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Doping in pro sport? Is it common practice or rare as talking bananas?
- Published_at:2012-06-15
- Category:Sports
- Channel:durianriders
- tags: doping, lance, armstrong, Lance Armstrong (Cyclist), richard, virenque, steroids, cycling, racing, sport, marion, jones
- description: Doping in pro sport? Is it common practise or rare as talking bananas? The use of performance-enhancing drugs in human sport is commonly referred to by the term doping, particularly by those organizations that regulate competitions. The use of performance enhancing drugs is mostly done to improve athletic performance. This is why many sports ban the use of performance enhancing drugs. Another similar use of medical technology is called blood doping, either by blood transfusion or use of the hormone erythropoietin (EPO). The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical by most international sports organizations and especially the International Olympic Committee, although ethicists have argued that it is little different from the use of new materials in the construction of suits and sporting equipment, which similarly aid performance and can give competitors an unfair advantage over others. The reasons for the ban are mainly the alleged health risks of performance-enhancing drugs, the equality of opportunity for athletes, and the exemplary effect of "clean" ("doping-free") sports for the public. Texts going back to antiquity suggest that men have always tried to work harder or at least suffer less as they were doing so. When the fittest of a nation were selected as athletes or combatants, they were fed diets and given treatments considered beneficial. For instance, Scandinavian mythology says Berserkers could drink a mixture called "butotens", perhaps prepared from the Amanita muscaria mushroom, to increase their physical power a dozen times at the risk of insanity. In more recent times, the German missionary and doctor Albert Schweitzer wrote of Gabon in the early 19th century: "The people of the country can, having eaten certain leaves or roots, toil [pagayer] vigorously all day without feeling hungry, thirsty or tired and all the time showing a happiness and gaiety." A participant in an endurance walking race in Britain, Abraham Wood, said in 1807 that he had used laudanum, or opium, to keep him awake for 24 hours while competing against Robert Barclay Allardyce. By April 1877, walking races had stretched to 500 miles and the following year, also at the Agricultural Hall in Islington, London, to 520 miles. The Illustrated London News chided: It may be an advantage to know that a man can travel 520 miles in 138 hours, and manage to live through a week with an infinitesimal amount of rest, though we fail to perceive that anyone could possibly be placed in a position where his ability in this respect would be of any use to him [and] what is to be gained by a constant repetition of the fact. The event proved popular, however, with 20,000 spectators attending each day. Encouraged by this, promoters developed the idea and soon held similar races for cyclists. "...and much more likely to endure their miseries publicly; a tired walker, after all, merely sits down - a tired cyclist falls off and possibly brings others crashing down as well. That's much more fun". The fascination with six-day bicycle races spread across the Atlantic and the same appeal to base instincts brought in the crowds in America as well. And the more spectators paid at the gate, the higher the prizes could be and the greater was the incentive of riders to stay awake—or be kept awake—to ride the greatest distance. Their exhaustion was countered by soigneurs (the French word for "carers"), helpers akin to seconds in boxing. Among the treatments they supplied was nitroglycerine, a drug used to stimulate the heart after cardiac attacks and which was credited with improving riders' breathing. Riders suffered hallucinations from the exhaustion and perhaps the drugs. The American champion Major Taylor refused to continue the New York race, saying: "I cannot go on with safety, for there is a man chasing me around the ring with a knife in his hand." Public reaction turned against such trials, whether individual races or in teams of two. The father of anabolic steroids in the United States was John Ziegler (1917--2000), a physician for the U.S. weightlifting team in the mid-twentieth century. Ziegler learned from his Russian days that the Soviet weightlifting team's success was due to their use of performance-enhancing drugs. Deciding that U.S. athletes needed chemical assistance to remain competitive, Ziegler worked with the CIBA Pharmaceutical Company to develop an oral anabolic steroid. This resulted in the creation of methandrostenolone, which appeared on the market in 1960.
| ranked in date | views | likes | Comments | ranked in country (#position) |
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| 2012-06-18 | 2,179 | 105 | 104 |
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