Could a ‘dirty’ Olympics be the way to clean up sport?

I’d rather watch a ’roided-up giant try and lift a small house for a ”gold medal” than Graeco-Roman wrestling.

Could a “dirty” Olympics take off? Photo Jordan Philp / South Burnett Times

OPINION:

THIS new Lance Armstrong documentary is making plenty of waves, judging by the stories and social media discussions it’s sparked.

I’m not a massive cycling fan so not sure yet whether I’ll give it a spin, but some of the books about the scandal made for fascinating reading.

Anyway, the release of Armstrong’s documentary got me thinking about a concept.

It’s one that’s been a recurring theme for many years.

Every now and then it comes to me.

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of a “dirty” Olympics.

Now, I’m not trying to condone drug use or cheating in sport.

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I think sport, in its best form, has always been a contest decided by a mixture of mostly skill and then fitness, specific to the sport.

As soon as other elements — artificial elements — are brought in to give the advantage outside of what’s allowed, it lessens the game.

Obviously there’s a lot of grey area in that, too.

I personally can’t stand the size of bats and smaller boundaries in cricket these days. The game is now way too heavily weighted in the batsman’s favour.

But what if, for the sake of just straight-up interest, we actually had an event where it was open slather on performance-enhancing or other drugs.

I’d be actually fascinated to see what the human body could do, with unchecked “assistance”.

Imagine a men’s javelin final and the leader throws the javelin straight out of the stadium, in a ’roid-fuelled, 300m throw.

Imagine hurdlers clearing 3m-high jumps, as they sprinted faster than an average family car.

Could a swimmer finish 50m faster than someone running on land?

The hammer throw would be absolute insanity.

The crowd would need to be watching from a bunker.

Even table tennis.

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Imagine those players on some sort of amphetamine, ripping into a rally like a hybrid Pac-Man/Space Invader.

We probably couldn’t go giving out gold medals. Obviously these achievements are going to be frowned upon by plenty.

Perhaps a month-long stint in rehab to try and clean the athletes up would be a better prize.

But I reckon there would have to be an audience for it.

The weightlifting would be worth it alone.

No offence to the Olympics, but I’d rather watch a ’roided-up unit trying to lift a small house in the ”gold medal” match than some Graeco-Roman wrestling.

Perhaps it might even clean up other sports quicker, too, if those willing to bend the rules actually had a “legitimate” pathway for competition.

Not sure about the winter edition, though. That might be too much ice.

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