Athletes and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) seem to go hand in hand these days. There are very few days in a month when another athlete isn't attacked in the media for using substances to give him an edge over the competition. This is also not a new phenomenon. The use of performance-enhancing drugs has been going on for decades. Fans put more pressure than they realize on these athletes to perform. This pressure to preform is what leads many to resort to PEDs. Maybe it's time for fans to stop turning elite athletes into Gods among men and start seeing them as human beings who will have good days and bad days. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Looking at the history of PED use it becomes very clear that this is not a new or going away problem. In 1886 a Welsh cyclist named Arthur Linton died during a race from Bordeaux to Paris. Some believe he died of typhoid fever, but other information indicates he was killed by trimethyl, which was a combination of alcohol, strychnine, heroin, caffeine, and cocaine. This shows how desperate some athletes were to be the best and the fans don't help this problem. Recently Maria Sharapova, the tennis star, revealed that she failed a drug test, which shows that the problem still persists. Some of these athletes, like Lance Armstrong, were stripped of past titles and are now more famous for their doping scandals than for winning any championships. One man, Dick Pound, who is the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, "believes that there are five main reasons why athletes turn to performance-enhancing drugs, considered by most fans to be the worst form of cheating. ("The Game of Money: Why Do Sports Stars Cheat?", 2012) These reasons are the desire to win at any cost, financial security, pressure from coaches, pressure from the nation they represent and, finally, doping against doping because they don't think they will ever get caught. trying to solve this problem many sports organizations have anti-doping policies in place. NBA, NFL and MLB now test for many different types of PEDs, including HGH (human growth hormone). The Olympic Committee has now made sure that if an athlete is caught doping, he cannot compete. This is a big problem for the Russian team who expects to see at least sixty-eight athletes banned from the Rio 2016 Olympics. the problem of doping is great in any type of sport. Fans want to see star athletes accomplish extraordinary feats, and once that happens, they want even more. These are athletes who can't be hurt, who can't be stopped, who are virtually untouchable in their sport. The problem is that these people are rooting and cheering for something more and are now adding to the already problematic doping of professional athletes. Fans also think that doping is the worst thing an athlete can do, that it is the ultimate form of cheating. This is a double-edged sword that these athletes balance on. They need the support of the fans so that the athlete can have the financial support that comes with being a great athlete and popular among the people. Most, however, like A. Rod, value fame for the attention and money it brings and will do anything to keep it. Fans need to understand that these are not different species that have evolved beyond the desire to have money and power. Like most.