The hidden pressures on top athletes
Anarticle this week in The Gazette (“Two top sprinters nabbed,” July 15) described a very bad day for track and field as three of its most prominent stars — Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay and Sherone Simpson — admitted to having failed tests for banned performanceenhancing drugs. They have pulled out of the world championships in Moscow that are to take place a month from now.
As I read the reasons and explanations offered by these athletes, it was not hard to imagine the cynical groans in response, and comments like “It figures” and “So what else is new?”
These are predictable and, I suppose, natural reactions. But to simply leave the matter as such is to oversimplify the situation.
I submit that there is a deeper, more fundamental story here of which the public may be largely unaware: In the modern era of big money and bigger sponsorships, athletes face greater challenges than ever before precisely because of all of the people who want to “help” them.
Most people have probably encountered at some point in their lives a star athlete, or one with the potential to become a star. Often it happens in school, where somebody stands out as a natural quarterback, gymnast, swimmer or track star. It can be any sport, but the aura around these people is the same: They have something special that the rest of us lack.
There is a complex mix of admiration and envy in our rela- tionship with these people. We want to be near them, be their friends, partake in some of the glory vicariously; maybe some of that shine will rub off on us, too. Some of us eventually mature and accept that we could never accomplish what they do, even if we decided it really mattered and was worth all the trouble and sacrifice. And then there are those who remain trapped in the self-made cage of envy: “He just got lucky with the gene pool, that’s all. It could have been me.”
What the public and the fans see are performances on the big day and perhaps some well-edited biographical TV clips of the hopeful champions’ travails and ordeals on their way to stardom. But these do not tell the whole story.
The aspiring Olympian has always had to face numerous struggles in addition to, and away from, the training ground and the competition venue.
Accepting money for competing was a major sin for Olympians until fairly recently, which
The aspiring Olympian has always had to face struggles in addition to the training ground and the competition venue.
meant that many athletes were forced to try to excel while living subsistence lives.
“Cheating” has always been frowned upon, but the truth is that cheating in order to gain a competitive edge dates back to the very first modern Olympic Games, in 1896, when strychnine was used in sub-lethal doses to enhance endurance.
Today there are the added pressures of the requisite media likability, big money and big sponsorships.
It is apparently no longer sufficient for a star to be talented and successful. He or she must also have a certain look for the camera and have at the ready an arsenal of safe, politically correct comments for the microphone.
As for the sponsorships issue, it might seem wonderful and fortunate when a powerful and influential sponsor like Nike decides to step in and help out someone it believes would be good for its image and sales. But at what point in this relationship does the athlete cease to compete for himself or herself and turn into someone performing on demand for his or her sponsor?
I have difficulty seeing the powerful sponsor as a helpful or even a completely benign influence on any young athlete who is simply trying to be the best he or she can be. Rather, I often get the feeling that the big sponsor is the adult version of the envious schoolkid who knows he will never achieve athletic greatness, but who refuses to be ignored by the jocks. If he cannot legitimately participate directly, he can influence using money and power. He can show the jocks who’s really the boss by making them toe his line.
We who are not behind the scenes can only guess at the pressures in the lives of athletes like Powell, Gay and Simpson.
Ironclad non-disclosure contracts with sponsors make it unlikely that any detailed and accurate tell-all book will appear on the subject any time soon.
And even if one were to appear, most of us have grown so cynical about cheating in sports that the book would probably read to us as just a collection of self-justifications and excuses.