Health & Physical Education: Drugs In Sport
As the world of sport progresses with the increasing competitive events, the athletic life of many professional athletes is leading them in contact with drug abuse for a number of reasons, including to self-treat, relieve stress, retirement from sport, but most commonly, performance enhancement. Seeks to find advantages over the competitions would lead them to success, in order to bring status, popularity, fame, and educational scholarships. Performance enhancing drugs (PED), are one of the biggest issues in all sports, and is becoming a fast crisis within the sporting society. Regarding this, the pressures and expectations to win or perform at an elite level that are being forced on athletes is one of the major factors in leading their use of those prohibited methods/products. Drug use in sports is a problem especially in sporting fields including swimming and athletics, namely the running events, and cycling, particularly the ‘Tour de France’.
Furthermore, on a global scale, drugs have also become concerning in relation to the Olympic Games, resulting in the raise of awareness and actions of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Amongst the most popular and most commonly performance enhancing drug products in sports are stimulants and anabolic steroids, with other drugs produced naturally in the body such as Human Growth Hormone, Blood doping, and Erythropoietin (EPO) etc. Those drugs have continued to evolve overtime with advances in strategies which are driven by the improved drug testing detection methods and scientific research leading to discoveries of the use of later banned substances. However, despite that the evolution of drugs has become advantages taken by athletes during competitive events, certain concerns and risks are still associated and endangered with their application of drugs, such as the act of unfairness amongst other competitors, and most importantly, the negative effects on health and brain.
Athletes applying methods in sports by which advantages them through performance enhancement may lead to the act of unfairness amongst other performers. Performance enhancements are not against competitors in sporting activities, however, gaining an unfair advantage through taking drugs or any other prohibited substances is a real concern behind the closed doors and the cheating claim. Those who use drugs to thrive and succeed constitutes through unfair advantages, and this is the case as not all athletes are permissioned to access methods or products in which are out of the sporting expectation bounds. The United States Anti-Doping Agency states that the primary reason as to why the outlaw of PEDs in professional sports has been taken place is due to the fact that PEDs has provided the users/athletes with ‘’an unfair and unmerited advantage over the rest of the field’’ (Lampkin, 2016).
Furthermore, as an increase in the use of performance enhancing drugs has occurred in recent years, governments tend to be increasing their funds towards athletes who does attempt to unfairly enhance their performance. Despite the truth that all PEDs has been banned in sports by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a range of certain drugs such as anabolic steroids and stimulants have remained to be used in great numbers, forming an overall use statistic of 2% across all athletes over the last years, numerous studies have shown. According to research of the media outlet source, The Conversation, in order to prepare athletes for the last Olympics, Australia has spent over $300 million on them. Similarly, the success of the British squad at the London Olympics was largely due to the financial support for the team (Ketchell, 2015), despising the unfair advantages taken by many competitors. Therefore, considering the states of unfairness caused by use of prohibited substances or methods, performance enhancing drugs should be clearly banned in sports.
Although Performance enhancing drugs may be beneficial to athletes, it is still objected due to its negative effects on the health of the athlete. The negative effects of drugs can last for a long period of time. Judgement and physical abilities are often compromised through the use of those prohibited substance, and can generally cause an athlete unable to perform at their usual standard in a range of contexts on a daily life basis, excluding sports. In terms of this, many athlete do engage in physical activity straight after their use of drug unintentionally; this therefore serves as an indication that they are influenced by the psychological effects of the drugs to a point where they could not consciously understand their own actions and what they are doing. Furthermore, PEDs can also lead to brain damage. From the point mentioned, drugs are clearly detrimental to an athlete’s health, which can therefore potentially cause risks.
Banning drugs in sport will avoid athlete from taking them, which will prevent disqualification in competitive events and competitions. The occurrence of using of drugs to enhance performance began since the time of the Original Olympic games, and many athletes have expectedly been disqualified in formal competitions due to their applications of abandoned drug. What is commonly known to as ‘disqualification’ in athletic events, is actually an ‘ejection’. In sports, an ejection refers to the removal of a participant from a contest due to their violation of the sports rule, especially regarding to drug use.
As mentioned earlier, doping and stimulants are most commonly used during athletics, and it is compulsory for athletes who are found disobeying the sporting rules by using banned substance may be disqualified from the competition for a lengthily time, and for athletes who have been tested positive for the use of banned substance, may receive a lifelong ban from the sport of athletics; this process reflects the severity of the issue, and ensures that all aspects of the competition are remained to be fair. Many cases regarding doping disqualification has occurred overtime within the sports world. Benjamin Sinclair Johnson, a Jamaican-born Canadian former sprinter, was disqualified for doping in the 1987 World Championships in Athletics and 1988 Summer Olympics, losing both of his significant records. In addition, Tim Montgomery, an American former track and field sprinter, was also disqualified in the 2004 Summer Olympics as he was charged by the United States Anti-Doping Agency with applying illegal performance-enhancing drugs. His admission on November 24, 2008 for taking testosterone and human growth hormone before the 4 x 100m relay at the Sydney Olympic Games resulted him in being banned for a long period of time. For avoidance of disqualification, drugs are encouraged to be banned in order to prevent exposure to prohibited substances of competing athletes.
It has been reinforced that despite those substances will allow athletes to further strengthen their performance abilities, it is still important for people understand the negatives associated with drugs. Through the depiction of various aspects of performance enhancement drugs, it is clear that all drug substances should be banned in sport, in order to avoid unfairness and maintain the fairness of competitive events, prevent harm and danger to athlete’s health, and minimise the number of disqualifications due to drugs.
References:
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David van Mill. 2019. Why are we so opposed to performance-enhancing drugs in sport?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-so-opposed-to-performance-enhancing-drugs-in-sport-46528. [Accessed 12 June 2019].
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