citius armstrong

This morning I was listening to a podcast about Lance Armstrong the winner of 7 tour de France that was found to used illegal substances (doping) so that his achievement was stripped and he was banned for professional cycling for life. I got the impression that Armstrong is convinced that everyone in the tournament were using one substance of the other. He mentioned that all he did was to manage the lactic acid which is naturally produces by the body during exercise. His statement sounds like saying that during the tournament he did experience all the hard work but of course his body did not react like normal human being. The accumulation of lactic acid would certainly affect our performance. We would feel pain, hence tend to slow down and we could not perform at top level in endurance  event like Tour de France.

I am sure that there is limit to human performance. Current world record of 100 m sprint is 9.58 seconds. Would it be broken ? If so how much is it going to be attributed to pure human capabilities ? I guess stronger people with certain type of bodies would be able to sprint faster, long legs might help, etc. but after all of these factors are explored we could enter into unethical realm. If that is so would we consider the achievement as pure human effort ? But one might argue that using drug enhancing performances is after all human effort too. What if all athletes would be allowed to use certain drug enhancing performances? Would it make the race more fair ? 

Citius, Altius, Fortius the motto of Olympic express the spirit of humanity to achieve the limit. Of course  the most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well but still all of us dream of winning. These days the Olympic glory would also means money from sponsorship etc. 

I guess we should still draw a line somewhere. OK  we might debate about the drug enhancing performances but I guess anyone would agree that robotic arm or leg or eyes would be out of question. That would simply be too far as the competition would no longer be about human - unless of course human would also consist robotic assistance performance