The Radsport World Association UCI banned the use of carbon monoxide technology, which also used Tour champion Tadej Pogacar and his rival Jonas Vingegaard.
The use of the potentially fatal gas by at least three cycling teams was uncovered last summer during the Tour de France by the “Escape Collective” specialist website. With its decision, the UCI wants to “protect the health of the drivers,” said the association on Saturday.
Pogacar had confirmed the use of technology during the tour last summer. The carbon monoxide rechargeable breathing device is used to monitor blood values and not to artificially improve the performance. “This is a simple test with which you can measure how to react to the height in the altitude training camp”he said: “You blow a minute into a balloon, then you can see the hemoglobin value. And then you repeat it after two weeks.”
World association sees too much risks for the drivers
The UCI confirmed the area of application in sports medicine, but sees too much risks for the drivers. “Repeated inhaling can lead to acute and chronic health problems such as headaches, lethargy, nausea, dizziness and confusion”it was said in the reason for the ban on February 10th. The symptoms could “worsen at any time and lead to cardiac arrhythmias, heart attacks, seizures, paralysis and unconsciousness”.
The world-anti-doping code has not yet banned the method, but the UCI has asked the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to check the technology. The UCI still allows the medical application of a one-off inhalation in a controlled medical environment, but the teams are “the possession of commercially available co-back systems that are connected to co-bottles”, the World Association said after a session on the edge of the cross World Cup in Liévin in French.