Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

"It really isn't about drugs--it's about the lies…Federations at every level are covering up drugs and covering up for people. ... It's a joke... The commitment to find drugs is not there. There are much better ways to test than they are doing, but ... they don't want to catch anyone in the first place." (Carl Lewis quoted in With Drug Tests, Answers Are Few) Drug testing in sport is a worthwhile ideal but the process needs to be refined if it is to be considered a worthwhile endeavour. Ever since the introduction of drug testing, a self-defeating cycle of events has occurred: athletes take performance-enhancing drugs, so organizations develop tests to combat this intake, the athletes then figure out how to beat the tests, new tests are developed and the cycle begins again. "Testing is becoming ever more sophisticated, yet athletes seem to be at least one step ahead", (Why doctors should worry about doping in sport, The Lancet, July 4, 1998 v 351 p42) Athletes are beating the system and finding the loopholes in the testing procedure, so there are only a small number of athletes testing positive to banned substances. Officials, organizations and society are fooling themselves into thinking that drug use is declining. To o