That's Fit

The world is filling up with people, and that means competition in all kinds of different areas of our lives. But maybe one of the most noticeable, and the most stressful, is the competition that we face in our careers while we're at work. If you're not always on the top of your game and blowing everybody away with your amazing abilities then there's somebody right behind you who ready, willing, and waiting to do just that.

So how do you deal with the pressure? Unfortunately a growing number of working people are looking to boost brain power, productivity, and alertness in all the wrong ways. Sports (most recently baseball) have always struggled with keeping drugs and other unnatural means of performance enhancement out of the picture, but now it seems the trend is moving into the working class. People are doping up in the hopes of doing better at their jobs.

We tend to idolize professional celebrities for their determination and endurance, so it's pretty disheartening when they test positive for using illicit drugs. The latest celebrity to enter the doping spotlight is Swiss tennis star Martina Hingis. She's tested positive for cocaine -- and the findings have led her to quit the sport.

But her retirement isn't an admission of guilt -- rather, she's vehemently denying the allegations and has chosen to leave tennis rather than deal with the red tape that comes with getting her name cleared.

What do you think of the allegations? Was she too hasty to throw in the towel? Is she guilty?

I spend a lot of time listening to internet radio while I work and, while I normally wouldn't pick up on Tour de France news as it doesn't rate very high on my interest scale, I have heard a lot about the famous cycling race over the last few days. The 2007 race has been called a disaster after several instances of doping were reported among a number of riders.

What I don't understand is, how do these cyclists assume that they won't get caught? According to this piece, a random sample of riders are tested each day including the race leader and the winner of the current stage, along with a number of other riders. I figure that athletes who show positive results for banned substances have taken them as they think it will help them win, and they must know that they will be tested at the end of the day and found out, so what's the point? Doesn't seem like a very intelligent strategy.

It's a shame that a few riders had to tarnish the reputation of the entire race, but perhaps this will make others smarten up next year. And in happier sports news, not a single one of the 5,500 participants at the Pan-American Games, which just came to a close, tested positive for any banned substances. Apparently these athletes have brains as well as brawn.

Floyd Landis, 2006 winner of the Tour de France, was accused of using synthetic testosterone during his race. He's currently involved in a nine-day arbitration hearing that will decide whether to drop or uphold the positive drug test. At Friday's meeting another pro cyclist, Joe Papp, testified on exactly how testosterone can be used in a race and how it improves performance. Papp, who is currently waiting out a two-year doping suspension, was called to the witness stand by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. His testimony disputes claims made by Landis' lawyers stating that testosterone couldn't have helped Landis win and that, because of standard race tests, he wouldn't have tried to use drugs.

Papp displayed a pack of testosterone gel, saying that using the gel had helped him recover between stages of the race and that it's possible to use it undetected. Papp later stated that he tried to race clean for years, but felt the need to dope in order to remain competitive.

Witnesses for the defense included a University of Florida professor, Bruce Goldberger, who took issue with the manner in which Landis' drug tests were done in the laboratory. In his professional opinion, the chain of custody of the samples is unreliable.

In an age where athletes are willing to subject themselves to severe and unnatural methods of artificially increasing their performance, the threat of gene therapy coupled with doping could prove to be an Achilles heel to legitimate sport. If taking pints of blood out of their body only to modify and put back in wasn't enough, what would happen if genetic doping became the new underground trend?

American Tour de France winner Floyd Landis knows how painful it can be to field accusations about doping. When officials found an excess of testosterone in his blood, it threw the entire race into question. But considering he has been taking cortisone for a degenerative hip, the possibility of whether he was illegally doping or not is still in the air. These type of tests can introduce false positives into the mix, but gene therapy could prove to be totally undetectable and foolproof.

What will happen if and when athletes decide to tamper with their genetic structure in the name of winning? By using the common cold virus, doctors would be able to smuggle in super genes to increase stamina and performance. And don't forget the health implications either: marathon mice that underwent such modifications died much faster than the others. Gene therapy could redefine modern medicine, but we still have a long way to go in understanding it all.