-by Frank Macdonald
Caution: This column may contain anatomically correct language.
The 2026 Winter Olympics held their official opening this past weekend.
As usual, these Olympics seem to be more about drugs than medal counts. But just as the world-wide audience was about to indulge itself in a global yawn, it was suddenly shaken awake by the very theme it was about to be bored by. The leading story internationally shared a headline much like that of the Guardian in the United Kingdom:
“‘Penis injection’ claims in Winter Olympics ski jumping investigated by Wada”
Wada headline!
Wada, by the way, is the acronym for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is an organization that like other anti-drug agencies around the world, is dedicated to the detoxification of those trapped in the ruthless world of an addiction. Wada’s aims are to ensure, every couple of years, a drug-free version of the Olympic Games. Good luck with that.
Over the years, numerous world class athletes, and even nations, have been banned from Olympic competition because they peed in a cup. We, the general public, have learned more about steroids from our athletic idols than from university science programs. The same is true of several other methods of performance enhancement from cold medicine to…who knows what’s next?
Naturally, athletes have always been encouraged to be role models, and we the public, keep demanding higher, further, faster from them and they try to accommodate us. There are few worldly acquisitions that out-bid that top podium at the Olympic Games. Ask your average man or woman on the street which they would prefer to be remembered for, the Nobel Peace Prize or an Olympic Gold Medal? It is a question that evokes in people’s minds an image of their own headstone. Oh, a gold medal would look so much better on it than whatever a peace prize looks like.
Speaking for myself, I know that since boyhood all the way into old manhood, when I watch the Olympics, I cast myself in a fantasy role of higher, further, faster. As for adding drugs to my fantasies, I’ll admit to having a swig of cold medicine when I’ve had a cold. So what if, through a trick of Artificial Intelligence or some other Elon Musk experiment, a person could be catapulted from the armchair into being an actual podium contender?
So here I am on a mountainside in Italy, preparing for my gold medal effort in ski jumping.
I am not going to go into the drug-related and complicated physics that can add metres to a ski jumper’s jump. I am sparing you that classroom time because I read the details and didn’t understand a thing. But what I did understand was that my coach comes up to me in the dressing room moments before I am ascended by tow-rope to the mountain top.
“A little assistance?” I ask him. “Isn’t cough medicine banned or something?”
“Certain kinds, maybe, but what I have in mind is virtually undetectable.”
“Yeah! Tell that to Ben Johnson! If I win, they’ll be examining my arms for injections sites, and my legs, even my butt. So if they can’t find it in the cup, they’ll find the proof somewhere on my very fit body,” I tell the coach. “This is not the ’60s any more, where I am a rock star (yeah, I’ve had that fantasy, too) shooting up before a concert by sticking the needle between my toes, or stuffing something up my nose. I even heard of Woodstock-worthy rockers who injected their own eyes with drugs. A lot of them got caught, usually by the undertaker. So there’s nowhere to hide a needle’s prick point.”
“Well, Frank, it’s about that prick point, I don’t want to sound vulgar here, so I’ll tell you in dictionary English that we are talking about your penis.”
“My….!”
“Yes. It’s a penis injection that can help increase the distance you jump!”
“Penis injection!” says I. “Oh yeah! I don’t need a science degree to tell you that it will increase the distance I jump! Straight up through that roof there!”
The coach has a low tolerance for cowardice. He is banking on my gold medal to improve his chances of earning bricks of gold as the most sought-after coach in the future. All it will take is my gold medal.
“Frank, I am telling you it can help you fly higher and further than…”
“Icarus?”
“Who?”
“Oh, just a long ago Greek Olympian. Okay, if I am going to do this, I have to know about the side effects of injecting…injecting what?”
“Acid.”
“Acid! Jumping off a ski slope on acid! Are you crazy? But it makes a guy wonder…”
“Nope, Frank, no LSD in this dope.”
“But the side effects,” I remind him. “I’m worried about whatever those side effects do. So what are we talking about here, shrinkage or enhancement?”
“Whichever, it will be temporary.”
“Just like my gold medal will be only temporary when they find out about this.”