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Trey Cowley Mrs. Smith Composition 12 May 2015 Sports or Cartoons According to WADA, there was an estimated two percent of athletes in the London Olympics that used some kind of PED. Thats 200 of the 10,000 athletes. Doping has been a problem for many years, and drugs are only getting more powerful and harder to catch (Douglas). Performance enhancing drugs need to be monitored more strictly to keep athletes on a level playing field because of the danger and unfair advantages PEDs present. Performance enhancing drugs are overlooked and need to be kept under control. “ Testing 24 times a year is not enough considering EPO (erythropoietin, a PED) can be cleaned from the system within one day” (Hruby). Professional cycler, Neil Armstrong, won seven Tour de France titles while using EPO and not gotten caught a single time. He still today would be know as a hero if it were not because of his conscious. In 2007 there was a bike racer that got caught for using steroids and the WADA did not allow a lifetime ban be put upon him (Neil). The WADA does not know the seriousness behind this, because this racer had won a lot of races in the past. He then takes the prize and fame from other people who worked just as hard without cheating to get the same place he was. People can be breaking records and becoming heroes while doping their way to the top. More and more people could be getting away with this cheating. Doping is considered a moral consideration instead of a legal consideration. There should be harsher consequences for those who dope. Surely if there was to be a harsher penalty, like banning the
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athlete for life if caught doping, there would be a noticeably less amount of dopers (Neil). People like sports because of the great competition and talent from hard working individuals. Legalizing doping would devalue sports and competitiveness (Neil). Famous, hard working elite athletes worked their way up to the top, "Sports are about athletes getting to physical Peak" (Usain Bolt). Coming from him means a lot because of his first hand experience. Think about it, if the penalty was to be banned from life if caught doping, nobody in the right mind would dope and take that risk. N ot only are these drugs overlooked, they give athletes an unfair advantage. Performance enhancing drugs give athletes a bigger, illegal advantage above others. Sports are about competitive behavior, sportsmanship and the drive to get better. With doping not under control or if it becomes legal, it would take all of that away. EPO blood boosting drug, gives NBA players that fourth quarter edge over their defender making it unfair (Neil). Players work hard to get where they are at in the NBA, and it is natural for a player to play three quarters and naturally get tired, mentally and physically when the fourth quarter comes around. That is where you really can tell who the elite athletes are, the ones who can play through that mental and physical exhaustion. EPO takes that characteristic away from the game. Blood booster EPO is banned, but high altitude chambers, which have the same effect as EPO, are legal. High altitude chambers cost between $15,000 to $20,000 while EPO is a few hundred dollars for monthly supply (Douglas). Athletes take the easy, cheaper and illegal way out to achieve something they could do legally. It would not be fun seeing players hit eighty plus home runs in a season and shattering any records of all types; “That would turn sports into more of a cartoon” (Rosenberg). With all the crazy records that would be broken, it would be as if we were watching a morning cartoon. What people need to realize is the fact that PEDs would make sports a joke.
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Fields would be too short, basketball hoops too low and even balls too light or small. The effects are just too great, and with all these crazy advantages comes a great cost. The harm of performance enhancing drugs to the human body are horrid. There are many types of PEDs that athletes use. Blood boosters, or EPO, killed over twenty European cyclists suddenly at rest or doing daily activities in the 1980's alone. Blood boosters add red blood cells to carry more oxygen throughout the body, and these cells are known to add up and clot causing strokes or heart attacks (Douglas). Doing this extreme PED is stupid because it does not matter how much a person takes, if taken at all there is risk of sudden heart attack or stroke and maybe even death. Anabolic steroids are an example of a muscle enhancer; “Athletes use this type of drug to increase muscle, and overall strength, and speed” (Douglas). They are also used to reduce time of recovery (Hruby). People think steroids are only used for athletes that need to get strong and more explosive, but little do they know that anabolic steroids reduce recovery time which is what cardio athletes need. Health risks of anabolic steroids are mostly long term in athletes, they have phase called 'roid rage' which makes the user have extreme and violent aggression. Anabolic steroids can also cause liver and kidney damage as well as shrunken testicles in males and deepened voice, enlarged clitoris, and growth of facial hair in women (Douglas). HGH, human growth hormones, is a drug that acts like the hormone in the body that is released to make bones and muscles grow. These are extremely dangerous because of the fact that certain parts of the body can grow faster or more than other parts. Human growth hormones can cause heart failure as well as arthritis which can lead to deformation of the skull and jaw (Douglas). Gene doping is a newer type of doping because of the effects it has. Gene doping can affect the sperm and egg cells which would ultimately affect future generations (Douglas). Not only is the athlete
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choosing to harm their body, but they are harming others that have not been born and have no choice to gene doping. Professors also have hypotheses about their opinions about PEDs; "If you allow doping, then there's a trickledown effect. You'll have to dope just to get to the professional level, at which point you'll have doctors supervising your red blood cell count and so on. So it's the kids who will be most at risk, forced to dope just to reach the level where doping can be done 'safely'" (Neil). All of these awful things could and will happen to people who use and continue to use PEDs to reach their goals. Let alone if they were legalized, which would be like encouraging young boys and girls to destroy their bodies from the inside out. Caffeine was put on the banned list in 2004, despite that it is proven to be a performance enhancer as well as dangerous enough to put someone into the hospital. WADA bans drugs if they enhance performance, provide health risks and or violate 'Spirit of the sport' (Douglas). A survey taken in 19821995 showed that half of the athletes that took the survey would take a PED that was undetectable , even if the athlete knew that the drug would kill them in less than five years. Two hundred of the same people took the same survey, but only one percent of them said they would take the drug (Douglas). This is a staggering amount of people and should not be that high at all, and should be at the same percent as the athletes. Douglas also stated that the main reason PEDs are banned is because they can and will kill you if taken. People should know that it is not only because of the unfair advantage, but that PEDs are dangerous drugs that can kill. That is also really weird because caffeine is legal to any age which could be very dangerous. PEDs are an incredible drug that does awful things too all aspects of athletes lives. Because of the dangerous and illegal advantage PEDs provide, they should be kept under better surveillance to keep athletes performing at a fair level. The underlooked PEDs play an
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important role in the sports world. They could be secretly in the record books and we would never know unless this is put to a stop. These so called secret records also come at a high price to pay. The human body really takes a beating after years of PED use. There needs to be something done about the use of PEDs before ESPN becomes the newest morning cartoon. Works Cited B., Neil. "There Should Be Much Harsher Sanctions Against Doping in Sports." Doping . Ed. Margaret Haerens. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Doping in Sports—A Moral or Legal Issue?" Tribesports.com . 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context . Web. 22 Apr. 2015. Douglas, Scott. "Doping Can Harm Athletes." Doping . Ed. Margaret Haerens. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Choose PerformanceEnhancing Hugs: The Health Fundamental of Doping." The Atlantic (22 Jan. 2013). Opposing Viewpoints in Context . Web. 22 Apr. 2015. Hruby, Patrick. "Doping Provides an Unfair Advantage." Doping . Ed. Margaret Haerens. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Why Wouldn't NBA Players Use PEDs?" Sports on Earth . 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context . Web. 22 Apr. 2015. Rosenberg, Michael. "PerformanceEnhancing Drugs Should Not Be Legalized." PerformanceEnhancing Drugs . Ed. Roman Espejo. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Don't Take Easy Way
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Out; PEDs Are Bad for People, Including Athletes." Sports Illustrated (15 July 2010). Opposing Viewpoints in Context . Web. 22 Apr. 2015.