Hyperbaric Oxygen Is Latest High-Tech Performance Aid

HAKUBA, Japan - Norway's Bjorn Daehlie had one. His was in a trailer he hauled around behind his car. Finland's Mika Myllylae has one. He keeps his in the back yard of his Haapajaervi home.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has one in Colorado Springs for athletes to use when they want.

Hyperbaric oxygen chambers are the latest scientific invention to help athletes train, one that is receiving increased scrutiny from International Olympic Committee officials, who might consider banning the practice on ethical principles.

But at a time athletes allegedly are using erythropoietin (EPO), a naturally occurring substance that increases the number of red blood cells, some suggest there is nothing unethical about hyperbaric oxygen.

In a Winter Olympics where all the drug talk is about marijuana, performance-enhancing agents have been shuffled to the background.

But as long as officials have not found a reliable test for EPO, growth hormones and other drugs, they remain a major issue.

So is hyperbaric oxygen, which is not banned by the IOC but has joined the lexicon of performance-enhancers such as blood doping, the practice of storing oxygen-rich red blood cells and injecting them just before a competition.

The pressurized chambers simulate living at 8,000 feet, which at one time was considered ideal for endurance athletes such as runners and cross-country skiers.

Training theories have changed. Research has shown that living at altitude, but training at lower elevations, is more effective. Athletes benefit from increased red blood cells without losing quality training in oxygen-thin air when using chambers. Athletes sleep and relax in the pressurized environments but step outside to train at low altitude.

"My team preferred a low-altitude training camp before these Olympics," said Sindre Bergan, a Norwegian cross-country skiing coach. "We can practice in a different way. When living at 2,000 meters, we have to have very low-intensity training. We decided to get a high-quality training camp instead of a high-altitude training camp."

Norwegian athletes use a hotel in Trysil, near the Swedish border, that is pressurized with hyperbaric oxygen. It is like living in the Rockies year round.

But the Norwegians are sensitive to claims it gives them an advantage. Daehlie, who has won the most Winter Games gold medals, was stung by criticism when Vebjorn Rodal, an 800-meter gold medalist in Atlanta, accused him of cheating.

To have a fellow Norwegian level the claim made it difficult to accept. He said he didn't need the trailer to win medals and gave it to the Norwegian sports institute. With tomorrow's 50-kilometer race left on the schedule, Daehlie has already won two golds and a silver in Nagano - without the trailer.

Myllylae, one of the world's best cross-country skiers, continues to use his chamber because no Finns - or anyone else - have complained.

So far.

"We have been talking about that problem," Patrick Schamasch, director of the IOC medical commission, said regarding hyperbaric oxygen.

When the IOC medical commission met in Nagano the past week, hyperbaric oxygen was on the agenda. The primary concern is whether using the chambers is fair. Professional teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers and Vancouver Canucks use them because trainers think it helps healing.

The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, an international scientific organization of physicians and researchers, says some claims are without scientific merit. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is currently approved to treat decompression sickness, air embolism, carbon monoxide poisoning, cyanide poisoning, blood loss anemia where blood transfusions cannot be rendered, and burns.

"I'm sure a tanking is not available for everybody," Schamasch said, adding the commission is awaiting medical evidence about the safety of the procedure.

"We want to investigate it. Anything that is artificial is not as safe as natural training. It's well known you can have better training if you to go up in altitude. Now you reconstruct artificial altitude in a room. I don't know if it's good for the health or not."

The Norwegians still use their hotel, though the results aren't clear. Daehlie trained in the Alps before the Olympics, but his neighbor and rival, Thomas Alsgaard, stayed home. They both performed brilliantly in Hakuba where Norway's nordic team has dominated the races.

"You can't compare doping and EPO to the high-altitude house," Bergan said.

Schamasch is not sure.

"We knew exactly where EPO would lead," he said of claims the drug killed some Dutch cyclists in the early 1990s. "But we don't know where this will lead."

Some coaches and athletes suggest the medical commission is going too far. By banning hyperbaric oxygen, athletes will be forced to take EPO, considered potentially dangerous.

"We are not just policemen," Schamasch said. "We really think about safety of the athletes."