Drugs in Sports
Drugs in sports have always been a controversial topic. Because the athletic arena is centered on performance and achievement, a large emphasis is placed on hard work, concentration, and sacrifice. For many athletes and sports fans, it is simply unacceptable that some athletes take performance-enhancing drugs to reach their goals. After all drugs in sports really doesn’t mix and many fans are turned off by drugs in sports altogether.
Recent athletic history has been stormy when it comes to the issue. The problem of drugs in sports simply does not go away, and even promises to intensify as science discovers more and more substances that can affect athletic performance. Such substances are often hard to detect through current drug tests.
One of the most controversial of athletes when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs is Barry Bonds. Bonds, one of the professional baseball’s all-time greats and the record holder for second most home runs in baseball history, is currently embroiled in a doping controversy that has threatened to taint his accomplishments for a long time to come. In 2004 the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story alleging that Bonds had been using human growth hormone (also known as HGH), Depo-Testosterone, insulin and a drug for female infertility that can be used to mask steroid use. Bonds has been vehement in his denials for the most part, though he admits that he may have been given performance-enhancing drugs without his knowledge.
Another athlete that is constantly under fire for drug use is Lance Armstrong, the legendary cyclist. Although Armstrong has proven time and again that he was, before his retirement, the premiere cyclist in the world, he is not without his critics. Some competitors contend that Armstrong achieved his supremacy through more artificial means, although this has never been proven conclusively. Armstrong passed all his drug tests with flying colors.
It is clear that that the problem of drugs in sports will not go away soon. However, as the sporting public becomes more and more aware of the situation, the greater the chances of being able to solve this burgeoning problem.
Disclaimer: Cliff Schaffer does not personally endorse or support any of the comments made within the writings of this article.
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