Where I come from, we don't feel that a citizen, or rather a big ol' honkin' organization such as the Italian Olympic Committee or the Italian Football Federation, should be free to defraud the citizen in the name of liberty. And if you think they should, you've got a weird notion of liberty. Get two things clear. First, this is about money, and lots of it. Nobody dopes to win at kiddiewinks. And second, doping kills. Your poster girl for Olympic success through chemistry, Florence Joyner, died of a heart attack at 37, and she is hardly the only doper to end up badly and much before their time.

Scientific doping was invented by the East Germans in the seventies, and a whole generation of East German athletes, especially women, have had their lives ruined to this day - those who survived. I have seen their stories, and they are about as miserable as anything can be. Then, as soon as the Berlin Wall came down, American universities and athletics clubs went on a buying spree in East Germany, deliberately buying up all the coaches who had learned how to cheat scientifically - at the price of the health of many of their athletes - under the most corrupt and nasty Communist tyranny of them all. What a triumph of the free market; let alone of that "virtue" which, according to George Washington, was necessary for a people to remain free.