Tainting the World's Greatest Spectacle

        The use of performance-enhancing drugs for Olympic athletes should also be sanctioned because of the blurred line between what is considered legitimate and illegitimate aids. Depending on the amount of money an athlete possesses, they purchase a variety of dietary supplements, athletic equipment, exercise clothing, medical treatments, training instructors, and doctors to improve their performances. There is nothing “natural” about these special vitamins, whole-body Lycra suits, LASIK and arthroscopic surgery, track spikes on a sprinter’s shoe, hyperbaric chambers, or even pumping iron every single day in the gym. These advantages give an unfair edge and an advantage to those who can afford the best and have unlimited funds, leaving those who are economically and financially deprived and have been training all their lives helpless. There have also been several drawbacks halting the progress of athletes in the last decade, because of the current International Olympic Committee and World Anti-Doping Agency regulations. Due to these rules, athletes have been denied simple cold remedies such as Benadryl and participation in the games as a result of drugs taken inadvertently like those in nasal sprays (having a minimal stimulating effect on performance) plus other legally prescribed drugs outside sporting contexts, leaving some people wondering the accuracy of these tests. Alain Baxter, a British skier, was stripped of his Olympic bronze slalom medal after he used a Vicks inhaler. High-end athletes, superstars, and roles models for millions of kids around the globe are being accused of doping everyday due to positive tests that are simply the result of a combination of legal food supplements (nandrolone) and other natural occurring substances produced by the body such as testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH). One other example is with the drug erythropoietin (EPO), a naturally occurring hormone produced by the body which stimulates red blood cell production and, in turn, increases the packed cell volume – the composition of erythrocytes in the blood. As in many sporting events such as swimming, cycling and long-distance running, the ability to perform well is dependent on the body’s ability to uptake oxygen and delivering it to the respiring muscle cells for cellular respiration to take place. The more red blood cells you have, the more oxygen you can carry. The average person has a packed cell volume (PCV), or hematocrit (HCT), of 0.4-0.5 (40-50 percent). 5 percent of the world’s population, however, has an advantageous trait in which they have a PCV above 0.5 which increases oxygen-carrying capacity. The International Cycling Union, in an effort to detect EPO directly, requires athletes to have PCV levels 0.5 or lower. Therefore, those athletes who have natural elevated levels of packed cell volume cannot race unless authorized by medical professionals who can prove they are natural. Charles Weglius, a British cyclist, was wrongfully banned from the sport because he had his spleen removed following an accident in 1998, and since the spleen removes blood cells, this accounted for the increase in PCV and red blood cell count. Finally, sport is sometimes not safe enough for many athletes without drugs. If an athlete suffers from asthma, high blood pressure, or cardiac arrhythmia, competition places tremendous stress on their bodies which raises the likelihood of chronic harm. If an archer requires beta blockers to treat heart disease, should we be worried if it will give him or her an advantage over the other competitors or their health? Or if an anaemic cyclist wants to take EPO, we should rather be concerned with the treatment for anemia. If legalised, it removes any uncertainty and controversy. Not to mention the considerable amount of effort to regularly test the competitors and banning those who “failed” them; WADA alone costs around $22 million per year just to test around 15% of the athletes. Since there is no way to deem and distinguish what are natural or unnatural substances, they should all be allowed as there is no fine line.

        Finally, the use of artificial aids and the professional athletes who use them balances out the competition. There is constant suspicion, and conspiracy over “doping” that surrounds the sporting realm and every successful athlete involved. Those competitors in each sport who do not take performance-enhancing drugs see themselves as being disadvantaged as most of these drugs taken by athletes cannot be tested for, and in those cases which there are available screening, medical and technological advancements are already one step ahead of the testers. Just because it is banned does not mean people will find a way around it. It is unfair for those honest athletes who miss out on an advantage that the cheats enjoy. If legalised, any scepticism would be totally negated which will enable everyone to compete openly and most importantly fairly in addition to narrowing the gap between the cheaters and honest athletes. The competitive nature of sport is also hindered by the difference of physiques in the athletes. Sport, sadly, discriminates against the genetically unfit. Michael Phelps’ lactate levels when training is that of a normal person when resting. His wingspan, 3 inches longer than his 6-4 height, gives him an unparalleled advantage that no swimmer can match no matter how much they train. Some gymnasts are more flexible than others, and some basketball players are seven feet. Genetic tests these days can also determine those with the greatest potential. If you have the ACE gene, you will have a high-degree for endurance events and cardiovascular fitness. Black people, exclusively, excel in short-distance track events because they are biologically engineered and predisposed of a gene with a unique and superior muscle type and bone structure. Finnish skier Eoro Maentyranta, who won two medals in 1964, was found to have a genetic mutation in which he had ‘naturally’ 40-50 percent more red blood cells than the rest of his competitors. Is it fair chance and luck gave him a significant advantage? By allowing everyone to take performance-enhancing drugs, we remove genetics out of the equation and allow athletes to correct for natural inequality; keeping everyone at sea level, and making the games more competitive and less of a genetic lottery. You can view drug use as a way to even nature’s odds.

