Describe Blood Doping And Performance Among The Athletes

Blood Doping
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Blood Doping
Each year, every athlete desire to perform better than the previous year. As this desire to exceed the previous performance among the athletes increases, some look for other better training and conditioning techniques, and ways of improving their overall health. If well used these methods will increase an athlete's ability to go beyond the previous performance. However, "some athletes always seem to take it a step further. They engage in a process called blood doping," (Beckham, 2002). This process is also referred to as induced erythrocythemia; this process involves the infusion of blood that has a higher oxygen carrying capacity into the body of an athlete (Beckham, 2002). Although blood doping improves the performance of an athlete, it is also harmful in the end.
Blood doping has remained to be a controversial issue in the scientific and athletic communities. Its ethics and safety issues have been the major issue in the discussions. The process begins several days before the competition begins. During the process, 1-4 units of blood are withdrawn from the athlete. According to Beckham (2002) "The blood is then centrifuged and the plasma components are immediately reinfused while the remaining red blood cells are placed in cold storage." Today, the freezing process is highly recommended since it prevents the cells from ageing. After this, the blood is re-infused into the athlete when he or she is ready or about to compete. The reinfusion is usually done between 1-7 days before the final competition (Lippi et al., 2006).
The whole issue of blood doping can be argued from two sides. Some argue that it is not illegal but against the rules of the sport while others argue that it is illegal. What is against the rules is illegal in that area, so blood doping is illegal in sports. The whole idea of sports is to compete based on skill in a fair manner. Allowing doping will eliminate the importance of skill and training which equips athletes with other motor and recognition skills. It will make sports a science competition field where those who do not use more advanced enhancement techniques will lose. The spirit of competing in fair situations in sports should be maintained and using enhanced drugs and techniques will destroy this value.
The benefit of blood doping is improved ability to perform better than others, and that seems to be the motive behind the whole process. However, the athletes increase their risks to several side effects which are long lasting and will affect their overall health condition in the future. Some of the risks include: formation of blood clots preventing proper circulation of oxygen in the body; the circulatory system gets overloaded; metabolic shocks; kidney damage which may cause acute hemolytic reactions; and transmission of infectious diseases (Mottram, 2005). Even if the process is carried under the optimal hospital conditions, the risks of infections are still present. If the process is unsupervised, the athletes are likely to be infected...