Basketball On The Internet.

WE need to grow up in this country and by “grow up” I don’t mean become more jaded or cynical.

I just mean we have to start accepting we have as many drug cheats in international sports as any other nation, per capita.

Whether we want to believe Stuart O’Grady “only doped once” in his stellar cycling career or only spoke up because he was about to be named is largely irrelevant.

The point is he is a cheat.

It doesn’t matter whether he was young, old, vulnerable – he made a choice to cheat and he cheated.

And he spoke up, ironically or coincidentally – take your pick – when his name was about to be revealed.

Suspicious a little?

Alberto Contador is a cheat.

Lance Armstrong is a cheat.

But “our Stewie?” Well, he only did it once, mate.

Come on now.

We are all too happy to point the finger at the broad shoulders of those Chinese women swimmers and cry “cheats”.

It never bothered us for a second to smirk at the East Germans back in the day and nod our heads at those “cheats”.

But hey, a pretty swimmer of ours gets caught with a positive drug test and “no, no, no, no,” it was only her silly coach giving her a headache pill.

Or an Aussie pentathlete must have had his sample tampered with or how else could he have failed a drug test?

Maybe I am jaded and cynical but I have trouble believing anyone in cycling is clean.

Perhaps the guy who came last at the Tour de France.

So why do we have to keep these poor cheats living in terror of being found out?

Why not just let them use whatever banned substances they want?

Seriously.

Anyone wanting to cycle internationally should be given the option to sign a team disclaimer and they can use whatever drugs the team’s doctors prescribe.

Push the limits. Test the boundaries.

My only proviso is the disclaimer. No athlete should be forced to use drugs.

But if they choose to, let them go for it.

OK. I hear you say what if they go too far, their blood boils, their penis shrivels or their head explodes?

Not our problem.

They were adults and they made their choices.

Presumably they consulted all the relevant people in their lives to help make the decision to join the drug advance so if they went too far? Well, sorry.

Those are the risks.

No-one wants to see a boxer get killed when he gets into the ring but that risk is always there.

For cyclists, you can ride clean – the option is yours.

Further, if we take all the mystery and masks away from this nonsense, we also should hand Lance Armstrong back his seven Tour de France victories because, let’s face it, there’s a very strong likelihood whoever else was near that podium was on something as well.

I’m not trying to be disingenuous.

I’m dead serious.

If you’ve logged a few miles on your life odometer, you may recall the 100m men’s sprint final at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Ben Johnson blurring down the straight to “win”, with the next three runners all also sub-10 seconds, was something astonishing to behold.

OK. Johnson tested positive and was stripped of the Gold Medal, which was given to Carl Lewis , who was very “holier than thou” about drug cheating at the time.

How did that work out for him?

Here’s the thing. Johnson may have tested positive but that was still a human being winning that event.

Sure, an augmented human being – and even writing that makes me feel like I’m venturing into Stan Lee territory – but still a human.

If he chooses to risk destroying his life then, after all, as humans isn’t life about the choices we make?

That’s the very essence of free will.

To be honest, today I hated reading Usain Bolt declaring he was “drug free”. I never thought he wasn’t … until he felt the need to tell us.

We are in the 21st century and well into it, not just on the new century’s doorstep.

If it’s been OK to enhance breasts, take drugs for a better sex life and allow pharmaceuticals to play such a role in so many lives – aren’t all of us in some way now “cheating”?

Wouldn’t it make more sense now to stop banning those who get caught, accept it as a fact of life (not just a fact of sport) and sit down to find better ways to do it legally?

Every sport tries to find ways to advance. Look at the winged keel of Ben Lexus' design which helped Australia II win the America’s Cup, yachting’s grand prize.

Was Ben cheating or creating the next advance in technology?

Aren’t the Formula One folk all trying to build a better car?

So when in cycling you have the lightest, fastest bike, the lycra gear and the aerodynamic helmet, where do you go next?

To the cyclist.

Instead of constantly trying to nail drug cheats, aren’t we way past a time when sports should declare an amnesty, find out all the facts and move forward, even if moving forward means embracing performance enhancements?

They’re still human beings using them.

Just let’s not pretend they – or we – are innocents.