We live in a world where winning is seemingly everything. Competition rules our lives from the sports we play to the test scores we earn. Everyday, we are pushed to be the best and winning is seen as the way to prove we are the best. Winning the championship game, receiving a one-hundred percent on a test, or getting into a prestigious college are just some examples of these manifestations of success. While competition does breed innovation and growth, it can sometimes go too far. In regards to cycling, it can push competitors to become involved in illegal and immoral actions such as taking performance enhancing drugs in order to win. However, taking performance enhancing drugs is banned for a reason; sports should be about showcasing natural …show more content…
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.
One might disagree and state we are all inherently unequal. This is actually beneficial because if we were all the same, there would be no excitement or competition. With differences, there is a wide variety of talents and skills and we can use our own unique adaptations to our advantage. For example, basketball has many different positions because of the height and skills of the players. Point guards have good long range and ball handling skills, while centers are crafty in the post and are incredibly tall. This is what makes sports so exciting to
The seven time victories of Lance Armstrong at the Tour de France proved to be an unforgettable accomplishment that has inspired individuals to part take in the sport of cycling. This triumph, however, spurred curiosity and scandal on whether Armstrong had taken performance enhancing drugs to achieve his victories. The use of performance enhancers has been a debate sparking controversy among the industries of professional sports. Advocates of the legalization of performance enhancing drugs in professional sports believe that it will result in an increase of fans, elevate athlete’s skills, and expand economic sport profits. In contrast, protesters of performance enhancing drugs believe that it will lose fans (due to game deception), risk athlete’s health, and bankrupt sports’ businesses.
A number of prominent athletes have recently experienced a 'fall from grace,' because of the revelation that they used performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon is Lance Armstrong. In an advertisement for Nike that his former sponsor now no doubt regrets, Armstrong is shown asking the viewer "what am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day." Professional cycling is often cited as one of the sports in which doping is most endemic to its subculture, however a number of professional sports have been embroiled in drug scandals. Because of the many revelations about the number of baseball players who used steroids to get their record-breaking statistics, the 1990s are often called the 'steroid' era of baseball. The Olympic track and field star Marian Jones was stripped of her medals, after finally admitting to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (Lardon 2008). "Despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies' attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test" (Savulescu, Foddy, & Clayton 2004).
Nobody would argue that the quality of sports is basically dependent upon the level of skill of its players. As the skills of the players improve, so too does the quality of the game. So why are substances that would further athletes’ skills beyond human levels so ostracized? Doping is the practice of using steroids and other illegal substances to boost performance in sports and athletics. The debate of the morality of such substances has been going on for decades and continues to affect the world of sports in many ways. At the moment, steroids and all other performance-enhancing drugs are banned in their entirety from nearly all sports in most countries of the world. Scandalous lawsuits involving athletes abusing substances are constantly popping up, usually involving players and athletes that were considered fan-favorites or even heroes. Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports because it would make it easier to control them, allow athletes to perform better, and widespread use of steroids would allow more solid research and advancements in the pharmaceutical field.
According to Dr. Charles E. Yesalis, a professor health and human development at Penn St. University, "drug use among athletes has gone dramatically up in recent years. Athletes also are becoming more venturesome about mixing different types of drugs. One reason is that new drugs keep coming on the market, and some turn out to be of help in giving athletes a competitive edge. Sports officials feel they have no choice but to try to combat drug use in sports with every legitimate weapon at their command. They are motivated in part by concern for athletes' well being. Most performance-enhancing agents have side effects that can pose an immediate or long-range threat to health. But the officials are driven by self-interest too. If the public perceive major sports to be hopelessly drug-ridden, attendance and television viewership is likely to plummet. And thatcould lead to financial ruin for athletes and promoters alike. The monetary stakes are higher today than ever before. Many of the top athletes damned very high salaries, and a select few demand huge additional sums for product endorsement. Pro team owners, meanwhile, are constantly scrambling for more income from broadcasting and other sources to meet their massive payrolls and still turn a profit. A series of drug scandals might well cause media outlets and corporate sponsors
A statement from the website Skins, states "Most fans agreed that PEDs are the greatest threat to the future and integrity of sport (73% agree)", Skins 2014. Which, further fortifies the fact that PEDs in sport has the potential ruin the integrity of sport now and in the future. So this is why harsh actions need to be taken in order to save sport as a whole and not making it on big corruption. But then again the majority of Athletes taking PEDs see it as levelling the playing field. For example, in the sport of Cycling where a majority of the athletes have or most likely take PEDs, when your an athlete who's losing race after race due to the fact your rivalry are taking PEDs then you have the incentive to do so yourself in order to level this unfair playing field athletes are having to endure these recent
Every athlete has wished they could jump a little higher, swim a little longer and run a little faster. Throughout the history of sport there have been accounts of chemical enhancements taken by athletes to give them this advantage. This has developed more as time has taken its grasp on modern medicinal practices. People try to obey the laws of a pure sport, yet there seems to be an increasing margin of those who “dope” and get away with it and the small group those that does not, how does this still happen? Is the solution to just allow doping? While with so much speculation and ethically derivative rhetoric to be examined, doping to increase strength in a sport is explicitly wrong to the sport itself. Chemical enhancements discredit the integrity
The most commonly discussed issue in sports of the 21st century is the use of performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes. Over the past four years, it has been nearly impossible to turn on the television without hearing something about athletes and these drugs. From former National League MVP Third Baseman Ken Caminiti's admission of steroid use in an issue of Sports Illustrated (Verducci, 2004) to 2006 Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis being stripped of title due to a failed doping test (Blue, 2006) virtually every sport is involved. Are performance enhancing drugs a substance that threatens the very existence of professional sports, or are they the future? Perhaps the issue
In the world of sports it is a competitive place where athletes lay everything they have worked for their whole lives to win the game. Now these athletes have been striving for greatness and dedicating so much of their lives to getting bigger faster and stronger to be able to win some games and ultimately move up in their careers and possibly make a living out of the sport they love to play. Sports rewards players who are motivated and works harder than the other team and stay focused and just dedicate so much to the sport. Now there are shortcuts to becoming bigger and faster and stronger. While some athletes bleed sweat and work as hard as they can and sometimes get changes slowly and far between some athletes will take performance enhancing drugs which will help these athletes take a shortcut and beat out the others who strive to get better. There in my opinion is nothing wrong with athletes wanting to get an upper edge on opponents by getting bigger and stronger but when the athlete uses performance enhancing drugs to get an upper edge I do not agree with this and feel like those athletes should receive some type of punishment.
