Collin Chartier.
It is tempting to say that his name will live in infamy but in truth it will probably be forgotten within a surprisingly short period of time. The wheel shall turn and the next cycle will begin and Chartier’s name will be reduced to a tarnished footnote, forgotten by most, despised by the remembering few.
It’s almost a pitiful thought, the idea that in his desperation to perform, to succeed, to enjoy his moment in the sun, he has debased himself to the extent that he will essentially never have that same opportunity again. Almost.
Similarly tempting was the need to jump into the fray upon hearing the news, to react and to declare outrage. The athletes wronged and cheated by Chartier certainly are within their rights to feel that way. Yet the question underpinning all of this remained inchoate and elusive. What did it mean?
As regular readers will know, short distance triathlon is the entire focus of TriStats. Truth be told, I could not tell you the long distance race Chartier had won. Prior to the news of his doping revelation, I probably could not have even guessed his nationality. Maybe the answer to the purpose of this article lay in looping back to his short distance career in search for some tangential relevance.
He most recently raced in the short distance scene at the Arzachena World Cup in 2020 (where he did not finish). The year prior, he raced at four World Cups, attaining finishes of 13th in Karlovy Vary and 12th in Miyazaki (pictured above). In many senses he was the archetypal athlete that sought Olympic success before realising the slimness of the odds and moving onto greener pastures new.
Beyond the fact that Chartier also twice raced at the World University Championships, in 2016 and 2018, there is nothing really of note to say about his short distance career. He simply did not cut the mustard.
What of his actions? There are a lot of interesting questions to be posed about his decisions and what he has done. Why did he do it? How did the interplay of identity and professional success dictate his behaviours? To what degree can mental health ever be an excuse for doping and general misdeeds? Who assisted him? And perhaps most pertinently, when did his doping truly start?
To be sure, those questions will require answering. The crux of this article, though, is not about Chartier.
Rather, it is about every single athlete not called Collin Chartier.
One of the great driving forces of the pursuit of elite sport is the moment in the sun. Every athlete dreams of their window of glory, their chance to stand atop the podium in front of the world and absorb the light of success.
Most will never know what it is like to enjoy that moment. That is simply the nature of elite sport. Yet they chase it nonetheless.
Now, the other foot has dropped. Whereas the athletes jostle for that place in the sun, the uncomfortable truth simultaneously exists that, while they wait, they exist under the shadow cast by doping.
All athletes are affected by the shadow. Spectators, fans and those beyond the sport see the shadow too but let’s forget the image beyond the world of triathlon for a moment. Chartier has damaged that. It is the image within the sport that is vital here.
In that respect, Marten Van Riel may have put it best.
He posted in an Instagram story, “the only person I 100% know is clean is myself. So I believe and know it is possible to be near/at the pinnacle of our sport and be clean. On the other hand I have been filling in my WADA whereabouts for about 10 years and on average had 1 out of competition control per year.”
He finished with a simple line. “There are many more of my competitors on the juice.”
That is the heart of the issue. It takes actions such as Chartier’s to remind athletes that they do in fact operate under the shadow and that shadow tinges all perspectives. So long as the shadow exists, it is nigh on impossible to truly trust any rival or competitor. The stakes of being in the sun are simply too high.
Perhaps triathlon has had it easy for the past few years. Russia and it’s systematic doping regime has been a helpful bogeyman against which to direct anti-doping anger and attention. In truth, though, the shadow is not Russian-made. It does not belong to any one nationality. It is everywhere.
It’s Igor Polyanskiy being disqualified from the Tokyo Olympics for doping.
It’s Yuliya Yelistratova testing positive prior to Tokyo Olympic Games.
It’s Tim Don being slapped with a doping ban for missing tests just weeks after winning his only world title in 2006.
It’s the first women’s Olympic triathlon champion, Brigitte McMahon, being caught and banned for EPO use in 2005.
Chartier is just the latest story to open the eyes of athletes to the darkness within which they operate. There will always be suggestions such as more tests but the system itself is imperfect. It will always be playing catch up.
Moreover the organisers of elite triathlon, be it World Triathlon, the PTO or Ironman, face a catch-22 regarding dopers. The negative coverage positive tests brings upon a sport is arguably more damaging than the cheating itself. When burdened with the knowledge of such cheating and its consequences, a small voice will always encourage the sport the protect itself.
To the athletes such a notion would be ludicrous. Integrity matters. But so too does the sport’s image.
There may therefore be a degree to which the outpouring of anger and disgust by Chartier’s peers was not entirely aimed at him (although for the most part it was). There may have been a subconscious degree to which the anger was really a means to lash out at the reminder of the shadow. Few can truly appreciate the unpleasant reality of striving to reach the pinnacle of a sport only to be cheated at the last by those taking chemical shortcuts.
In a way it is a form of gaslighting upon clean athletes to the most insidious and harmful extent. The only way for any athlete to forge ahead is to lie to themselves, to ignore the existence of the shadow and the doping of others. When Chartier returned reality to the foreground of the sport’s collective attention, he re-inserted the doubt into the minds of athletes.
Today, tomorrow, a week from now, some may find it just that bit harder to lace up their shoes in the morning and to bury themselves when the cards are stacked against them.
For that cruel reminder, Chartier will be hated.
The bitter twist, though, is that while Chartier is publicly reviled, there will be others lurking under the shadow that are equally culpable, that are also breaking or at least bending the rules. When they see what Chartier has done, they might join the chorus against him, but they will do so with a knowing smile.
