Photo courtesy of SportsMedicineWeekly.com
Some famous track and field professional athletes have used drugs to enhance their performance. Performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) help track and field athletes run faster, jump higher and longer and throw farther. Athletes use drugs to win and think they can sneak them past the officials. Some of the PEDs athletes have used were oxandrolone (Mariya Savinova) stimulant oxilofrine (Asafa Powell) and hydrochlorothiazide (Ben Johnson). This essay will convince young track and field athletes to resist PEDs in the future. Track and field athletes should not take PEDs because the authorities will find out quickly. They can also disappoint their fans and cause their teammates to lose their medals.
To begin my explanation, professional track and field athletes are tested with blood and urine samples. According to the United States of America Track and Field (USATF), they can be drug tested at any given time. Because the tests are given randomly it is hard to sneak in PEDs. An athlete could get banned for not attending their appointment for scheduled drug tests. For example, the 2019 World Champion Salwa Eid Naser was suspended from the 2020 Olympic Games because she violated the world athletics rule by missing three required tests. In this situation, Naser was banned, whether or not she took PEDS. Also, she could not avoid taking the tests that USATF mandates for professional athletes. Authorities consider taking PEDs a serious offense and create rules to prevent it so the sport can be fair for everyone. That’s why professional track and field athletes should not take PEDs.
If an athlete gets suspended, their fans will stop supporting them. The athlete can also disappoint their fans. If and when they return to competitive running, they will be older and possibly not as good as they could have been because they were out of competition for so long. When Marion Jones won 5 medals at the Olympics in 2000 her dream season was later ruined because she took steroid drugs. Now, Jones is on Nike’s list of most disgraced athletes. When fans enjoy observing a runner, and they get banned because of PEDs, it is upsetting because they know that their favorite athlete was using drugs to help them run. Given the Marion Jones case, trying to sneak drugs ruins the athlete’s career.
The final reason track and field athletes should not take performance-enhancing drugs is if the athlete is on a relay team, their teammates will not be rewarded for their amazing performance. In a relay team, each person runs a section of the race. A relay team competes for an award together so if one person uses PEDs the whole team will get disqualified. For example, the first runner of Jamaica’s relay Nesta Carter cost his relay team a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics after he used Methylhexanamine to enhance his speed. During those Olympic games, they won by a whole second. That is a lot in track. Eight years later, Carter was banned from track and field for four years. Carter and his relay teammates were also stripped of their gold medal. The fastest man on earth, Usain Bolt who was rising to fame, was on this relay. This shows if you take PEDs you are making a selfish decision that gives you a bad reputation.
Track and field is growing less entertaining because of PEDs. Young track and field athletes should not take PEDs if they turn pro. It is important to prevent PEDs from being used because athletes are cheating and winning even though they get caught. If professional track and field athletes keep using PEDs, track and field will experience a loss in popularity.
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