Lance Armstrong was paid $4m

to participate in the "Tour Down Under" - the bike race held in this state as a "tourist attraction". 

That was ten years ago. It was a lot of money then and it would be even more now if inflation is taken into consideration. 

Lance Armstrong is also a cheat. There was no "morals" clause in the payment so he has kept the money.

All this came to light yesterday when the "confidentiality" clause came to an end after ten years. Predictably there are people who still claim that what he was paid was worthwhile because of the "benefits" it brought into the state.

Yes, people came to see the race. There were a relatively small number of people but they did spend money on accommodation, meals and so on.  Yes, some local people went out to watch and they also spent some money.

But was it really worth it? Yes we have a "bikeway" named after the man who organised the races at the time. I use part of it occasionally. Perhaps it would not be there without those races. I don't know.

There is perhaps also a little more interest in that sort of cycling, or even in cycling in general. It has not stopped people complaining about a proposed bicycle track in the CBD. I understand their concerns but part of the answer is an increased awareness of the interaction between cyclists and pedestrians, cyclists and cars and the need to encourage safe passage.

But the revelations about the payment also made me wonder whether we don't have a problem in sport simply because people do get paid far too much for things like the ability to hit a ball, kick a ball, pedal, run, jump, swim, dive and so on. It is perhaps "nice" to be able to do those things and it is important to be active in order to help maintain good health - but is it right to pay a very small number of people such ridiculous amounts of money because they can do these things? What does it really contribute? 

I have said elsewhere that we don't pay the people who work in laboratories and hospitals anything like these amounts. We pay teachers a tiny fraction of what Armstrong was paid. There are endless numbers of people who are in caring professions or who, like rubbish collectors, contribute to our overall welfare and well being who get paid a pittance compared with Armstrong. Many artists, musicians and writers get paid too little to live on and so have second jobs while Armstrong and others like him are cheating their way to the top.

The Tokyo Olympics are coming up. There will be cheats there - cheats who hope they can get away with it or who might not even know that they are being used to "win glory" for their countries. I have no doubt at all that a few scientists have been trying to work on performance enhancing drugs that cannot be detected.

Why is this so important? Aren't there more important things we need to think about - for the good of everyone perhaps?