Are American sports more permissive of doping than European sports?
It is not so much that athletes in international sports such as track and field or cycling are more guilty of doping offenses. Rather, it is American athletes who are allowed to get away with using substances banned in international competition. Because red flags go up whenever a positive test result appears, Americans are skeptical of the legitimacy of sports where athletes test positive at a prodigious rate. But the mainstream American sports media and casual fans alike fail to look deeper than just the positive announcement. They chastise and belittle unfamiliar sports and athletes, whether they test positive for truly nefarious substances such as steroids or benign, legitimate prescription medication. For example: I was listening to a baseball game last night on ESPN Radio. The announcers were talking about a player trying to recover from a nagging injury. They casually tossed into the conversation the fact that this baseball player had received cortisone shots in an effort to get
