This post is in response to everything going on with Lance Armstrong and his doping charges. I actually did not know about this until we talked about it in class and they had already decided to take away his millions of dollars in prize money and strip him of his medals. It was shocking to me because I always thought of Lance as a very highly respectable athlete and it didn't occur to me that he would blood dope. I learned about blood doping in my high school physiology class and I found it fascinating that you could take out your blood and then 6 months later put it back in and have twice as many red blood cells as you did before. This is obviously very useful for cyclists and long distance runners because when you have more red blood cells, your body can carry oxygen much faster to all the muscles in your body that need it. Since this kind of doping is biological compared to the other steroidal drugs out there, some people may not frown upon it as much. But to me it's the same as taking any other manufactured steroid. If you want your body to become better at endurance there is a much easier way than blood doping and it takes the same amount of time that it would take for you to wait to put your blood back in; it's called training in a higher altitude than what you are used to for 6 months. This training gives the same affect as blood doping but it isn't illegal and you are actually working on getting better than just sitting around waiting for your blood. I think Lance deserved what he got. I don't think anyone should use drugs to make them perform better. If you want to get better then you should train. Practice makes, not perfection, but an outstanding athlete. Plus you would feel much better about yourself if you trained really hard for something and won, than if you took a drug and won. Steroids are fake and no one likes fake people.
Shannon Lawry (TTh 2:00)
KIN 332I
2 comments:
Performance enhancing drugs are a growing epidemic in sports currently. There are many ways to achieve greater performance from the human body including training with greater intensity, the use of synthetic drugs and chemicals, or blood doping as Lance Armstrong did himself. Though I am disappointed that accusations towards Armstrong persisted until he eventually retired, I can not help but think an example was made out of this high-profile athlete as a warning to all others in the sport of cycling, whether the accusations hold complete truth or not. Armstrong was accused of blood doping to increase erythrocyte and hemoglobin amounts within his blood, a result that some athletes achieve by training in high altitude or using masks and chambers to duplicate the minimal oxygen levels of high altitudes. His possible use of blood doping did not excuse him from training or make his road to success any easier; he trained just as hard as a cyclist riding mountain roads or one wearing a high altitude mask, just without purchasing a mask or traveling to a mountainous region. Though blood doping is currently illegal, all other paths towards increased hemoglobin should be evaluated and equally controlled by governing bodies in sport. How will a sport enforce a rule forbidding one to train in the mountains or sleeping in a special chamber the night before a race? To outlaw one of these will just promote the use of another.
Stephen Graham
008613642
T-Th 9:30-10:45
I definitely agree with this post. When I first heard about Lance Armstrong and blood doping, I was very surprised because he has such a high status of being one of the all-time great athletes. Year after year, we've seen him win numerous races and it didn't seem like he was slowing down. Even after he was diagnosed with cancer, he seemed to overcome that and return back to his usual self. Blood doping is disgraceful and I definitely see it as harmful to an athlete as steroids. I have always been a believer in working and training harder in order to become the best athlete you can possibly be. It's such a disgrace when you see such an idolized athlete get busted for things such as this.
Angela Martinez
T/ Th 2-3:15
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