Suddenly, I feel my heart rate increasing, and the nerves are kicking in. The current speaker moves on to the conclusion part of his talk meaning that I am up in a few minutes. He actually still has ten minutes for his presentation according to the schedule, but it seems like he will wrap up earlier. So, no more time for a quick bathroom visit, no more time to think about an icebreaker, no more time for… anything, because I am called upon the stage. Okay Frankieboy, you can do this.
Actually, I did not expect to experience any nervousness prior to giving my presentation at the HPLC conference in Düsseldorf as I have always enjoyed giving presentations. Presenting in front of audiences of various sizes always felt natural to me, yet my ‘confidence’ seems to be lacking today.
Reflecting on this lack, it is not that I am not confident about the work I am presenting, as it is something that I put my heart and soul into during the past few years. The underlying data has furthermore undergone various rounds of improvements following feedback of direct colleagues and peer researchers in my field of research, so I also stand behind the scientific quality of my presentation. Something else must be going on here, for example related to the lack of sleep due to the high temperatures or the missing of our baby Julius who I will not be able to see in person for too many days this week.
Well, I actually knew quite rapidly what caused my nervousness, or let me rephrase, who caused my nervousness today. That is, the speaker who was scheduled before me and who is probably the most eminent scientist in doping analysis. I referenced his work during both my MSc’s and my PhD research projects, and his achievements furthermore inspired me multiple times throughout my academic career, which admittedly is still a short one. On the other hand, this researcher also contributed to the conviction of athletes I previously admired. And indeed, I should blame the corresponding athletes for falling of their thrones and not the scientists with their fancy analytical techniques who detected the doping agents in the athletes’ blood and/or urine samples. But still, I enjoy watching sports a lot less than I did during my childhood when I did not worry whatsoever about whether or not an athlete is cheating, as I do now all the time.
Needless to say, I had to walk towards the previous speaker after the last presentation in our session to share with him my mixed feelings, thus being my appreciation of his scientific developments and my frustration of him contributing to the demise of some of my childhood heroes. Naturally, I did this in a relaxed manner, and we shared some laughs during the subsequent conversation. What stuck the most of this interaction was that he mentioned that none of the convicted athletes that he had ever spoken to came across as bad people. In his view, they were talented people who made wrong decisions, like many people do sometimes. Personally, I appreciated hearing this a lot, and it helped me with restoring confidence in some of my childhood heroes. Or to be completely honest, I would have probably made the same mistakes if I had stood in their shoes, hence I always kept standing behind my childhood heroes regardless any presumed or proven doping use.
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