Performance Drugs And Steroids

The competitive drive to win at all cost is fierce among athletes. Winning at all cost often includes using one of many performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. Many athletes use performance enhancing drugs, like steroids, to achieve higher goals and set higher records than other drug-free successful athletes. Although athletes are performing at higher levels when using such drugs, what is the cost? Finally anabolic steroids should remain banned from sports because their use results in many harmful side effects; because their use violates sports regulations, and because their use can cause death.

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).

Some argue that Olympic athletes should perform at their absolute maximum potential, and steroids should be allowed if they assist in achieving this goal. A counterpoint to this argument is the constant improvement in measured “success”, that is Olympic record setting, in spite of the ban on steroids.

While using prohibited substances gives athletes the chances to do better and makes competition exciting and pleasant, using banned substances such as PEDs should be illegal in professional sports because using performance enhancing is not only extremely hazardous for human body but also against the laws of sport. In addition, athletes are punished if they apply prohibited drugs to their bodies. Moreover, they may lose their medals after the competition, if their samples are positive. For example, Ben Johnson, who is the Canadian sprinter, was the biggest drug cheater in the history (“Doping in Sport”, 2015). After the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, his samples were positive due to anabolic steroids (“Doping in Sport”, 2015). Even though, Johnson

Athletes are always searching for ways to enhance their performance. Recently, beginning in the 1950s, that search has included the use of illegal substances like steroids and growth hormones. Illegal substances have been used widely by athletes in hop es of achieving the desired Olympic gold medal or multi-million dollar contract. Some nations, for example the late East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, have mandated the use of steroids by their athletes. The downside of using those illegal substances is that because they are illegal, getting caught using them can lead to losing that coveted gold medal, a lifetime ban from sports, and a total loss of honor and dignity. This is why the search is now on to find some legal

Famed writer Grantland Rice once wrote, “When the great scorer comes to mark against your name. He'll mark not won or lost but how you played the game” (World of quotes, 1). That buoyant attitude of selflessness and heart has slowly diminished throughout the course of time. Now, George Allen’s booming voice, former coach of the Washington Redskins, runs throughout head of America, “Only winners are truly alive. Winning is living. Every time you win, you’re reborn. When you lose, you die a little” (Harris, 67). It is with this frame of mind that athletes are pushed beyond the edge of reason. Although peer pressure and pressure from coaches are central reasons why one may use steroids, most users begin using in order to improve their self image or excel in sports. Ethics, integrity, and legality aside, some athletes will stop at nothing to attain “that extra edge”.

Former Notre Dame Football coach, Knute Rockne, once said, “Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure,” (“The Future of Steroids”). The importance of winning in sports and being the greatest has grown immensely. This unquenchable desire to be stronger, faster, and more agile than the opponent, has caused many athletes to stop at nothing to be the best; this pressure has caused athletes to take banned and illegal substances known as performance-enhancing drugs (Performance-enhancing drugs) to achieve maximum strength and speed. The use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in sports has been obvious to many spectators and sports enthusiasts for quite some time now, and athletes who have been found guilty of taking

ARD examined twelve thousand leaked test results from five thousand pro athletes over the past decade (“Cheaters Prosper”). In recent years, more and more players in the olympics have begun abusing performance-enhancing drugs to improve their skill. Many sport organizations are thinking about banning the usage of these drugs; and I’m here to support it being banned and the players never to return unless for prescription. Users of these drugs hurt their own bodies. They are cheating and make the game unfair. Steroids and other doping drugs improves strength and speed giving the athletes an unfair advantage. Athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs should be forbidden from participating in their sport.

In the days when steroids were only being used by body builders and professional wrestlers, stories about performance enhancing drugs could only be found on the back pages of the newspapers. When former Oakland Raiders All-Pro Lyle Alzado admitted to steroid use in a 1991 Sports Illustrated article the whispers about what professional athletes were using steroids began to get louder. (Puma, 2005) Finally, in 2002, when Caminiti, a former MVP, came clean, two things were clear; athletes in all sports were using these drugs, and that they worked. The fact that steroid use had permeated our national pastime combined with the media explosion of the internet and 24 hour a day sports talk created a perfect storm which created the biggest sports story of the new millennium so far. However, two other facts remained clear, performance enhancing drugs were old news, and athletes in all sports from all over the world had been using them for years.

Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have been banned from Major League Baseball since 1991; however, this law was not strictly enforced by the Major League Baseball Players Association (Anabolic Steroids). The MLBPA to date has become much more involved in the issue of PED use in the MLB, and they do test many of the players for traces of steroids. Few players are caught each year, but when a big name pops up, the whole debacle headlines newspapers, constantly talked about on sports networks and becomes a huge deal. That big name player that was caught using steroids is then given an agreed sentence of suspended games, sometimes they are even revoked of their chance to be in the exalted MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs should be more heavily managed and more severely punished.

The issue of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) has been among the most controversial in the sports world. A number of high profile athletes from Barry Bonds to Lance Armstrong have seen their reputations tarnished as a result of their use of these substances. Even the US Congress has held a number of high profile hearings on the subject to rid professional sports of their usage. In the sports world, it is almost assumed that sports are better when PEDs are removed from the game, and that the sport’s integrity is threatened when its players use these banned substances. Bud Selig, the former commissioner of Major League Baseball, described ridding baseball of PEDs as necessary “to maintain integrity, fairness and a level playing field.” Sports leagues have created highly sophisticated systems to identify players who use PEDs and levy them with harsh punishments. I will argue that the argument from fairness presented by Michael Lavin is not a valid reason to ban PEDs from professional sports. To clarify, my argument is not that PEDs are good for athletes or professional sports, but merely that they should not be banned out of a concern for fairness.

This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.

"Fans have demonstrated a willingness to support drug-aided athletes like major league baseball player Mark McGwire… He is the first athlete in history to break a record while publicly admitting his use of performance-enhancing drugs… It is time to recognize that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is here to stay and that elite athletes will go to extreme lengths to succeed" (Barnard). There are two very big myths surrounding society and their thoughts on these drug-aided athletes. "One of the myths is that fans won't pay to see drug-aided athletes perform, something that McGwire's example seems directly to contradict. It is said that more people turn up to watch McGwire warm up than attend most matches" (Barnard). The second myth is that athletes that use these performance-enhancing drugs do not have to work as hard. These drugs actually allow the athlete to train harder and longer. The body can only take an athlete so far, but if he or she is on a performance-enhancing drug they can get more out of a day of training. Athletes train themselves to be the best at what they do. They will push themselves close to death. "Among world-class athletes, the lure of steroids is not that they magically transform performance, no drug can do that, but that they make it possible to train harder" (Gladwell). Performance-enhancing drugs may be looked down upon but it has not stopped the initial public from watching and enjoying these athletes' performances.

Performance-enhancing drugs (PED 's) have been an issue for many decades now for the medical and sports field. Olympic and professional athletes have been using them to gain an upper hand on the competition, but some may ask if it 's really worth it? Studies show that performance-enhancing drugs have been proven to negatively affect the health of athletes who take them. Simply put, performance-enhancing drugs could either improve athletic performance or can be extremely dangerous, in certain situations, deadly. There have been strict rules and drug testing in the professional sporting organizations, as well as in world competitions. For example, in the summer of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, in two of the

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.