Doping in sports

While the French public was enthusiastically following the World Cup soccer finals, police began investigating the strange practices of the Festina cycling team. The team had instituted doping as if it were a normal training practice. Now in Italy, soccer, the country's top sport, is threatened by a scandal.

Today, the presumptions about Italy's Parma team show that doping, which we once believed was confined to the cycling world, affects many other sports. Another myth has died: To win, some teams will try anything, without worrying about sports ethics or the health of players.

It's still too early to conclude that doping is a general practice. But, indirectly, our memories of the World Cup will suffer. Two players on France's World Cup team, Didier Deschamps and Zinedine Zidane, will soon testify about the widespread use of the legal substance creatine.

Brazil's Ronaldo, victim of a mysterious illness the day of the World Cup final, still has received no coherent medical explanation for his malaise. Even the best player in the world should be required to testify to investigators.

-- Le Monde, Paris