Drugs, Athletes and the Olympic Games

Athletes are competitive. Olympic athletes are more competitive than others. No matter what sport they compete in, it is the goal of an Olympic athlete to be the best in the whole world at his sport of choice. If the athlete runs, he wants to run ever faster. If the athlete jumps, he wants to jump higher or longer. If the athlete swims, he'd like to have the endurance of a fish.

Athletic competition on the Olympic level creates a situation that is ripe for the abuse of drugs that will enhance physical prowess and performance. It should come as no surprise that "doping" in the Olympic Games has been the lead story of TV news broadcasts and made the headlines of newspapers all over the world.

The history of the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympics can be traced back as far as 1904. Thomas J. Hicks won the marathon that year and it was later found that his coach had given him strychnine and brandy before and during the race. Over the years, the performance-enhancing drugs have become more and more sophisticated and harder and harder to test for.

If as much effort had been put into finding a cure for cancer as has been put into developing better and less traceable performance-enhancing drugs, perhaps the world would be cancer-free by now.

We'll never know how much doping occurred in the Olympic Games before 1967 because there were no doping rules in place before then. In 1960, road cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen fell off of his bicycle and later died. It was proven that Jensen was under the influence of amphetamines at the time of his death. So far, Jensen's is the only death caused by doping during the Olympic Games, but it may not be the last.