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Personal Best

There is a question controversial,
About the use of stimulants artificial,
By the sporting athletes, their performance,
In the sporting arena to enhance.

Sports icon Lance Armstrong,
Was stripped of his titles as wrong,
When the Tour de France cycling event he won,
For a record of seven times in a run.

He beat the malady-Cancer-with drugs,
And when his tests proved positive for drugs,
His fan-following world wide were shocked,
And all cancer patients with ire were up cocked.

All sports organizations consider the drugs unethical,
As they are subversive of fair play on a field level.

In sports the Olympic Motto is writ larger,
As CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS (faster, higher, stronger)
By which the athletes are invoked to win,
And break records in many a discipline.

Scientific training has also made contributions,
Added to which are the technological innovations,
Like the use of graphite in tennis racquets for playing,
And for the material in poles for pole-vaulting.

It is thus ethical to use such equipment for ranks,
And in mountaineering for the use of oxygen tanks.

These days there is an increasing competition,
And school children are driven by a compulsion,
To score better and better than their batch- peers,
Else, in the rat race they may be behind with tears.

For them to emerge as toppers, tutorials their lessons devise,
And some children use amphetamines to keep awake and revise,
Some students take coffee or tea or pills to keep in size,
Can these be called subversive and unethical wise?

It shouldn't be considered unsporting to use drugs,
Let all do their personal best in all things with drugs.
To ban all drugs and artificial stimulants—it is possible,
But to ban the spirit of competitiveness—it is impossible.

poem by Chandra Thiagarajan
Added by Poetry Lover
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