Don Kardong Quotes

The safety argument against steroids may be a good one, but let's be honest. It isn't the one that motivates most officials and fans to frown on steroids. Steroid use does not just seem risky or unnatural, it seems to disrupt the level playing field.

You've got Jon Jones, for instance. That guy is the best, one of the best fighters in the world, but he's a cheater.

I mean, does anyone seriously think there are no drugs in Olympic sports just because they do some kind of testing? They are highly competitive sports with highly competitive people and just with competitive business people do whatever they can do to get ahead.

This is an Olympic-level type of sport and it needs to be cleaned up.

I never took banned substances, but I have been courted by doctors who wanted to improve my blood in the laboratory. My mother always put them on a flight.

Why should sports men and women get punished harsher than people in the normal world?

I myself am frustrated in just where sports are at. It's a hard thing when you're out there working every day, and you know that someone else is cheating and they may not necessarily get caught.

In athletics there's always been a willingness to cheat if it looks like you're not cheating. I think that's just a quirk of human nature.

Well, when I think of steroids I think of an image. You have the advantage over someone, which is a form of cheating. I guess it wouldn't be right unless it was legal for everybody. Reason it's not legal for everybody is because it can hurt people seriously.

What we've seen this season is that if something that will enhance performance is available, some players will indulge... unless the penalty is an absolute deterrent.

I don't like all the cheating that's going in mixed martial arts. I don't know what percentage of high-level fighters do it, but I think it would be a significant amount.

With all the great products that are apparently out there that are undetectable, for me to take something like that... when people take things that now aren't even being tested for, does it make any sense?

I do not take steroids. I never have. It's sad to me that people want to point fingers. I don't do that. That's not me. I wouldn't feel like a human being.

That's what Major League Baseball's steroid scandal was all about, the hidden harm in competitive sports that sends the wrong message to the young.

When an athlete has relegated the persistent rumors of cheating to the back room of the mind, he hasn't really forgotten them. And when he glances back to where rumors hunker in the darkness, he hopes with a savage heart that somehow, some day, those cheaters will be brought to justice.

It is cycling as a professional sport that represents the problem. It can transform someone into a liar.

My stance has always been that there's no place in our sport for drug users. I've always said it's a ban for life if you come up positive. I stand by that.

Steroids are for guys who want to cheat opponents.

Because I tried to everything possible to become the best player in the world? Do I believe steroids and growth hormones helped me achieve that? Yes. Were there a lot of other players doing it that I had to compete against? Yes.

I'm for a drug-free sport and always will be.

If you look at the sponsors who were in the sport 15 years ago compared to now there are a lot fewer. Why? Because those runners who took drugs tainted the sport. They tainted all of us in it.

HGH testing is happening in Olympics. The science is there. It is a valid test.

I don't think that - you know, I'm sure that there's guys that are doing it, because I'm sure in every sport there's players who want to get the edge. But I think that it's been blown overly - way more than guys are using it in our game.

These days the temptation to use steroids in sports has become too great for many young athletes.

My guess is many top athletes, distance runners included, use performance-enhancing drugs, enough so that the problem must be tackled.