Drug Testing in Sports…is it fair??

A close look into sports drug testing and one can see there’s room for improvement. Sanctioning bodies are developing and improving every day, every month and every year. A question still lingers and that is will sports ever be fair? The question itself suggests that currently sports are filled with cheaters. Yes, there has been significant change in today’s athletic landscape but that doesn't change the fact that there will be room for corruption.

Sport doping can be traced back to 1928 where the first rule against doping in sports was made by The International Association of Athletics Federation. Since then many organization and sanctioning bodies have been created to lessen and eliminate cheating entirely and at levels as high as the Pan American Games and the Olympic Games.

Present day sports have become a multi billion dollar industry with athletes raking in millions through performance and sponsorship's on the side. With that said many would expect the testing to be strict to ensure that their athletes are clean and to protect the image of their sport. Drug testing can vary between sports as some bring in more money than others in revenue. Sports that are on the top include American Football, Basketball and Ice Hockey. All these have a testing program to catch cheaters and have their own guidelines on how they deal with violations. Sill the public rarely hears about players violating the testing program and with so much money invested in players it makes sense.

The NBA is one major sport that really doesn’t get media attention for players who are suspended for failing a drug test. According to Sports Reference Blog the current testing program is as follows; Every player is tested 0–6 times at random during the season(October-June), only two tests are conducted during the off season. The tests are with urine samples only and every player is eligible to be tested but not all will be tested. Many have expressed their thoughts on the program calling it “soft” and with the new advanced ways of doping is it enough. The possibility of cheating is quite high considering the gap between the players who are tested and those who are not.

The NHL(National Hockey League) has a program where their players are tested 0–3 times during the regular season. The players are subject to unannounced testing on the off season. Some of the testing is done with WADA(World Anti Doping Agency) which is one of the world’s leading sanctioning bodies for drug testing. Now unlike the NBA which are only testing twice instead of multiple times in the off season they both experience the same results throughout the year. it is noted that the only players that are caught cheating and are released to the media are usually entry level players.

The NFL(National Football League) has players tested up to six times a year during and after the season. With very strict rules on missed tests, according to B news “a missed test is treated as a failed test” players must also inform their whereabouts locally and internationally. But the results are pretty must identical to the others in terms that most of the suspended athletes are mostly entry level and bottom tier players. The penalties for the failed test will result in a four game suspension and the NFL tests urine and blood for more advanced testing unlike basketball and hockey.

With the results one can argue that maybe they have solved the doping problem that seems to be intertwine with sports. But one look at the Olympic level might questioned whether the local level is a step behind. Every year there are countless ways of advanced cheating one example is the Russia doping scandal where it was revealed that 43 Olympic medals were stripped of their athletes after an investigation on state sponsored doping. The whistle blower Grigory Rodchenkov at the time head of the Russian anti doping laboratory showed in the documentary Icarus just how advanced they have gotten within the last couple of years. Even though that was Russia the United States still have many who are are experts in the science of doping including Victor Conte who operated his own lab and even created a banned substance called THG. Conte then served a prison term for distribution of steroids. According to him there are “many ways to cheat that are levels above the system.”

A look at the database of USADA(U.S Anti Doping Agency)testing gives us a better look at how much athletes get tested at the high levels. According to the USADA database in the year of 2019 they were 2,302 tests for Cycling, 80-Baseball, 16 for American Football and 2 for Ice Hockey. The regulations for the USADA testing program is one of the most strict with randomized testing at whatever time in the day, multiple urine and blood samples and severed penalties for missed or failed tests. One sport that stood out with Cycling was MMA where in the year of 2019 there were 6,474 tests conducted alone.

The controversy of sport doping is a big one with a thought of a solution far from reach. But with the amount of money involved who knows when a solution will come. Many athletes have been caught cheating and many will continue too do so even if that means creating new ways to cheat the system. Whether there are cover ups, I wouldn’t doubt it with the leaders and top tier athletes benefiting from the massive amount of money brought to their sport each year it is a subject of discussion.