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the many urca or layar una mayar lay wo junyou) то в атотопов on me me an equipment and arage and mo modification of the body itself. Athletes who use medical technology to alter their bodies can bypass the hard work of training by taking on the powers of a machine. If they set new records this way, we lose the opportunity to witness sports as a spectacle of human effort and are left marveling at scientific advances, which have little relation to the athletic tradition of fair play.
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[6] Such a tradition has long defined athletic competition. Sports rely on equal conditions to ensure fair play, from regulations that demand similar equipment to referees who evenhandedly apply the rules to all participants. If the rules that guarantee an even playing field are violated, competitors and spectators alike are deprived of a sound basis of comparison on which to judge athletic effort and accomplishment. When major league baseball rules call for solid-wood bats, the player who uses a corked bat enhances his hitting statistics at the expense of players who use regulation equipment. When Ben Johnson tested positive for steroids after setting a world record in the 100-meter dash in the 1988 Olympics, his "achievement" devalued the intense training that his competitors had undergone to prepare for the event-and the International Olympic Committee responded by stripping Johnson of his medal and his world record. Likewise, athletes who use gene therapy to alter their bodies and enhance their performance will create an uneven playing field.
[7] If we let athletes alter their bodies through biotechnology, we might as well dispense with the human element altogether. Instead of watching the
100-meter dash to see who the fastest runner in the world is, we might just as well watch the sprinters mount motorcycles and race across the finish
line. The absurdity of such an example, however, points to the damage that we will do to sports if we allow these therapies. Thomas Murray, chair of
the ethics advisory panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency, says he hopes, not too optimistically, for an "alternative future where we still find
meaning in great performances as an alchemy of two factors, natural talents and virtues" (qtd. in Jenkins).
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[8] Unless we are willing to organize separate sporting events and leagues-an Olympics, say, for athletes who have opted for a boost from the test tube and another for athletes who have chosen to keep their bodies natural-we should ask from our athletes that they dazzle us less with extraordinary performance and more with the fruits of their hard work.
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