The Shame!

Lies, shame and misery. What is the sporting world coming to? We always thought Marion Jones was one heck of an inspiring lady. She was the woman who had set the 2000 Sydney Olympics alight with her audacious public desire to capture 5 gold medals in the track and field events. Her final medal tally - 3 golds and 2 bronzes - may not quite have matched her bold expectations, but it did firmly ensconce her in people's minds as a champion athlete, a woman to be revered and admired. Which is precisely why her stunning fall from grace, coming as it did in the midst of liberal tears and visible shame, evokes as much pity as it does disgust. Sure, Jones did cut a sorry figure as she tearfully admitted to a shell-shocked public that she used performance-enhancing drugs during the course of her stellar career. But when you think of all the times that you cheered for her apparently indomitable spirit and celebrated her famous victories, you do feel horribly cheated. How could she have had the gall to even smile at her adoring audience after her many race wins, knowing as she did that they had not come fairly? It's disgusting, there's no other word for it.

Sportspersons, I believe, have a greater duty than all others to be honest and fair when they're competing, for the simple reason that people consider sport to be the exemplification of the human spirit. I can forgive a businessman defrauding his way to success or an actor manipulating his way to the top, but when I see a sportsman celebrating the moment of his triumph, I know, or I assume, that there's an awe-inspiring story of toil and struggle that has led to his crowning glory. When we talk about sport, we talk about a phenomenon that is stripped to the bare essentials, a phenomenon that is a pure and fierce battle of wills - on the playing field, nothing else matters except your ability and desire to keep fighting. Besides, the fact that most sports events these days are televised makes everything all the more poignant. On so many occasions we actually see the sweat, blood and tears that go into the making of a champion, and that is why when we applaud the accomplishments of a sportsperson, our applause is truly heartfelt. And that is also why when a sportsman comes forward and confesses that he didn't actually deserve to be a victor, or more distressingly, that he swindled his opponent out of his well-earned success, we feel a sense of betrayal like no other.

The Marion Jones shame saga is not the only distasteful event to have disturbed the sporting population of late. Tennis is currently in the throes of its own match-fixing scandal, with no less than the No. 3 men's player in the world, Nikolay Davydenko, being at the centre of it all. What started as an isolated investigation into the irregular betting patterns over a match in which Davydenko retired against a hopeless opponent has, predictably, snowballed into a murky and far-reaching episode of conniving gamblers and suspiciously naive players. Scores of players, some rather well-known like Dmitry Tursunov and others remarkably unheard of, have come forward claiming that they have, at some point during their careers, been offered to throw matches by bettors. Of course, all of these distinguished players have proudly declared that they were conscientious enough to refuse the offers, but would it have killed them to report such incidents earlier? No one knows right now just how much of the tennis world is infected with the match-fixing disease, but honestly, will we even care when all the investigations are finally done and dusted? I hate to imagine tennis going the way of cricket - we have too few glorious sports to let them be eternally tarnished with nauseating evils like match-fixing. Sadly, however, the signs are all in place. The next thing we know, we'll be thinking things like, "Did Roger Federer really lose to Rafael Nadal?" I know, it's sickening.