On my shelf, Lance Armstrong’s autobiography sits alongside other books, film DVDs and music CDs, many of which probably have some form of questionable crutch or other, to thank. Unlike sport, which is committed to unaltered body as a benchmark for measuring competence, the arts had long ago condoned that extra push to touch a new dimension and considered only the final product to decide the artist’s standing.
Artists and ‘bladerunners’
A variety of inputs ranging from liquids, to smoke and what not, went into the creation of art, music and literature. Not all; some definitely. Art being art, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Nobody complains. If we sieve our library of books; our collection of music, our favourite films and research the authors, musicians, actors and directors — chances are we would be enforcing quite a few bans. A portion of the art we like may disappear. Yet nowhere have I seen an advisory which says that this book was written, this music composed or this canvas painted by this artist who meddled with his self, and was therefore to be avoided.
Shift that trend to sports and it’s a big issue, for unaltered man is fundamental to judge physical achievement. Twenty five years after the first ascent of Everest, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climbed the peak without using bottled oxygen. Two years later, Messner did a hard route up the mountain, alone, again without bottled oxygen. Since then purists have argued for such climbing as a benchmark, even though it takes the sheen off the oxygen-assisted first ascent by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary.
In sport, the spectre of unaltered human being stretched to the limit is sacrosanct, just as the mind stretched to new dimension by any means fascinates the arts. Including perhaps, the artist as sportsperson --- why not sport if that is another means to a new dimension in the head?
Maybe, Armstrong went into the wrong line then. He should have been a rock star or something wherein a dash of EPO and blood transfusion wouldn’t have mattered? That’s over-simplifying the issue. Remember how we treated South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius before he made the transition to competing at the Olympics?
Due to congenital absence of the fibula in both his legs, Pistorius became a double amputee from childhood. Prosthetics are as normal to him as limbs are to us. A debate raged on whether Pistorius should compete with normal people as defined by the physically perfect core of classical sport. Similarly, a cancer survivor may get back to cycling. But cycle well enough to be world class or win Tour de France? It would have been fantastic to know.
That’s what Armstrong’s work should have been; the stuff of his book. In retrospect, he may have pulled it off magnificently, had he cycled clean and not made winning his obsession, or disclosed his methods and encouraged a debate on the use of compensatory mechanisms by athletes in his category. Or, he could have completely shifted to a non-competitive scenario and left us with drug assisted results to ponder. Sadly, he did the equivalent of Pistorius concealing his state, disguising his prosthetics to seem human-like and outrunning the competition; something Pistorius never did. At London, the blade runner lost to those with legs. Yet we remember him.
‘To be’, and to Succeed
Armstrong comes off a cheat because he won competitions, where the understanding was that he wouldn’t be on performance-enhancing substances. In comparison, the creative arts may not question how your imagination came about but they don’t promise you success either. Even with liquor, smoke and what else, artists still don’t get anywhere because becoming somebody requires the lucky confluence of a multitude of other factors beyond the artist’s control. Some successful artists didn’t need mind altering substances. Some artists died unknown despite being naturally brilliant. And some died unknown despite questionable intakes. Not to mention, some truly undeserving ones became successful. You can’t guarantee success. Success is not what you live for. You live to write, paint, sing, act...or cycle.
That’s where the attitude represented by the combination of Armstrong’s sport and his self, kicks in. Armstrong seems to have wanted success more than he wanted to cycle. That’s why he sought the advantage in cheating. Sport must use this opportunity to examine why its business model tempts people to err like Armstrong. As for us — high time we saw life in full and not merely as success.
(The author is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai)