Gene Doping: Should It Be Embraced?

Blood doping creates unneeded risk and endangers an athlete’s life for a slightly increased chance of winning a competition. This practice should remain banned and athletes should seek alternative practices that do not come with unusual added health risks. Though there are logical arguments for each side, there is more evidence to support the argument that blood doping should not be legal in athletic competitions. There is too much risk involved for the reward to be so miniscule.

A number of prominent athletes have recently experienced a 'fall from grace,' because of the revelation that they used performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon is Lance Armstrong. In an advertisement for Nike that his former sponsor now no doubt regrets, Armstrong is shown asking the viewer "what am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day." Professional cycling is often cited as one of the sports in which doping is most endemic to its subculture, however a number of professional sports have been embroiled in drug scandals. Because of the many revelations about the number of baseball players who used steroids to get their record-breaking statistics, the 1990s are often called the 'steroid' era of baseball. The Olympic track and field star Marian Jones was stripped of her medals, after finally admitting to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (Lardon 2008). "Despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies' attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test" (Savulescu, Foddy, & Clayton 2004).

I first learned about this topic on a television show I watch called Hawaii 5-O. The episode had a group of athletes that were blood doping in order to win bicycling races and to get a leg up on escaping the police after robbing their targets. It briefly explained what the group was doing, and why it made them have better stamina and bettered their athletic abilities. Then when Lance Armstrong was accused of many different types of performance enhancing drugs, he admitted to using blood doping among other techniques. He used the method of blood doping that utilizes EPO, which is a hormone that is produced in the kidney for RBC production. He was stripped of all the Tour de France titles in his possession and the bronze medal he won in the Olympics.

The Olympics now have various organizations and committees delegated to testing for and eliminating the use of performance enhancing drugs. The most recent Olympic committee for the Games in Vancouver was partnered with the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, L’Institut national de la recherche scientifique — Institut Armand-Frappier, the United States Anti-Doping Agency, and LifeLabs to collect and test approximately 2450 blood and urine samples (“Anti-Doping Initiatives”). Their meticulousness and commitment was most definitely justified. Olympic athletes implicitly agree to a social contract of fair competition. Those athletes who take steroids have an unfair advantage over those who do not, and therefore these athletes are breaking this social contract.

This paper explores the novel Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh, who published the novel at the end of 2012. This novel is about Walsh’s journey as he follows Lance Armstrong and his life as a cyclist for 13 years as Lance deals with critics and skepticisms about his correlation with doping. Lance Armstrong was a glorified athlete who won many Tour de France titles after conquering testicular cancer. He was widely appreciated for cycling, but many people were questioning how he was able to make such a comeback after his cancer diagnosis. This book explores what happens from David Walsh’s point of view and the struggles he had to face as a Tour de France sports journalist: whether he should just celebrate Armstrong’s victories or question his usage of drugs. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief summary of the novel, and to reflect on the novel while still linking it to the issues and concepts of drugs and cheating in sports.

When it comes down to it he took steroids and testosterone and because of it won seven consecutive Tour De Frances. He won his first in 1999 and won every year up to and including 2005. He had been accused of drugs many times but every time he blatantly lied and said he had never taken any illegal substances. There had been many investigations and many old teammates planned to testify against him. But he kept pleading innocent. On August 24, 2012, the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Association) stripped him of his seven Tour wins and all honours won between 1999 and 2005 and they banned him from sport for life. He then came out in an interview with Oprah about all his past drug uses. This is totally unacceptable and is sending unacceptable messages to children as celebrities or sportspeople influence them a lot when they are young. He is influencing them that drugs are okay and that lying is acceptable. Therefore it is clear that Lance Armstrong is an appalling role model as he promotes lying and drug

Ken Caminiti was the first baseball player to admit to using steroids; he never thought he was doing anything illegal because everyone around him was doing it: “I can't say, 'Don't do it,' not when the guy next to you is as big as a house and he's going to take your job and make the money” (gtd. in Zacharias). Recently, cheating has gotten really ruthless. Some athletes might even go to the extreme, like seven times tour de France winner Lance Armstrong did with blood doping; which is a way of boosting the amount of red blood cells in the bloodstream in order to an athletes performance. Everyone from the

