I remembered that not so distant past of mine yesterday, when I saw Barry Bonds break the all-time record for home-runs. Many people, like that little me it seems, are obsessed with coming out on top, even at sport. So much so in fact that they will lie, cheat and steal their way there.

Now Bonds is without a doubt a great hitter, by all accounts a hall-of-famer but his record will forever be asterisked by the allegations that his left arm's strength owes a lot to the concoctions brewed at Victor Conte's BALCO labs. Although Bonds has never himself been caught with performance enhancing substances in his body ( even in tests when he was out injured) he is on record as having conceded consumption of the 'cream ' and the 'clear ' which he says he thought was flaxseed oil. These steroids are very potent performance enhancers which were most popular for the fact that they were undetectable under traditional tests. BALCO of course, is famous for its association with among others freakish superstars like Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Kelli White and Jason Giambi. Thankfully, no Kenyans yet.

A few weeks before, the Tour de France was sullied by similar scandals, these ones proven, of athletes taking banned substances. The event of course is like the Grand Prix for sports cheats, with an annual list of big-name artists caught pants down, almost with syringes still inside their bodies. Cycling has its own Barry Bonds in Lance Armstrong. Like Bonds he was a superlative athlete, an indefatiguable record breaker, and controversial- never caught but always suspected.

I am getting a little tired of the hypocrisy myself, does it really matter whether these athletes take these substances or not? Are food supplements performance enhancing substances? It is pretty obvious after all that very few if any of them are truly clean. At least not in the sense of the great athletes of the past, those who believed in and lived on sisu- self-reliance, fortitude and endurance- or those who eschewed any training over and above what came normally to men.

Modern athletes are certainly a world apart from the ideals of the ancient Olympians who saw sport as an expression of the nobility of the soul, of andreia (courage), and karteria (endurance). Even closer on, Victorian athletes would find the excessive training, massive muscles, coaches and obsession with gold uncouth. In their time, amateur sport was seen as capturing the unity of the higher spirit with the mind and body, morally and physically beneficial. The athlete was worthy of praise and glory, but he did not run or play for gold, nor train excessively.

Thus it was that it came to me. Perhaps all sports should have two different sets of leagues. One for the naturals ( amateurs) and another for the professionals ( those who like gladiators will do whatever it takes) satisfying the voyeurs in all of us. After all, if scientists are to be believed we are nearing the peak in many athletic disciplines, the point where even with all the training and muscle building, and finessing of our bodies it will be difficult to be swifter, higher or stronger. Why not extend that point a little for those brave enough? After all, de Coubertin did hope to give athletes freedom of excess. Now here's looking forward to a sub-eight second 100 metre race.