Houston hosted the world weight lifting championships last year. The sport’s greatest athletes, many Olympians among them, hoisted staggering amounts of weight above their heads, and the fans there oohed and aahed.
Could those fans believe what they were seeing? No, not really. The feats looked superhuman. There was good reason for those fans not to believe their eyes.
Seventeen of the weight lifters who competed in Houston – including many medal winners — tested positive for banned drugs. So what the fans were seeing wasn’t a credible sport at its best. What they saw was a lot of cheating.