What exactly is "doping" in cycling and other sports?

Answer 1

Early in bicycle racing, riders would take small amounts of rat poison before a stage. The rat poison contained strychnine, which caused the rats' hearts to seize but also allowed the cyclists' muscles to contract more forcefully. After a few riders died from (duh) being poisoned, the word that taking a foregn substance to make you faster got around.

There are drugs to make your body produce more red blood cells (or you can inject a "booster" of previously donated cells) so you can carry more oxygen, but this makes the blood thick and can cause your heart to stop.

Hormones, such as testosterone, can allow your body to easily build muscle mass or, as a one-time use, can aid in faster recovery. But hormones stay in the body for a longer time and would be detected over several successive days' tests, and are also one of the easiest substances to detect.

There are rumors of "gene doping," where an athlete's own stem cells are harvested from the body, genetically altered, and reinjected where they can trigger naturally higher testosterone or red blood cell counts.

It would go against all logic to test positive for steroid use on only one day, and equally stupid to use an extremely obvious substance.

Answer 2

Using drugs to enhance performance, such as anabolic steroids, or using erythropoietin (EPO) to boost red blood cell production and increase the oxygen supply in the body.

Answer 3

Taking performance enhancing drugs like steroids, or synthetic hormones.

Answer 4

Using steroids or any other banned performance enhancing drug (in the case of Floyd, he took pills that artificially heightend his testosterone levels)

Answer 5

using drugs.