Two members of the Uno-X Pro Cycling team were struck by carbon monoxide at a team bonding session at a kart track in Copenhagen.
Anders Halland Johannessen and Jonas Iversby Hvideberg, both Norwegian, reportedly spent several hours inside the building that houses the track, leaving them exposed to the poisonous gas.
Johannessen told Norway’s TV2: “Going on karts is something I really enjoy, I was in the racetrack room for almost four hours and never went out to take a breath of air. Jonas and I saw that our [lap] times were getting better, we continued to drive and we went over the allotted time.”
Hvidberg, who officially joins the team today having ridden for Team DSM last year, gave a dramatic account of what happened once the pair left the venue.
“On the way back, I started feeling that something was wrong, I didn’t feel well. I went to bed but kept feeling worse, due above all to a headache.
“When Anders began vomiting, I sent a message to the team doctor who came straight away and found me in a state of drowsiness.*
“They gave us oxygen throughout the night, then we were taken to the national hospital in Copenhagen, where we were treated inside a hyperbaric chamber.
“We had a prognosis of a week’s recovery but luckily things put themselves right more quickly,” he added.
* Due to an error in translation, an earlier version of this article said that the rider was found unconscious, which is incorrect; he was found in a state of drowsiness and the team has confirmed to road.cc that neither rider was unconscious at any point. We are happy to set the record straight and apologise for the error.
6 thoughts on “Uno-X pro cyclists hospitalised due to carbon monoxide poisoning after team bonding session”
Carbon monoxide inhalation
Carbon monoxide inhalation can actually be performance-enhancing, by boosting erythrocyte production. Though, it will initially be performance-decreasing.
In a grand old tradition –
In a grand old tradition – didn’t people still dose with things like strychnine in the early days of cycle racing?
Carbon monoxide inhalation
Carbon monoxide inhalation can actually be performance-enhancing, by boosting erythrocyte production. Though, it will initially be performance-decreasing
Comments on websites can actually be stupid and not at all funny
It wasn’t meant to be funny.
It wasn’t meant to be funny. It is a true statement. Carbon monoxide inhalation is a means to stimulate erythrocyte production, and thus increase red blood count and concentration (“haematocrit”).
Carbon monoxide binds preferentially to RBCs over oxygen, and it stays bound. The immediate effect of carbon monoxide inhalation therefore is to /decrease/ the availability of oxygen carrying RBCs in the blood stream – an effect that will persist for up to a day. This decreases performance obviously. This decrease in oxygenated RBC availability, if maintained by repeated CO dosing over time, will lead to the body increasing its levels of EPO to stimulate erythrocyte production and increase the number of blood cells in circulation. Once RBC mass has been increased, ceasing CO dosing will then – within a day or so for the CO to be purged – leave the individual with an increased volume of oxygen carrying RBCs, and a commensurate increase in aerobic performance capacity – for a while thereafter.
I.e., repeated, low-dose, inhalation of carbon monoxide can be used to increase RBC mass, and increase performance, in a similar way as altitude does.
See, e.g.: https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2020/09000/chronic_exposure_to_low_dose_carbon_monoxide.4.aspx
That’s fairly recent, but I’ve heard about this from sports scientists long before that, so it’s been known about a while.
Carbon monoxide inhalation can be performance enhancing.
File under “Don’t try this at
File under “Don’t try this at home” me’thinks.
File under “Don’t try this at
File under “Don’t try this at home”
I can’t see this catching on or becoming acceptable by doping authorities as a substitute for altitude training. The original riders not only inhaled a lot of CO, but all the other toxic gases you can imagine coming from lots of high-revving small engines, and were pretty ill. They were sent off for oxygen high pressure treatment, which isn’t harmless itself, suggesting they had reached 25% or more poisoned haemoglobin- this is even worse than in the crap blood of smokers (the blood donor people don’t even ask about whether donors are smokers). The intricate CO inhalation protocol in the research study pulsed the CO-Hb up to about 7% 5 times a day for 3 weeks to achieve about 5% more red cell haemoglobin. Lance’s method is a lot easier- just a few bags, and screens on the windows of the bus!