they
accepted the Soviet and American objections as correct and
awarded medals to athletes from countries that did not have the
genetic know-how to create these super-humans.
-- Posted by WWRobertson, Toronto, ON

* 49. August 12th, 2008 8:05 am
I've made this argument myself and my suggestion is to hand over
the management to International Offshore Racing (IOR) or other
sailboat racing association since what is being proposed is akin
to a "development rule" that provides a formula for a racing
yacht to qualify for competition. e.g., instead of x lb of
ballast, y square feet of sail, and z ft of waterline length
such that the product xyz be less than a certain number N, we
might have x oz of steroids, y injections of genes and z percent
of oxygenated blood such that the product xyz is less than a
specified number.
3 injections
-- Posted by tom simkins

* 50. August 12th, 2008 8:21 am
To read the posted comments is a microcosm of the grander
problem. You have those who incite fear, those who want the
involvement of every organized body and those that are just
"insulted". Oh please! The last cup of morality has been served. As Mr. 
Tierney has pointed out, society will let someone climb a
dangerous mountain but they can't ingest a chemical? What makes
the difference? Is it the effort? A person gets no respect
because they can inhale sitting on the couch but awe and
admiration because they can't at 26,000 feet? People choose what
they want to do because it makes them happy. Neither you nor I
can decide what "happiness" is for them. If you can't accept
that, then either sit-down or go climb something but stop the
whining.
-- Posted by Steve - Washington, DC

* 51. August 12th, 2008 8:24 am
What are you on, Mr. Tierney?
-- Posted by Bruce Molholt

* 52. August 12th, 2008 8:24 am
NuLympics
-- Posted by Ryan

* 53. August 12th, 2008 8:28 am
The Evolympics; to be held as the Olympics draw to a close,
thereby giving the name a double meaning. "Experience the
unfolding of human potential."
I think that this would be an amazing, if potentially divisive,
experiment in human behavior and potential. There would be two
interesting trends to watch - who chooses to participate, and
how they choose to boost their performance. Have you read
"Achille's Choice" by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes? It deals
with a situation much like you propose, but on an involuntary
basis and with much greater risks posed to the athletes.
I would love to see how sports would change given more
widespread and sanctioned use of performance enhancers. What
happens to events based solely on power or speed?
-- Posted by Liz

* 54. August 12th, 2008 8:29 am
Remember when we objected to the East Germans doping their
athletes? And began to be concerned that our young people who
wanted to excel were putting their health at risk because they
were using steroids? Were those just simpler times that cannot
be recalled in reality now; or is someone missing something that
I think I see? I understand the problem with unreliable tests
for doping. There are always "dopes" that simply are too new for
us to understand how to detect them. I also believe that rampant
nationalism and individual ambition drive some people to bizarre
behavior. My suggestion is that we stop making our young people
responsible for how we feel about ourselves. Erase all national
ties in competition by pairing a Russian with a Chinese on one
team; someone from Kenya with someone from Malaysia; etc.
Software could be created that could arrange competitions based
on good sportsman(or woman)-ship. Advertisers and "sponsors"
(read "owners") could be banned. Public spirited billionaires,
so prevalent today, could cover costs of events that
particularly appeal to them individually; etc. Enough of this
jingoistic, paranoid insistence that "mine's bigger than yours."
Fie to all that; fie, I say! Let the Games begin once the kids
themselves have met and discussed how they want to play them. And let the 
so-called grownups stay in the sanctity of their
motor homes and huts and mansions and hovels and tract homes and
yachts all around the world, watching with rapt attention while
boys act like boys; girls act like girls; and those of other
persuasions act like themselves, as well. Enough, already!
-- Posted by Carlton Colquitt

* 55. August 12th, 2008 8:37 am
this is an awesome article. i could not agree more. i say let
the athletes do whatever they would like, and may the best
person win! if they want to risk taking new enhancements, that
it a strategy that should be available just like a new diet or a
new uniform. the current system is an ineffective waste of
resources which just unfairly tears down certain athletes. it is
impossible to control use of enhancements/supplements/biological
alterations. the olympic committee is just deceiving itself if
it thinks it is doing anything productive with it's anti-doping
rules. the current system makes me sick. athletes know more
about their bodies and care more then anyone - if they make an
informed decision to use a supplement, i think that we should
allow them to take that risk and suffer the consequences,
whether good or bad. i love the idea of an over 25 anything goes
competition. maybe ultimate games, super human games, superpower
olympics. i love it! we cannot stop the march of technology so
we may as well embrace it!
-- Posted by sandra


About TierneyLab

John Tierney always wanted to be a scientist but went into
journalism because its peer-review process was a great deal
easier to sneak through. Now a columnist for the Science Times
section, Tierney previously wrote columns for the Op-Ed page,
the Metro section and the Times Magazine. Before that he covered
science for magazines like Discover, Hippocrates and Science 86.
With your help, he's using TierneyLab to check out new research
and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society. The
Lab's work is guided by two founding principles:
    + 1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't
      mean it's wrong.
    + 2. But that's a good working theory.