USADA’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Matthew Fedoruk, discusses the importance of ethics when young athletes face pressure to dope and identifies the warning signs of performance-enhancing drug use.
Learn more about Dr. Matt Fedoruk.
Video Transcript
I think ethics plays a huge role in Clean Sport. We’re experiencing a culture now in sport where it’s really a win at all cost culture. Along with that, there’s a lot of pressures on athletes to succeed and to move up in sport. We don’t want sport to be exclusionary, and so identifying those high risk times at which you possibly could cut corners and engage in behavior such as doping. I think good ethics and teaching ethics allows you to perform better and ultimately enjoy sport and succeed in competitive sport.
The warning signs that an athlete may be taking performance enhancing drugs aren’t necessarily easy to spot. Some of the behavioral warning signs would be things like increased aggressiveness or just acting like they’re not themselves or not performing while they’re training like they would be expected to or not being able to concentrate like they were before. Those are the psychological or behavioral changes.
You can also look for physical changes, such as acne. You can look for changes in body size. You can look for things … The side effects of steroids, for example, would be, in males, breast enlargement or, in females, growing body hair that wouldn’t normally be there so there are some warning signs of performance enhancing drug use.
I think parents and coaches and those that interact with athletes on a regular basis and know them well are best suited to identify things like changes in behavior, psychological changes, as well as physical changes. You know how an athlete looked last season compared to this season or what might have happened during their off season so being able to identify changes in body size and weight, being able to identify changes in physical appearance, such as acne caused by some performance enhancing drugs.
I think you need to look at it really as an athlete as a whole and not just to be able to say, “Oh, that one thing means that they’re taking performance enhancing drugs.” It’s a combination of things and then being able to have an honest conversation.
