In the couple of years that I've been finding my way in journalism, I've had few conversations quite as interesting as the one I had with Craig Chalmers this week.
Chalmers is one of the greatest rugby players this country has produced. His 21-year-old son is serving a suspension from the same sport for doping. Sam Chalmers was good enough to have made the Scotland under-20 squad but he was continually being told by coaches that he needed to bulk up.
At the age of 19, he was 5ft 11in and weighed just under 13 stone but when encouraged to get bigger, he heeded the advice. He bought some steroid pills on the internet. He was tested for drugs in the lead-up to an international match against Ireland and the result came back positive. Scottish rugby had its first doping case.
Craig Chalmers' take on the episode was fascinating. He made no excuses for his son's misdemeanour and while he admitted that he initially felt a sense of disappointment upon hearing the news, it was soon assuaged by the pride he felt he felt upon seeing how Sam had handled the whole affair.
His son had become a man, maturing with every stride as he put his hands up and admitted to his indiscretion before getting involved in anti-doping campaigning for the duration of his ban.
What really captivated me, though, was Craig's disappointment with the SRU, whom he accused of failing to engage with his son in an attempt to learn more about what causes athletes, and particularly young athletes, to take drugs.
Doping in sport will never be fully eradicated. There is too much money and prestige attached to success for there ever to be a world where no competitors are tempted to take short-cuts to get to the top or merely keep up with the pack.
As much as some insist that it is, doping is not a black and white issue. The reasons athletes chose to dope are wide and varied and it is not always as simple as saying that dopers are bad people and clean athletes are good.
There are, of course, cases when the transgressor is purely and simply looking to cheat. They are looking to gain an unfair advantage over their opponents. But it's not always this straightforward.
More often than not, elite athletes do not think like rational, reasonable people. During an elite athlete's career, their sport is the absolute be-all and end-all to such an extent that, looking back on it with hindsight after retirement, it seems faintly preposterous to have invested quite so much time, effort and money into a mere game.
In the midst of the thousands of hours of training, the strict diet, the disrupted social life and the sacrifices, winning becomes all that matters. In an IRB anti-doping educational video, Sam talks about his lack of thought about what he was doing, what he was taking or what the long-term effects could be on his body of taking this substance. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Succeeding becomes all that matters.
In 1997, Sports Illustrated published some fascinating research. They interviewed a group of elite Olympic athletes and one of the questions was: "If you were given a performance enhancing substance and you would not be caught and win, would you take it?" 98 per cent of the athletes responded "yes". The more worrying reply came to the next question. It was: "If you were given a performance enhancing substance and you would not be caught, win all competitions for 5 years, then die, would you take it?" More than 50 per cent said "yes".
This illustrates quite how warped an athlete's thinking can become; that winning has become more important than life itself.
This mentality in no way excuses or justifies doping. Taking drugs is cheating and it threatens the integrity of sport which, in turn, threatens the existence of sport. There are some who advocate lifetime bans for all dopers, irrespective of circumstances. They argue that the only way to prevent doping is to make the punishment so severe that only it would be career suicide to even attempt it.
For me, the Sam Chalmers case illustrates the importance of giving people a second chance.
Some regard reprieves with utter contempt, arguing that cheats should never be reintegrated into their sport. David Millar, the cyclist who was banned for doping but then spent the remainder of his career doing his utmost to educate and inform young riders about the dangers of the practice, proves that rehabilitation can be a valuable weapon in the fight to discourage future generations from repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.
Sam Chalmers has said there is no way that he will ever repeat his mistake, a statement echoed by his father. The player paid a heavy price for his misdemeanour, one which nobody could argue should have been dealt with more leniently. He has shown considerable remorse and regret for his actions and he has gone way further than many other transgressors in terms of highlighting his mistake in the hope it will discourage others from emulating him.
From the conversations I have had with the Chalmers I truly believe it is unthinkable that Sam would ever cheat again. Through his active repentance he may well have prevented others on the verge of considering cheating from going through with it. That is why second chances are so precious.
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