Tweet
Global anti-doping agency is planning a crackdown on the inhalation of xenon gas following claims that it is being used to enhance athletes’ performances illegally
The World Anti-Doping Agency is planning a crackdown on the inhalation of xenon gas following claims that it is being used to enhance athletes’ performances illegally.
Telegraph Sport has learnt that a recommendation will be made to Wada’s executive committee on May 17 for action to be taken over the untraceable substance, which studies have shown can stimulate the production of erythropoietin (EPO) and testosterone.
The use of xenon was discussed by the agency’s list committee a fortnight ago following reports that Russian athletes may have been inhaling it routinely for more than a decade, including before the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The list committee is thought to have determined the gas does have performance-enhancing potential, meaning Wada’s executive committee will rule whether it should be banned outright or have limits imposed on its use.
“Artificially enhancing the uptake, transport or delivery of oxygen” is all but forbidden by the agency, whose founding president Dick Pound has condemned the inhalation of xenon.
Pound, who remains on Wada’s foundation board and is a member of the International Olympic Committee, said in February: “Let there be no doubt that this is doping and that it will not be possible to state in any possible proceedings that the rules are not clear.”
Pound’s comments followed the release of details about the performance-enhancing properties of xenon by the Economist magazine and German broadcaster WDR.
Dr Mario Thevis, of the Wada-accredited control laboratory in Cologne, told the channel’s Sport Inside programme that animal experiments had shown just how effective the gas could be.
He said: “Within a day, within 24 hours, the production of EPO has increased by a factor of 1.6, to 160 per cent. That’s a significant increase. It is highly likely that it has the same effect in humans.”
The Economist said the website of Atom Medical Centre, a Russian medical-xenon producer, boasted of national honours the company received for its efforts preparing athletes for the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2006 Winter Games. The magazine also cited a document produced in 2010 by the State Research Institute of Russia’s Ministry of Defence, which it said set out guidelines for the administration of xenon to athletes.
It said that the document recommended that, every 48-72 hours, a 50-50 mixture of oxygen and xenon was inhaled a few minutes before bedtime to combat listlessness and sleep disruption.
It was also said to advise a quick hit immediately prior to competing, as well as a further dose afterwards to improve physical recovery. Benefits were said to include increased heart and lung capacity, a reduction in muscle fatigue, a testosterone boost and improvement to an athlete’s mood.
Xenon’s health-boosting properties have long been known – it is used in some countries as an anaesthetic and is being investigated as a treatment for babies starved of oxygen during birth and for heart-attack victims – so anti-doping experts are unsurprised that those seeking to enhance sporting performance may have hijacked it.
Wada has been reluctant to commit to whether that automatically represents a breach of its rules. Similar effects can be achieved legally by living and training at altitude or using low-oxygen tents.
Despite the lack of test for xenon in an athletes’ system, unexplained increases in testosterone levels or discrepancies in a biological passport are punishable with a ban. Atom Medical Centre has disputed Thevis’s theory on how xenon effects the release of EPO in humans and that inhaling it constitutes doping.
The World Anti-Doping Agency is planning a crackdown on the inhalation of xenon gas following claims that it is being used to enhance athletes’ performances illegally.
Telegraph Sport has learnt that a recommendation will be made to Wada’s executive committee on May 17 for action to be taken over the untraceable substance, which studies have shown can stimulate the production of erythropoietin (EPO) and testosterone.
The use of xenon was discussed by the agency’s list committee a fortnight ago following reports that Russian athletes may have been inhaling it routinely for more than a decade, including before the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The list committee is thought to have determined the gas does have performance-enhancing potential, meaning Wada’s executive committee will rule whether it should be banned outright or have limits imposed on its use.
“Artificially enhancing the uptake, transport or delivery of oxygen” is all but forbidden by the agency, whose founding president Dick Pound has condemned the inhalation of xenon.
Pound, who remains on Wada’s foundation board and is a member of the International Olympic Committee, said in February: “Let there be no doubt that this is doping and that it will not be possible to state in any possible proceedings that the rules are not clear.”
Pound’s comments followed the release of details about the performance-enhancing properties of xenon by the Economist magazine and German broadcaster WDR.
Dr Mario Thevis, of the Wada-accredited control laboratory in Cologne, told the channel’s Sport Inside programme that animal experiments had shown just how effective the gas could be.
He said: “Within a day, within 24 hours, the production of EPO has increased by a factor of 1.6, to 160 per cent. That’s a significant increase. It is highly likely that it has the same effect in humans.”
The Economist said the website of Atom Medical Centre, a Russian medical-xenon producer, boasted of national honours the company received for its efforts preparing athletes for the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2006 Winter Games. The magazine also cited a document produced in 2010 by the State Research Institute of Russia’s Ministry of Defence, which it said set out guidelines for the administration of xenon to athletes.
It said that the document recommended that, every 48-72 hours, a 50-50 mixture of oxygen and xenon was inhaled a few minutes before bedtime to combat listlessness and sleep disruption.
It was also said to advise a quick hit immediately prior to competing, as well as a further dose afterwards to improve physical recovery. Benefits were said to include increased heart and lung capacity, a reduction in muscle fatigue, a testosterone boost and improvement to an athlete’s mood.
Xenon’s health-boosting properties have long been known – it is used in some countries as an anaesthetic and is being investigated as a treatment for babies starved of oxygen during birth and for heart-attack victims – so anti-doping experts are unsurprised that those seeking to enhance sporting performance may have hijacked it.
Wada has been reluctant to commit to whether that automatically represents a breach of its rules. Similar effects can be achieved legally by living and training at altitude or using low-oxygen tents.
Despite the lack of test for xenon in an athletes’ system, unexplained increases in testosterone levels or discrepancies in a biological passport are punishable with a ban. Atom Medical Centre has disputed Thevis’s theory on how xenon effects the release of EPO in humans and that inhaling it constitutes doping.