Who is responsible for doping in professional team sports?
Overview
With pressure to perform at the highest level, are athletes the only ones responsible for doping in sports?
Who is responsible for doping in professional team sports?
Why do so many well-known athletes use performance-enhancing drugs today? Baseball players like Manuel “Manny” Ramírez, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez have all been accused of using steroids or banned drugs (“doping”) to enhance their athletic performance.
Ramírez retired in 2011 in order to avoid a 100-game suspension from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays after he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs for the third time in his career.
Alex Rodriguez, a slugger for the New York Yankees, was suspended for the 2014 baseball season for using prohibited performance-enhancing drugs. Although Rodriguez denied the use of chemical compounds, he has been disgraced and his record remains under scrutiny.
Since steroids have been declared illegal and are now easily detectable, athletes have started substituting new ways of cheating that are harder to detect. For example, cyclists and other endurance athletes give themselves blood transfusions to alter the oxygenation of their blood.
In 2013, the cyclist Lance Armstrong finally admitted to doping to win his numerous titles and trophies, which had come with huge earnings and endorsement deals. Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times, but after evidence surfaced of his use of illicit compounds, the United States Anti-Doping Agency stripped him of his titles in 2012. The U.S. Postal Service is even suing Armstrong for fraud, because they paid millions of dollars to sponsor him and his team.
Some critics argue that athletes should not be blamed for engaging in doping. Sports writers point out that athletes are so pressured to continuously perform and outdo competitors that steroid use is very tempting. If fans and sponsors didn’t push for more power hitting, faster times, and bigger championships, maybe athletes wouldn’t be so inclined to alter their bodies with potentially dangerous drugs.
Many athletes are conflicted about using these chemical compounds, which take a toll on their mental and physical health. Those using steroids are aware of the negative consequences – men’s breasts grow, and their testicles shrink, they may get acne, and many users experience delusions or feelings of aggression, known as “roid rage.”
Some fundamental questions that perhaps should be asked are: Who is responsible for making illegal substances part of team sports? Would athletes alter their blood and body chemistry if they didn’t feel so much pressure to outperform their peers? Should fans and sponsors bear some of the responsibility?
Credits:
Text credit: Word Generation by SERP and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons By Vzach - Own work, Public Domain.