The whole idea of modern athletics is to win, to be the best because at the end of that finishing line lies gold - real gold. Now that sports is part of the big business’ of entertainment, a medal can be worth millions of dollars not only to the athlete but to the athlete’s sponsor and even the athlete’s national sports organization. With so much at stake, the principles of fair play and “may the best man or woman win” have all but disappeared replaced by “come in first, no matter how”. And if it takes cheating to win, then so be it. About thirty years ago it was discovered that one of the best ways to cheat was to be found in the pharmaceutical laboratories. Until the advent of modern chemistry, the performance enhancement choices available to athletes were pretty much limited. Now any top athlete is aware that there is a storehouse of drugs and medical tricks that they can use for “upping” their performance. Anabolic steroids, amphetamines, human growth hormone (HGH), and the endurance-aiding erythropoietin (EPO), make up only a small part of the illegal measures available to the cheating athlete. Many of these drugs can be masked by other drugs, while for some of the newer drugs there are still no approved tests available. DYING TO WIN is a revealing and frightening expose of the explosive use of performance enhancing drugs. Its impact goes beyond the athletes’ fields of competition. Its corrosive effects have touched amateur participants, fans and even children. The documentary shows how athletes, coaches, medical gurus and officials function in the context of this seemingly unstoppable onslaught of performance-enhancing drugs. For although on the surface there seems to be a new, concerted effort to eliminate doping with the formation of WADA (The World Anti-Doping Agency), the pressures that big money, powerful sports federations and a lack of political will among both rich and poor countries has ultimately undermined any real hope of stopping athletics’ dirty open secret.