The tiny fractions of a second that separate a gold medallist from an also-ran can have gigantic consequences. They change lives and make fortunes, or snatch them away. The fruits of 10 or 15 years of unremitting training can turn to ashes in the moment between two beats of a desperately pounding heart. No wonder some athletes cheat.
The pressure on them to do so does not arise solely from the will to win. Nor is it just financial greed, important though such motives must be, especially for athletes from backgrounds where excellence in sport is one of the very few routes out of poverty. By the time any athlete reaches the stage of competing for their country, they are responsible not just for the hopes of millions, but for the careers of coaches and helpers to whom they must feel loyalty and responsibility – and perhaps of families who depend on them, and who have also sacrificed a great deal for their success. They may also be haunted by the fear that if they don’t cheat, their competitors will. That has certainly been true in some sports in some periods, as it was in cycling during the era of Lance Armstrong.
Sometimes entire teams have been caught up in the systematic use of illegal or unethical methods. It’s asking a great deal of young athletes to resist that kind of pressure. All of these factors make the policing of the sport essential. The greater the rewards of cheating appear, the more necessary it is that punishment be sure and severe. That is why the latest allegations against the International Association of Athletics Federations are so very damaging. The news that the longtime president of the organisation, Lamine Diack, and several of his associates are under investigation by French police for corruption and money laundering threatens the integrity of the sport in a way that the simple exposure of cheating by athletes or even the systematic encouragement of cheating by their national federations never could.
What is being investigated today is a corruption of the policing process within athletics. The former director of the IAAF’s medical and anti-doping department has been arrested and taken into custody. The allegation is that athletes who failed drug tests were shaken down for substantial bribes to get themselves out of trouble. A Russian marathon runner claims to have paid $450,000 to her own federation to suppress the result of a drug test which led to her being stripped of her title for the London marathon in 2010.
One of the minor astonishments of the story is that she had made enough money to afford such a substantial payment. But modern professional sport is awash with money from advertising, and the right to stage big tournaments is contested with no expense spared. The new head of the IAAF, Lord Coe, is a paid ambassador for Nike and has been for many years. It was regarded as a gesture of newsworthy altruism that he considered giving up that post if he won the election to succeed Mr Diack earlier this autumn, though he has not in fact done so. Still, his earlier role as chairman of Fifa’s ethics committee must have accustomed him to keeping his equilibrium amid moral conflicts that less accomplished performers would find quite dizzying.
Yet at the same time as it appears so worldly, athletics markets itself on the basis of an exalted vision of human potential. The Olympic ideal is the earliest and still the most powerful expression of the modern hope of sport as an international civilising process. Despite all the evidence of corruption and cheating, it still is not entirely worthless. The London Olympics did make this country a better and happier place for a while. The ideals that corruption betrays are genuinely noble ones, and it is better to have had them, even tarnished, than not to know them at all.
But if we are to keep on enjoying the spectacle of elite sport, we need to distinguish between the pleasures of spectating and the benefits of taking part. Governments should encourage sport, especially in schools, because exercise and self-discipline are good in themselves. But sport of this sort is for the many, not the few. Widespread mediocrity would be much less damaging than occasional excellence bought at the expense of ruined lives and systematic cheating. It might be less fun to watch, but honest, effortful failure is its own reward. The offences alleged against the IAAF are not just against the criminal laws of France, but against the values that make sport worthwhile. If they are proven, the whole organisation must be purged.
