An Olympian's View of Steroids

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Mike Agostini says he remembers athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

Mike Agostini, a former Olympian, wishes athletes wouldn't take steroids but says the drugs shouldn't be banned.

As baseball braces for former Sen. George Mitchell's report on steroid use in baseball, sports fans have to reckon with a long history of drug use among athletes.

Agostini, who represented Trinidad and Tobago as a sprinter at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, says it was common knowledge that certain competitors were using amphetamines — and he says he tried them once himself.

"If we can't stop the use of so-called recreational drugs . . . how are we going to stop them in sport, where the rewards are so much greater?" he asks.

Agostini argues that steroids allow an athlete to train harder and recover faster — but they can't make a winner where no natural potential exists. "You can't make a champion race horse out of a jackass," he says. And not many boycott performances by rock stars like Mick Jagger because of questions over whether they've ever used drugs. "No one cares whether he does or not," Agostini says.