There is perhaps nobody in the history of sports so much misunderstood than
Pierre de Coubertin. His name has been used for many years to exclude
professionals from the Olympic Games. In fact, he never had any objection to
paying sportsmen for their performances. On the other hand, he was dead
against something else, and that was training. For sure, he accepted that an
athlete would train a few hours a week to learn some of the basic skills of
his sport. But according to him training for several hours a day was
cheating. The philosophy behind this opinion was simple: people should
compete with each other in their "natural" state. Excessive training was
"unnatural" and would give an athlete an unfair advantage over his
competitors. Doctors claimed that it was detrimental to their health.
Coubertin was not the only adherant to this philosophy. On the contrary, the
idea that it was morally unacceptable that athletes should enhance their
performances in such an artificial way was quite common.For instance, when
Pierre Giffard organized Paris-Brest-Paris in 1891 he hoped that the
extraordinary conditions of the race (1100 km) would neutralize the
differences between "natural" and "trained" athletes (he was wrong, of
course). Coubertin would have loved to set strict rules for training in the
charter of the Olympic Games, but had to admit there were too much pratical
problems. How was it possible to pick out cheaters? Supervising athletes day
and night? Of course, nobody even thought of blood- or urine-tests. Even if
they had been effective they would have been considered contrary of the
human dignity of the athletes.
Gradually the objections against training disappeared. And now, after
hundred years, we can only smile of the ideas of Coubertin, Giffard and so
many others.Not only because they have become completely obsolete, but alos
because they were completely harmless. Unfortunately, the philosophy of the
"natural" athlete with all its consequences hasn't disappeared at all. On
the contrary, the sports world - and especially the cycling world - seems to
be obsessed with it. The only difference is that the objections are not
anymore to training, but to other "performance-enhancing" means.
I'm quite sure that in fifty years these ideas will have become as
obsolete as those of Coubertin. But I'm not so certain that people will
smile the way we do now. Because contrary to hundred years ago, they are
wrecking careers, spoiling lives, discrediting the sports and doing a lot of
other harm.
Benjo