I FEEL sorry for Michael Phelps, and not because he went bonkers.

Here is a man, who at age 23, has reached the absolute peak of his sport.

Everything he goes on to do in the pool will only be a footnote to his eight-gold feat at the Beijing Olympics.

It's all downhill from now for Phelps. How do you motivate yourself knowing that?

Maybe that explains why he is willing to let his career go to pot.

But he still needs to keep a clean image to earn the millions sponsors are willing to splash for his face and name.

The man-fish was stupid to smoke marijuana, and stupid to do it in full-view of a party filled with camera phones.

But at least he did not lie about it, or cheated. He has never failed a drugs test, in or out of competition.

Alex Rodriguez, however, is a cheat and a liar. The biggest name in American baseball, a three time MVP who has a staggering US$250 million contract with the New York Yankees, only admitted that he took steroids from 2001 through 2003 after Sports Illustrated presented the evidence of a failed drugs test.

I was stupid, I was under pressure, the truth has set me free, he said. But all we should remember were the stone-faced denials he gave when previously asked if he had ever taken performance enhancing drugs.

Major League Baseball is also complicit. Rodriguez's name was leaked from a secret list of 104 players who tested positive for banned substances in 2003.

One hundred and four. That is staggering.

The MLB must have realised the extent that steroids had taken a hold of America's favourite past time. But it did little. As players got stronger, illegally, and home run numbers increased, and the crowds grew, it was content to sit back and collect the money. Not the first, time that greed has overcome ethics. And not the last - why else is the world suffering from a financial recession now.

The ones I feel most sorry for are the kids who idolise Phelps, and worse, worship Rodriguez.

I was recently at the Straits Times Athlete of the Year award presentation, held in the Singapore Sports School. There, I saw the looks of awe and joy on the faces of young, aspiring footballers as they crowded for a handshake and a photo with Lions Aleksander Duric and Baihakki Khaizan. It meant so much to them.

So what do the parents of those young fans of Phelps and Rodriguez tell them? More importantly, what do Phelps and Rodriguez tell the kids, who want nothing more but to follow the examples set by their heroes?

"Don't do as we do." It rings so hollow.

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On a side note, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams have recently come out to condemn World Anti-Doping Agency's latest rule. Players must let drug-testers know where to find them for a period of one hour on every day of every week. It makes Nadal feel "like a criminal". And he makes a crucial point. Why should clean athletes be treated like parolees who have just come out of jail? What wrong have they done to justify such an intrusion into their privacy?

If Wada wants to punish anybody, punish those who cheat. Really punish them - and not with those paltry two-year, four-year suspensions for a first offence. Instead, it should be strike one, and you're out, for life. Then, athletes will think twice, thrice, four times before putting even a single illegal substance into their bodies. And Wada can stop this silly cat-and-mouse game.