A number of athletes are getting into trouble these days with positive performance-enhancing drug tests.
It is perplexing to me that some many of the bigger name athletes have been getting caught 鈥渃heating.鈥�
In March of this year tennis superstar Maria Sharapova shockingly announced that she had failed a drug test during January鈥檚 Australian Open tennis tournament.
A pair of bigger name Major League Baseball players have also tested positive recently as Toronto Blue Jays first baseman, Chris Colabello, was suspended on Apr. 22 for his positive test and Miami Marlins second baseman and all-star, Dee Gordon, was suspended Apr. 29 for his positive test.
Baseball has had a number of problems over the years with positive tests from Barry Bonds to Mark McGwire to Roger Clemens among others.
Lance Armstrong is probably one of the most famous athletes of all time who was caught using performance-enhancing drugs. 聽
I鈥檓 not going to get into whether they are actually guilty or not because I cannot say for sure that they are but in a lot of those cases some level of court has found them guilty using.
The thing I do not understand about people that do use performance-enhancing drugs is why they do it.
First of all it is a terrible thing to do considering most children look up to them. They are a role model for young kids and those kids seeing their heroes using illegal drugs to become the best sends a bad message. It basically says to them it is okay to get better through drugs and it also says that to be the best they have to cheat.
As a kid I grew up worshipping Lance Armstrong, I loved watching the Tour De France, after the days races were over I used to pull on one of my yellow t-shirts and I would ride my bike around the neighbourhood over and over again pretending that I was a rider in the Tour De France and I was winning the whole race.
My dad would always tell me that Lance cheated and he used drugs to be good but I always thought that was blasphemy.
Of course my dad did not actually know for sure that Lance was cheating and if he did he was way ahead of everyone else because it was not until several years later that he was found out to be a user. 聽
When that day came I was shocked and devastated. Fortunately by then I was in my late teens and had already admitted that my professional sports career was long behind me.
But for many young kids seeing an athlete of Armstrong鈥檚 stature using drugs to get ahead it sends the wrong message.
Secondly, it is horrible for their health some of the side effects that they cause include heart and liver damage, blood clots and hair loss among a plethora of other side effects.
I just do not understand why someone would put their life on the line in such a way.
The old saying goes 鈥淢oney doesn鈥檛 buy you happiness鈥� and in a lot of cases I imagine that is why they do it. Being a professional athlete is a high paying job in most cases but is it worth it if you are risking your life to play?
And in some cases it is risking your life. There have been known cases in the past of athletes who died from blood doping.
I just have a hard time understanding.
I love sports and I would love to be a professional athlete.
I do not even care about the money, I just love sports so much I would just love to be able to go to work everyday and play a sport as a living but I do not love it enough to dope my way there and neither should anybody else.
If you are not good enough to be there, well darn join the other 95 plus per cent of the population and admit you are not good enough to get there.
