Steroids Testing in Athletes

Every year, thousands of athletes are subjected to more than 100,000 drug tests worldwide, costing around $30 million. This is to eliminate the possibility of cheating, with the tests being designed to detect and therefore deter any athletes from taking performance enhancing drugs in order to increase their performance. These tests are, by necessity, extremely strict and often deemed unfair by some participating athletes – there are even cases of athletes being stripped of their Olympic medals after testing positive, and protesting their innocence to the world for all eternity. How can any test be absolutely 100% accurate? It kind of reminds me of my long-suffering math teacher who spent hours trying to drill into me how to do long division – it’s a difficult one!

The truth is of course, that no test can ever been deemed to be 100% accurate, but millions of dollars is spent on research and testing facilities every year to get it as close as is humanly possible. There are also some athletes who will go to extraordinary lengths not to get found out – it really is a “difficult one”.  If athletes know that a drug test is imminent, or likely, they can take masking agents which neutralize the effects of the performance enhancing drug. This means that the best way of combating the problem is by year-round tests with no prior warning to the athletes, it’s the only way to be sure of an accurate result.

Steroids Testing in Athletes – How it Works

Steroid and drug testing in athletes is done by testing a urine sample. Sounds simple enough, bit like a pregnancy test, just pee on this stick and wait for the result to appear magically before your eyes, but you have to remember that athletes who might be at risk of being found out will go to extraordinary lengths to get away with it. Right then, so maybe a few dodgy samples could be smuggled in! Drastic measures need to be taken. You see, not only is the athlete a suspect in sabotaging the results of the sample, but what if the sample could be “got at” between the athlete and the laboratory. Oh, this is getting more tricky by the minute. These are the measures which must be taken.

• Once they’ve been selected to take a drug test, an athlete must sign a form to acknowledge this and go to the testing center
• The testing center needs to be comfortable, warm, private and have plenty of drinks available (in case they don’t need to go)
• The athlete then has the opportunity to choose two bottles at random, in which to submit a urine sample. He/she must then sign a declaration form, including any drugs or treatments which have been taken during the seven days leading up to the test day
• The samples are sealed, on front of the athlete, who must confirm that everything is as it should be.
• The samples are then sent off to the laboratory for testing.

One of the above procedures which may not be quite so simple as you would have thought, is collecting the sample. Not because it can be difficult to pee into a bottle (even though it can), that’s not it at all, but the athlete must be observed actually peeing into it. Some people naturally find this a little bit uncomfortable and embarassing at the very least, but it is essential to be sure that the urine sample is the genuine article.

Very often athletes who have been found guilty of taking steroids have cried that the sample must have been sabotaged, so it really is important for all concerned to make sure that the procedure is followed correctly. It safeguards the athlete as well as the testing center.

If you are going to take steroids, you need to buy term life insurance.