English: Cyclist Lance Armstrong at the 2008 Tour de Gruene Individual Time Trial, 1 November 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The last two decades of professional sports have seen their fair share of scandals over many of their star players using illegal performance enhancing drugs and steroids. There have been so many “juicers” in the headlines that it has ultimately come to define the recent era of sports, major league baseball and, more recently, bicycle racing.
Lance Armstrong, the iconic American bike racing champion who overcame cancer to win the Tour-de-France, fell from his former grace when it was revealed he had used performance enhancing drugs during his tenure as a professional racer.
As a result of his actions, Armstrong was investigated. Ultimately, the International Olympic Committee gave Armstrong a lifetime ban from participating in professional sports.
Actions like Armstrongs definitely send the wrong message to young people interested in getting involved in sports. It is unequivocally wrong to introduce steroids into activities that are tests of human ability. The creates an uneven playing field, saps the sport of its relate-ability, and has the potential to snowball into a competition of which steroid is most effective.
It makes immediate sense to punish the player guilty of the infraction, but is it the most effective? When the players that go to jail are already superstars, like Lance Armstrong or MLB slugger Barry Bonds, there may not be an effective message relayed to a young audience through that punishment.
Perhaps better would be a systematic punishment within the sports world itself, such as suspension or firing of coaches or managers. This punishment is geared towards the players and puts pressure on everyone to follow the rules, as opposed to a publicly-geared shaming that hasn’t effectively deterred most from the game of luck involved in taking dope when playing sports professionally.
Sports By Rob 