Negatives Of Doping In Sports

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

Consumption of PEDs is detrimental and can impose adverse side effects especially when taken with inappropriate dosage (Baron, Martin & Magd, 2007). For instance, intake of erythropoietin, a PED used as stamina booster which increases haemoglobin concentration in blood, elevates the susceptibility of fatal blood clotting and heart attack of athletes (Davidson 2011). According to Hong Kong Anti-Doping Committee (n.d.), in 2000, a study on 62 elite power lifters on the long-term effects of steroid doping manifested that their premature mortality rate was 4 times higher than the rest of the population. These harmful impacts of PEDs are not worth the short-term enhancement PEDs provide athletes, hence justifies the prohibition of

Instead, Savulescu asserts that doping itself is a true act of sportsmanship (Davidson 2011). According to Savulescu (2014), in this 21st century, banning doping is no longer relevant as playing field in sport is not even level to begin with. For instance, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Foome, the podium finishers of Tour De France in 2012 and 2013 from the British professional cycling team, Team Sky are admired for their ‘marginal gains’ – small modern enhancements in clothing, equipment and training, which sums to a significant difference in performance, but never considered as cheating for these only harness innate physiological processes (Savulescu 2014). Similarly, doping does not produce alteration to athletes’ natural potential and skill, but only optimizes athletes’ physiology for better performance, hence not a contravention to sport ethics (Savulescu, Foddy & Clayton 2004). This shows that doping is not fraudulence but just another improvisation option provided by the fast revolution of the pharmaceuticals