Bigger Stronger Faster Page #8

Synopsis: In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs? Director Christopher Bell explores America's win-at-all-cost culture by examining how his two brothers became members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream.
Director(s): Chris Bell
Production: Magnolia
  2 wins & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.6
Metacritic:
80
Rotten Tomatoes:
96%
PG-13
Year:
2008
105 min
$216,748
Website
566 Views


we have to stand back

and think about what this is

really gonna mean to society. "

And I think

that's the debate

we will come to

in the coming decades.

TV NARRATOR:
Good sportsmanship-

you know what that means?

Play fair.

CHRIS:
When I was a kid

cheating was pretty clear-cut,

like when the million dollar

man hired the referee's

evil twin brother to cheat

the Hulkster out of his title.

COMMENTATOR:
Is that Dave

Hebner or is that Dave Hebner?

You know, cheating in other sports

wasn't all that different.

Remember when Joe Necro

was hot-scuffing the ball

with an emery board?

COMMENTATOR:
Something

came out of his pocket.

Chris:
And what about when the

Patriots were playing the Dolphins

And they hired

an ex-con to clear

a spot in the snow for

the field-goal kicker?

You can't do that.

I think it's

the most unfair thing

that I've ever been

associated in.

CHRIS:
Or like when Rosie

Ruiz won the Boston Marathon.

The mystery woman winner. We

missed her at all our checkpoints.

CHRIS:
Why take steroids

when you can take a bus?

And who can forget

when Tonya Harding

hired a goon to take out

Nancy Kerrigan's knee?

Why? Why?

I guess if you can't

beat 'em,

beat 'em

with a lead pipe.

But somehow steroids

seem kind of different.

I thought in undergraduate

school and in college

I was a pretty good

athlete.

But I find

myself angry,

angry in my gut

because these are the same guys

that would have taken me out,

taken me out

not because they had

more god-given

natural talent than me

but because they enhanced

with artificial means.

CHRIS:
If using

steroids is cheating,

seems like a whole bunch of other

stuff should be cheating too.

Take Tiger Woods, for example.

He had Lasik eye surgery

and now his vision is 20/15.

That's better than perfect.

WOODS:
My eyes are stable.

My game's a lot better.

I felt pretty good

coming in.

CHRIS:
In a game that relies

so much on depth perception,

wouldn't superhuman vision

be a performance enhancement?

Then there's

cortisone shots.

They helped Curt Schilling

win the World Series.

And those are

steroids too.

Truth is, corticosteroids can have worse

side effects than anabolic steroids,

but they're used

in sports every day.

He had a 20-minute

cortisone shot

after Monday's match after

his back tightened up.

CHRIS:
Here's an even

more confusing example-

Floyd Landis claims

that he did not take steroids

to win the Tour De France.

LANDIS:
Truth is, I

didn't use testosterone

like I'm accused of doing.

I didn't cheat.

I didn't do anything

outside of the rules.

I won the Tour clean

and I deserved to win.

I'm proud of it

and I always will be.

CHRIS:
But he did sleep in

his own altitude chamber.

I got my

altitude chamber

out by the garage

these days.

So you made this?

Yeah, it's not actually

that hard to make.

I didn't make the pipe. I got the

pipe from some construction site.

They were putting in

a water main.

Is the result

pretty good?

For me it makes

a difference, yeah.

And how long do you

stay in here for?

Just sleep in there all night.

I don't know, six or seven hours.

Is your wife like,

"what are you doing?"

"I'm gonna sleep

in the chamber. "

She hates it.

So you just climb

in there?

Yeah, you want

to try it out?

You won't have a monitor

in there, but I have it set

to, like,

about 13,000'.

CHRIS:
See, sleeping

in an altitude chamber

produces a lot more

red blood cells,

which means more oxygen

in your system,

which means more endurance for a

cyclist or a long-distance runner.

There are four ways to increase

your red blood cell count.

You can sleep in an

altitude chamber like Floyd

or you can just train at the

U.S. Olympic training center

at 6,000'

in Colorado.

Then there's

blood doping.

That's when you draw your own

blood a month before the big race,

then re-inject it

the night before.

Finally, there's a drug

called E.P.O.

which simply

tells your body

to produce more

red blood cells.

So that's four ways to

do the exact same thing,

but two are allowed

and two are cheating.

You done yet?

Hey.

That's kind of weird.

No, it's nice, man. Once you get used

to it it's nice sleeping in there.

SCOTT REID:
What's heartbreaking

is my eight-year-old-

his two favorite athletes are

Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong.

My four-year-old is obsessed

with Floyd Landis.

So what do you tell these kids?

I talk to people all the time

That they go, "who can

my kids believe in?"

And I want to tell them

is "nobody. "

I ask not to be judged

and much less

to be sentenced

by anyone.

You can't trust anybody now because

the testing is so ineffective.

You don't know who's really

clean, who's really dirty.

CHRIS:
Were you taking any

sort of drugs for that race?

Not what they

fined me with, no.

- But you were taking other stuff.

- Other stuff, yeah.

But isn't that

still cheating?

Still cheating, yeah,

like everybody else.

So that's how

you justify it-

- Everybody's cheating?

- Yes.

When I interviewed Ben

Johnson he basically said,

"look, everybody was

on something. "

Well, you know, Ben-

and bless his heart,

he's got to say

everyone was on something.

That's justifying

his own means.

So he has a problem

with you beating-

he has a problem-

he has a problem

- of, you know, me beating him.

- Yeah.

When we were taking

that victory stand,

we were on the stand

and he got the gold medal,

he didn't smile.

He never smiled.

He never celebrated.

And the thing is,

he couldn't really inside share

in the joy of winning. He cheated.

You cheat.

Everybody cheats.

Nobody in this world

is perfect.

Nobody in this life

is perfect- nobody.

They know that in 1988

six Americans at least

tested positive in Seoul.

And they all shut up

because the biggest money

comes from America.

So who's gonna

get shafted,

Americans

or Ben Johnson?

DR. WADE EXUM:
I think that Ben

Johnson was unfairly singled out.

I think that there's

always scapegoats.

Is there a lot of drug use

going on in Olympics?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

CHRIS:
Dr. Exum was the

Director of Anti-Doping

at the U.S. Olympic Committee

for 10 years.

He thought his job was

to stop drugs in sports,

but his bosses had

other priorities.

He told me that over

failed their drug tests,

including Carl Lewis,

and they were

covered up.

Nobody believes Carl Lewis

ever failed a drug test.

- Do you have any proof?

- Oh, certainly.

We have just boxes of proof

for everything that I say.

There it is,

book three.

Here's a letter from

then Executive Director

Baaron Pittenger

to Mr. Lewis.

CHRIS:
"I must confirm that the

analysis for your specimen 'B'

was positive for

pseudoephedrine, ephedrine,

And phenylpropanolee-

lamine-

- Is that what is is?

- Phenylpropanolamine, yeah.

IOC banned stimulants.

By policy of the U.S.O.C.,

this finding is cause

for disqualification

from the Olympic team

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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