20 Athletes Who Got In Trouble For Using Performance Enhancing Drugs

With all the money athletes can get from endorsements deals today, they all want to make sure they perform. Sometimes driving them into using performance enhancing drugs. The reports of athletes getting caught and suspended for these acts doesn’t seam to discourage them from using PED’s, some actually start being more careful with the use of these drugs. It’s such a shame, cause being caught usually results in them losing all what they’ve worked for. Check out these athletes below who went through trouble for using performance enhancers.

Late Ben Plucknett was an American track and field athlete. In 1981 he broke the world record in discus throw, twice within seven weeks, with a throw of 233’7″. He broke the record again with a throw of 237’4″ on July 7, 1981. Both records have been thrown out because he tested positive for drug use, anabolic steroid use to be exact. Ben Plucknett became the first athlete to be disqualified by the International Association of Athletic Federations due to a positive drug test.

Vijay Singh is a Fijian World Golf Hall of Famer, inducted in 2006. In a Sports Illustrated article he talked about using deer antler spray, “looking forward to some change in my body.” This led to a lot of trouble for him, because the spray is said to include an insulin-like growth factor that was on the tour’s list of banned substances. The tour sent a sample from Singh to be tested, and it returned small amounts of IGF-1.

This led to his suspension, with the letter reading:

The sanction imposed on you for your clear violation of the Program rules is ineligibility to participate in PGA Tour or Web.com Tour competitions and any related activities for a period of 90 days.

End of April, the PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem announced that the tour was dropping its case because of new information from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which said deer antler spray was no longer considered prohibited because it contained just minimal amounts of the growth factor.

Vijay can play again, but filed a lawsuit that accuses the PGA tour of exposing him “to public humiliation and ridicule for months.”

Late Steve Courson was a two time Super Bowl winning offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1978-1983 and two years for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He released a book, False Glory: The Steve Courson Story in 1991, about his life in football when using steroids. Carson suffered from a heart condition which was believed to have been caused by his steroid use.

Former track and field athlete Marion Jones became the first woman ever to win a total of five medals, at the 2000 Sydney Olympic games. She lost her titles after admitting in 2007 to using banned substances. She also admitted to have participated in a check-fraud scheme. She served six months in prison in 2008.

Ben Johnson won gold in the men’s 100-meter sprint in 1988. His gold medal was taken from him after he tested positive for doping (steroid stanozolol). All this led to him losing a $2.8 million deal with Italian sportswear maker Diadora.

Former professional cyclist Floyd Landis was the winner of the 2006 Tour de France, till he was tested positive for synthetic testosterone. Óscar Pereiro received the win for the 2006 Tour de France. After that Floyd Landis’ $3 million contract with Phonak wad terminated.

Even though he maintained his innocence for several years, he broke down in 2007 admitting to doping. He explained why he used doping saying:

“It appeared to me that the very federation running the sport and tasked with enforcing the rules was uninterested in doing so,” Landis said. “The majority of the cyclists that I knew were using drugs. It was either do it or accept the fact that I wouldn’t reach the goals I had set for myself.”

In his admission to USADA and USA Cycling, Landis also pointed the finger at other American cyclists who had doped, including his former teammate on the U.S. Postal Service team, Lance Armstrong. In January 2011, Landis was unable to find a new team, which effectively ended his professional career.[7]

Olympic hammer silver medalist Esref Apak is one of the 31 Turkish athletes who received doping bans after testing positive for doping. This was one of the largest doping exposures within a single nation.

400 meter runner Ashwini Akkunji, together with 5 other Indian female athletes were handed one-year bans for doping violations. This crushed their dreams of qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics.

Barry Bonds is MLB’s all-time home run king with a 762 career home runs and 73 home runs in a season. But he was involved in one of baseball’s biggest steroid scandals, which led him to lose endorsement deals from the likes of MasterCard, KFC, and Charles Schwab. Sports Illustrated estimated that with a spotless reputation and clean record, Bonds could have hauled in $28 million a year in endorsements.

On December 15, 2011, Bonds was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest, two years of probation and 250 hours of community service, for an obstruction of justice conviction stemming from a grand jury appearance in 2003. However, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston then delayed the sentence pending an appeal, which may take a year or more.

On February 13th, 2013 a three judge panel of the Federal 9th Circuit Court heard the appeal to overturn Bonds’s conviction for Obstruction of Justice.

New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte is one of 89 Major League Baseball players named by US Senator George Mitchell’s report in Major League Baseball. The pitcher claimed his HGH use (in 2004) saying:

“Though it was not against baseball rules, I was not comfortable with what I was doing, so I stopped. This is it: two days out of my life: two days out of my entire career, when I was injured and on the disabled list.”

Even though his case was not as severe as lets say, Barry Bonds it still had consequences. Andy Pettitte said that this whole thing put a strain on his friendship with fellow pitcher Roger Clemens.