"what qualifies as a sporting chance?"

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/09/09/130909crat_atlarge_gladwell?currentPage=all

This is an article that begins with the description of an extraordinary man, whose genetic makeup gave him an advantage in sports, earning himself seven gold medals. Gladwell, the author, claims

"[athletes] respond more effectively to training. The shape of their bodies is optimized for certain kinds of athletic activities. They carry genes that put them far ahead of ordinary athletes." 

He then goes on to give another clear example of this, a man with a naturally long Achilles tendon that gave him a clear advantage in high jumping.

“What we are watching when we watch élite sports, then, is a contest among wildly disparate groups of people, who approach the starting line with an uneven set of genetic endowments and natural advantages”, yet at the same time “we want sports to be fair”.

 He begins to discuss the potential for modification of ability with a simple anecdote of adding iodine to salt, which has apparently increased I.Q. scores by as much as thirteen points.

Then he enters the realm of sports. He discusses how baseball players have great eyesight, amazing in fact. Not only do they have fantastic vision, they’re also allowed to correct their vision (according to the Major League Baseball) to make it that amazing if they’re falling short of the mark. They are also allowed to replace the tendon in their throwing arm with a tendon taken from elsewhere on their body. Yet, “doping scandals” are prevalent in the baseball profession.

In the article, there is a great quote that really sheds light on this issue from the perspective of those caught, Tyler Hamilton wrote that

“I’ve always said you could have hooked us up to the best lie detectors on the planet and asked us if we were cheating, and we’d have passed. Not because we were delusional—we knew we were breaking the rules—but because we didn’t think of it as cheating. It felt fair to break the rules.”

But is it? I think this article twines together both the “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” documentary we watched and the “Best That Never Was”. Marcus Dupree was naturally gifted to be great. If someone was up against him, would it be unethical for them to modify their bodies in order to even compete? Why do we believe innate talent to be fair game, but certain enhancements to be unfair? Is it because one is natural, uncontrollable while the other is a decision, a substance injected into the body?

Some could argue we can hardly stop naturally gifted people from competing, but we can even the field by preventing people from taking performance enhancers. Yet, a point was brought up in BFS that just injecting yourself isn't going to create muscles, you still need to train. They still put in the work and the time and the pain, is it their fault they weren't born a certain way?

And, is anyone else reminded of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZppWok6SX88?