Performance Enhancers Week 2

The news during last couple of weeks has been dominated by athletes in Australian leagues, mainly NRL and AFL using illegal performance enhancers. It got me thinking of where and how we draw the line and classify what is ‘performance enhancing’ and what isn’t.

Why is HGH banned but not sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade? Both will aid an athlete in improving their performance. Maybe the fact that sports drinks are cheap and readily available to basically everyone makes them alright, as the advantage they provide is hardly an unfair one if the opposition can just as easily buy a bottle. The same can be said about compression garments, sticky spray and drugs like No-Doz. They help the athlete to perform better than what they would have without that aid.

The talk of peptides being used by professional athletes to rapidly repair and build muscle has headlined the backpages lately. What is not being reported in the papers, possibly because its a bit too scientific for what the general public wants to be reading about, is to what extent these peptides are enhancing the athletes performance. Personally I think this would be interesting, as without much knowledge of what they are actually doing for the athlete, it sounds like a super protein shake; helping the athlete repair muscle and prepare them for their next session, which in turn means they can increase their muscle.

I understand that what the athletes being investigated are using are at the extreme end of things. But technology will always develop and one day the gap between what the every day person can buy from the supermarket compared to what WADA and ASADA have on their banned list will get closer and closer. If the peptides the players are using are made legal and available to everyone, would this still be a problem?

I believe that one day in the near future an entrepreneur with a strong financial backing will create their own ‘super Olympics’ open to athletes using performance enhancers. Watching Usain Bolt run the 100m in 9.58 seconds is impressive yes. But someone running it in 8 seconds? High jumping 4 metres? Admittedly i would watch a clean and drugs Olympics, because I just watch and enjoy a variety of sports. But i think that with more and more athletes being outed as drug cheats, and the possibility to make money out of their extraordinary performance, we will soon see events for people on performance enhancing drugs.

I thought it was interesting of the AOC to put to Australian athletes that if they are found guilty of doping at the Winter Olympics next year they will be sentenced to a 5 year jail term. I think 5 years is a bit much, given the public humiliation and tarnished reputation they will always have. Still, being such a big punishment might just be enough to make some athletes think twice and shy away from drugs.

Although I mention a ‘tarnished reputation’ in the paragraph above, i think of some of my favourite athletes; Andrew Johns, Shane Warne, Lance Armstrong, who have all had a background in drugs however some people, me included, still support them. When Armstrong was revealed to be a drug cheat, i purchased a new Livestrong shirt. Which leads me to another point: what if the athlete uses their (drug fueled) success for good causes, such as Lance and Livestrong? Lance the cancer fighter will always achieved more than Lance the cyclist in my opinion.

A thought to finish on in my very scattered and hard to follow blog. The last 2 years ive coached a junior rugby league team. In the first year i coached the team, while driving to an away game with the family of a player (aged 10 at the time) his mum handed him a 500ml can of Mother energy drink, and told me that he plays better when he drinks it and does it every week. I soon found out that there were several kids in the team whose parents were doing the same thing. Despite me pointing out that these cans are more than whats recommended for a fully grown adult, almost definitely not doing any good for their kids health, the parents kept giving their children energy drinks before games. Where does something like this fit into the picture of performance enhancers?