Why Do Professional Athletes Use Paid?

INTRODUCTION

The use of performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) in elite cycling extends well beyond the 60’s. Evidence suggests that PED’s where used as far back as the Ancient Greeks. They used various methods of doping to gain the performance edge (Bowers 1998). People will always use and abuse substances in the pursuit to get the edge as well as personal appearance (Fernandez, Hosey). These days with equipment being technologically advanced and available to all professional teams athletes need to find a way to perform at the new levels. There have been many theories to explain the contributing factors for professional athletes deliberately using PED’s to gain an unfair advantage, a competitors success or failure should be a result of their

Teams like the US postal team, place a ‘code of silence’ pressured athletes to use PED’s as well as groomed them to evade detection from the authorities so they can gain an unfair advantage (Tygart 2012). In the past 16 years of the Tour De France there have been 12 years that the overall winners have been linked with and found guilty of taking Performance Enhancing Drugs (McLean, Tse, Wannanen 2013). Considering the state of the doping culture in cycling throughout the last 20 years alone, its no wonder athletes like Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landers, Alberto Contador and many more, have to make a choice when becoming a professional athlete. To either take the banned substances and be apart of the PED winning program or be at a competitive disadvantage (Dime 2014). Graeme Obree a professional cyclist in the 90’s quote sums up exactly what happens at top end of professional

That pressure to succeed and fit in within the team structure can force these athletes to participate in performance enhancing drugs or risk losing their contract that they have worked hard to gain. If the team doesn’t support the taking of PED’s then athletes may rely on outside assistance to gain an advantage on competitors within their own team and oppositions. In these cases athletes may seek advice from medical physicians outside of their organisation that are willing to supply the performance enhancing drugs (Dunn, George, Churchill, Spindler 2007). Drugs are not the only way to potentially enhance performance. Some athletes have surgical procedures to improve performance for example baseball pitchers having shoulder tendons replaced after injury with a knee tendon (Thompson 2012). However these enhancements are not illegal. It’s no different from bike companies pushing the rules to be able to develop aerodynamic bike. How far could the human body really go before we go to far, (Thompson, Helen 2012) or have we already gone to