Standing upon the podium with a puffed out chest and a smile to grace a magazine cover, an athlete welts with pride as his or her National Anthem bellows out.

After months of putting in hours of practice and loosing vast amounts of sweat, showing immense grit to achieve your goal, you can be proud that you are capable of pushing the human body to the very limits of what man can achieve. These are the images that fill my head when I imagine how it must feel to be put on a pedestal after working so hard to achieve something so great.

On the other hand, picture this. The athlete stands tall and looks no different on the outside to the one in the above scenario. But inside the athlete is wracked with guilt. Athletes know that when they get to this level every little advantage counts. The competitor knows that, standing either side, are athletes living the above scenario, but the reason an athlete cannot feel joy at such a high point of their life is because they have gained a small. but key, advantage by doping.

"The sad truth is that many top athletes now feel that science is becoming the key to winning. And it is illegal."


This athlete is a drug cheat. He or she could be one of many. Justin Gatlin, Dwain Chambers, Kelly White, Ben Johnson. Take your pick. The sport is in danger of becoming a test of who has the best drugs and scientific knowledge, rather than who is the best athlete. The scientists are always ahead of the drug testers. How do we know if what we are seeing is the fruition of hard work and natural ability or the work of a new wonder drug?

The sad truth is that many top athletes now feel that science is becoming the key to winning. And it is illegal. Dwain Chambers recently said he believed you couldn’t win a race "without the aid of drugs." It was no slip of the tongue that Susie O’Neill’s reaction to Otylia Jedrejczak beating her world record was not “Well done”, but “I hope it’s clean”. And Kelly White cut right to the heart of the current feeling amongst athletes: ‘If you can afford it, it comes down to the best scientists."

Why are so many prepared to take the risk of being caught? The absolute limit of non-enhanced athletic performance could be set in stone. The amount of power a human being can generate is limited, along with the amount of oxygen that can be transported through the blood. Excessive drinking of milk won’t make bones stronger from one generation to the next. What is ever present within the media and the public is the clamour for new world records to be set. With this pressure, drugs are becoming as much a part of athletics as the Olympic torch.

Should all the blame be laid at the feet of the athletes? Or are they merely pawns for the higher powers - The National Federations? It seems more of a crime to be caught doping than it is to be participating in the first place. In the United States, action against doping centres on cheating runners and their scientists rather than the contribution made by USA Track & Field.

USATF had a reputation that was second to none for protecting cheats. A US official, who wasn’t prepared to allow the cover up any more, claimed that between 1988 and 2000, USATF concealed more than 100 positive tests at a return of 19 medals. It is widely accepted that Konstantinos Kenteris managed to stay ahead of the testers by rarely competing outside Greece, but what does that say about his federation?
 
A solution to the problem must be found. It is against my own value system that drug’s in athletics should be legalized. A programme of random drug tests, education, treatment, and discipline would cost an estimated $1m annually. One million maybe a small price to pay for fair play and good health. That's why random drug tests would be extremely effective if taken by the athletes, not only throughout the season, but throughout the rest of the year as well.

For a period of time, an athlete should be treated without penalty to encourage people to own up. One step in the right direction is to focus on the dangerous side effects, not the drugs themselves. Endurance athletes are being tested to see if their blood is too thick with red blood cells. That can be a side effect of abusing EPO. Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have many health risks. Risks with steroids include heart disease and liver tumours. In ancient Greece an athlete could lose his life for failure on the big stage. Athletes must be made aware that the same fate is not the price to pay of performance-enhanced success.