• Win at All Costs—The Olympic Spirit?
    Awake!—1989 | May 8

    • Johnson had tested positive for doping with anabolic steroids and was stripped of the gold medal for which he had worked and trained so hard.

      In the 100-meter race, the world’s fastest man succumbed to the temptation to take drugs. That “was a blow to the Olympic Games and a blow to the Olympic Movement,” said the president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee). For those caught for doping, their efforts to win at all costs included having their medals stripped from them. Altogether, ten doping cases marred the 1988 Olympics.

      However, “only the uninformed get caught,” says U.S. shot-putter Augie Wolf as reported in Newsweek magazine. “I feel sorry for Ben Johnson,” said a Soviet coach, according to Newsweek, “but maybe 90 percent . . . use drugs. Ben Johnson’s mistake was getting caught.” On the other hand, Edwin Moses, a U.S. hurdler, gives his educated guess that “at least 50 percent of the athletes in the high-performance sports” would have been disqualified had they not outwitted the doping tests. If so many athletes believe that doping helps them, then why ban the drugs?

      First, it is done to protect the spirit of fair play in the Olympics. Then there is the matter of protecting the athletes. Drugs in sports became a matter of serious concern when a Danish cyclist died of drug abuse in the 1960 Rome Games. More recently in 1987, Birgit Dressel, West Germany’s heptathlon medal hopeful, died from using some one hundred different drugs in her struggle to win the gold medal in her seven-events competition. Anabolic steroid, the “wonder drug” to develop muscles, can also develop problems in a user’s system​—liver cancer, sterility, kidney damage, and heart trouble, just to name a few.

      Then, why do athletes take drugs? “Doping has become a big problem in the Olympics due to the excessive desire for medals,” says Lord Killanin, former president of IOC. Yes, it is the win-at-all-costs mentality that drives athletes to drugs. And the motivating force behind all of it is money.