Not a good sport From the beginning, I've believed that there are two kinds of cheats in international sport... and I've always believed that one kind is worse than the other.

Ok, let me move from the vague to the specific - one kind of a cheat in sport is like an athlete who takes performance enhancing drugs to win, or like a bowler in cricket who tampers with the ball to get it to swing wildly and again, enhance performance. The athlete, or the cricketer cheats to win. I agree that cheating is still basically unethical and the superior performance achieved may not be due to superior sporting talent. However, the objective of the sportsman has not changed, he/she is still wanting to win, the desire is still to achieve the positive. While the cheater is an undeserved winner, I think this kind of a cheat is (only comparatively) better than the second kind.

The second kind of a cheat is the cricketer or soccer player who throws matches, who accepts money for personal gain, who sells himself & his team & his fans & their expectations, who might have a great talent but does not have any desire to achieve anything great out of that great talent apart from loads of money. I think, in sport, this kind of a 'cheat' (you could call him scumbag, load of **** etc) is much worse than the first kind. While the first kind atleast aims to win, to please fans and live their expectations and their adulation, the second kind not only underperforms deliberately but also sells out all that his talent stands for or all that he has (implicitly) promised to his expectant fans.

To make it clear, I do not support any kind of cheating or any other kind of unethical practice in sport, but this argument is just an attempt to differentiate between crimes and, primarily, to put one of my thoughts into words.

Any comments or arguments or feedback would be read with great interest.  ¶ 10:35 PM