The 1984 Olympic cycling gold medalist Alexi Grewal wrote an essay that has created quite a stir in the world of professional cycling. Grewal essentially implies that practically all the elite U.S. cyclists in the 1980s “stepped over the line” and doped in some fashion; this would implicate American cycling greats like Greg Lemond, Andy Hampsten and Bob Roll. Bill Hue of Trust But Verify calls Grewal the “Jose Canseco of the 1980s cycling era.”

Grewal feels that athletes who cheat should be put in prison for several years since it is such a serious crime.

When will it end? When Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton or any one of the many other “all prisoners are innocent,” fallen stars finally and ultimately does hard time. Don’t think they won’t, they will. Who are we kidding? Prisons and jails are filled with men whose transgressions are much less.

Really? Which criminals are in prison for less severe crimes than doping in a professional sporting event? Maybe so-called criminals who use steroids for non-medical purposes but do not compete in competitive sports? Has our world gone a little crazy regarding steroids and doping such that we have inflated the seriousness of doping over REAL crimes against person and property?

Rant Your Head Off discusses the unintended consequences of putting dopers in prison for a signifcant portion of their lives.

Of course, if it’s approached as a crime and real jail time is involved, that would move the prosecution of doping cases out of the hands of the anti-doping agencies and into the hands of the justice system. This could have some unintended consequences, like forcing the practices of the anti-doping system into greater public view. And that would not be a bad thing, by the way, because the challenges to the system that would certainly happen (imagine the Landis case, but played out in a regular court, instead) would certainly force the whole anti-doping system to change. There would be a greater scrutiny of the testing methods involved, and that would ultimately serve to make those methods more robust.

Each sport has its own set of rules. Why should we consider throwing athletes in prison who violate one arbitrary rule (e.g. steroid use) but not other arbitrary rules? What makes steroid use so evil that we would consider imprisoning an athlete for doping but not the violation of other rules that may offer unfair advantages?