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Why
Natural Athletes cannot succeed in the IFBB
Now that
we have established the dominance of the IFBB as the largest professional
bodybuilding organization in the world, as well the monopoly of the NPC as
the only amateur route to professional ranking in the IFBB, we can
understand why Natural Bodybuilding is so poorly understood as well as its
lack of representation. Based on the previous data, a natural athlete simply
cannot rise through the ranks of the NPC and receive professional status in
the IFBB.
There is
no question that steroids enhance athletic performance. Tom Fordyce, sports
writer for the BBC describes the effect of steroids as follows, “Anabolic
steroids can improve the body's capacity to train and compete at the highest
level. They reduce the fatigue associated with training and the time
required to recover after physical exertion. They also promote the
development of muscle tissue in the body, with an associated increase in
strength and power” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/, the THG scandal explained).
The Olympics
have been tainted with multiple allegations and scandals plague virtually
all levels of professional and amateur sports. The highest levels of
competition attract not only the best, but the most determined; people who
intend to succeed at any cost. Sports Illustrated magazine ran an article
titled “Easily obtained steroids focus of debate” (Sports Illustrated –
Nov-26-2003), in which purported steroid expert Bob Goldman spoke of an
informal survey that he had conducted with professional and Olympic athletes
regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs. Goldman states in the
article “I made up a hypothetical magic pill. I told them they'd win every
competition for five years, but then die from it". According to the article,
each time that Goldman takes the survey, over 50% of the questioned athletes
respond that they would take the pill. The story of this survey, repeated
and often magnified to the status of an urban legend throughout the athletic
community, is a sad indictment against a culture that glorifies winners only
while those who finish second and beyond receive faint accolade and are
quickly forgotten.
The
media’s lavish attention to sporting hero’s, elevating them to celebrity
status, has not been without its trickle down effect. The win at any cost
mentality is now prevalent at the high school level and beyond. The annual
“Monitoring the Future” survey conducted by the University of Michigan
Institute for Social Research suggest that the use of steroids among high
school students increased throughout the 1990’s before dropping slightly in
2003 (University of Michigan, Monitoring the Future – 2004 Drug Trends). It
should be noted that the slight drop was evidenced in eight and tenth grades
only with a marked increase in steroid use among twelfth graders. The study
further stated that 45% of 12th graders did not believe that steroid use
posed a serious health risk. A Newsweek analysis of the 2003 data suggests
that over 300,000 high school students have used anabolic steroids (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6700913/site/newsweek/).
Addressing the
efficacy of steroids to elevate athletic performance, physician Michel
Karsten, who claims to have prescribed steroids to hundreds of world class
athletes, has stated "There may be some sportsmen who can win gold medals
without taking drugs, but they are very few. If you are especially gifted,
you may win once, but from my experience you can’t continue to win without
drugs, the field is just too filled with drug users".
(http://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/Documents/Analysispieces/WhyWeShouldAllowDrugs_000.pdf)
Compounding
the epidemic of drug use among athletes is the difficulty of accurate
detection. Because sport contracts and winning teams can translate to tens
of millions of dollars, the market for drug masking agents, as well as new
and altered drugs that as of yet cannot be detected, is enormous and
lucrative. Recent headlines have drawn attention to the Bay Area Laboratory
Cooperative (Balco) for its distribution of THG, a drug which had been
chemically altered to avoid detection. Numerous athletes, including baseball
star Barry Bonds, were implicated. THG is only one of many designer drugs
however, for which adequate testing methods are yet to develop. According to
steroid researcher William Llewellyn, "There are thousands and thousands of
ways you could modify a steroid to change its structure and avoid detection.
It's not tremendously difficult to create something like THG” (Sports
Illustrated – Nov-26-2003). Llewellyn further states, "I think athletes are
constantly looking for the next thing they can use before it becomes banned
or becomes detectable. Ever since there's been testing, there's always been
a search for ways to beat the tests."
Summarizing
the above, we see that steroid use is rampant in all levels of amateur and
professional sports, that detection methods are not always capable or
accurate, and that in spite of the potential health risk, athletes are
willing to use them to gain a competitive advantage. It should come as no
surprise therefore, that in the sport of bodybuilding in which athletes are
rewarded in relationship to their muscle mass, definition and presentation,
to find steroid abuse of epidemic proportions. In is book, “Little Big Men,
Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction”, Northeastern University
Professor Alan Klein states “Professional bodybuilding is perhaps the only
sport in which steroid use is unavoidable” (Klein, 1993). Klein, who
considers bodybuilders to be extremist who are obsessed with body image,
further states, “You'd have to be a fool to go up on stage without
steroids". This situation is further compounded when considering that the
largest sanctioning body at the amateur level only drug test 15% of its
competitive events. This scenario inevitably allows for enhanced athletes to
filter to the top of competitive ladder, from which they then make the leap
to professional recognition in the IFBB. A Natural athlete simply cannot
compete in this environment. Perpetuating the problem is the fact that only
upper level NCP and IFBB athletes are featured in major publications, thus
skewing public perception of bodybuilders and bodybuilding. The Weider
organization, which founded the IFBB and of which Ben Weider is still acting
President, is also the largest health and fitness publishing and nutritional
supplement company in the world (www.factbites.com / Ben Weider). The IFBB
therefore not only pulls the strings in the world of professional
bodybuilding, but also the medium by which professional bodybuilding is
presented to the public.
Natural
Bodybuilding Organizations
In
response to the above, several Natural Bodybuilding organizations have been
created by conscientious individuals or groups in an attempt to provide a
level playing field for natural athletes. These organizations sanction drug
tested competitions at the regional level. While some claim to hold
national and international levels of competition, none as of yet is
sufficiently attended to merit such a title. These organizations draw little
attention because the public does not view Natural Bodybuilders as
bodybuilders. The public image of bodybuilders is that which is presented in
the media, IFBB professionals and Olympia contenders. Natural athletes are
diminutive by comparison, the best of which would look out of place on the
Olympian stage. Therefore, with limited resources and little exposure, these
small organizations remain small or fail within a few years. Additionally,
while these small organizations have a web presence, few have invested the
capital to offer web based community services to their visitors. Of the few
that have attempted, most are using free services that are unprofessional in
appearance and are accompanied by pop up advertising. The big boys, in both
literal and figurative terms, are using premium web based community software
that is both professional in appearance and easy to navigate.
Data
Analysis
The
purpose of this study is to examine Web Based Communities with regard to the
interest of Natural Bodybuilding. The literature has shown that Natural
Bodybuilding is a distinct and separate community from that of Bodybuilding
as it is popularly understood through dominant media. The data has also
shown that the overwhelming imbalance in online community membership is
testimony of the extent to which steroids have influenced bodybuilding as we
know it today.
Reasons
for Choosing Google to determine Online Community Presence
Google is
the current leader in search engine popularity handling 46.2% of all search
engine quires with its closest rival Yahoo, coming in at only 22.5% (www.searchenginewatch.com,
Nelson Ratings). These statistics are reflected in the writers’ personal
experience as a webmaster noting that Google is responsible for 70% of
search engine traffic directed to the Lift for Life.com web site.
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