Drugs in sport Flashcards
Why do performers take PEDs
- Lack morality and willing to cheat
- Can assume everyone else is taking them- level playing field
- They believe success is only achievable via drugs
- Unaware they are taking drugs- coach
- Unaware of health risks
- Experience outside pressure to achieve
- Feel tempted to speed up recovery
Doping
In competitive sports, doping refers to the use of banned performance enhancing drugs by athletic competitors
What are Anabolic steroids
Artificially produced hormones
What are the benefits of Anabolic steroids
+ Aid in the storage of protein
+ Promote muscle growth
+ Increase development of muscle tissue
+ Increase strength and power
+ Less fat in muscle
+ Improve capacity to train harder and for longer
+ Decrease fatigue in training
Which athletes may use Anabolic steroids
Beneficial to power athletes such as sprinters
What are the side effects of using Anabolic steroids
- Liver damage
- Heart problems
- Acne
- Aggression
- Paranoia
- Mood swings
What are Beta blockers
Help to calm an individual down and decrease anxiety by counteracting the adrenaline that interferes with performance by preventing it from binding to nerve receptors
What are the benefits of Beta blockers
+ Improved accuracy in precision
+ Calm performance anxiety
+ Keeping heart rate low
+ Increase blood flow
+ Reducing involuntary muscle spasms
Which athletes may use Beta blockers
High precision sports such as archery, snooker and golf
What are the side effects of using Beta blockers
- Tiredness
- Aerobic capacity effected due to slower heart rate
What are EPO
A natural hormone produced by the kidneys to increase red blood cells. Now it can be artificially manufactured to cause an increase in haemoglobin
What are the benefits of EPO
+ Stimulates red blood cell production
+ Increase in oxygen carrying capacity
+ Increases endurance
+ Delays the onset of fatigue
+ Recover quicker
Which athletes may use EPO
Tends to be used by endurance performers who need effective oxygen transport in order to succeed in their sport
What are the side effects of EPO
- Blood clotting
- Stroke
- Death
Stimulants
Drugs that induce a temporary improvement in mental and physical function
Erythropoietin (EPO)
A hormone which is naturally produced by the kidneys but can also be artificially produced to increase performance in endurance athletes
Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG)
A banned steroid used to increase power which was tweaked by chemists to make it undetectable by ‘normal tests’
Negative implications to the sport of drug taking
- Threatens the spirit of the sport
- Cheating
- Negatively damages reputation
- Decreases interests
- Suspicion on winning athletes
- Negative Role Models
Positive implications to the performer of drug taking
+ Positively impact performance
+ Bring fame and fortune
Negative implications to the performer of drug taking
- Provides negative role models
- Very damaging to performers health
- Lose their good reputation
- Career prospects may be negatively impacted- lose sponsors
- Loss of Income
- Bans or Fines
- Stripped of medals
- Isolation from peers
Strategies for elimination of performance-enhancing drugs in sport (DOPING)
- Drug free culture created via education programmes (100% me campaign)
- Organisations involved in drug detection/enforcement need to work together
- Punishments need to be harsher
- Investment is required into new testing programmes/tech
- Name and Shame negative role models
- Guilty lose funding/sponsorship deals
Whereabouts system
A system designed to support out of the competition testing. which requires athletes to supply the details of their whereabouts so that they can be located at any time and anywhere for testing, without advanced notice
WADA (the Word Anti-Doping Agency)
A foundation created in 1999 through a collective initiative led by the IOC to promote, co-ordinate and monitor the fight against drugs in sport
Arguments for the legalisation of drug taking and testing
+ The battle against drugs is expensive and time consuming
+ Drugs are quite easy to access and very difficult to eliminate and money spent on them could be better spent elsewhere
+ Detection isn’t always effective
+ Always one step behind
+ Sometimes its difficult to define what is a ‘drug’ compared to a legal supplement
+ Drugs are sometimes taken accidentally
+ If everyone takes drugs it levels the playing field
+ Athletes don’t ask to be role models
Arguments against drug taking and testing
- Drug taking is illegal
- Only richer countries can afford them
- Taking drugs is cheating
- Heath risks and side effects
- Negative role models
- Pressure to take drugs increases from coaches and peers who take drugs
- Success in sport should be due to hard work
- Unfair advantage
- Lose sponsors, medals, funding and income
