Russia has been a major player in many of the Olympic doping scandals for the past several games. A great example of this comes from the 2014 games in Sochi where drug testing officials switched a 100 dirty urine samples of russian athletes. The official who was responsible had to know that this was not only frowned upon by the olympic committee but also portrayed all of those Russian athletes in a bad light. “After Sochi, Dr. Rodchenkov was awarded the prestigious Order of Friendship by President Vladimir V. Putin” for his part in the 2014 incident. This wasn't the first time that Russian athletes or officials were caught up in doping scandal in athletic events; over the years it has grown to be a trend. It has become so much of a issue that they were not even allowed to have a team in the 2018 pyeongchang Winter Olympics this past year.
Russia wasn't allowed to have a olympic team this year in Pyeongchang due to doping charges, but the athletes competing from Russia (not for Russia) still got busted for doping throughout the games. At this games Russian athletes were “barred from competing” on the Russian olympic team as they had been banned due to the 2014 doping incident. Russian athletes who don’t participate in doping and qualified for the winter games still deserve the chance to compete. They were able to compete as members of the OAR (Olympic Athletes from Russia) and were held under “multiple restrictions” while in Pyeongchang. These athletes abused these privileges though by continuing the same actions that got their ream banned in the first place. Many of the OAR athletes were busted for doping and were sent home from the games yet again.
There has been doping in the Olympics since the greeks created them. the origin of the word 'doping' is attributed to the Dutch word 'doop,' which is a viscous opium juice, the drug of choice of the ancient Greeks. The use of opium was for serious pain relief, but using this drug makes the person subject to addiction, and causes them to be drowsy, give them nausea, make then vomit, and many more terrible side effects. Most forms of what we would call cheating were perfectly acceptable to them, save for game-fixing. It is astonishing that the use of drugs to enhance the performance of one participant was seen as fair, but it was also seen to be alright if participants would lose on purpose because they had put wagers on the other player to win.Since The Olympics had begun, the use of performance enhancing drugs was always prevalent; they were used to stop pain, and most importantly, they were used to cheat in the games.
The Greeks were not the only people who took performance enhancing drugs to make them better in sporting events. Gladiators ingest hallucinogens and stimulants such as strychnine to stave off fatigue and injury and to improve the intensity of their fights. Strychnine is commonly used today as a poison to kill rodents, as it attacks the nervous system and is extremely toxic. Chariot racers fed their horses substances such as hydromel to make them run faster. Hydromel, which is made out of honey, is similar to mead as alcohol is produced. From the use of drugs to enhance the speed of horses to the use of the pesticide to get rid of the pain from the Roman Gladiators, drugs were used unfairly to make someone better at that sport compared to someone without drugs.