Oxygen tents for simulating altitude training are widely used in elite sports and also in cycling. Only athletes from a few countries are not allowed to use them. That is considered doping there.
Thinner air means more power. If the body can absorb less oxygen because there is less of it in the air we breathe, the organism reacts. More red blood cells are formed. And the effect also lasts when the body is back in a normal environment. Then the more red blood cells provide more oxygen – and thus more performance. The effect has been proven by studies. That’s why endurance athletes like to train at altitude, or at least sleep at altitude to boost production of reticulocytes (young red blood cells) and train at sea level to generate more power.
Whole hotel complexes were built for this, such as the Hotel Syncrosfera in Denia, Spain. It was set up by the former professional cyclist Alexander Kolobnev. Many cycling teams book rooms here where air conditions can be made like at altitude. The current hour record holder Victor Campenaerts from the Lotto Soudal racing team improved his blood parameters while he was asleep. Also Alpecin Fenix, the team around Superstar Mathieu van der Poel, used the rooms with artificially thin air. This became public because a professional from the racing team complained bitterly that he was not allowed to do so.
Contradictory anti-doping rules
Stefano Oldani complained to the after winning a stage Giro d’Italia, that he had to laboriously acquire the surplus of red blood cells on Mount Etna, while his teammates in the Spanish hotel could happily consume Netflix series and had the same effect. “It’s not fair. Something has to change there.” he demanded. The fact is, so-called oxygen tents – technical term: hypoxia tents – are forbidden in Italy. Law 376/2000 sees them as part of a prohibited method. Because blood parameters are artificially changed. By a compressor that provides rarefied air in a room or tent.
Oxygen tents – actually “oxygen deficiency tents”, as Matthias Baumann, the association doctor of the Federation of German Cyclists, specified to the Sportschau – are considered by the Italian legislator to be “forbidden method“, as doping. Just like taking Epo. The drug also artificially stimulates the production of red blood cells. That is why, until an effective detection method was developed in 2000, it was also a proven part of doping programs in high-performance sports.
Epo intake is banned as doping, also by WADA. At a hearing in 2006, the ethics committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency saw hypoxia tents as “on a moral level not in the sense of sport” on. However, the Executive Committee of WADA could not bring itself to ban it. The top anti-doping hunters left it to the individual states to regulate the case. Italy bans it, most other countries do not.
Widespread use
“90% in the peloton use that. Only we Italians are not allowed to“, described Oldani the situation. In fact, oxygen tents are used a lot in cycling, also in the ranks of the BDR, as the association doctor Baumann confirms to the sports show. “The best example is Lisa Brennauer. She’s been doing it for a long time“, he referred to the Olympic champion and world champion on track and road. “There are even versions where you no longer have to go into a tent, but just put your head in a kind of hood“, explains Baumann. He himself knows it from high-altitude mountaineering: “You can use this to acclimatize to the altitude at home. The tents can be raised up to 6,000m.”
Olympic champion and world champion Lisa Brennauer
In cycling, altitudes between 1,800 and 2,300m are common. This is also confirmed by Dan Lorang, trainer at the Bora hansgrohe racing team. For him, oxygen tents make sense above all as a supplement to altitude training.
Altitude simulation plus altitude training
“You can use it to prepare for the altitude at home. This is also a good idea between two altitude training camps to prolong the effects. It’s also an advantage if you come from a competition after which you need to regenerate, you can go deeper, maybe at 1,500 m, in order to increase later. Outside, it’s logistically more difficult, you’d have to change hotels“, he explains to the sports show. However, the tents also have disadvantages. “The compressor can be pretty loud. You also have to be careful that the quality of sleep does not suffer – and that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages‘ Lorang warns.
Oxygen tents or oxygen chambers such as those in the Hotel Syncrosfera naturally accommodate modern training theory, which envisages sleeping at high altitude because of the effects on reticulocyte production, but training on flat terrain because of the higher performance that can be achieved there. Because the height is only simulated. If you leave the chamber, you train on the flat.
However, the altitude training itself does not replace the oxygen tent. Because stress factors such as everyday life at home can limit the effects. “In the high-altitude training camp, you only concentrate on the training. Using an oxygen tent at home can add distractions. That can play a role“, says Lorang. The professionals he looks after use oxygen tents on average three times a season over a period of seven to ten days, in addition to altitude training.
Moral gray area, control not realistic
Neither Lorang nor BDR doctor Baumann see the tents as doping. After all, only the environment in which the athlete’s body is located is changed. The “work”, i.e. the production of the red blood cells, is done by the body itself. And unlike Epo, which has a similar effect, in this case nothing is supplied to the body from the outside.
For this reason, too, WADA has so far not put oxygen tents on the doping list. The international test agency ITA, which carries out the doping tests at the Tour de France, also saw no need for action when asked by the sports show. “If so, then that is a matter for WADA. When evaluating the tests for the individual blood pass, we only record whether someone has trained at altitude or used a hypoxia tent and feed that into the analysis“said Olivier Banuls, head of the cycling testing program.
Because the tents are banned in Italy, Bora-hansgrohe makes sure that the Italian professionals on the team do not use these tents. However, the use of the tents is difficult to prove. Who can – and wants – to monitor whether an athlete at home sleeps in a tent from time to time or even sticks his head in an oxygen-reduced hood for an hour or so? This is probably one of the reasons why WADA has so far shied away from a ban. The ones who suffer are the athletes, who are subject to different legislation depending on the countries they come from.