Steroids in Sports While many are attracted to steroids for an improvement in athletic performance many athletes now a days are taking steroids, why is that? Is it to make a squad, or impress a member of the opposite sex? There is not a right or wrong answer to why athletes feel the need to take performance enhancing drugs. However ones psychological state, genetic mishaps, or even performance pressures from the coaching staff, can lead an athlete to steroids. Issues of cheating or winning at any cost, are becoming more and more common among athletes of all ages and levels of ability. The use of steroids is one of the biggest issues in the current debate whether or not it is fair for drug-free athletes to have to compete with athletes that break the law and take illegal steroids. Allowing those with an unfair advantage to compete can pressure drug-free athletes to use steroids to remain competitive.
The use of steroids by athletes over the last decade and a half is well documented and proven no matter how many tried to deny their cheating in order to get a leg up on their competitors. Steroids continue to taint the sports world as we speak. It has come to light that baseball superstars Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Mark McGwire have admitted using preforming enhancing drugs during their baseball careers. Each athlete’s statistics ballooned to numbers never achieved before by prior athletes. While some athletes deny knowing they were doing anything illegal or cheating they deny that their success is linked to their doping. It should have been apparent to the athletes as it was to the public that star players were becoming superstars while stars around them could not match their athletic abilities. They had an unfair edge and the sports world has sent a message to athletes in every sport that cheating will not be tolerated and any athlete’s achievements do to using steroids will not be recognize and celebrated. Each athlete was turned down by the board of the “Baseball Hall of Fame” recently. Cheaters never prosper. Once the darling of bicyclist everywhere Lance Armstrong has confessed that he used performance enhancing drugs during his career after years and years of denying the allegations. In his career Lance Armstrong became a role model for the world having had cancer and after become the most decorated cyclist around with a record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005 of winning the Tour de France. Also his foundation live strong was ‘to inspire and empower’ cancer survivors and their families, but due to a doping scandal that involved Armstrong, the cyclist was banned for life and was stripped of his Tour de France victories.
A steroid is not the answer to sports related problems. It’s a choice players make. There have been many great players who have achieved superstar status without the use of performance enhancing drugs. Michael Jordan’s decision to maximize his talent through hard work and studying game changed the basketball world forever. His legacy is what many of today’s athlete’s dreams of achieving one day. You shoud not take steriods not matter what. The effects of the drugs are temporary and can lead to disgrace by fans that who once cheered for them.