The Greatest Cycling Doping Scheme Fell Apart Around The Ringleader Essay

Mr. Lawton states that, “Doping must have become a lot more sophisticated”, as Hubbard observes that, “The chemists are always one step ahead, working on measures to mask tests.” The issue of doping and performance-enhancing drugs in sport cannot be contained or abolished, because scientists and specialists are producing new drugs and ways of hiding them faster than they are being discovered and detected by WADA and other organisations. Harp believes that the elimination of drugs in sport is “…impossible, there’s as much chance as stamping out prostitution”. There will always be an athlete with an unfair advantage, and athletes would rather go against their own moral conscience than risk their livelihood in admitting to using drugs to enhance their performance.

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.

All this has changed the whole course of doping. Drugs used to be taken just for a one-off effect which activated various standard bodily functions, but now they may bring about the biological reprogramming of the body. To put it plainly, the time is not far off when it will be scientifically possible to make artificial but lasting changes in the way an organ functions and when the technicians of sport will be able to change each drug to meet the specifications for a particular level of performance.

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 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”).

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.

Each year an athlete's creativity comes into play to create ways to become the best in his/her competitive sports; especially when one have to use a lot of endurance and energy to win. In order to be the best you have to put in the work. Some athletes do it the hard way, such as eating healthy, exercising and training. Others use the easy way out, engaging with steroids, enhancements, and blood doping to get ahead of the competition. Many professional athletes have taken to the practice of blood doping in order to gain a competitive edge in their field. But there are those who are crying that doing so can have serious consequences not only to the sports world, but to one’s body as well. Sometimes they look for harmful procedures that increase their athletic ability but can potentially do more harm than good. In this argument, I will be discussing called induced erythrocythemia, commonly known as blood doping, which can lead to medical, physical, and psychological problems.

Rules are put into place so that they will be followed; it creates a system where everyone is on an equal playing field and are only allowed to use natural abilities. However, performance-enhancing drugs dirty the waters. It creates a system in which people cannot trust in because they do not know who is and is not cheating. This seemed to happen with cycling when all of the evidence about taking drugs came out. An overall distrust from the public ensued and reflected legitimacy being taken away from the sport of cycling. Cyclists earned a bad name as cheaters even if they were natural and were looked down upon by the general public. Thus, this fiasco hurts the sport as well as the innocent individuals who were trying to play by the rules.

Historical National Football League coach and manager Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn 't everything--but wanting to win is”. The want to win, is real; it is embodied by the usage of performance enhancing drugs. Blood doping increases the count of red blood cells in the body, anabolic steroids accelerate the growth of muscle and strengthen the bones, and stimulants increase alertness, competitiveness, aggressiveness and reduce fatigue. All of these materials have clear benefits but the health implications are still very present. Many cases of injury from these substances have consequences as serious as death. Athletes worldwide put their bodies and health at risk due to the usage of performance enhancing drugs and methods such as blood doping, steroids, and injections. But in retrospect, it harms a lot more than just an athlete’s body; in fact, performance enhancing drugs and supplements plague the athletic playing field worldwide, which leads to social unrest, health issues, and even political issues.

They argue that performance enhancing drugs remove the morality and dignity within sport as the element of raw talent and skill disappears. Antidoping laws generally exist in order to provide a safe and fair environment for participation in sport (Allhoff 2009). These laws should prevent and protect athletes from subjecting themselves to health risks through the use of performance enhancing drugs. It is believed that performance enhancing drugs have the power to overcome differences in natural talents and the willingness to sacrifice and persevere in the quest to perfect those talents. These drugs are dangerous and although certain drugs have the potential to increase athletic performance, they carry the risk of side effects, which may include death and life-long morbidity. Sports that hold historical records and comparisons with them would become irrelevant by drug-aided athletes who would completely obliterate the old standards (Orchard 2006). A cycle would begin where athletes would be encouraged to take more and more drugs in other to keep up with the rapidly growing standard that comes with performance enhancement. It would create pressure for more athletes to ‘cheat’, undermining the basis for the competitions at stake and exacerbating the gap between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot (Juengst 2015). Ethically, the sense of fair competition would be lost if performance enhancement was decriminalised as there would be no ceiling as to how far one could go to enhance themselves chemically for their chosen sport. Sport without antidoping laws would also disadvantage further those athletes who wanted to compete at an elite level without risking their health. Performance enhancement has the potential to create a public health catastrophe, whilst we would

