120th Edition
With Guts and Guile
Having grown up in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, hiking in the high country has always appealed to me. There is something magical about pausing after a strenuous climb to enjoy the view and reflect upon what you just accomplished. I have long had great respect and admiration for the early mountaineers like Tenzing Norgay who, along with Sir Edmund Hillary, were the first to summit Mt. Everest. Their expedition in 1953 took approximately seven weeks from their departure from Kathmandu to the summit. Acclimatization is a big part of mountaineering, especially above twenty thousand feet. I imagine allowing the body, as well as the mind, to get used to the higher altitudes before climbing still higher, is an amazing experience. Pausing during life’s most challenging experiences can lead to spiritual moments and unforgettable memories… an awareness that life isn’t so much a race as a journey.
According to a Wall Street Journal article – “A Lightning-Fast Ascent of Everest is Rocking the Mountaineering World,” four British climbers recently summited Mt. Everest in five days, starting from the airport in London. The key to this extraordinary achievement was a new acclimatization technique based on inhaling xenon gas, more commonly used as a rocket propellant. Xenon gas is currently banned from competitive sports by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Taking nothing away from their achievement, I’m not surprised that the local climbing community has been critical of their use of this banned substance. Perhaps it is noteworthy that the local name for Mount Everest is Chomolungma, which translates to Goddess Mother of the World. To Sherpas and Tibetans, Everest is a spiritual place. As such, proper respect for the mountain would likely prohibit the use of PEDs. Hence the pushback against this recent record-breaking race to the top.
Nearly three decades before Norgay and Hillary’s historic achievement, a climber named George Mallory came awfully close, and there are some historians who think he might have made it to the summit of Mt. Everest. Mallory, an extraordinary athlete, climbed without supplemental oxygen. I wonder what he would think of the latest group’s use of a banned substance?
Performance-enhancing drugs have been around for decades in most major sports, especially baseball, football, and track & field. The amazing accomplishments of Barry Bonds in baseball, and Ben Johnson in track & field will always be tainted because of their use of PEDs. Was it worth it to them? I suspect they will always wrestle with that question.
There is a code that governs all athletic competition as well as extreme sports like mountaineering. Accomplishments must be done with honor and integrity. But sometimes the line separating honorable from dishonorable behavior gets a bit fuzzy. On one hand, harnessing state-of-the-art technologies is part of the process for competition at the highest level. But when innovation gives someone an unfair advantage then people naturally question it. Over time, the line of acceptability often shifts, as newer technologies become accepted and standards evolve. On which side of the line does Artificial Intelligence fall when it comes to test taking in school? Is it innovative or is it cheating? Maybe in the future, all athletes will take PEDs, essentially leveling the playing field. I would hate to see that.
The late Al McGuire, whose Marquette team won the NCAA National Championship in 1977, once said when asked about training methods, “Give me a player who can play on a pizza and a coke.” I love that philosophy. Just show up and compete to the best of your ability. Nothing fancy or high-tech. Win with guts and guile, and above all a love for the game. I know it’s old-school. It’s also a lot more fun to watch. Most of all, the champions, as well as those who fall short, like George Mallory, are way more fun to root for.
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Michael Kayes
*These views are my personal opinions and are not the viewpoints of any company or organization.