High Altitude Effects on sport

One of the things that is funny about drugs and the human body is that whenever you least expect it, certain attributes are discovered, and they weren't meant to be so. For example, back when Coca-Cola was originally produced, it was manufactured as a beverage to be used against melancholy. Later it was discovered that the caffeine added to this drink brought revitalizing effects on whoever drank it. More recently it was discovered that sildenafil significantly improved the cardiovascular and exercise performance measured on training cyclists at high altitude and also in other different sports, as it seems to redirect the blood to specific vessels than can actually boost the ability of an athlete.

In Latin America, lowland soccer teams often have to travel and play against teams in high altitude, mainly during international competitions. Traditionally the altitude served as an advantage for the high altitude teams, even so that many teams with significant less talented teams, such as Bolivia for example, could overpower big teams in South America such as Argentina in matches. The Argentinians looked exhausted, tired and out of breath, all of their top players which were in top form, expressed not feeling well while playing with the influence of the high altitude effects.

In May of 2007, Fifa (Federation of International Football Association), initially banned matches from being played at more than 2500 above sea level in order to avoid the high altitude effects. This ban was controversial and many important soccer figures such as Diego Maradona (an Argentinean and coach of the National team at the time) spoke against it.

Another controversy related to sports in high altitudes was released in 2009, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was in charge of an exhaustive research in order to determine if they should prohibit the use of Viagra in athletes. In this research, the Lacrosse players from Marywood University were involved in a study to help WADA to determine if the drug can really dilate a person’s blood vessels to the point where they can sufficiently increase oxygen carrying capacity. Since these drugs are easily obtainable at any Online Pharmacy, this could be a major issue on sport competitions. This is causing controversy as studies are not definitive yet and an official answer has not been released.