Rank: Veteran Joined: 9/19/2011 Posts: 1,694
|
Quote:There is a doping double standard in American sports. The “big money” sports – football, baseball, and basketball – turn a blind eye to their athletes using performance-enhancing drugs while track – a “poor” sport – does not. Quote:For the past few decades, track governing bodies have dealt with doping by punishing athletes who test positive with a two-year ban from competition for a first offense and a lifetime ban from competition for a second offense. Next year, the punishment for a first-time offense will be extended from a two-year ban to a four-year ban from competition. Either way, these punishments are disproportionately harsh when compared to, say, the NFL’s 4-game suspension (basically 30 days) for a first offense, 8-game suspension (basically 60 days) for a second offense and year suspension for a third offense. A third offense in the NFL is less than a first offense in track. To make matters even more unequal, testing procedures in the NFL are, just like their punishments, more relaxed than those in track. The NFL doesn’t even test players for human growth hormone (HGH), one of the most widely used performance-enhancing substances in sports. Quote:The lack of transparency in the NFL is also worth noting. The players union is so protective that it doesn’t even allow the specific results of a positive test to be public, which means that players can be caught using steroids and publicly claim otherwise, with no repercussions. NFL testing and punishment procedures are so flawed that the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), David Howman, publicly criticized them last year (2013). Doping-double-standard-american-sports-needs-endAmerican_sportspeople_in_doping_cases (not inclusive of recent updates) “People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one, and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.” ― Walter C. Langer
|