Steroids In Sports
Although today steroids can be bought and used by virtually anyone who is interested in destroying their bodies for an increase in physical strength and muscular mass, use of steroids in sports has a much longer history. In comparison, whereas social steroids have a history of a few decades, the first signs of steroids in sports date as early as last century's thirties. Nowadays, the problem of steroids in sports is still a major one and despite the constant and harsh anti-steroid policies that most sports federations and organizations apply, their use has not been completely eradicated.
The first rumors regarding steroids in sports are tightly connected to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. These Olympics were special due to the circumstances in which they occurred, namely they were the first Olympics to ever be televised and with Hitler’s rise to power, he wanted the entire World to see the German athletes as superior beings. Some of the German medal winners have been suspected on using steroids such as early testosterone preparations. Although this may have been the case, many modern steroid specialists agree that with the technology and scientific level of that time, any kind of steroid use could not have been extremely potent.
After almost 20 years of silence regarding the issue of athletes using steroids in sports, the World’s attention was brought upon the problem again in 1954, at the World Weightlifting Championship. The Soviet weightlifting team put on an impressive show, dominating the championship at almost all weight levels. After the tournament was over, the United States team physician, John Ziegler, asked his Soviet counterpart how his country’s athletes managed to put on such a show that year and he confessed that they were constantly using testosterone preparations for increased strength and muscle mass. Reports of syringes in the Soviet locker room were also popping up, which suggests that the older, less potent oral steroids used earlier were made obsolete by powerful injected ones.
Since the negative effects caused by steroids were not entirely known or taken into consideration back then, after the World had witnessed first hand how steroids can bolster an athlete’s performance, they became a necessity for any athlete that wanted total domination over his adversaries. With the information gathered from his Soviet "friend", John Ziegler came home after the 1954 World Weightlifting Championship and started developing a steroid that will be known as Dianabol. This steroid was used in sports for several years in the United States, administered not only to Olympic or national team athletes but also made available for many weightlifters, bodybuilders, football players, sprinters and basically any athletes that were performing a sport where size and strength mattered.
The history of steroids in sports would have probably been quite different, if the World Health Organization had not made a complaint about steroids back in 1968. The International Olympic Committee soon followed with a ban on several steroids in sports at that time, but the means to verify athletes were still primitive at that time. Thus, heavy use of steroids in sports, especially at top levels, continued for the next two decades, with the International Olympic Committee, the World Health Organization and several other similar organizations perfecting their ways to detect and ban steroid-using athletes and with the latter perfecting their ways to avoid detection and increase their performance.
During the 90s, steroids in sports were at an all time high and not only this, but anabolic steroids hit the streets and there’s hardly an amateur or professional weightlifter or bodybuilder that didn’t at least try them out at that time.
Nowadays, with the combination of perfected detection methods and severe measures such as lifetime bans for athletes caught using them, use of steroids in sports has reportedly diminished. Despite being diminished however, it is not completely eradicated, which can be proven by the number of famous athletes that still get caught using steroids, or they admit doing so. Some examples include MLB stars Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, road cyclists David Millar, Roberto Heras, soccer legend Diego Armando Maradona and Dutch star Frank de Boer, or record-breaking sprinters Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery.
In addition, during the last two Olympic Games, more than 10 athletes were banned for use of steroids in sports, including 5 medal winners. During the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, slalom Bronze medal winner Alain Baxter was discovered using Methamphetamine, a banned substance and his medal was taken away. Similarly, Olga Danilova and Larisa Lazutina, both cross-country skiing Gold medal winners (Olga Danilova at the 5km pursuit event and Larisa Lazutina at the 30km event) were detected positive with Darbepoetin and their medals taken away. Spanish cross-country skier Johann Muhlegg was also detected for using Darbepoetin and his 50km event gold medal was taken away. Some of the other non-medal winning athletes found using steroids during these Olympics include Belarusian ice hockey player Vasily Pankov (Nandrolone) and Austrian cross-country skiers Marc Meyer and Achim Walcher (found using blood transfusions, which is also banned by the International Olympics Committee).
During the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, only two participants were found guilty of using steroids, namely Russian biathlon Silver-medal winner Olga Pyleva, whose medal was subsequently taken away and promising Brazilian bobsleigh contender Armando Dos Santos who was ejected from the Games after his preventive anti-doping test came out positive.
In conclusion, although it's clear that steroids in sports have not been completely eradicated, the phenomenon is constantly battled and not without effects. Because of the extreme bans and penalties, many professional athletes will rather focus on training correctly and healthily, but this raises another issue that needs to be resolved: many athletes can be "set-up" by their doctors or staff, by secretly administering banned substances to them, thus increasing their performance without the athlete's will or knowledge. Still, this does not stop him or her from getting banned and there are several cases where famous athletes detected positive on anti-doping tests accused their medical staff of performing a set-up on them.
