Drugs in sports

Abstract

This research intends to examine the awareness of drugs in individual sports through a set of questions relating to the individual and how these athletes perceive other sports personalities who make use of drugs in sports. This topic was particularly chosen since I am involved in sports myself and was interested to look at the awareness of doping and drug use in sports as in my opinion, there isn't a lot of knowledge and understanding about it however, these need to be given importance. Consequently, this study was designed to provide an insight into the minds of Maltese athletes about the use of drugs in sports as part of their daily routine. A qualitative and quantitative type of research was conducted through a questionnaire distributed to twenty five athletes, ages eighteen and over, that practise athletics or cycling. Through such research, in addition to the secondary research (literature review), this study achieved a degree of objectiveness of results through such ‘triangulation’. The results obtained show that many of the Maltese athletes are aware of the misuse of drug use in sports however, not all athletes are aware of all the drugs available to them and cannot really define between what is prohibited and not. These athletes specify the importance of doping and that drugs are dangerous but have mixed feelings on the main reasons athletes opt to use drugs instead of training harder. Finally, a number of recommendations have been put forward so as to help develop the present situation.