Today the A to Z blogging challenge continues… with performance enhancing Drugs. They really annoy the snot out of me, especially when we’re dealing with team sports.

Take the 4×400 meter relay. One guy in the race can screw up the whole medal scheme for everyone else. In the 2000 men’s 4×400 meter relay, Andrew Pettigrew cheated, and everybody else on the team ends up losing their gold medals. It’s great if you’re Nigeria, Jamaica, or the Bahamas (they get their status upgraded and walk away with better medals), but for the other five members of Team USA, it’s quite messed up.

The women aren’t off the hook either. Crystal Cox, who is probably remembered more for her performance on Survivor Gabon, was found out to have used performance-enhancing drugs after running during the heats of the 4×400 relay in 2004. She lost her medal, and the Olympic committee is still trying to decide whether or not to make the others lose their medals. In the favor of the gold-medal winning team is that she ran in the heats, not the finale. We still have to wait on the verdict for that one.

It’s bad enough when you take drugs and screw up your own career, but when you go and mess it up for everyone else, it’s pretty annoying.

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