SubscribeWhile reading an ongoing published feature posted on Nature.com, I stumbled upon a series of articles on doping in sports. It started out with a blurb about the 1976 East German women’s swim team that won 11 of 13 gold medals. Then it moved in to the realm of professional cycling where the probability of the winning cyclist at the Tour De France doping is believed to be 100%.
My first thoughts after reading something like this is something along the lines of, “Those dirty rotten cheaters”! I read on. The German women may not have known they were doing something wrong.
I am fairly certain they did not know of the problems they would have later in life as a result of the steroid use. I am fairly certain the cyclist knew they were and are doing something wrong. When elite athletes die from heart attacks at age 30, something is wrong.
Reading into doping in sports, it makes me wonder what is really right or wrong in sports. Take a look through this web site and you will find that it is loaded with information on better living through chemistry. Do I really know what is in a protein mix? What about the instant energy in a bag that I carry around for long runs? What is a BCAA or an amino acid compound? They seem to work for me and they don’t seem to have side effects. Where do we draw the line? Who am I to say my line should be the same as everyone else’s?
I will put my line in the sand as something that does not cause adverse side effects or harm others as fine for use. Anything that has a risk of adverse side effects or causes harm in others is bad. I am sure that I can find thousands of reasons why both my standards are wrong.
Reading the articles gave me a lot of insight into doping in sports and I found that I really like the Scitable web site.
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