Every athlete has wished they could jump a little higher, swim a little longer and run a little faster. Throughout the history of sport there have been accounts of chemical enhancements taken by athletes to give them this advantage. This has developed more as time has taken its grasp on modern medicinal practices. People try to obey the laws of a pure sport, yet there seems to be an increasing margin of those who “dope” and get away with it and the small group those that does not, how does this still happen? Is the solution to just allow doping? While with so much speculation and ethically derivative rhetoric to be examined, doping to increase strength in a sport is explicitly wrong to the sport itself. Chemical enhancements discredit the integrity

The Tour de France is just one of the main races in the world that has been cheated on by the use of illegal drugs. One of the main competitors in these races is Lance Armstrong. He is also one of the main drug users in these races as well. He won the Tour de France seven consecutive times in a row. Some of the other riders and bystanders that watched these races questioned Lance Armstrongs ability to win these races. Everyone knew he was good but not that good. Finally it came out that Lance Armstrong had been using EPO throughout his career. He finally admitted to using this drug on the Oprah Winfrey show and it went viral.

Doping has widely become known as the use of banned substances and practices by sports personnel particularly athletes in an attempt to improve sporting performances. No sensible fan of sport today denies the prevalence of drugs in virtually every major sport, yet none would argue they can ever be eliminated completely. Money alone would seem to guarantee that much. High profile athletes today are competing for high stakes, not just millions, but dozens of millions. The fear of losing everything career, opportunity, contracts, name, fame, and money is pushing more sportsmen all over the world to use performance enhancing drugs, mainly

There is a lot of doping going on in cycling. Some cyclist are getting caught some are still getting away with it. This should not be happening in such a big sport like cycling. There are programs in place to stop doping such as UCI antidoping society. I will now show some evidence of doping. Then the affect that the drugs could do the athletes. Also about the loss of spectators and sponsors.

Lance Armstrong Case Analysis Nature of the Case This case is primarily concerned with Lance Armstrong’s and team USPS doping epidemic throughout Armstrong’s seven consecutive Tour de France victories during his tenure on team USPS. The moral conundrum and conflict between the team and individuals values complied with every athletes will to win sent team USPS down a path of self-destruction piloted by Armstrong. Facts, and Assumptions

The question of drug use among athletes in what was previously considered by the unknowing public to be a rather pristine sport, cycling, is important in that it will affect all future Tours and will place them and the athletes under scrutiny. To begin with, in Europe until the 1998 scandal occurred, despite a few exceptions, cycling was considered a drug free sport. The 1998 drug scandal tarnished the Tour de France and the reputation and image of other sports. The media response to the scandal took differing positions on what should be done next to clean up cycling. The scandal also affected advertisements, sales, and without question the 1999 Tour and Lance Armstrong. Since even the most naïve fan no longer trusts the cyclists,

The question of drug use among athletes in what was previously considered by the unknowing public to be a rather pristine sport, cycling, is important in that it will affect all future Tours and will place them and the athletes under scrutiny. To begin with, in Europe until the 1998 scandal occurred, despite a few exceptions, cycling was considered a drug free sport. The 1998 drug scandal tarnished the Tour de France and the reputation and image of other sports. The media response to the scandal took differing positions on what should be done next to clean up cycling. The scandal also affected advertisements, sales, and without question the 1999 Tour and Lance Armstrong. Since even the most naïve fan no longer trusts the cyclists,

Doping is when athletes take performance enhancing drugs in order to become better at their sport. Doping was first used by the ancient romans in gladiator sports. (Harvard, 2017 Oct 9) The term doping comes from the Dutch word “dop”, which was an alcoholic beverage used by South African Zulu warriors (Harvard, 2017 Oct 9) Doping is becoming more wide spread due to the fact that athletes want to be better than everyone else. Money is playing a huge reason in why people are doping. More sponsors more money. So once one person starts doping another person will. Just so they can be the best at their particular sport. Some examples of substances that are used include steroids which increases your testosterone will give you muscle growth, endurance and your performance more, blood doping which is less common but manly used in cycling is when you boost the amount of red blood cells in your system so it carry’s more oxygen to your muscles, analgesics are used to relieve pain when you are injured which enables you to train while injured so you stay fit and healthy. (Reuters Kelland, K. (2017) These are just some examples of doping. There are over 200