Two years ago it was Australian race-walker Simon Baker (Australia's representative on the Athletes' Commission of both the IAAF and Athletics Australia) who accused Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene of deliberately pulling up lame in the US Olympic Trials 200m meter final in an attempt to avoid mandatory drug tests.  

Baker hypothesized that neither athlete wanted to finish first, second or third in the trials, (come on! And not make the Olympic team? It was the Olympic Trials!) Baker, conveniently, or ignorantly, forgot that both athletes had already finished first in other events and been drug tested at the trials, as well as at dozens of other competitions in their careers.

Now, it is long retired Aussie distance-runner Ron Clarke who spoke with newspaper reporters in Australia (perhaps over one too many Foster’s?) proposing that some athletes be allowed to use EPO, steroids or other performance enhancing drugs, as long as those drugs do not have negative health consequences.  The drugs should be used to “even the playing field” so that athletes born at low-altitudes could have a chance at “fair international competition” with those born at high altitudes.

I certainly hope he wasn’t serious, or at the very least was seriously confused.  If serious, the proposal has more holes in it than the Tora Bora caves.

Clarke said, “"Australian (distance runners) are always battling to be the best of the rest.”  "But as soon as something comes along like EPO (erythropoietin) etc, they'll say it's a drug and you can't use it and it's the only thing that levels the playing field."

Clarke repeated, "If it's not dangerous, no (it should not be banned), because it just levels the playing field."

Clarke dug himself an even deeper logical hole when he aired the following circumlocution.

"Often these drugs are declared dangerous, like steroids were declared to be dangerous, and yet steroids were developed as a normal treatment for sick people," he said. "And it was only when sick people started to use them that they said they were dangerous and they were dangerous really because the policy tended to be, 'If I've got one and if I take such a dose, I do this well, so if I double my dose I'll do even better.”

So, let's see if we have this straight. Steroids were developed as a normal treatment for sick people, but it was only when sick people started to use them that they said they were dangerous.  (Perhaps this was a reporters mix-up. This would make perfect sense if it said, only when healthy people started to use them that they said they were dangerous.)

How would EPO level the playing field? Who would administer and monitor such a program? Who would determine who would be allowed to take the “playing-field leveling” drugs? What if someone born at high-altitude moved to low-altitude or vice versa?  Would the dosage levels be different based on how high one lived?  Would there still be drug testing for athletes who lived at higher altitudes to make sure they weren’t taking “field leveling drugs.”  

How does this proposal determine when the playing field is level? Do we suspend competition until the field is level? 

There is a difference between following the rules of a sport and having a level playing field, or life being fair.  Everyone can follow the rules, train hard, eat right, sleep, choose to make sacrifices or not, and choose to enter competitions.  But a level-playing field?  The playing field has never been level and never will be. Life is not fair, and never will be.  This puts gold medals, world records and Olympic championships in a certain perspective.  We’re talking about games here, not life or death.

How far are we willing to take this “level-playing field” idea?  The IOC has its Olympic Solidarity program to provide scholarship money for promising athletes. Do we take money away from athletes who have it? Do we distribute prize money so everyone gets an equal share, no matter what their performance?

What about Olympic athletes from “poor” countries, who are the most affluent people in their nation, or a person from a “rich” country who happens to come from a poor family?  It happens more than one thinks.

What about other climatic conditions such as heat or humidity?  Kids without food? Children left on doorsteps? Kids who didn’t exactly have the best genetic choice in parents?

Do we take away cars and busses from all the Australian and American kids so they have to run six miles a day each way to school? Ban donuts because kids can’t be disciplined enough to stay away from them and their harmful effects?

Do we import snow to those countries that don’t have it so that they can compete more fairly in the Olympic Winter Games?

Do we make sure that everyone lives within 3 kilometers of an all-weather track, has a nutritionist, masseur or masseuse, a well-trained coach, and all the travel money they need?  These are individual choices, and yes, some people have it easier than others in this regard, but that doesn’t mean that these things should be changed so that everyone is “equal.”

It’s far more than having been born at altitude that makes someone run fast.

The problem is this fixation on “fairness.” Life is not fair.  Following the rules of a sport should certainly be expected, and fairness and a level-playing field understood in this regard.

But things such as environment, circumstances, living conditions and choices are up to the individual to change. Some people have to work harder than others. Other people squander the astounding resources handed them by fate.

You want altitude? Move to altitude!

Good athletes don’t worry about those things they can’t control. It surprises me that an Australian athlete, know for toughness and hard work, would imagine such a proposal. 

Some of the most inspiring stories are athletes like Glenn Cunningham and Wilma Rudolph who overcame serious physical conditions as children to win Olympic medals.       

Yes, the distance running world has changed drastically since Ron Clarke’s days of domination in the 1960s, though Clarke is probably responding to the fact that he was considered by many to be the best distance runner of his time, setting multiple world records, but never won an Olympic Gold medal, running in the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games against emerging African athletes.

Far more nations and athletes now have the opportunity to compete, and this is thinning out the medals for traditional distance running nations of the previous century.  Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Finland, Russia, the United States, France, Czechoslovakia have all had their great runners, (and some times simply great individuals) and there still are very good distance runners from those nations.

But for various circumstances the playing field was never level in the decades when those nations were at the top, (due to equipment, facilities, knowledge, funding, travel etc.) and the playing field is not “level” today.  

Athletes from some nations may have some advantages due to geography, but not every Kenyan is faster than every Australian. 

The focus in athletics should be on personal improvement. Doing the best that you, and your own physical resources, can do. Nothing else.

If that gets you a World Record or Olympic Championship, so be it. If not, so be it.