Testing for Drugs In The Olympics

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Recommended: Doping in sports and its effects

Have you ever watched the Olympics and wondered how the athletes can be that strong and fast? The International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) certainly has. Each year the athletes come up with new ways to enhance their performance, and make it harder for the Olympic drug testers to detect banned substances. With performance enhancing drugs becoming harder to police, the burden of trying to keep the Olympics as clean as possible falls on the I.O.C.'s shoulders.

Drug use in the Olympics is not a new idea. Dating back to the runners and javelin throwers of ancient Greece and Rome, athletes have been looking for supposedly magic potions (Corelli, par. 1). With competition growing stronger and stronger throughout the years, athletes have tried to beat their opponents by any means necessary.

Back in 1904, American Thomas Hicks won the marathon fuelled by a combination of brandy and strychnine, a nerve stimulant (Corelli, par. 1). Soviet weight lifters of the 1950's discovered the benefits of steroids (Cowley and Brant, par. 4). The 1956 hammer-throw champion admitted to taking muscle-building steroids for the previous eight years (Corelli, par. 1). But when an autopsy found amphetamines in the blood of Danish cyclist Knut Enemark Jensen when he fell and fractured his skull, the I.O.C. had seen enough of drugs in sports.

The I.O.C. introduced testing in 1968 at the Mexico City Games and made it all-inclusive at Munich in 1972 (Corelli, par. 1). Even though the tests have been put in place, forty-four athletes since 1972 have still been caught at the Olympics.

Considering the fact that the Olympics are the most tested sporting event in the world, the situa...

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...ney.

Will The Games Be Clean? Not A Chance." "Time." 156.11 (11 Sept. 2000): 90+. Infotrac Web: Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale Group. 16 Oct. 2000 <http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com>.

Corelli, Rae. "The Drug Detectives: Technological Wizardry Will Try To Keep The Olympics

Clean - But Is It Enough?" Maclean's. 109.30 (22 July 1996): 28. InfoTrac Web: Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale Group. 16 Oct. 2000 <http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com>.

Cowley, Geoffrey, and Martha Brant. "Doped To Perfection: Can Cheaters Be Stopped?"

Newsweek. 128.4 (22 July 1996): 31. Infotrac Web: Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale Group. 31 Oct. 2000 <http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com>.

"Stoned On Ice." The Economist. 306.7537 (13 Feb. 1988): 81(2). Infotrac Web: Expanded

Academic ASAP. Gale Group. 13 Oct. 2000 <http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com>.

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