Why Do Athletes Use Steroids?

Drug abuse amongst athletes dates back to ancient time, there are different layers of drug abuse amongst athletes. Based on my findings in the Ancient Greek Olympics eating mushrooms and drinking a wine/brandy concoction altered your consciousness and enhanced your performance, this was one of the first methods of doping in ancient times. Even back then doping was known to be unethical and identified cheaters were sold into slavery, athletes are now being drug tested to make sure there are no drugs in their system but even with this method, individuals still tend to slip through the cracks. Now people use steroids which are a human made replacement for testosterone that increases your physical ability. All these different drugs give you an unfair advantage rather than someone using their raw natural talents. Athletes typically abuse drugs for two reasons; either they want to obtain a competitive advantage or to cope …show more content…
The IOC got blood doping banned in 1986 which was the removal and reinfusion of an athlete’s blood in order to increase the level of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin, this method seemed to be more harmful to your body than helpful. At the college level the National Collegiate Athletic Association is responsible for drug testing of their athletes and enforcing what penalties and consequences positive tests would receive. WADA is responsible for the drug testing of athletes at the international and national level; they revise and publish a list of banned substances annually. Reardon & Creado (2014) stated WADA is the international independent agency that publishes the World Anti-Doping Code, which is the document harmonizing anti-doping policy in all sports and all countries.