Sporting activities are highly demanding in terms of physical energy and overall fitness. Sports is competitive, it is about winning laurels, cash prizes and even fame, be it soccer, tennis, weightlifting, basket ball, athletics to mention but a few.

The reward of sports excellence being very tempting, there is this tendency by sportsmen and women(with some encouraged by their managers) to cut corners, by resorting to highly dangerous performance-enhancing drugs currently in vogue all over the world.

Some sports persons who have lost their laurels on the international scene include; Ben (the bullet) Johnson Flo Jo, Marion Jones, and of course, most recently members of Nigeria contingent at Commonwealth games, New Delhi, India. Self confessed Diego Maradona is not left out (affecting his career both as player and coach)

On the fatal side, the figures are simply frightening- 2 out of every 100,000 athletes between the age of 12-35 die of heart attack annually(world wide) The heart being the chief receptor site of all performance enhancing substances.

From a 28 years Slovenia goal keeper who slumped and died during training in Feb. 2005, Marc Vivien Foe in France 2003, two teenage boys in the USA, (90% of sudden death in a sports in the USA alone are traceable to Cardiac problems.

Who knows, German-based Sam Okaraji who slumped and died at the National Stadium pitch Lagos, August 12, 1989, may have been a victim. Even Michael Jackson, an athlete of some sort, being a vigorous dance was allegedly spiked by his Doctor with a drug to keep him fit for impending already sold-out concert in the UK.

Off course, Michael’s heart, at 50 plus, after 35 years of vigorous dancing could not withstand the attendant pressure, snapping in the process.

Above instances are the stack realities of the consequences of the use of performance enhancing substances. It is therefore time, we applied the brakes nationally and internationally, before we, make a wreck of our youths for the sake of glamour, wealth and what have you.

Our sports men and women can still perform at optimum, without recourse to duping.
On the way forward, I am putting my expertise at the disposal of the ministries of sports (Federal and State) to stem this rather dangerous tide.

By Dr. Solomon Abutoh
08034499192
email: [email protected]