Doping In Professional Sports Essay

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Mass media and commercialization of sports have elevated professional athleticism to the fore, resulting in more sportspeople choosing professional sport as their primary career. With tenser competition in the field, doping in professional sports for an added advantage has become customary, especially with progressive evolution of the pharmaceuticals realm (Baron, Martin & Magd, 2007). According to Davidson (2011), doping is the consumption of illicit drugs or methods to elevate performance and results, based on the prohibited list by World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA. Since 1960, banning on doping has been enforced on the basis that it enhances performance, violates the spirit of sport and threatens health (Davidson 2011).

The rifeness of doping started to gain the world’s attention after Lance Amstrong, the seven-time champion of Tour De France was stripped of his title by the US Anti-Doping Agency for intake of illegal performance …show more content…

Murray (2004) asserts that doping devalues the whole notion of ‘fair play’, tilting the playing field in favor of athletes with higher quality of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), hence considered as cheating. With legalization of doping, sport will merely showcase the marvels of modern pharmaceutical realm instead of fundamental human virtues and abilities (Savulescu 2014). Based on British Journal of Sports Medicine, illegal performance enhancing drugs such as steroid can harness muscular strength by 5 to 20% (Savulescu, Foddy & Clayton 2004) and in professional sport when victory can be decided by fractions of inches or seconds, these tiny advantage can place athletes competing clean, at threat of being defeated by competitors who are not stronger but dope for the insurmountable boost (Murray 2004). This undermines the value of authentic victory in sport and innate talents, for PEDs disguise natural capacity, a violation of sport