        If drug use was acceptable, it would allow for more records to be broken and a much more exciting event. Spectators and the media in this day of age have become an integral part of the sporting industry. Elite sport is mainly about the viewer’s enjoyment – after all, they foot the enormous bill. Why deny the fans what they want especially if the athletes want to give it to them? Who would not want to see more displays of sheer raw power as that displayed by Usain “Lightning” Bolt at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, easily leaving the rest of the field chasing his shadows in world record time? This is the beauty of sports. The removal of doping controls would also result in less cheating, increased solidarity and respect between athletes, and most importantly more focus on sport and not on rules. If performance enhancing drugs were permitted, there would also be greater pressure to develop safer drugs. Athletes take far more than is needed for performance-enhancers, with some cheats trying to develop these untraceable synthetic drugs by means of chemistry; running needless health risks with little concern for safety either because of ignorance or the need for secrecy. In Goldman’s survey, athlete’s were also asked whether they would take a banned substance if it was guaranteed that they would not get caught and that they would win every competition they entered for the next five years, but then die from the side effects of the drug: “More than 50 percent of the athletes said yes.” If legalised, it will make the current situation in every sense much more feasible and harmless. Drugs can easily be monitored, and controlled by doctors; regular evaluations and health fitness tests would be performed to ensure appropriate dosages and optimal health is met. More information essentially would be made available and, in retrospect, supervision will avoid many of the side effects and health problems associated with the use of ergogenic aids today.

Our struggle to keep sport unscathed is about to come to an end. The crusade to “clean up” and eradicate drugs from the Olympics and other athletic competitions by sport-governing bodies have failed. And will fail. We cannot try to go back in time, evaluate what sport is, who we are, or establish a new 21st century Olympics. Nor can we prevent the spectacle of sport from evolving, but we can begin to direct its evolution for the better. Performance-enhancements are by no means against the competitive nature and spirit of the games; it is the spirit of sport. Drugs have been around forever “with early Olympians using extracts of mushrooms and plant seed, strychnine, and even eating live bees or crushed sheep’s testicles to gain to gain the slightest advantage”. One merely has to browse the annals of history to find examples of athletes trying to improve by the tiniest of margins. The drive to perfect performance is too enticing for humankind to resist. As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, new methods such as gene and blood doping will become harder to detect, and in a few years, they will go quietly unnoticed. And when this happens and the risk of being caught is nil, athletes will choose to cheat at their own will. Drugs are against the rules of sport, but if we redefine the rules and make it legal, there would be no more “cheating”. To be human is to choose to be better. For the reasons stated above, Olympics athletes should be allowed and be given the choice to rightfully use performance-enhancing drugs on the basis of freedom of choice, the untenable distinction between natural and unnatural substances, and to level out a much more even playing field. After all, does the Olympic motto not tell for athletes to strive “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Faster, Higher, Stronger)?

Works Cited

Balko, Radley. Reason Magazine: Should We Allow Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports? January 23, 2008. http://www.reason.com/news/show/124577.html (accessed March 10, 2009).

Fobby, Bennett, and Julian Savulescu. "Ethics of Performance Enhancement in Sport: Drugs and Gene Doping." Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. 2007. http://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/Staff/Director%20Julian%20Savulescu/Publications/BC_Healthcare/Spirit_of_Sport.pdf (accessed March 10, 2009).

Mehlman, J Maxwell. The Doctor Will See You Now: Bioethics: Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports. April 2005. http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/bioethics/perfdrugs_10/ (accessed March 10, 2009).

Michaelis, Vicki. USA Today: Built to swim, Phelps found a focus and refuge in water. August 1, 2008. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/beijing/swimming/2008-07-31-phelps_N.htm (accessed March 10, 2009).

Noakes, Timothy D. "Tainted Glory – Doping and Athletic Performance." The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) (Massachusetts Medical Society), August 2004: 9.

Savulescu, J, B Foddy, and M Clayton. "British Journal of Sports Medicine: Why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport." Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practice Ethics Web Site. August 5, 2005. http://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/Staff/Director%20Julian%20Savulescu/Publications/BJSM/Drugs_in_Sport.pdf (accessed March 10, 2009).

Savulescu, Julian, and Bennett Foddy. The Age: Good sport, bad sport. August 4, 2004. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/02/1091432108050.html (accessed March 10, 2009).

The Observer: Drugs in sport: a brief history. February 8, 2004. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1140775,00.html (accessed March 10, 2009).