While London as a city is preparing to host one of the biggest events in its history, bringing in tons of revenue, people, publicity etc., the Olympic staff is also preparing for what they hope to be another successful Olympic games. One of the biggest concerns in sports today is the use of performance enhancing drugs such as human growth hormones and anabolic steroids, both of which are used to artificially create leaner muscle mass while reducing body fat. In the past, these drugs have been a problem in a variety of sports such as baseball, cycling, and track and field. Even more specifically related to the olympics have been the use of these drugs during the actual games. For example, in the 2000 games, Marion Jones won 5 gold medals but was forced to forfeit all of them after it was discovered that she had used performance enhancers. Because of the cheating, it has created a "dark cloud" over those games, specifically that event as people wonder, what if every ran a fair race?
In these upcoming olympics, the anti-doping committee is going to extreme lengths to ensure, every event is competitive yet fair. They have set up multiple ways of detection, including even getting the domestic cleaners in the areas where the athletes will be staying to keep a keen eye out for anything they deem suspicious. Also, the committee has brought together enough funds to hold at least 5000 drug tests. Those can be distributed however the committee chooses, depending if a certain athlete is more suspicious then another.
I think that in the end, this close focus on performance enhancers for the olympics will turn out to be very beneficial and make the olympics a great event. Unfortunately, because everyone wants an edge on their opponent, some will nonetheless use the illegal drugs and get caught. Hopefully the committee can do their job and catch the perpetrators before they win the race and set new "world records" so we dont have to mark an asterisk next to their accomplishment. (see: Barry Bonds)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2044933/London-2012-Olympics-Cleaners-spy-drugs.html
I think it's good that they're trying to clean up the Olympic sports, but at the same time it seems to me that the doping technology is always a step ahead of the tests. I feel as though there's always going to be a way to get an edge no matter how thorough the tests are. For example, in the MLB they've started intensely testing for steroids and have done a good job in the past few years with cleaning up the game in that regard. But while steroids may be out, human growth hormones (HGH) is just moving in. I feel that there will always be people cheating with performance enhancing drugs in sports, but to do what you can to limit the number and to discourage it is good for the sport.
ReplyDeleteI know the Olympic Committee now has all participants partake in a systematic urine and blood test. These tests are orchestrated by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which was created in 1999 in response to a higher percentage of doping findings. It seems like this "Olympic Standard" the IOC has enforced will do significantly better job at preventing doping, because clearly no one wants to watch an awesome performance only to see the athlete have his medal revoked 3 months later.
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