Winners Never Cheat

Winners never cheat and cheaters never win

Winners never cheat and cheaters never win. Americans have grown up with this statement. It is as American as baseball or apple pie. It appears that over the years, winning has become everything and athletes will do whatever it takes to win. In order to achieve this goal, more and more professional athletes are turning to the use of performance enhancing drugs. "A performance enhancing drug is any substance that is taken for the sole purpose of enhancing athletic performance" (Saltzman, 2006 p. 16). Professional athletes who take performance enhancing drugs create false expectations for the children and teenagers who look up to them.

Athletes are role models, whether they like it or not. Their faces are everywhere, on television, advertisements, newspapers and magazines. Their actions, positive or negative, usually make front page news. Barr (2006) stated, "With certain professions come certain unspoken expectations and responsibilities", he went on to say "athletes know that by hitting a homerun, scoring a touchdown, or slam dunking they are going to be revered, idolized and looked up to as an example" (Athletes:, 4). "Athletics are meant to train us in discipline and fortitude, to build character" (McCormick, 2006 p.43). Many athletes also come from a humble background. This deeply strengthens youth's goals to strive for the same thing, that maybe they can achieve greatness with hard work and discipline. There is a possibility that someday, they will be in the limelight.

Professional athletes who use performance enhancing drugs break that ideal. They are incidentally creating misconceptions of the sport and their abilities. With the use of drugs, they become faster, stronger, and have more endurance. "Depending on the drug type, they help athletes to relax, work through pain and fatigue, build mass and muscle, hide other drug use, or increase oxygen supply to the exercising body tissues" (Saltzman, 2006, p. 16). No one has the ability to achieve what these athletes can without the help of the drugs.

Take Floyd Landis, for example, in summer 2006 won the Tour de France with a bad hip and a blow out on the big mountains. It was a great comeback. Only a few short weeks after his magnificent win, a specimen taken during the race tested positive for testosterone. The great comeback went out with an enormous blow to fans. According to Bicirace.com (2006) "Frankie Andreu and another of Lance Armstrong's former teammates said they used EPO (Erythropoietin) drug before the 1999 Tour de France" (Frankie Andreu, 1), and went on to state, "they both used EPO in preparation for the 1999 Tour, when Armstrong re-launched his career by winning the first of his eventual seven titles" (Frankie Andreu, 4). Although this doesn't prove that Lance used illicit substances, it starts to paint a different picture of him and the sport of cycling. This starts to illustrate that it has become less about the sport and becomes all about the win, the glory and the fame.

No sport is immune to the use of performance enhancing drugs. In Major League Baseball, "Mark McGwire evaded questions about whether he used performance enhancing drugs (Los Angeles Times, 2007 p.D.1), "he admitted to using the steroid precursor androstenendione during the 1998 season, when he broke Roger Maris' home run record". Illegal drug use is everywhere. It has appeared at the Olympics; "Blood doping controversies marred the Olympic skiing events in Torino" (Quinn, 2006 p.46). "Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter dash has tested positive for performance enhancing drugs (Rhoden, 2006, pg. 29). Even professional tennis players are not immune to the temptation of the use of illegal substances. "Tennis player, Mariana Puerta, a finalist in the French Open, was penalized in December 2005 for his second doping violation" (Saltzman, 2006, p16). More recently,

"An illicit steroid distribution network, which may be responsible for Internet sales of performance-enhancing drugs nationwide, has been targeted by an upstate New York prosecutor. Customers reportedly included, former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield" (ESPN.com, 2007, Report: 1).

The use of drugs to enhance performance in sport will not go away. Athletes seek every competitive advantage and the rewards of success at top level are great, both financially and in personal glory. Almost all top level competitors are full time and, even if not paid, are to all purposes professional. There is huge pressure to train longer and harder and take a scientific approach to nutrition and fluid and electrolyte balance, to seek every biomechanical and psychological advantage. It is almost inevitable that some will seek an advantage through drug use. (MacAuley, 1996, p211(5) )

What kind of ideal does this set for children? Where are the goal settings, the hard work, and the determination? "Furthermore, seeing the success had by athletes who use performance enhancers only plants the mental seed that such things might work for them too" (Competition is Best in Youth Sports, 2006, p. A.7). If the athletes achieve greatness through chemicals, as role models, they are setting the scene that it is perfectly acceptable. "Today cheating, specifically in the form of doping, is more tolerated than at any other point in the history of modern sports" (Quinn, 2006, p. 46). The consequences of using performance enhancing drugs hardly deter this outlook either.

According to USADA's most recent stats, as of May 2006 it has pursued 179 cases of alleged doping. Thirty were dropped when the allegations were found to be the result of mistests or other variables. Athletes accepted the charges in 120 cases, but in the remaining 29 instances they challenged the agency, which put the cases into arbitration. (Nawrocki, 2006, p.24)

In an interview with the Travel Tygart, the general counsel for the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Nawrocki (2006, p.24) quotes him as saying "that his job is less about catching the bad athletes and more about protecting the clean ones." According to Nawrocki, (2006, p.24) the consequences for Floyd Landis, if found guilty, "would not only lose the title and prize money, but would also be barred from all professional competition for two years". There would be no jail time, no fines paid, and no probation. To a youth, the consequence hardly seems tangible; there is no real cause and effect. A two year suspension is not going to sway a youth from trying to emulate his or her idol.

Coincidentally, more and more teenagers are also turning to illegal drugs to boost their athletic abilities.