The use of PEDs not only affects the athlete that chooses to use them, but also the athletes they are competing against, other teams, and the team or country they are representing (“Survey Reveals”). It is important for athletes to maintain a good reputation in competition, because they need to represent their team in a positive manner and not create suspicion or problems surrounding the athlete and the team. Using PEDs will cause negative issues and poor reputations for the affected team. For instance, Austrian skier Johannes Duerr admitted to using EPO and was eliminated from competition.

Athletes should be drug tested before they are allowed to play because of athletes like Marion Jones. Did you know that Marion Jones an Olympic athlete that won five olympic medals admitted to using steroids? She won all five medals in one olympic game. She was sentenced to six months of prison, two years of probation, 800 hours of community service and her three gold medals and two bronze medals were stripped. All because she

In the middle of the 20th century, a troublesome problem arose in the sports world: doping. In the 1960s, the first evidence that athletes were using performance-enhancing drugs surfaced (Catlin, Fitch, and Ljungqvist 104). Even though significant evidence prevailed that athletes used the drugs to increase their athletic performance, there was no way to detect drug use. People did not know what to think of the problem, but when a cyclist died at the 1960 Olympic Games from doping, sports organizations started to take action (Catlin, Fitch, and Ljungqvist 100). Scientists went to work looking for a way to detect performance-enhancing drugs in athletes. It took several years before any reliable drug testing methods came about. During the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in 1966, the first drug test was performed (Hanstad, Smith, and Waddington 229). In the following year, more sports organizations took a stance against drugs in sports. Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and the

On January 17, 2013, Lance Armstrong admitted to doping during his professional cycle careers. He joins other great names; such as Tyson Gay, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez; all great athletes who have had their reputations tarnished by using performance enhancing drugs (sometimes shortened to PEDs). In his interview with Opera Winfrey, Armstrong stated that “I didn 't view [doping] [as cheating]. I viewed it as a level playing field” (Lance). With this statement, Armstrong is declaring that many professional cyclists and other professional athletes engage in illegal doping in order to improve their performances. These drugs can be useful for their ability to decrease recovery time, allowing athletes to train more intensely. Currently, most forms of performance enhancing drugs are banned from use in professional sports (caffeine is a common legal substance). However, it is well known that performance enhancing drugs are used by athletes in a wide variety of sports at a variety of levels. Since, according to Armstrong, most athletes are using these drugs, a new approach needs to be implemented to deal with performance enhancing drugs. One possible solution is to just allow the use of performance enhancing drugs.

In essence, the competition is a scientific experiment that determines which doping regime is more capable of any given day. Burns also argues that doping tarnishes cherished sports memories and disillusions loyal fans. He concludes that the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) is still rife in professional sports because it works. Burns point out, "If doping starts to make you question the greatness when you see it, they are losing a fan. (Doping Undermines the Integrity of Competition) Athletes such as: Martina Hingis, Shane Warne, Lance Armstrong, Jobe Watson, Barry Bonds, OJ Mayo and Shawne Merriman all have been accused of taking a banned substance while in competition since the turn of the century. The sports are as diverse as the substances ranging from the recreational (Cocaine) through weight loss and masking agents (diuretics) to the full-measure blood doping (EPO) and steroids (such as DHEA). A Cocaine trace that caused Hingis to suffer a two-year ban may have been due to a lack of awareness or a lapse in self-control but the other elements provide a clear performance benefit and have corresponding penalties as decreed by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA). (Doping: A Fan’s