The Will To Win
One of the major problems faced by sports today, especially in endurance events, is the need for athletes to gain an extra edge through blood doping. The pressure put on these athletes to win at all costs has led to widespread cheating. Rarely does a major endurance event, such as the Tour de France, go from beginning to end without some accusation of a participant using a performance-enhancing drug. The appearance of performance enhancing drugs is becoming more common and the ban against them less controlled. Athletes are finding ways around drug tests, and with the seemingly invincible drug Erythropoietin (EPO) being used most often by endurance athletes; officials are struggling to stop these cheaters. EPO is a synthetic hormone that improves performance by boosting the number of red blood cells. Large organizations like the International Olympic Committee, the governing body of the Olympic Games, and the World Anti-Drug Agency (WADA), are finding it extremely difficult to keep up with the drug use by athletes because of what needs to be done to detect such substances. Currently, EPO is the only drug that is standing in the way of a totally “clean” Olympic Games. A drug like EPO is only detectable through red blood cell count tests. Because of the difficultly organizers have in detecting EPO, the athletes are usually one step ahead of the organizers. Critics claim that it is the lack of effort by governing bodies and their commitment to finding a way to catch cheaters that is standing in the way of drug-free competition.