Do not be so naive. Rocky Balboa is perhaps one of the greatest heroes in the history of sports movies for doing things the right way while Ivan Drago used drugs to his advantage, yet Sylvester Stallone juiced consistently throughout the filming of the Rocky movies. We know about many baseball players who used steroids, but what about all of those who never failed a drug test, especially those who played in the steroid era?
Were steroids legal under both statutory law and in Major League Baseball, there would be no questions about who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and we would not have to tarnish the name of athletes who made the decision to use steroids, frankly because they felt they needed to keep up. We would not be beholden to the awed MLB drug testing system to determine which athletes are role models and which are not.
With body image issues becoming increasingly prevalent among adolescent males and females, one cannot help but wonder whether openness about steroids could help ameliorate such issues.
Social media and the internet have thrust images of muscular, lean men in front of adolescent males, and many of these bodies were created with the use of steroids or similar drugs. Young men are tricked into believing that they can achieve a certain physique that is unattainable to Young women experience similar issues as well. If athletes, bodybuilders, models, and any others whose bodies are put on a pedestal were open about their steroid use, young men and women would be able to have more realistic body goals and better body images.
We could better disseminate information about the risks associated with steroids and better manage steroid use so they are safely used. Further, legal, regulated steroids can help doctors enforce that steroids are drugs with potential side effects, and adults are responsible enough to weigh the risks of and adolescents are not, especially considering that the long-term health risks are considerably greater for those who are still developing.
I envision a future where steroids are legal in society and in sport. People are well-educated on their benefits, side effects, and their use in medicine. Sports fans are happy with the on-field product and no longer have to ask questions about who is playing by the rules.
The playing eld will be level, as athletes are all able to take PEDs. Young athletes understand that steroids are for adults, and, if they wish to play professionally, taking PEDs is a choice they may want, but do not have to make. Young men and women understand what a realistic physique to obtain without PEDs is as well as what is obtainable with which drugs. The relaxation has done nothing to affect the spectacle, nature or definition of sport. It has just meant we don't have to waste time working out how much Coca-Cola an athlete has drunk.
People still need to train to make the most of their drugs, then. It doesn't help to look at sport as being a battle of wills if, as we've already seen, the natural limits of the human body are increasingly the reason for success. I could try all I want, but I will never make it as a professional gymnast because I'm just too tall and awkward.
The same applies to many athletes now who are never going to be able to beat Jessica Ennis, no matter how much they try. We as spectators push athletes to be the absolute best, and in the process create the culture where doping is needed to reach those heights. It increasingly feels difficult to reconcile the purity of asking athletes to do whatever it takes to win as long as that isn't going beyond an arbitrary definition of "natural". Performance-enhancing drugs are that great leveler, that tool for athletes to bridge the unfair natural gap.
Doping should only be banned when it is significantly harmful relative to the inherent risks of sport, or against the spirit of a particular sport. For example, drugs to reduce tremor like beta blockers in archery or shooting are against the spirit of that sport as it is inherently a test of ability to control nerves.
Drugs which removed fear in boxing would be against the spirit of boxing. But blood doping up to a haematocrit [percentage of red blood cells in blood] of 50 percent is safe and not against the spirit of cycling. Miah also points out that there is a lot of legal doping going on already, such as altitude chambers, which recreate the experience of training in thinner air to give athletes a bigger oxygen capacity.
WADA approved such chambers in because they were felt to recreate a natural phenomenon. But then what's the difference between that and injecting someone with natural growth hormones, for instance?
Here a massive disclaimer: All athletes are not clean today. Microdosing of PEDs under the radar is the most common method. Leagues, international federations and entire nations may or may not be involved in large-scale efforts to avoid the stain of doping and preserve otherworldly athletic performances.
Find your ethical comfort level, but understand that drugs are still being used. There may be an element of Placebo effect, but as a general rule PEDs will affect some degree of performance enhancement, as it says in the title. Women are affected more than men, because men have far more natural testosterone.
But they will make almost everyone a better physical version of him or herself. How different? But I do think the record would be 9. And Bob Hayes Olympic gold medalist in the meters in never trained full-time. He ran on dirt tracks. Take any great from the past, in any sport, and make his greatness just a little larger.
Or perhaps, because everybody would have been juicing, everybody would have been a little bigger, a little faster, a little stronger. Perhaps the pecking order would have remained in place Maybe somebody else also would have hit Perhaps Ben Johnson would still have his gold from the Seoul Olympics—unless you believe that Carl Lewis-on-roids would have beaten him.
True cynics are laughing at this qualifying clause. Likewise, pro bodybuilding does not test for PEDs, and the winners have grown bigger and more impressive over time. The use of PEDs is a science. In their support systems, along with personal trainers, strength coaches and massage therapists, agents and business managers, athletes would also have steroid gurus. They said his brain was that of a year-old dementia patient. Eddy did steroids too but his heart problems were caused by years of hard drugs and prescription drug use not steroids.
Steroids need to be illegal!! It is not fair for people who work hard for their big muscles and who go to the gym everyday, and someone else just injects themself with a needle or whatever. And it is so horrible for the people who take steroids because it messes up your body so much!!! Steroids are just an excuse or an easy way to get bigger. People who uses steroids are just lazy to work for it or gain it themselves. Steroids should be allowed in professional sports, because after all, playing a professional sport is a job.
Why should someone be denied from something that will help them be better then their competitor. With concussions becoming such a big deal recently you would think people would want to stop athletes from getting even stronger and possibly giving more concussions to other players. Musberger should be ashamed of himself. Getting to the top of the mountain should be earned through discipline, hard work and perseverance — not by cheating or using a quick fix. I disagree with you because, doping does affect the integrity of the sport along with the health of the athlete.
Getting a joint reaper is a surgery to get a athlete back in to the sport. Tom Kamenick. I agree and feel that steroids should be banned. The reasons why are pretty clear including the obvious health concerns, unfair advantages it provides and also the message it sends to our younger generations. When you think of basketball household names would be Michael Jordan, Dr. Now think about how devastated they would be and what it would do to the sport itself. It puts in jeopardy the very programs that are meant to get those athletes face time with younger generations.
To plant those lifetime roots of and keep those kids on the straight and narrow with at young ages a very achievable goal of becoming a professional. Majority of kids at some time have definitely sat in the backyard and done countdown of 5,4,3,2,1 score and the crowd goes wild. That is why I feel that steroids have absolutely no place in professional sports.
An unstated assumption of your argument is that play between any specific players is fundamentally fair. So that is a specific and everyday example to the contrary, from my own real life. For a silly but philosophically illustrative example, would you fault me if I would be willing to pay to watch the featherweight champion and a team of endocrinologists take on the heavyweight champion?
I have no specific disdain for doing things the old-fashioned way. I agree popping pills and whatnot to get bigger is too easy a shortcut to gain an advantage, and so PEDs should definitely be illegal in all sports. But it becomes ridiculous when the NCAA puts a limit on caffeine. We reserve the right not to publish comments based on such concerns as redundancy, incivility, untimeliness, poor writing, etc.
All comments must include the first and last name of the author in the NAME field and a valid e-mail address. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content Ask anyone with a decent knowledge of sports and current events, and they will tell you: doping in sport is a problem.
Interesting article. Steroids are a pox upon the sporting world. This article has a great idea.
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