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A scenario, from a 1995 poll of 198 sprinters, swimmers, power lifters, and other assorted athletes, most of them U. S. Olympians or aspiring Olympians: You are offered a banned performance-enhancing substance, with two guarantees: 1) You will not be caught. 2) You will win. Would you take the substance? One hundred and ninety-five athletes said yes; three-said no.
Scenario II: You are offered a banned performance-enhancing substance that comes with two guarantees: 1) You will not be caught. 2) You will win every competition you enter for the next five years, and then you will die from the side affects of the substance. Would you take it? More than half of the athletes said yes. Throughout the world athletes depend on steroids more than ever.
Taking a banned performance-enhancing drug (such as steroids) has become seriously risky. But athletes will do almost anything to gain a competitive edge. Alluding or passing tests has almost become an art. Athletes hire trainers to precisely space their dosages so that the athlete can pass the test. But the real problem has been in Olympians.
There may be some sportsman who can win gold medals without taking drugs, but there are very few, says Dutch physician Michel Karsten. (Over the Edge, Sports Illustrated, April 14, 1997). Steroids is a big problem and laws or better tests need to be administered to save Americas young athletes. The word steroid calls to mind a 350 pound lineman who not so long ago weighed 275 and two thirds of it was fat and now he is all muscle. True, football players depend on drugs a lot in their everyday life, but the real problem is in the Olympics. Its no secret that almost every Olympic athlete uses steroids in training sometime or another. Dozens of coaches and athletes that were interviewed by Sports Illustrated say that the Atlanta Olympics were a carnival of experiments in the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Athletes are a walking laboratory, and the Olympics have become a proving ground for scientists, chemists, and unethical doctors, says Dr. Robert Voy, director of drug testing for the U. S. Olympic committee (USOC) at the 1984 and 88 games.
The testers know that the drug gurus are smarter than they are. They know how to get in under the radar. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) Hoped to fool athletes by bringing in a new piece of equipment for testing. The original machine done with a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, was replaced by a much newer and advanced tester, the high-resolution mass spectrometer that would supposedly be able to catch all athletes who had used steroids in the last two of three months. Unfortunately the $ 2. 5 million drug-testing effort was in fact completely ineffective. Even if the Ioc's equipment was the cutting edge of technology, eliminating drugs from Olympic sports would be no small challenge.
All athletes someday have to choose: Do I want to compete at a world-class level and take drugs, or do I want to compete at a club level and be clean, says Kees Korean, the editor of the Dutch edition of Runners World Magazine. (Over the Edge, Sports Illustrated, April 14, 1997). Over the years athletes of the Eastern-Bloc countries have been known as heavy users of performance-enhancing drugs. Ive had American athletes tell me they were doing performance-enhancing drugs, says Dr. Robert Voy.
Most of these athletes didnt really want to do drugs. But they would come to me and say, Unless you stop the drug abuse in sports, I have to do drugs. Im not going to spend the next two years training&em dash; away from my family, missing my college education&em dash; to be an Olympian and then to be cheated out of a medal by some guy from Europe or Asia who is on drugs. ' Many trainers assume that most of the top-level athletes are on something. In 1993 the head of the Ioc's medical commission, Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium, told a British newspaper that as many as 10 % of athletes were regular users of performance-enhancing drugs.
At the time, the statement made headlines. Now the 10 % estimate seems to be na? ve. In an interview with SI Merode he said, I am not unhappy about the situation. More and more high level athletes have to be treated like normal workers.
We have to be able to face the courts. People dont realize that our power is very weak. We have power only at Olympic games. The federations and national governing bodies have... more power. Everybody is doing it.
Nobody is taking note that an actor, a singer, a politician or a truck driver is taking drugs. They dont have tests. We have tests. We have made a lot of progress. (Get a load of this, The Denver Post, July 28, 1997). The days of an athlete simply turning in a bottle of someone elses urine are over. The officials are now required to watch the athlete urinate.
Even thats not foolproof: Cases have been reported of an athlete urinating before an event, inserting a catheter up his or her urethra and using a turkey baster to squeeze someone elses urine out. I know athletes who take their urine to a womans health center in West Hollywood, says steroid expert Jim Brockman. Usually to pass a drug test one will get a very precise plan to follow if the purpose is dont want to be caught. When following this program the chances of being caught are slim to none. A trainer will give directions to take steroids everyday for three weeks, stop for one week, then begin again, and then stop nine days before your competition. Or, take forty milligrams of steroids three times a week for eight weeks, then take nothing for eight weeks, then resume your schedule for six weeks until three weeks before you competition.
Its not so easy, but with the right dosages the odds of not getting caught are good. (Over the Edge, Sports Illustrated, April 14, 1997). The continual rising in drug use in the Olympics and other sports has spawned a very small vocal movement that promotes the legalization of steroids or other banned substances. The widespread use of anabolic steroids by athletes is upsetting to many people, but it is not clear why, says Dr. Norman Fost, a visiting professor of bioethics at Princeton, The objection that steroids provide an unnatural assist to performance is not yet proven. Many of the means and ends which athletes use and seek are unnatural. From Nautilus machines to...
Gatorade, their lives are filled with drugs and devices whose aim is to maximize performance. (Steroids may be deadly for mice, The Assorted Press News Source, 1997). 338
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