Lance Armstrong and the Competitive Psyche

The news is out, not that it's really news, as far as I am concerned.  Lance Armstrong has finally admitted to all sorts of illegal drug use in order to gain an unfair advantage over his opponents in bicycle racing.  In each of the seven Tour de France competitions that he won, Armstrong was doping himself up, according to his own words expressed in a recently released interview with Oprah Winfrey.  But I already knew the dude had been doing this: many witnesses, including his own teammates, had testified to this fact already.  It is annoying, but I suppose also human for someone to belligerently and repeatedly deny their guilt even when confronted with the facts.  That, though, isn't what this article is about.  It's about the competitive psyche of folks like Armstrong.

I think it can possibly be a dangerous lure for someone to have just enough talent in an athletic area that they can catch "competitive fever" and go all out for that championship in whatever sport they happen to be involved with.  I see people involved in running who are like this.  I'm not one of them because I'm not all that talented.  But others are consumed with competition, and it is from these that a few are so fanatical and single-minded about winning that they will cut any corner, violate any rule, in order to get their "victory fix".  I don't personally know of any athletes who have crossed the line into illicit doping, but at least in the sport of running I know of some who define themselves in terms of how fast their times are.  Needless to say, I don't "qualify" to be in the same company.

That doesn't mean, though, that I don't care how fast I run my races.  Before yesterday's Ocala Half-Marathon that I ran in, I set the bar pretty low for myself as far as personal goals were concerned: just finish the danged race without having to walk!  But as the race developed, I found myself in a competitive cloud, trying to outpace other runners and finish fast.  Crossing that finish line was in itself important, to be sure, but at the moment it happened I was keenly aware of my finishing time as well! So I have a competitive streak within me, too.  But although I tend to get caught up in the fervor while the race is on and sometimes brag a little if I finish relatively well, I don't enter races with the view of beating others or setting personal records.  And the thought of cheating by using banned substances defeats the whole purpose of it all, since (1) I'm not in a class where my results would matter to others beyond myself or closest friends and family and (2) (more importantly) using those substances would be tantamount to getting on a bicycle and whizzing by the other runners while proclaiming myself faster than them, an idiotic notion. And, of course, there are the ethical ramifications of cheating.
 
Sports are games, and as such shouldn't be taken so seriously.  But there are some people how don't know how to lighten up and take the significance of "their" sport into perspective.  They seem to have an issue with self-esteem, with winning a prerequisite to feeling good about oneself.  But when they win, more often then not they are arrogant about it, as if this means that they are better than others.  I remember a lot of this in high school, and my track team had some real athletic snobs on it.  It's no wonder, in fact, that with all of the performance-enhancing chemicals floating around in the black market, that many athletes at the top of their sport would jump at the chance to gain an edge...and "matter", at least in their own minds. Of course, the fact that the big money to be made in sports is usually reserved for the very top performers is an aggravating factor leading to illegal doping...