Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 957, Doping in Sports.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 957.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This dialogue on this episode is between Mia and Alex about using drugs to perform better when playing sports.
Let's get started.
This is ridiculous.
They're going to suspend Eric Rodrigo for doping.
From what I've read, he failed his random drug test and they found performance-enhancing drugs in his system.
But he's one of the best players on the team.
Without him, we won't have a chance to get to the playoffs.
He should have thought of that before he decided to cheat.
I'm surprised they're only suspending him for a few games.
Last year, a player on another team was banned for life from the sport and stripped of his championship titles.
You don't think that people who use steroids and other banned substances should be punished?
Not when the fans are the ones who really pay the price.
So you're in favor of allowing performance-enhancing drugs in sports?
Sure.
Why not?
If everybody is doping, it levels the playing field.
I am really glad you're not the commissioner.
Our dialogue begins by Mia saying, this is ridiculous.
They're going to suspend Eric Rodrigo for doping.
When someone says this is ridiculous, they mean this is wrong.
This is crazy.
Something is happening that doesn't make any sense.
Mia says they're going to suspend Eric Rodrigo for doping.
To suspend S-U-S-P-E-N-D means to temporarily not allow someone to do something.
If a student does something wrong at school. say, get into a fight with another student.
He might be suspended.
The school may say, you can't come to class for the next week.
You're suspended.
You have to stay home or go out and fight somebody on the street.
No, they don't want them to fight someone on the street.
They just want the student to be punished.
So when you suspend someone from something, you're usually punishing them for doing something wrong.
This person, Eric, is being suspended for or because of doping, D-O-P-I-N-G.
Doping is the practice of using illegal drugs to improve your athletic performance.
The drugs actually aren't always illegal.
They're just not allowed in certain competitions.
This, of course, has been a problem in the last 25, 30 years in the Olympics and, more prominently, in the Tour de France.
Alex says, from what I've read...
He meaning Eric, failed his random drug test and they found performance-enhancing drugs in his system.
A drug test is when you are tested to see whether you have taken any drugs.
They could do this by taking some of your blood that's a very common type of drug test.
A random drug test is when you don't know when they're going to test you.
They often test athletes randomly so that the athlete can't prepare.
The athlete can't stop taking the drug for a few days so that the drug test doesn't find anything in their system.
Alex says that Eric's random drug test found that he was taking performance-enhancing drugs, sometimes referred to by their abbreviation PEDs.
Performance-enhancing drugs are drugs that make you perform better, specifically help an athlete perform better, make him or her stronger or faster.
When we talk about drug tests and trying to detect or see whether someone is using a certain kind of drug, we often use the term system, as in they found drugs in his system.
System, S-Y-S-T-E-M, here just means in some part of your body.
We talk about the digestive system.
That's the parts of your body that allow you to eat food and get energy from that food.
You have the respiratory system.
The respiratory system consists of the parts of your body that allow you to breathe your lungs, for example.
When we say that they found PEDs in his system, we mean they found drugs in the blood sample that they took from him.
Mia says that Eric is one of the best players on the team.
Without him, we won't have a chance, we won't get the opportunity to get to the playoffs.
In most sports, especially professional sports, at the end of the season, at the end of the period of time when the teams play, there is usually a competition involves playoffs.
The best teams from that year play each other to determine who is the very best.
So in american football you have playoffs that lead to the Super Bowl, where the two best teams play each other.
In American baseball, we have the playoffs that lead to the World Series.
In international soccer, you have the World Cup.
Those all involve playoffs, teams playing each other to determine which team is the best.
Alex says that Eric should have thought of that before he decided to cheat.
Alex is saying that Eric should have thought of the consequences of his actions when he took these performance.
Enhancing drugs.
Alex says that he has cheated.
To cheat C-H-E-A-T means to be dishonest in the way that you are playing or in the way that you are competing.
You can also cheat in school.
You can look at someone else's answers on a test.
That would be also considered cheating.
It would also be considered stupid if the person next to you doesn't know any more than you do.
Last year, a player on another team was banned for life from the sport and stripped of his championship titles.
To be banned, B-A-N-N-E-D, for life means you are not allowed to do something ever again.
This is something that happens, for example, if an athlete does something really bad, really wrong.
He or she might be banned for life from competing professionally in that sport.
This doesn't happen very often.
It does happen sometimes.
