What if.... all athletes caught using performance enhancing drugs
were sent to the big house? It would be a boon to the prison construction industry, for sure.
The question comes up after Marion Jones was sentenced to jail time for lying to congress about her steroid use (plus some bonus months for some kind of check fraud).
It's obvious to me that a huge number of amateur and professional athletes use steroids and growth hormones to prepare for events. Mostly when they're caught, they're just disgraced. This is the first time I'm aware of that an athlete has ended up in the can related to this kind of drug use. I wonder if this is going to change the game? I think the jail time was really not for taking the drugs, but for lying about it. Maybe somebody should ask the Governator (before congress) if he ever used steroids back when he was a champion bodybuilder.
An alternate solution to creating an even playing field might be to open up sports to drugs. What if everyone could take anything? The role of the personal pharmacist would be huge. Would it be better or worse than deception? It seems to me that the game some athletes play is to take the stuff but be undetectable. It must be pretty frustrating for an athlete who wants to compete clean, knowing that the winners are often the cheaters.
Your thoughts?
5 comments:
Yeah, it is a bit of a joke because so many are using, but I'm glad Marion got caught in the end. Typically, when an American athlete got caught cheating, it was under-reported and swept under the rug. Now it's all out in the open. I just wish someone had been caught earlier - Carl Lewis, Flo Jo...
Might as well let 'em all take whatever. The sports way too tainted now for it to matter anymore. Besides, any athlete who goes to China is a hypocrite at best if you ask me.
so there
I'm completely against the use of these drugs in sports. It makes me furious. I think the unions should go after these pricks and take responsibility...
but then I remember when amatuers were in the Olympics...no I mean amatuers...they weren't allowed to have commercial endorsements and make money.
I wish they could have made an example out of someone other than a pregnant woman. Although one commentator said that it was a more serious offense when it involved the Olympics.
Yet, I wonder what part we play in all this - we practically make Gods of athletes, leave "practically" out of it, we do (society as "we").
They are expected to perform no matter how badly their bodies are torn up - steroids and HGH are great pain killers, HGH -- studies have shown is effective in healing inflammation (if playing unhurt is performance enhancing???) - and the unspoken rules are that they must keep on doing what they do, hurt or well, and not complain.
I have seen this first hand in high school and college. (My daughter was voted the best high school athlete in the State of Wyoming by some sort of statewide commission), but she was a piece of meat as far as the college coach was concerned. She played on a broken leg (cracked tibia), she played with ruptured discs, too soon after knee surgery for a torn up knee - the implicit understanding is that they HAVE to. After her second concussion I begged her to get out - I will never forgive myself for not making her get out.
The love of athletics in the blood of an athlete performer is a powerful thing. Add the adoration of fans and a system that has a set of public rules, but a contradictory unwritten set of rules that is contrary to the public rules, you have a recipe for desperate use of so called performance drugs.
Just my opinion.
It's unfortunate because sport can be such a positive experience.
How can we celebrate the achievement of any athlete without fully being able to trust if they're doping or not?
Shame on those who lead them into making the choice of whether to dope or take a performance enhancing drug or not.
What bothers me the most is the denial of everyone involved. It's far easier to deny and believe that will protect you than to admit what is really going on.
C'mon Lance Armstrong just fess up.
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