The Role Of Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

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Since the creation of sports, athletes have always attempted to find ways to have that edge against their competitors. Performance enhancing drugs, an idea that has been used throughout the history of sports, is defined as any type of substance used to improve an athlete's performance. When the consumption of performance enhancement drugs were introduced, it was something that was accepted in society and athletes were not belittled for taking these drugs. For example, during 100 A.D, Roman gladiators took hallucinogens such as strychnine to decrease an athlete’s fatigue and make them less injury prone (Aziz, 2006). Ramlan Abdul Aziz is a credible source due to the fact that he is the President of the Malaysian Association of Sports Medicine …show more content…

In 1929 The International Association of Athletics Federation became the first sports association to prohibit the use of PEDs by athletes (IAAF, 2003). The IAAF is a sports federation that oversees rules and regulations to the sport of track and field, making it reliable. After the consumption of performance enhancing drugs was deemed illegal in some sports organizations, the act of taking these drugs was now considered to be cheating. Society has now condemned players caught in the act of doping, and these athletes will have their accolades completely ignored and their sport’s careers forever tainted. All of these issues pose the question: If sports athletes get to perform at a much higher level and be more entertaining to watch, is doping ruining sports and ruining the leagues? Or are these issues making for good entertainment and can benefit the league …show more content…

Mark McGwire was a MLB baseball player who` confessed using performance enhancing drugs throughout his entire career (Grier, 2010). Peter Grier is a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor and was a co-winner of the Society of Professional Journalists National Reporting Award and was twice a finalist for the Livingston Award, making him credible. When McGwire took steroids in 1996, he hit for fifty-eight home-runs,and he later signed a 40 million dollar contract with the St. Louis Cardinals (Pantuosco, 2011). Louis Pantuosco is a Professor of economics that received a Ph.D at Northwestern University, making him reliable. Since the athlete is playing much more proficiently than they did before, they get more attention from franchises, which leads to them gaining a higher

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