Years ago, while covering a track meet in Eugene, Ore., I was driving to breakfast, or to the stadium, when I saw a figure jogging along the road, bent and listing. As I passed, I realized it was Alberto Salazar, once among the greatest American marathon runners, a three-time winner in New York and the Boston champion in an epic finish in 1982.

Even in his prime, Salazar ran with what Neil Amdur of The New York Times once described as a “duck-like wobble.” In retirement, he was left with a body broken by so many hard miles. Each stride seemed full of agony and something resembling denial. Or perhaps grief and regret.

That’s the image I recalled Monday night upon hearing that Salazar, 61, the world’s best-known coach of distance runners and head of the Nike Oregon Project, had been suspended four years for violating the rules against doping. He vehemently denied the accusations. But unless he is successful on appeal, his coaching career and his reputation may end up as wrecked as his body.

Full disclosure: I believe doping should be legal. At the least, sports would be more honest. It is naïve and hypocritical for the rest of us to enhance our daily performance with a medicine-cabinet buffet while insisting that elite athletes should achieve the miraculous on bananas and water. And while looking the other way when Olympians are given exemptions for using asthma medication and other drugs that can enhance their medal chances.