Drugs in Sport

The whole point of banning drugs is that it allows people to compete fairly. Personal and national glory is not worth the health of our young athletes. Athletes may feel pressure to perform to standards expected by the public and consequently they will take drugs to live up to these standards and please their followers. In international competition, one country's sporting successes over another country are often viewed as proof of ideological or national superiority. When a person takes illegal substances they have not used their own abilities, that they may not be physically the best person in the competition. If a person experiments with drugs and mixes them then it is possible for them to die as they could create a harmful substance. The people who take drugs put a negative light on all athletes and that limits the joy of watching sports. The first recorded death was in 1886 when a cyclist, Linton, died from an overdose of drugs. ”

The Olympic motto is swifter, higher, stronger (Citius, Altius, Fortius). This does not mean that people should make themselves more powerful by taking drugs; it means that people should work hard to achieve their goals, and by using their own abilities they would find it more rewarding. The whole concept of sport is to see who is the best athlete, not the richest. There would be people that would disagree with taking drugs to enhance personal performance. Drugs can have long-term effects on people that take them. Among the people who take drugs there would always be people that would have more money, because of having better sponsors or that they are just wealthier, this would create major differences in the sporting aptitudes of the contestants. Steroids can create, high blood pressure, acne, abnormalities in liver function, alterations in the menstrual cycle in women, decline in sperm production and impotence in men, kidney failure and heart disease.