The Summer Olympics are finally only a few days away. Soon, the world will be able to exhale its collective breath and finally get an answer to the question that’s plaguing us all: Which athlete will be scandalized by being caught using illegal performance enhancers?

Image Credit: Richard McMillan

Will it be a baseball player who’s had Lasik to improve his vision to beyond 20/20? Will it be a distance runner who has been training at high altitudes to improve his blood’s oxygen capacity? Will it be a shotputter who takes some zinc because he’s afraid he might have a cold coming on? Will it be swimmers using high-tech swimsuits?

Actually, it won’t be any of those athletes, because they’re not violating the rules. They are merely engaging in “natural” performance enhancement.

No, it’s only certain substances that are banned from professional sports and the Olympic Games. Substances that we have, in our collective wisdom, declared “artificial” and any use of same to be “cheating”–even if it’s merely a little extra of a substance that our own body produces, such as HGH or testosterone. Indeed, we consider it cheating even if the addition of that substance still causes one athlete to have less of it in their system than another athlete produces naturally through the fortune of having the right genes.

Of course, whether or not you have the right genes is an inherent issue in all sports–the fact of the matter is, no amount of hard work is going to be the equal of genetics. And since artificial enhancement of the human body is out, you’re left with a group of people who achieve fame and fortune because they were born lucky.

Now, don’t get me wrong–I understand and appreciate the hard work that it takes to become a professional athlete, and I know that no matter how great your genes are, you still have to apply discipline and practice in order to reach your body’s potential. However, the flip side of the coin isn’t equal. No matter how hard you train, or how much discipline you have, if you don’t have great genes, you won’t be a great athlete. Period.

But here’s what doesn’t make sense. We are entering an era where the consequences of genetic disparity can be limited. Performance enhancing drugs, taken wisely under a doctor’s supervision, can safely make an athlete better. What’s the problem with that? You still need the practice and the discipline, so why does the drug make it cheating? Because you’re taking something you can’t get naturally? If that’s the case, why not ban Gatorade, vitamin pills, protein bars, etc. and limit athletes to only those nutrients that they can get from eating, say, organic food? Aren’t supplements cheating? What’s the honest-to-god difference between synthetic testosterone and synthetic Vitamin C (which has “performance enhancing” effects)?

Protein shakes and supplements aren’t the only artificial enhancements that we allow in professional sports, either. What about using personal trainers or employing the help of doctors who specialize in sports medicine? Shouldn’t athletes be limited to compete wholly within the realm of their own personal knowledge and what they can learn naturally, without relying on expert help? By the same token, shouldn’t they be banned from hiring nutritionists, too? After all, the food an athlete eats is just as important as what kinds of exercises he does.

As you can see, we have a bias in our culture towards having our athletes have “natural ability”. But there’s nothing natural about it. Modern exercise techniques are developed through the application of scientific studies. Just about every athlete I know drinks protein shakes–hardly a “natural” drink. Nearly all professional athletes have personal trainers and nutritionists monitoring their daily activity and food intake. The fact of the matter is, there’s nothing “natural” about professional sports in the slightest. “Natural” professional sports would be watching a group of guys herd mammoths off of a cliff.

It’s high time that the rules of professional sports be broadened to allow all types of performance enhancements, without making arbitrary distinctions. The only criteria for judgment should be the safety of the athletes. That’s something something that can be ensured by having doctors (whose salaries are independent of any one team or athlete) supervise training regimens, monitor supplements taken, and ensure the safety and proper dosage any chemicals or hormones used. By establishing a safety standard, rather than arbitrarily determining some types of performance enhancement to be “unnatural”, we can better protect athletes by allowing them to achieve their potential without going underground and using dubious, risky means to do so.