A group of Year 10 students joined Steve Cram to discover how performance enhancing drugs are endangering sport in the UK.

A group of Year 10 students from the Academy attended an event at Sunderland University where Steve Cram joined experts in performance enhancing drugs to reveal how their use is endangering sport in the UK.

The following report is from the University of Sunderland website:

Steve, who is Chancellor of the University of Sunderland and a medal winning Olympic athlete, joined experts at the university to discuss the problem with 15 to 18 year olds from the North East.

The special event, 'Drugs in Sport - Why, How and If' was the brainchild of Sunderland academic Dr Joan Munby and was sponsored by the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

As well as looking at the prevalence and dangers of performance enhancing drugs in modern sport, Dr Munby and a panel of experts including second year Sports and Exercise student Sarah Ivers from South Shields, were quizzed by their audience on the affects on athletes' physical and mental wellbeing and the pressures they face in their highly competitive disciplines.

Dr Munby, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Sunderland, says: "My main message to the students was to put the issue of drugs in sport into a scientific and historical context and to demonstrate the potential health problems associated with taking such drugs. Competitive sport takes place within certain rules, and rules currently involve not taking ergogenic substances, although there will always be those that break such rules."

Steve Cram, University Chancellor and former world champion athlete is a strong opponent of performance enhancing drugs. He told the audience of 14-18 year olds: "There is a gathering momentum from athletics' governing bodies, the agents, the European Athletics Association, the sport's governing body, and the World Anti-Doping Agency to take a stronger stance on people who have been guilty of drug offences, there will always be cheats in sport. What we have to do is ensure the penalties match the crime."