Testing for Drugs In The Olympics Essay - 1507 Words

Have you ever watched the Olympics and wondered how the athletes can be that strong and fast? The International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) certainly has. Each year the athletes come up with new ways to enhance their performance, and make it harder for the Olympic drug testers to detect banned substances. With performance enhancing drugs becoming harder to police, the burden of trying to keep the Olympics as clean as possible falls on the I.O.C.s shoulders. Drug use in the Olympics is not a new idea. Dating back to the runners and javelin throwers of ancient Greece and Rome, athletes have been looking for supposedly magic potions (Corelli, par. 1). With competition growing stronger and stronger throughout the†¦show more content†¦The I.O.C., fearing false positive tests of clean athletes and subsequent lawsuits in nations that enjoy due process, such as the United States, has set the dirty bar extremely high (Are Drugs, par. 6). Therefor, most athletes are careful to choose the hard-to-detect drugs, or stop taking the drugs well in advance of announced tests. One agency that is separate from the I.O.C., called the World Anti-Doping Agency, may be able to make a difference. This agency is currently conducting 2,500 out-of-competition tests, the only kind with any reasonable chance to catch a cheat. Frank Shorter, chairman of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says, I want reciprocity, so any country thats not tested up to our standards cant compete here...I want to get the athletes involved...the Australians are voting on maybe giving voluntary blood tests in Sydney to prove theyre clean. Thats a sign of willingness (Are Drugs, par. 26). The I.O.C. is constantly making efforts to find more reliable tests for detecting performance-enhancing drugs. In the 1996 Summer Olympics, the I.O.C. authorities introduced high-resolution mass-spectrometers to help detect anabolic steroids and other banned substances in athletes (Corelli, par. 2). But not even these high-tech machines can always find the substances in the athletes urine. Some of the athletes use methods such as storing clean urine samples in bodyShow MoreRelatedPreventing PEDs in Professional Sports Essay1198 Words   |  5 PagesThe use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) among athletes in professional sports has caused an outrage all around the world for many years. The use of PEDs not only affects the athlete that chooses to use them, but also the athletes they are competing against, other teams, and the team or country they are representing (â€Å"Survey Reveals†). 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