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The Ethics of Steroid Use in the Olympics Essay examples

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The desire to compete — and win — is as old as history itself. From the beginnings of sport, athletes have sought out foods and potions to turn their bodies into winning machines. As early as 776 BCE, the very first Olympic games, there are records of attempts to increase testosterone levels (“Steroid Abuse in Sports”). Ancient Greek wrestlers ate vast amounts of meat to gain muscle mass, and Norse “Berserker” warriors took hallucinogenic mushrooms before battle. The first competitive athletes to be charged for doping, however, were swimmers in 1860s Amsterdam. Doping of all kinds, from caffeine to cocaine to anabolics quickly spread to other sports (“Anabolic Steroids, a Brief History”). Artificial testosterone was first synthesized in …show more content…

Now, athletes can be fined up to $1 million if they test positive for steroids (“Use of Steroids in Olympic Sports”). 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. 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. Fairness is not the only issue at play. There are

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