There was a very famous baseball player who was banned for life, even though he was one of the best baseball players of the 20th century, a man by the name of Pete Rose.
We won't go into his story.
It is possible to be banned for life, and that's what happened in our dialogue to another player, not to Eric, to someone else.
This person also was stripped of his championship titles.
To strip, S-T-R-I-P, means to take something off.
Typically, we use this verb when talking about your clothing.
To take your clothing off, all of your clothing off, would be to strip.
There are, of course, some people who do that professionally, but we're not going to talk about that here.
In our dialogue the verb to strip means to take away some honor or some prize or some award from someone because they've done something wrong.
Our athlete who was banned for life was stripped of his championship titles.
The term titles here refers to honors or awards that people win.
Championship titles would be awards that you won for being the best team, for winning a competition that determined who the best team was or the best player was.
In the Olympics, we give people who win a medal, either a gold, silver, or bronze medal.
If they later find that that person cheated, they can strip that person of his or her medals.
The medals represent the title, if you will, the award or honor.
Mia says.
In my opinion, they completely overreacted and one of the best players in the game is off the field forever.
To react R-E-A-C-T to something is to respond to something, to do something because something else has been done.
To overreact means to react too strongly to something.
If someone criticizes you by saying that your shirt is a little dirty and you decide to take out a gun and shoot that person, that would be overreacting.
You're reacting much too strongly given the situation.
You shouldn't kill people who criticize you if you have a dirty shirt or whatever.
You shouldn't kill anyone anyway, but definitely not for a criticism of your shirt.
Mia says the sporting organization of whatever sport this is overreacted by suspending Eric Rodrigo.
And now one of the best players in the game is off the field forever.
The field is the area, the ground where they play on.
You can have a football field.
You can have a soccer field.
You can have a baseball field.
Alex says you don't think that people who use steroids and other banned substances should be punished.
Steroids S-T-E-R-O-I-D-S are drugs that are often made and given to athletes to make them stronger.
I take steroids, for example, to do my podcasts.
I need that extra strength.
I'm kidding, of course.
Banned substances are drugs or other things that you put into your body that are not allowed.
To ban something means to prohibit it.
Mia says, not when the fans are the ones who really pay the price.
Mia is not favor of punishing athletes, because the fans, the people who watch the sport, are the ones who really pay the price.
To pay the price here doesn't refer to money, but rather any other sort of negative consequence or bad result that comes from some action.
You want to run a marathon.
If you want to run 26 miles, you have to pay the price.
The price may be physical pain, it may be having to work extra hard.
It may mean having to get up early in the morning to go out and practice your running.
That would be paying the price.
Alex says so you're in favor of allowing performance enhancing drugs in sports.
Mia says, sure, why not?
If everybody is doping, it levels the playing field.
Mia is saying that if everyone is taking drugs, then no one has an advantage.
When no one has an advantage, we say the Plain field is level, L-E-V-E-L.
Level can also be a verb, to level, which means to make something even so that one part is not higher than the other.
In this case, one person is not better than the other.
To level the plain field then, means to make everything fair by not giving any person an advantage over the other.
Alex said, I am really glad you're not the commissioner.
The commissioner C-O-M-M-I-S-S-I-O-N-E-R is a person whose job it is to, or be in charge of, some typically government department, although it is also used in the United States for large sporting organizations.
There is a commissioner or a president of Major League Baseball.
There's a commissioner or leader of the National Football League.
That's what Alex is referring to here.
He's saying that he's glad that Mia is not in charge of.
Is not the commissioner of whatever sporting organization they are a member of?
We never learn what sport Mia and Alex are talking about here.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
This is ridiculous.
They're going to suspend Eric Rodrigo for doping.
From what I've read, he failed his random drug test and they found performance-enhancing drugs in his system.
But he's one of the best players on the team.
Without him, we won't have a chance to get to the playoffs.
He should have thought of that before he decided to cheat.
I'm surprised they're only suspending him for a few games.
Last year, a player on another team was banned for life from the sport and stripped of his championship titles.
You don't think that people who use steroids and other banned substances should be punished?
Not when the fans are the ones who really pay the price.
So you're in favor of allowing performance-enhancing drugs in sports?
Sure, why not?
If everybody is doping, it levels the playing field.
I'm really glad you're not the commissioner.
She doesn't need any performance-enhancing drugs to write her scripts.
I refer, of course, to our wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
