A lot of people have been blogging about the Olympics (I'm a little slow, give me a break), and I decided to get in on the action. But since the politics of possibly sanctioning a tyrannical chronie-capitalist country has been covered pretty extensively, I'm going to take the road less traveled and touch on a topic that's been getting less discussion than its interesting-level deserves: performance enhancing drugs. More specifically, the use of beta blockers. If you haven't heard of beta blockers, I suggest reading Carl Elliott's excellent article on their use in the Beijing Olympics. In it, he describes two North Korean marksmen who were ousted for using propranolol, a drug more commonly used for blood pressure which has been widely used since the 70s to reduce the signs of anxiousness. Elliott then goes on to defend the use of beta blockers in sports (or any other stressful situation, for that matter), on the grounds that they even the playing field between the nervous athlete and the calm athlete. After all, if I miss all 6 of my shots just because I'm being televised, then the people watching at home aren't seeing the real skill behind my shaky hands.
But there's on clear element that Elliott failed to address: why strong nerves shouldn't be considered one of the virtues of an Olympian athlete. We don't assume that the Olympics are done in a vacuum, or that it's some sort of an experiment done solely to see who is truly the fastest or strongest or most accurate. The Olympics is an overt public event, and being able to perform in a stadium with the whole world as your audience is as central and impressive a quality as any other demanded by your sport. After all, if we wouldn't we assume that a shaking neurotic is less Olympian material than a courageous, assured paladin? And wouldn't the former be worthy of blame if he could only use drugs to compete with the later?
I do, however, share Elliott's eagerness to have my heart surgeon popping some beta blockers before he opens me up.
