There is a constant problem of cheating in sports nowadays, and it continues to get worse Through the history of sports there has always been cheating. Cheating in sports has always been a topic for conversations, controversy and debates. It seems that cheating currently is at the highest point, and will not go down anytime soon. With the fast development of technology and medical science it seems that drug use in sports will increase. The line between acceptable and unacceptable will be harder to determine as it takes time to make proper tests.
There are various different motives for someone to cheat. Some sportsmen cheated because of the pressure to be the best. Some cheated for money and some of them cheat because they simply want to have fun. Regardless of the reasons, it seems that the cheating has only increased and will continue to increase even more as the expectations get increasingly demanding and drug use such as steroids get more tempting. The most common cheating in sport is in the use of performance enhancers, used by professional and amateur athletes to increase the performance or make it easier to train.
Use of herbs and hallucinogens to improve the performance and to lower fatigue or injures has been known since the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. During that time the use of herbs, hallucinogens, and other drugs was acceptable and was not considered as cheating. With the development of the medical science through the history, many different kinds of drugs that were developed for the medical purposes find their ways to sport to enhance athletes’ performance. The use of the performance in sport become a problem. The more the medical science advances the drug abuse in sports increases.
The anti-doping agencies around the world have a constant effort to identify those athletes that cheat. There is a strong desire among athletes to be the best and with the money involved, the cheating in sports continue with to the present days and will only increase in the future as the athletes are becoming more sophisticated n finding their ways to win. The most common performance enhancing drugs are steroids but the use of additional human growth hormones, and different type of stimulants and diuretics is also frequent. The invention of firs approved steroids for sale belongs to doctor Zieglar.
In 1958 the steroid was approved and the use of steroids to enhance the performance started to happen more and more. Later, just before his death Doctor Zieglar publicly spoke against his steroids, the drug abuse by the athletes and his regret that he ever worked to develop them. To prevent the use of drugs the athletes are tested and are required to pass the test. It seems that the athletes find their way to cheat and have the tests miss to detect it. One method is the use of soap before the urine test to test if athletes exercise blood doping by using erythropoietin.
Another common doping technique is the blood doping. Blood doping is when the number of red cells is increased in the blood. There are different techniques to increase the red blood cells. The two most common techniques are the blood transfusion and the use of erythropoietin. Erythropoietin is a hormone which multiply the red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen so that by increasing the number of red blood cells, the amount of oxygen that flows through the muscles is increased causing the muscles to perform better.
The blood doping is prohibited by the anti-doping agency. There is a test to test athletes whether they use blood doping. Athletes usually find their ways to pass the test and to cheat. For example, the blood doping test for the use of erythropoietin consist of urine test. There is a soap that has a chemical substance that destroys erythropoietin. Athletes used to rub their hands by the soap just before the urine test. With the fast technology development in the past ten years, the science to invent a new drug is much faster than the development of the drug tests.
The anti-doping agency seems that cannot keep the pace with the drug science. The use of performance-enhancing drugs was much easier to identify just ten years ago. The anti-doping agencies are aware of such a problem. In an interview with the CBC news, the Canadian anti-doping agency recognizes those that cheat. ”\ “It’s like chasing your tail, frankly. You think you’ve closed a loophole and then they find another one. “I mean, they have their own scientists. ” says Canadian anti-doping expert. (Sheena Goodyear, CBC News Posted: Nov 11, 2015 ).
The race between those that cheat and those that do the testing seems to be getting tighter than ever. So far the tests that exist today are the test that can reveal a doping substance in the athlete’s body. The new approach to doping that came to the public light in 2006 reveals the possibility of altering an athlete’s own genetics or DNA. If the genetic doping find the way to doping in sports, the anti – doping agencies would have a very hard task to find the way to prevent it. The conventional tests that are used to discover a substance or chemicals in athlete’s body would not work.
The idea of genetic doping come in 2006 when an attempt was made to use an experimental method of gene therapy to find a cure for anemia, the therapy that was called “Repoxygen”. Repoxygen alters the body’s DNA to make extra erythropoietin, therefore to enhance muscle performance. The science development and an effort to find cures for serious diseases have a danger of abusing the medical science by using for doping in sports. Another method of cheating in sports that does not involve the use of substances or doping is being dishonest.
Simply lying has no borders in an athlete’s creativity in both professional and amateur sport. To win in the 1980 Boston marathon Rosie Ruiz waited near the finish line and waited for a reasonable amount of time passed to cross it, but was later disqualified. It happened again in the 2015 St. Louis marathon when Kendall Schler waited close to the crossing line and entered the race to cross it before everyone else. She was also disqualified. The question remains how many athletes cheat and how many of them actually get caught.