According to NPR.com, the argument over the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional athletes has been at the center of an international ethical debate for many years (Katz). Many people argue that these drugs should be allowed, while others argue that these drugs should be banned from professional sports. Professional sports athletes should avoid the use of performance-enhancing drugs so that the integrity of sports will not be damaged.
The issue of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) has been among the most controversial in the sports world. A number of high profile athletes from Barry Bonds to Lance Armstrong have seen their reputations tarnished as a result of their use of these substances. Even the US Congress has held a number of high profile hearings on the subject to rid professional sports of their usage. In the sports world, it is almost assumed that sports are better when PEDs are removed from the game, and that the sport’s integrity is threatened when its players use these banned substances. Bud Selig, the former commissioner of Major League Baseball, described ridding baseball of PEDs as necessary “to maintain integrity, fairness and a level playing field.” Sports leagues have created highly sophisticated systems to identify players who use PEDs and levy them with harsh punishments. I will argue that the argument from fairness presented by Michael Lavin is not a valid reason to ban PEDs from professional sports. To clarify, my argument is not that PEDs are good for athletes or professional sports, but merely that they should not be banned out of a concern for fairness.
Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) have been only in displays. Story shows that given that the premature 1900s, Olympic runners have been mixing their very own recipes they really assumed will strengthen the jogging efficiency. Perhaps a near-lethal blend during brandy and strychnine was first useful for an Olympic marathon runner inside 1904. By way of 1928 the Global Association of all Athletics Federation expanded the first overseas wearing federation and energy to reduce doping as of athletes; that is the regulating bloodstream for tune and area. Nevertheless, inside 1958, the FDA approved the initially anabolic cortisone for sales in the United States, and that transformed the dial over activities for life. Whilst official drug testing in the Olympic Games began inside 1968, an effective test for anabolic steroids wasn't designed until 1975, and the product was instantly included with the prohibited ingredients listing. Many forbidden materials were only pertinent onto Olympic players, inside 1990 Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Property React, adding this product in the same legal party as amphetamines, methamphetamine, opium and morphine. The future year Key Category Soccer prohibited steroids. The MLB commissioner whilst in that time has got mentioned he forbidden steroids mainly on account of the reports over Jose Canseco's usage of the material, even though he didn't actually realize something about steroids through the the evening. Within 1997, the
This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.
Doping has widely become known as the use of banned substances and practices by sports personnel particularly athletes in an attempt to improve sporting performances. No sensible fan of sport today denies the prevalence of drugs in virtually every major sport, yet none would argue they can ever be eliminated completely. Money alone would seem to guarantee that much. High profile athletes today are competing for high stakes, not just millions, but dozens of millions. The fear of losing everything career, opportunity, contracts, name, fame, and money is pushing more sportsmen all over the world to use performance enhancing drugs, mainly
The athletes who use drugs are cheating. They disobey the law and escape the punishment due to the advanced technology which makes it harder to detect the drugs. So, more and more athletes choose to improve their performance by this way. Furthermore, athletes show no respect to themselves and spectators if they take in drugs before the competition. Maybe they do not believe that they have the ability to achieve good results after hard training or can not bear the pressure of failure due to less training. What the spectators want to see is the real ability of the athletes though they also want to watch excellent competitions. In addition, the athletes who use drugs will never experience the joy and fun during the competitions and training. For the athletes who want to use drugs in games, what they are thinking about is only the medals, awards and money, they never really think of the significance of sports so they cannot enjoy the process of the competitions and training.
Performance-enhancing drugs (PED 's) have been an issue for many decades now for the medical and sports field. Olympic and professional athletes have been using them to gain an upper hand on the competition, but some may ask if it 's really worth it? Studies show that performance-enhancing drugs have been proven to negatively affect the health of athletes who take them. Simply put, performance-enhancing drugs could either improve athletic performance or can be extremely dangerous, in certain situations, deadly. There have been strict rules and drug testing in the professional sporting organizations, as well as in world competitions. For example, in the summer of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, in two of the