The pursuit of glory at all costs

You are 20 years old, give or take.

You are about to do something that is your goal in life. You have a choice.

1) You can go for the goal, maybe get there, maybe not. You have 3, maybe 4, chances to reach that goal.

2) You can take a substance that guarantees you reach that goal, but the substance kills you within five years.

What would you pick?

About half the world's top athletes would opt to die in five years, if taking that substance meant they could win a gold medal. Yes, huhn.

As the world watches the economic fiasco that is the Olympics, athletes from around the world are competing in all kinds of events, including race walking.

This year, a bunch of Russians got booted out of the world games because of allegations of illegal doping.

As with just about everything I come across in life, there's an easy answer to this.

Two sets of games.

Set one: Athletes can jack themselves on whatever chemical cocktail they want to use. If their heart explodes at the finish line, no worries. Death is part of the original Olympics.

Set two: Athletes who refuse all performance-enhancing drugs.

As the survey linked at the top shows, the super athletes are willing to die to achieve their goal. If they are willing to die, then cheating to get to that goal is going to happen. Cheating is easier than dying.

Those who want to cheat will. All of them can't be stopped. Chemists will come up with new stuff an use it before the tests can find it and the governing boards ban it.

So make it acceptable.

Let those athletes who are willing to die in a few years do so. Let them compete against other suicide athletes. Give the winners their medals and a promise of enough pain killers to let them go gently into that good night in a few years.

Is this willingness to die to get a gold medal stupid? About half the super athletes don't think so. I am willing to let them go and destroy their lives if that's what they want to do.

Here's the kicker. Since these enhanced athletes have to compete against other drugged athletes, they have the same chance of winning gold as they would competing without drugs in the regular series.

Yes, this eliminates the guarantee of winning gold. Maybe, just maybe, these athletes willing to get jacked on supersteroids will think twice about it.