Not everyone looks up when a top athlete dopes. Some offer excuses: the pressure to perform is overwhelming and the rewards are too tempting to resist. We allow special diets, scientifically optimized training, and new devices, so why ban drugs or, in Lance`s case, whole blood bags? Aren`t all these technologies designed to deliver exceptional performance? In some sports at certain times, almost all competitors dope: how could an athlete have a chance to win? But the doctrine of strict liability makes sacrifices for athletes like those on the East German swimming team, who compete in good faith but have been forced to take medication. It also seems dogmatically punitive to athletes like British skier Alain Baxter, who accidentally inhaled a banned stimulant when he used the American version of a Vicks decongestant inhaler without knowing it was different from the British model.42 Richard Pound talks about how steroids caused acne in the late stages of the testicles. testicles the size of gummy cubs, Number of seeds of zero and eternal rabies. These side effects and many others such as enlarged liver are problems, as performance enhancement measures are not regulated by doctors. As Julius Fink mentions in the 2018 article Anabolic Androgenic Steroids: Procurement and Administration Practices of Doping Athletes, these drugs are purchased on the black market. This raises the issue that black-market-bought ASAs put these athletes at high risk of receiving counterfeit and dangerous products. Athletes who use them behind closed doors also advise them not to talk to their doctor about any side effects they may have. If athletes were able to use anabolic steroids legally, then they could get pure forms from a doctor who could observe and monitor side effects.
There is a greater danger if these athletes use modified compounds from the black market than if they use pharmaceutical steroids from a doctor. With doctors monitoring athletes for ASA, side effects could be controlled and minimized. Doctors would also be able to prescribe a safe dosage with their workout instead of guessing or going on what another athlete told them. This control and education on dosage would, in turn, minimize the side effects and dangers of taking AAS. “By allowing everyone to take performance-enhancing medications, we are leveling the playing field.” Far from harming athletes, paradoxically, such a proposal can protect our athletes. There would be a stricter and more regular assessment of an athlete`s health and performance. In addition, the current incentive is to develop undetectable drugs without regard for safety. If safe drugs were approved to improve performance, there would be greater pressure to develop safe drugs. Drugs tend to become safer. So, is the scam here to stay? Drugs are against the rules. But we define the rules of sport.
If we made drugs legal and freely available, there would be no fraud. There is no difference between increasing your blood count by altitude training, using a hypoxic air machine or taking EPO. But the latter is illegal. Some competitors have high PCVs and an advantage through luck. Some can afford hypoxic air machines. Is that fair? Nature is not fair. Ian Thorpe has huge feet that give him an advantage that no other swimmer can get, no matter how much he trains. Some gymnasts are more flexible and some basketball players are seven feet tall. By allowing everyone to take performance-enhancing medications, we level the playing field.
We eliminate the effects of genetic inequality. Far from being unfair, enabling improved performance promotes equality. This poses additional health risks, as the drugs are either manufactured and smuggled into other countries or manufactured in secret labs in the United States. In any case, they are not subject to government safety standards and may be impure or mislabeled. There is a limit: safety. We don`t want an Olympics where people die before, during or after competitions. What matters is health and fitness to be competitive. Instead of testing drugs, we should focus more on health and fitness to be competitive. Forget about checking for EPO, monitor the PCV. We need to establish a safe level of PVC. In the world of cycling, it`s 0.5. Anyone with a PCV above this level, whether through drug use, exercise, or a natural mutation, should be prevented from participating for safety reasons.
If someone naturally has a VPC of 0.6 and is allowed to participate, then this risk is appropriate and everyone should be allowed to increase their VPC to 0.6. What matters is what a safe concentration of growth hormone is – not whether it`s natural or artificial. If you know me (or have been in a class with me), you know how I feel about doping in sport. In fact, anti-doping was one of the reasons I came to law school, Marquette to be precise. In my opinion, doping has no place in sport. The story of how I came to be so staunchly against doping is for another day (and maybe another place), but fundamentally, it`s about my love of cycling and the systematic doping that plagues this sport. Suffice it to say that I am strongly opposed to doping in all sports in all its forms. Many people have been the beneficiaries of illegal steroid use. In baseball, this has made a lot of owners and players very rich.
The idea that no one knew that players were using steroids and PEDs is absurd. They all knew this and chose to enrich themselves instead of protecting the integrity of sport. Similarly, in cycling, doping has enriched many riders. In professional and college football, he created the modern monsters of the business, but unlike baseball, which stagnated, the NFL didn`t have to field players full of drugs to popularize the sport. The NFL`s complicity has gone unnoticed, but it is just as guilty. “What should happen is that doping should be allowed. Sport is constantly evolving. Walter Payton didn`t train with world-class coaches in state-of-the-art facilities when he was dominating. Babe Ruth didn`t drink Gatorade or use creatine when he stunned his fans. We do not prohibit the advantages that modern athletes have over their predecessors, and this attitude of progress should apply at all levels. Better sleep can improve performance.
A healthy breakfast, vitamins and supplements, a harder workout or simple genetic benefits – there are countless factors that contribute to exercise being “unfair”. But that`s the whole point of competition. Which is more “fair” – the use of a team of sports specialists or a simple pill? What is the difference between altitude training and taking erythropoietin to achieve a similar effect? And why are patch strips on the nose – absurdly thought to increase oxygen uptake – more acceptable than a drug that reduces airway resistance? Steroids are not good for your health and have already ended the lives of many wrestlers. I don`t agree with the sentence – “Musburger argues that steroids can be healthy with proper medical supervision.” Allowing steroids will kill ordinary people`s interest in sports. Jack Andro is legally available only by prescription and is a controlled substance. Its use as a performance-enhancing drug is illegal in the United States. Given that the eventual cancellation of the Olympic Games hardly makes headlines and that the number of spectators is already decreasing significantly, would allowing an improvement make the Olympic Games more relevant? Would opening up the competition to anyone wearing an inflatable exoskeleton suit to put them on the track 50% faster than human legs alone make the Games even more convincing? How about changing their genetics to improve an insane amount of red blood cells to carry more oxygen to their muscles? And most importantly, would the changes to the Games still be able to capture what we value in competitive sports in the first place? Athletes will take steroids and turn to doping regardless of the rules.