From Legend to Loser

At what point does gaining an advantage in a competition become immoral or even illegal?

Some athletes take illegal substances to enhance their performance, an activity known as “doping”. Athletes such as Lance Armstrong and Maria Sharapova have been accused of, or have admitted to, drug doping during their careers as professional athletes. There are five types of doping, the most common being stimulants and hormones. Stimulants make athletes more alert and can hide tiredness. Anabolic agents, which include steroids, give athletes the advantage to train harder and build muscle more easily. Diuretics remove fluid from the body and can be used to make the weight, for example in boxing, or to hide other drug use. Narcotic analgesics mask pain caused by injury or fatigue which can make the injury worse. Peptides and hormones, also known as EPO or erythropoietin, give more energy, and HGH (human growth hormones) build muscle. All these drugs enhance the performance of the athlete which is obviously cheating and can cause their reputation and career to be ruined if found out. So, the question still lingers - is there ever a justification to perform doping in an acceptable manner? Lance Armstrong, for much of the second phase of his career, faced constant allegations of drug doping –allegations he consistently denied. In 1996 he was diagnosed with cancer and was treated, so he managed to convince people that he wasn’t doping using his illness as a mask. In 2005 Lance Armstrong openly said “If you consider my situation - a guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence - why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That’s crazy. I would never do that. No. No way.” Lance Armstrong finally ended years of denials by admitting he used performance-enhancing drugs during all seven of his Tour de France wins. The 41-year-old confessed during his 2013 interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey in front of a worldwide television audience. “I view this situation as one big lie I repeated a lot of times,” he said. “I made those decisions, they were my mistake, and I’m here to say sorry.” The interview with Winfrey, was broadcast on prime time television, and was streamed worldwide. The tens of millions watching saw Armstrong reveal he took performance-enhancing drugs in each of his Tour wins from 1999-2005 and that doping was “part of the process required to win the Tour.” He did not feel he was cheating at the time and viewed it as a “level playing field.” He did not fear getting caught, “all the fault and blame” should lie with him. He was a bully who “turned” on people he did not like. His cancer fight in the mid-1990s gave him a “win-at-all costs” attitude. He went on to co-operate with official inquiries into doping in cycling. But does that mean that an athlete should only consider the consequences of getting caught in his or her consideration of doping? What is missing from Armstrong’s explanation is any sense of the sport itself. He entered it for the thrill of competition, but exited in ignominy. Lance Armstrong’s image as a cycling hero changed immediately after this interview. Lance used EPO to increase the number of red blood cells in his circulatory system available to carry oxygen. The changes to his body enabled him to perform better with the endurance of the Tour de France. Blood transfusions increased his oxygen capacity and enhanced endurance and recovery. Lance Armstrong didn’t stop there; he also used testosterone and human growth hormones which both change the body by increasing the muscle mass and strength. His fall from grace had a huge impact on the sport of cycling and more widely on public opinion of sport and athletes in general. There is now much more speculation about drug use amongst athletes from many fields and stringent drug testing at every level. At least in the case of Armstrong doping carried strict penalties but, on a larger level, what still needs to be considered is how we can create a culture that rewards effort rather than achievement, competition in its purest form rather than winning at all costs. The solutions remain as unclear as the results of the tests themselves, but the question needs to be asked, repeatedly and insistently. Isabelle M (Lower Sixth)