Athletes face enormous pressure to excel in competition. They also know that winning can give them more than a gold medal. Along with fame, many star athletes reap amazing financial benefits. This potential for fame and fortune imposes incredible pressure too. Although most athletes know that hard work is the best path to victory, some give in to shortcuts. Performance-enhancing drugs and other practices promise a competitive edge. These drugs and methods are proven risks to an athlete's health and sporting career. Yet there are those who still insist on taking the risk.

The practice of using artificial substances or methods to enhance athletic performance is called doping. Doping is a great concern among the sporting community. Agencies such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) are solely dedicated to waging the fight against doping. In fact, the USADA has teamed up with the U.S. Olympic Committee to create a new advertising campaign against doping. The public service announcements (PSAs) revolve around the theme "Celebrating the Value of Fair Play." Ten 2006 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team hopefuls can be seen and heard on TV and radio stations and in movie theaters promoting "fair play, respect and integrity in sport."

Reading this, you may still be wondering if doping really is that serious an issue. Let's consider just a few events from Olympic history. In 1960, Danish cyclist Knut Jensen was the first Olympic athlete to die due in part to doping. After taking amphetamines, Jensen crashed his bike and fractured his skull. Sadly, Jensen was not the only cyclist to die due to doping.

In the late 1980s, 17 Dutch and Belgian cyclists died from erythropoietin (EPO), another banned substance. The fight against this highly dangerous substance finally gained solid footing when a test was developed to detect it. The EPO detection test is based on a combination of blood and urine analysis. It was first put to use during the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

In 1988 at the Seoul Olympics, sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for anabolic steroids. He was stripped of his gold medal. Unfortunately, many athletes have followed Johnson's example. During the 2004 Summer Olympics, 24 athletes were caught doping. Medals were taken back from seven of these athletes.