Athletes and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) seem to go hand in hand these days. There are very few days in a month when another athlete isn't attacked in the media for using substances to give them an edge over their competition. This is not a new phenomenon either. The use of performance-enhancing drugs has been around for decades. Fans are putting more pressure than they realize on these athletes to preform. This pressure to achieve is what leads many people to PEDs. Maybe it's time for fans to stop making elite athletes gods among men and start seeing them as humans who will have good days and bad days. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay When looking at the timeline of PED use, it becomes very clear that this is not a new or disappearing problem. In 1886, a Welsh cyclist named Arthur Linton died during a race from Bordeaux to Paris. Some believe he died of typhoid fever, but other reports indicate he was killed by trimethyl, a mixture of alcohol, strychnine, heroin, caffeine and cocaine. This shows how desperate some athletes were to be the best and the fans don't solve that problem. Recently, tennis star Maria Sharapova revealed that she failed her drug test, showing that this problem persists. Some of these athletes, like Lance Armstrong, were stripped of their past titles and are now more famous for their doping scandals than their championship victories. One man, Dick Pound, who is the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, "believes that there are five main reasons why athletes resort to performance-enhancing drugs - considered by most fans to be the worst form of cheating. (“The Winning Game: Why Do Sports Stars Cheat?”, 2012) These reasons are the desire to win at all costs, for financial security, pressure from coaches, pressure from the nation they represent , and finally doping for the sake of doping because they don't think they will ever get caught. To try to solve this problem, many sports organizations have implemented anti-doping policies. The NBA, NFL, and MLB are all now testing for different types of PEDs, including HGH (human growth hormone). The Olympic committee has now ensured that any athlete caught doping cannot compete. This is a huge problem for the Russian team who expect at least sixty-eight athletes to be excluded from the 2016 Rio Olympics. This shows how doping is a significant problem in any type of competition. sport. Fans want to see star athletes achieve incredible feats, and once that happens, they want even more. These are athletes who can't be hurt, who can't be stopped, who are virtually untouchable in their sport. The problem is that these people are encouraging and encouraging more and are now adding to the already problematic doping of professional athletes. Fans also believe that doping is the worst thing an athlete can do, that it is the ultimate form of cheating. This is a double-edged sword that these athletes balance on. They need the support of fans so that they, the athletes, can enjoy the financial support that comes from being a great athlete and popular with the people. However, most, like A. Rod, like.