Blood Doping, By the U.S Track Team
Is blood doping really a serious problem in the sport?
Some Terms To Know Before You Move On
Strychnine - Strychnine is a highly toxic, colorless, bitter crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents
Ergogenic aids - External influences that enhance athletic ability or facilitate physical exercise.
Recombinant erythropoietin - External influences that enhance athletic ability or facilitate physical exercise.
Ephedrine - Drug used to improve breathing, used to treat low blood pressure caused by other medicines.
Why Blood Dope?
Why would an athlete consider blood doping? Blood doping increases the amount of red blood cells in the body, which bolsters endurance. Red blood cells carry oxygen through the body and help you keep your breath when engaging in strenuous physical activity. High endurance is extremely important for runners, and can greatly influence a runner’s performance. It’s better if a runner can keep going at a faster pace for a longer time. Many people would rather take a short and easy path, then to work hard to achieve a goal. Instead of training with conventional means, which can take a long time. Blood doping will improve your physical performance nearly instantaneously.
Should Blood Doping/Boosting Be Legal?
Our Stance On Doping
The budget for drug testing at the Olympic Games is astronomically high, estimated to be around 2 million dollars at the 1988 Seoul Games. These were the same games that Ben Johnson had doped in, to achieve a new word record in the 100m mens dash. It was found that Johnson had been doping, and he had his medal revoked and given to Carl Lewis. In these same games, out of 8400 contestants, only 10 were banned for failing the drug test. We believe that drug testing should obviously remain mandatory, but the Olympic committee should find a way to lower the costs of the testing. We believe it is unnecessary to spend that much on testing when only a small fraction of contestants are actually abusing substances.