The Politics of Doping and the Revolution of Nordic Skiing

This might help us understand both the political problems of nordic
skiing, and it might help us understand our sport better and why we
love it. I think we can conceptualize both the experience of skiing
and genesis of a political revival of the sport, even though currently
at odds with each other, using the field of non-linear dynamics (chaos
theory).
Brief summary:

"There's a fine line right now...It may be the pendulum swings one way
and we lose track of why we're doing what were doing....the pendulum
will swing back to a more balanced place."


-Alan Ashley

quoted in "Drawing First Blood"

New York Daily News, 02/20/06




Skiing is both an experience that is breathtaking, beyond words, and it
involves trying to get as close as possible to a certain ideal of what
the human body is capable of. It's widely accepted that it is the
pinnacle of endurance sports. The best skiiers on the planet are
widely considered to be perhaps the fittest people in modern society.
There is a quest for perfection. Not only is each person trying to
push themselves to the limit, which is why this sport is so important
for American youth, but on the elite level there is this feeling that
these women are superstars. Just as we feel the quest for perfection
personally in each ski race we enter, so we desire that 'our' skiing
culture get some recognition. Competition keeps us going, it gives us
self-esteem on every scale. So that's my two-cents on why this debate
and compassion must exist. The sport is both an intense,emotional,
psychologically charged experience, and a quest for physiological
perfection. On the one hand the body, the other mind.
But, on a pragmatic level, I envision a society where
wherever there is snow,
there is a child with ski's and pole's learning the value of pushing to
the limit, learning the nuances of waxing and how there are a thousand
words for snow, and most important making themselves better people,
healthier in spirit, mind, and body. When a snow-storm happens in
Manhatten, i envsion all the kids skipping school and racing each other
down the streets. The only way we are going to have a
skiing-revolution is to think on that kind of scale.
But their are obstacles to that beutiful vision of skiing as
a national
obsession: maybe i'm stoned and this is just a pipe-dream. But the
limits shouldn't come from within. We shouldn't be limiting our dreams
about what could occur. There are too many outside limitations
impinging, layers of stratification, pincers and binds limiting the
dreams of too many sports, for us to generate our own limits. I joked
about being stoned, but there is no doubt the single greatest obstacle
facing this sport is pharmaceutical manipulation of the bodies power.
There are others, like enviromental devestation and generalized
capitalism. The good news is that the more we fight these things, the
more we teach our kids the value of sobriety on every level, the more
influence skiing can have on society as a whole. The problem of what i
call 'invasive cellular engineering' is so controversial people can't
even decide on a definition. Make no mistake, this is a zone of
indetermination, a black hole that threatens our dreams on every level.
Right now we have distinguished doctor's and scientist's defending
doping in polished, elite medical journals.
The criminialization of doping has begun. Paranoia is rampant.
Those of us who defend this sport need to stake out ground,
and do it now.
We need to develop first of all a theory and practice in which we say,
straight-away, we don't believe in doping, because: it's harmful,
self-defeating, unfair, that it kills the idea that we have a soul and
a spirit to be developed through sport, that we can overcome what we
are given at birth and become superstars. We have to thoroughly define
what is right and what is not, case-by-case, thought-by-thought. We
need to make our own rules and live by them.
If we lose this argument, then it's one more loss to those who would
have us be a strange combination of animal and machine, but certainly
not have us be what we are : human.

"It may have its ups and downs with regard to numbers...I know in my
heart that it is a very strong sport that will always be with us. I
certainly plan to ski all the days of the rest of my life."

-Bill Koch,

2002

Molokai Island,Hawaii

more to come
feel free to discuss for now