Let Russia dope: I want to see the heroin hurdles

So it’s been claimed by various people with stern faces that the Russian secret service has been using all sorts of devious methods to conceal the fact that hundreds of the country’s athletes and sports people have been routinely testing positive for drugs. I think we are supposed to be surprised by this.

Well, I’m not. When I was a small boy I clearly remember wondering why half of Russia’s women shot-putters appeared to be men. One, I seem to recall, had chest hair that went all the way down to her scrotum. Another, from somewhere behind the Iron Curtain, had plainly been taking something that had turned her into a tractor.

You had the pretty young woman from France and the game filly from Great Britain lobbing the discus forty yards, and then out would lumber Ivana Shrek, who’d throw it out of the stadium. And we all sat there thinking, ‘Oooh. Isn’t the Soviet Union scary and impressive?’ Which I suppose was the point.

I assume that back then it was not possible to determine who’d taken what. But now it is – hence the alleged involvement of Russia’s FSB. It’s said that at the Sochi Winter Games laboratory staff passed tainted urine samples from athletes through a secret hole in a wall to agents, who somehow broke the tamper-proof seals and replaced them with urine that was as fresh and natural as Sophie Raworth’s next fruit salad.

Investigators reckon that in the four years until 2015 there were 312 dodgy results covered up by Russia’s sports ministry, which then said that the man mountains it was sending to toss the caber and the supercomputers who were turning up to play chess were able to become so brilliant because they’d been brought up on a healthy Russian diet of turnips and beetroot. And vodka.

Now of course there are calls for Russia to be banned from all Olympic competitions. And I get that. If I’d trained for twenty years to be the best pole vaulter in the world and then I was beaten by someone whose blood sample would trouble a Geiger counter, I’d be livid.

But I haven’t trained for twenty years to be the best pole vaulter in the world. I’m just someone who quite likes to watch sport when I’m bored. And I must confess I find myself hoping Russia reacts to the proposed ban by setting up an alternative Olympic Games where anything goes.

That way, the athletes who’ve trained and done everything the old-fashioned way can play Dodge the Mosquito in Rio, which is all very lovely for those who enjoy watching people running about and jumping over stuff. While on cable TV the rest of us could watch – all the way from Moscow – Olympians on Drugs.

Come on. Who wouldn’t want to watch a 400-metre race for people who’d just filled themselves up with heroin? Or a tennis match between two people who were suffering from massive paranoia? Stoned hurdling – that’d be good too. I think this would work especially well at the Winter Games, because I know from many years of experience that my skiing in the morning is timid and slow and rather boring. But after lunch, when I’ve had some wines, it becomes fluid and fast and thrilling. And then I have a crash and break a small bone. Drunk skiing would be a tremendous spectator sport.

It’s the same story with motor racing. When I was young and completely irresponsible I hosted a grass-track banger event for friends, and anyone suspected of being in proper control of their vehicle was summoned to the pits and made to take a breathalyser test.

If it revealed they were under the limit, they were made to drink three pints of beer before they were allowed to rejoin the race. A similar idea would, I think, transform Formula One. ‘Oh, look. It’s Fernando Alonso and – ha-ha-ha – he’s going the wrong way round the track.’

I could of course go on, matching various sports to various hilariously inappropriate intoxicants, but actually there’s a serious point to be made here. Scientists have already developed genetically modified wheat that is more resistant to disease than the wheat that nature invented. So why should they not be allowed to genetically modify human beings?

Boffins have already worked out that by altering the CCR5 gene they could make someone incapable of catching HIV. Sickle cell anaemia, muscular dystrophy and certain types of blindness could be eradicated too.

Recently doctors announced that by using stem-cell technology they had effectively cured a teenager from Bristol of a rare blood disorder that had already killed his big brother.

Jesus enthusiasts, I know, have some issues with this sort of thing, and so do various tub-thumping politicians. Even some very wise people have pointed out that we’ve only had a complete map of human genes for thirteen years and it’s too soon to start fiddling. They say more research must be done, and that brings me back to my Olympians on Drugs idea.

Because here we would have many fit young men and women who, because they want to be the best of the best of the best, would readily volunteer to become the first real-life Jason Bourne. They could be the guinea pigs.

Obviously, they’d have to be neutered in some way. Because if the genetic modification and drug combo didn’t work and they became werewolves or Daleks or something, we wouldn’t want them breeding and creating a master race that would wipe the rest of us out.

But what if it did work? What if science could turn even the most stupid person into a genius? What if it could make Captain Fat capable of running the hundred metres in six seconds? And what if there were no drawbacks?

So long as we all rush around, waving our arms in the air and accusing Russia of cheating, we’re never going to know if they’re on to something. Far better, I reckon, to shut up and let them get on with it.

24 July 2016