Intent

I’ve been watching The Tour de France since Channel 4 started broadcasting coverage in the middle of the 1980’s. And as (almost) as certain as night follows day, did victor fail drug test. So it was no surprise at all that eventually Lance Armstrong was forced to admit to his own use of banned substances. His main justification seems to be that “they were all at it” and a look at the evidence suggests that a lot were.

However, two wrongs don’t make a right, and there are plenty of cyclists and sportsmen out there who do not rely upon banned substances to improve their performance. However, many sports people do take various dietary supplements which are not on a banned list, to improve their performance. So the question of intent: Are these “legal” supplements still “cheating”? The intent is to improve performance by taking them, it is just that one is on a banned list and the other isn’t. So how do we draw a line, ensure a “level playing field”? Ban training?