... many Gladiators were "doped up" to make their fights sufficiently vigorous and bloody for the paying audience. The Christians found the bloody nature of many Roman sports unacceptable, and all form of pagan competition, including the ancient Olympics were banned. The idea that physical development hindered intellectual development was widely encouraged and accepted and sport did not re-emerge until the nineteenth century in rural England. Unfortunately, with this emergence, came the use of newer, more enhanced drugs. The first athlete in the modern Olympics who was known to take drugs was American Marathon runner Thomas Hicks, at the 1904 Games in St. Louis, Missouri. At that time there was no concept of drugs and so no further action was taking into detecting their use. At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, however, Swedish cyclist Knut Jenson took compound drugs to compete in the road race, during which he collapsed and died. This incident ...

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