Dopers, knock it off

What is it about doping and using steroids?

Do we need to monitor this? Should they be legal in all sports and should we let everyone do whatever they want?

I’m not sure what I think. We have baseball players who are breaking records, football players who are sacking the most quarterbacks while testing positive in the same season and we have cyclists who are winning the biggest race of the year while doping. Now we have Christian Pruhomme, the race director for cycling, who is thinking of not allowing cyclists compete while they are under investigation for doping during last year’s Tour de France.

What should happen? Should all dopers be disqualified from competition? Yes, they probably should. However, there is the task of keeping up with ever changing science and guys in lab coats thinking of new ways to skirt testing. There is also the task of keeping up with major sports leagues testing for this stuff. As seen in baseball, it is hard to convince player’s unions to test, mostly because the players know they are using and they don’t want to admit it, get caught, etc.

I don’t think that players should be allowed to use steroids or dope. Amphetamines are also illegal so they shouldn’t be allowed. What constitutes performance enhancing drugs, though? Some people have made ridiculous arguments that weight lifting and practice (we talking ‘bout practice) should be banned if performance enhancing drugs are. Those arguments are illogical. Athletes of all ages use creatine, protein, glutamine and other “performance enhancers.” That doesn’t mean they are giving unfair advantages to professional athletes or even high school athletes.

I myself have used creatine and protein and neither gave me an unfair advantage. They simply gave my body what it needed after working harder than the guy who didn’t want to be in the weight room or out shooting hundreds of jumpers or running sprints. Yes, they helped but not in as unnatural a way that steroids would help. And they certainly didn’t help like unnatural levels of testosterone would. You can ask anyone, I never looked like the Incredible Hulk after using creatine. I looked like I had been working hard-big difference.

Unfortunately the steroid era has created problems for all sports for years to come. Sports may never recover from this. We even have cheaters being found in chess completion. Chess for crying out loud. When will it stop?

It is a wild goose chase, a witch hunt. Unfortunately some players have ruined it everyone else. We may be in an unrecoverable situation here. The effect is yet to be seen.