With all of the lying and cheating surrounding the various doping controversies in international sport today, it is interesting to note that Baron Pierre de Coubertin once equated cheating with “ingesting poison.”  The medical proof of the harmful effects of performance enhancing drugs make this quote seem quite prescient.  It is drawn from a lecture on the “Educational Use of Athletic Activity” that the Baron delivered to the International Bureau of Sports Pedagogy in November of 1928. As he did throughout his life, he was once again advocating for a code of honor among individual athletes—similar to the code of chivalry among knights in the Middle Ages—that would ensure the integrity of sport and fair play.  For the Baron, personal character was far more important than victory. 

“Success achieved in games through twisting the truth does not count. It is like trying to eat by ingesting poison. The unfortunate thing is not failing, but failing to try.”