I was actually attempting to save the moral life of a man. An Olympic athlete is not a lowly instrument used to gain international prestige, an object to be bought and sold on the market, a commodity to be used and then thrown into the garbage. Athletes are, first and foremost, human beings, with mothers and fathers, spouses and children, brothers, sisters, friends and fans as well as pride in the recognition they have earned through their efforts and extraordinary merit. They have honor, above all, honor. Those who have never competed for money have competed and triumphed for honor alone.
Honor is worth more than life, because life without honor is meaningless.
There is a crime more reprehensible than any physical crime. It is the moral crime of accusing Sotomayor of being a drug addict, a hard cocaine user. That substance has come to terrorize the world today and such accusation can tarnish forever the life of a man, even with no real proof and no backing, without giving him the slightest opportunity to defend himself nor any possibility to appeal. Only 48 hours were needed to destroy 21 years of total, selfless dedication to amateur sports, dating back to when he was only 10 years old. It cannot be so arbitrarily and brutally ignored that he has passed both scheduled and surprise doping tests on more than 100 occasions, and that on more than 300 occasions he has surpassed the height with which he won his medal that day in a single jump.