I hate that everyone-does-it excuse and also the “logic” of let them do it who cares?
What about the honest athlete who also doesn’t want to ravage his body with drugs - even if there is only one out there? He/she should be forced to compete and lose for doing the right thing because “everyone does it”?
Everyone doesn’t do it, it’s just you hear of most of the top cyclists doing it because that’s why they are the top cyclists. The honest ones who play by the rules don’t have a chance. Unless they decide to throw away their ethics and their long term health and join the cheaters.
Competitive sports deserve an equal playing field - so either you enforce doping rules and no one does it or you tell everyone go ahead drug yourself it’s ok, and if you don’t want to, get out of the sport as you have no chance against those who do.
I don’t think “everybody does it” is an excuse, it’s an acknowledgement of the truth. Check the tables near the bottom of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France
Lots of red and yellow and orange. The vast majority of winners, and a less vast majority of top 10 finishers get busted.
As for the the hypothetical honest athlete that doesn’t do the drugs (and note, most of the drugs don’t actually ravage your body, not anymore, a lot fewer side effects), they “win” eventually, when everybody above them gets DQd. Or better yet they can go find a different profession, if you don’t want to dope stay away from track and cycling.
I’m glad some people actually get that this is a matter of principle and we can’t equivocate on it. It’s bad enough that we let the athletes cheat their way through school academically. The least they could do is compete honestly on the playing field.