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Books

Good Sport by Thomas H. Murray

Dan Ray asks why drugs cannot be a part of good sport.

In a 2001 Nike ad that aired a dozen years before he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, the cyclist Lance Armstrong calmly sits inside the eye of a media storm. TV cameras, shouting reporters, and flashbulb lights tightly encircle him, while a doctor cautiously removes a vial of blood from his strong, lean arm. “Everybody wants to know what I’m on,” Armstrong says, before pompously declaring, “What am I on? I’m on my bike six hours a day busting my arse. What are you on?”

Anyone watching that commercial on YouTube today, almost a decade after an Armstrong-centred doping scandal nearly destroyed professional cycling, likely feels a tinge of disgust or even anger at his words. Indeed, the name ‘Lance Armstrong’ has grown synonymous with cheating and hypocrisy in sport.

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