According to everyone who has visited it, Vienna is a truly charming city. Particularly thanks to its numerous parks and gardens. We don't have the impression of stepping on each other despite 1.9 million inhabitants.
For runners, the place (which is hosting its annual marathon this Sunday, April 21) is even ideal. From the center of the city, you can easily reach the superb grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, the capital's premier tourist attraction. Or, we will prefer to stroll the paths of Prater Park while undoubtedly thinking fondly of the Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge since it is here that in 2019, he succeeded in his challenge of running a marathon in less than 2 hours.
Kipchoge loves this city. Other elite athletes are, like him, in love with Vienna. To the point that we wonder if this attachment is only emotional or if it might not be guided by less acceptable practices.
Hyperbaric oxygen treatment
There are many pharmacies on site that offer hyperbaric oxygen treatment. In short, you pay around 100 euros to be locked up for 45 minutes in a box the size of a tanning booth.
No ultraviolet, in this case. With a mask on your face, you breathe air made of 100% pure oxygen!
This gas then diffuses into the blood plasma thanks to a negative pressure comparable to that felt when diving to great depths. In general, we choose to adjust the machine between one and two atmospheres. This corresponds to immersion at a depth of a few tens of meters. However, some devices allow you to go much lower. Up to four atmospheres! The pressure is then comparable to that exerted 300 meters below the surface of the water.
We emerge from these sessions completely reinvigorated, it seems. The hemoglobin saturation rate is obviously 100%. But it is not the most important. Part of this oxygen inhaled under high pressure dissolved in the plasma to slowly diffuse into the tissues.
An advantage to the effort?
Could this constitute an advantage to the effort? Opinions are divided. Officially, the answer is no. Since 2010, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has liberalized the use of oxygen and maintains a position of principle according to which the use of these hyperbaric chambers is ineffective. There would therefore be no reason to ban them.
That said, several sources contradict this assertion. By increasing plasma oxygen levels ten, twenty, thirty or even forty times, we could temporarily benefit from better muscle oxygenation, which would allow us to push our body further during exercise or simply recover better.
And yet, they dope!
For the moment, the use of these boxes is not formally prohibited. Let's just say their status is unclear. In its 2023 version, the doping red list (chapter M1) plans to sanction “any intravascular manipulation of blood or blood component(s) by physical or chemical methods”.
Do we consider locking ourselves in a box to breathe pure oxygen as a “physical manipulation” ?
Oddly enough, no. The Austrian centers (there are also some in Germany and Switzerland) are therefore right to speak of legal methods. Of course, that could change. In the past, blood transfusions also went through a period when their use was permitted. Right, Francesco Moser? We can therefore imagine a future change of heart on the part of the authorities. If necessary, we will obviously need to have an effective screening method. This promises to be difficult as no exogenous product comes into play here.
