Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

Performance enhancing drugs in sport is a critical issue and a hot topic within today's society. It seems as if these types of drugs are becoming more and more popular in regards to competition. If everyone you are competing against is taking performance-enhancing drugs, how can you compete without them? At what level should drug test start? What about young athletes aspiring to be professionals? The purpose of this paper is to examine the educational and social construction aspects of performance enhancing drugs in sport as well keeping in mind the youth and the effects doping has on them. At the beginning of the paper some important background such as history, ethics, and health and safety will be discussed. Following the general background, …show more content…
According to the encyclopaedia (2008) “The word doping is often used to refer to any practice involving prohibited substances or other methods to give an athlete an unfair advantage over other competitors”. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is a global movement promoting the equality and fairness of sport with doping-free initiatives. When I think of doping, anabolic steroids come to mind, however, there are other performance enhancing drugs that do not qualify for training and competition. Banned performance enhancing categories of drugs includes anabolic steroids, androstenedione, human growth hormone (HGH), erythropoietin, diuretics, creatine and stimulants (Gereige and Dandoy 2012). Different sports have different rules and regulations, therefore it is important for the athletes to know what they can and cannot have in their systems throughout competitions and training. Although I see performance enhancing drugs in sport as a relatively new phenomenon, I quickly learn with a little bit of research this way of thinking is very …show more content…
Everyone and anyone that knows even the slightest about sports knows about Lance Armstrong. He was a huge icon and role model for so many athletes of all ages. 1993 marked Lance’s first big race win and had 7 Tour de France wins up until 2005 (Osei-Hwere et al. 2014); there was no doubt he was a champion. Armstrong was a Nike ambassador and the founder of LIVESTRONG which is a cancer foundation. Armstrong diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996 and spreading to multiple parts of his body, still went on breaking records despite his illness (Osei-Hwere et al. 2014). Despite many allegations towards Armstrong for performance-enhancing drugs, he denied all of them. It was not until 2013 when Lance admitted to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, the United States Anti-doping Agency Stripped him of his Tour de France medals, and he stepped down from his LIVESTRONG foundation (Osei-Hwere et al. 2014). Individual athletes and sports have a significant way of impacting and influencing a large number of people and society as a whole, especially when it comes to ethics and

Show More