As the start of the Rio Summer Olympics start in Rio's winter, we all look forward to watching different sports and cheering for different teams. As each team paraded into the ceremony on Friday night, we all cheered for our teams, whether it is the US, the UK, Germany, China, or Japan. Personally, I am looking forward to watching the American and Russian teams compete.
Most of you probably thought the same thing I did when I read about Russia competing in the Rio Olympics. You probably thought, "There are no Russians going, they were banned and won't be competing." If you thought that, you and I were both wrong.
This week, I wanted to write about the Russian team and the steroids situation. While over one hundred athletes were banned from competing for Russia, there are still two hundred and seventy one cleared athletes. Although all eight of the weight lifting team was banned along with sixty eight track and field members, seven of sixty seven swimmers, divers, and water polo members, and five of twenty three members of the canoe team, Russia will be able to participate in many of the other sports. All of the gymnasts were cleared. With the long list of Olympic sports that seems to go on forever, Russia will be participating in judo, handball, equestrian, volleyball, sailing, tennis, swim, boxing, and many more (it took me forever just to write down a list).
In the past, the use of steroids has been an issue during the Olympics. The use of steroids has been more popular in the Summer Olympics than in the Winter Olympics. Since 1968, there have been one hundred and nineteen cases of steroid use during the Summer Olympics while there have only been twenty two cases of it in the Winter Olympics since the same year. Evidently, this is not the first time that steroids have been brought up. Out of 3,667 drug tests performed during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, twenty six tested positive. That is only 0.74 percent of the athletes that tested positive. Another time when it was on the higher side was during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angles. Twelve of 1,507 of the athletes tested for steroids, tested positive. That is 0.80 percent of the athletes who were tested.
Since 1968, there have been a total of 26,900 summer athletes who have competed in the Olympics and have been tested for steroids. This number is the number of athletes that have performed in the Olympics from 1968-2012, since we do not have this year's stats yet. In that time period, only 119 athletes have tested positive for steroids. That is only 0.40 percent of 26,900 athletes over a span of 44 years. Eleven summer Olympic Games have been held within those 44 years. I would do the math to tell you how the stats will change after this year, but let's be honest, I am a writer, and math is not my strong suit. Besides, there are 11, 414 athletes competing this year. That is 646 more than the 2012 London games (10,768 athletes). I wonder how many of them are returning athletes, new athletes, or golfers.
Every year, athletes take steroids to become better at what they do, to become stronger. Whether they get in trouble for it or not, it does not stop them from trying harder to achieve their goals and dreams. The reason the hundred plus athletes got banned was because they tried to alter something to get to where they were going, and it got in the way of it. You do not need to change anything to get to your path. Sorry, I don't mean to sound cheesy (I guess that sounds cheesy, now that I think about it).
Getting back on topic, before I end, I want to know what teams you are rooting for and what sports you will be watching. Here's to all of the athletes who worked hard to get to the Olympics and all the Olympians to be in future games. Let the games begin! (Even though they already began).
