That, in a nutshell, is what happened with Ms. Valieva.
In return for ingesting (knowingly or not) heart medication used to improve athletic stamina and oxygen capacity, she would be a champion. Who knows? Maybe she was a gifted enough skater to win anyway, but the world will never know, because of the shroud of criminality which now follows her career.
But it’s not just a Russian problem. Athletic doping has been going on since the end of World War II, when athletic supremacy was somehow seen as a way to show the superiority of a certain political system. There are stories, told by former American Olympic athletes, of East German athletes “chaperoned” by Uzi-toting “coaches,” placed in position to assure the athletes would not defect. It was rarely talked about – mostly because the other side would always deny it. The glory of the state was always paramount, regardless of what happened to the athlete.
In the United States, at least to date, there is no official state-sanctioned program to foist dugs on athletes, but that doesn’t mean emotional and physical abuse doesn’t happen here. And it’s not always drugs which are used to harm the athletes. Stories of emotional torment, foisted on the competitors by star-crazed stage parents and/or their coaches, are legendary, and too numerous to go into for this column. But when you have a moment, check out the stories of Todd Marinovich, Andre Agassi and Mary Pierce to see to what extent those competitors were abused and/or manipulated, in one way or another, by people who were supposed to be looking out for them.
It’s a sad story, but one which all parents and coaches can learn from. After all, in the end you have to ask yourself, are you in this for the athlete’s glory or for your own?
