Every 4 years as part of the olympic cycle we hear or see some elite athlete being caught for the use of performance enhancing drugs. But why are they punished for using PEDs? The answer seems obvious, you may be saying it creates an unfair sporting environment where one's hard work can be outdone by the chemical concoctions of another. In a world where doping is legal, rather than being a contest between athletes, it would be a contest between scientists trying to create the drugs most effective for improved performance. Though the reality is that it is nearly impossible to properly test for doping. Instead of promoting a more equal sporting environment, anti-doping creates a more unfair one.

 

WADA is the group which performs drug testing on athletes for the olympics and other events. If you are born in a Westernised country you are subject to more drug tests than those born not in one, in certain countries out of competition drug testing does not take place at all. If you have enough money, ‘designer drugs’ that are less likely to appear on drug tests can be made, you can have access to labs to check your status, and you can also just bribe officials. Surely,you say, athletes should just follow the rules and maintain sporting integrity. But the difference between taking drugs and passing a drug test and not taking drugs can very easily be the difference between a gold medal and not even qualifying. When 100,000s of pounds are at stake, is it a surprise that people dope? Ultimately it isn't a matter of talent when it comes to taking drugs, as those who win olympic medals are undoubtedly talented but are also on drugs.

 

One of the most popular PEDs is isolated testosterone and lots of other popular PEDs relate to increasing the amount of testosterone in the body. The easiest way to test for this is by comparing the concentration of testosterone to one of the by-products of it when it is produced known as epitestosterone. Normally they should be in a one to one ratio in urine and so when someone goes on a steroid cycle that ratio will increase and raise some flags if greater than 4 to 1. However the ratio can be far lower than one to one based solely off genetics as such they can take more testosterone and not be caught. Epi Testerone can also be injected to alter this ratio. As such a drug isolated 100 years ago can not be detected. This surmises the issues of anti doping, where it is simply not possible to detect steroid use in lots of cases.