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Editor's Note: As always with our editorials, the opinions expressed in this article are solely the author's, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of everyone at FasterSkier.com.

Rodent Victors
By Pete Vordenberg from SkiPost.com

February 28, 2002

It is hard to imagine celebrating victory knowing that you have cheated to earn it, and yet they do not slink away clutching their ill gotten medals like foul rodents, but stand smiling, joyful, even teary eyed before us and before the world and tell us how happy they are at having stolen many lives worth of dreaming and work from clean athletes the world over, an how glad they are at having totally dishonored themselves, their country, family, friends, their sponsors, their sport and all of sport. Some were caught at this year's Olympics, some at last year's world championships, but most were not, and some we will see racing again in only a few years.

While it is fact that Beckie Scott should be awarded the Gold Medal, with the way things are, it is an unlikely eventuality. The rules are too lax, testing too limited, punishment too forgiving. There is a long culture of cheating, a culture in which cheating isn't seen as wrong, but as only another part of the game. It is this culture shared across many countries and among many athletes, coaches and administrators. It's a culture that allows the smile you see on the faces of these rodent victors, and this culture that makes them cry out like victims when the trap actually manages snatch them by the tail. It is a culture that is perhaps cultivated by and certainly tolerated by most the world's international sports federations, and it is a culture that cannot be let live, if sport is to survive.

In the mean time do not let the cheaters and filth within the cross-country rob you of the joy of skiing, the sensation of skis on snow, and cold air, and power and grace in motion, and rest assured, your North American heroes are more heroic than their results show. Do not lose faith in our sport. Drug users have been around for a long, long time; it is catching them that is new.