Performance enhancing drugs: are they enhancing or hindering our sports?

Many athletes choose to use performance enhancing drugs to help them win regardless of the numerous risks involved. Using performance enhancing drugs comes with dramatic health risks and with technology constantly advancing,it has become increasingly difficult to get away with it. In sport, drug users are looked down upon as their reputation is ruined. Are these risks to health and reputation worth suffereing through in order to gain that extra inch?



Athletes at training

  Taking any drug comes with risks, performance enhancing or recreational. Drugs such as anabolic steroids and diuretics come with devastating short term and long term health risks. Although steroids build muscle mass, and can be enhancing for strength based sports, is it really worth taking the drugs when the list of effects is so long? In this decade, every elite athlete strives to represent their country and are sometimes pressured to win Olympic medals. For some athletes, the pressure proves too much and they resort to using drugs. Society has created a culture where some athletes feel pressured to acheive at the highest level. In the old days, athletes put in the hard yards and struggled through hours of intense training to acheive that extra inch but now, many athletes rely on drugs as well as performance enhancing supplements and atire. Wouldn't you rather the satisfaction that comes after hard work over the guilt that comes with taking the drugs?
 

Sally Pearson in tears as she crosses the finish line to win the Women's 100m Hurdles
at the World Athletics Championships

Most athletes that have been caught using drugs have been completely stripped of all medals and are almost always banned from their sport for life, even though half the feild might be doing the same. There is no question that drugs are making sport unfair, removing the "level playing field" and ruining the fun for everybody. Some people may argue that if drugs are making sport unfair, why don't we make them legal? But, if we did that, sport would be fair because almost everybody would be taking drugs, but there are too many problems if that were to happen in the future. One of the major issues (regarding health) is that the athletes taking the drugs would be burnt out with fatal health problems within the first year or two. Sport shouldn't have a time limit or make somebody's life miserable because of poor health, it should be enjoyed. Another problem is the message that would be sent to children and teenagers. Children and teenagers are inspired by athletes because they chase after their dreams and work hard to get there. Would you want your grandchildren to grow up thinking that they don't have to work hard because they can take drugs to get them there?

Children having fun at Auskick

So, are performance enhancing drugs enhancing or hindering our sports? In our opinion, it's the latter. They are destroying healthy competition, careers and most importantly, athletes' bodies. Maybe if we reduced the pressure and hype of competition, drugs would be less of a problem. But would that take away from the happiness and satisfaction of defying the odds and winning a major event? That's up to the individual and their conscience, but one thing is for sure, drugs should not have such a major role in sporting culture.

Michael Phelps at the Beijing Olympics 2008