There is a lesson to learn from the story of national basketball team player Kiefer Ravena.
The promising young cager has spent the last 487 days out of the sport closes to his heart: basketball. The reason he spent time away from the sport is that he was slapped by International Basketball Federation with a 16-month suspension for testing positive for banned substances, otherwise referred to in sports as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). In the case of Ravena, he innocently took a pre-workout drink which turned out to contain a banned sustance unknown to him. In a random test routinely conducted by FIBA, banned substances were found in his system in February 26, 2018.
Ravena took the bullet head on. He did not blame anyone. Not the manufacturer of the pre-workout formula. He also did not bury himself into isolation during his suspension. Instead, the 25-year-old became the face in the country’s anti-doping awareness program–something that is uncommon as there had been no prior major cases of PEDs in the country. At a time, boxing icon Manny Pacquiao was accused by Floyd Mayweather of taking PEDs. The accusation died as just that, a false accusation.
In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs by athletic competitors. The term doping is widely used by organizations that regulate sporting competitions. The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical, and therefore prohibited, by most international sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. Furthermore, athletes (or athletic programs) taking explicit measures to evade detection exacerbate the ethical violation with overt deception and cheating.
Ravena’s case was an eye-opener not only for him but also for Philippine sports. There are so many products being sold in the market designated by their manufacturers and advertised as energy drink, pre-workout drink, or performance boosters. Their chemical contents are barely discussed by sports and medical experts and leaves athletes who take them unaware of these formula. Now, the need for medical sports education is more imperative than ever for the protection of athletes who are the prime market of these products.
The bitter lesson Ravena learned from his experience is to trust natural training like doing the right exercises, eating the proper food, getting enough sleep and keeping hydrated. Every athlete must realize that the best drink on earth remains water and not what is advertised everywhere.
Excellence, afterall, comes from the purest of forms–the human machine running on its natural, unadulterated state.
