Doping in mountaineering ?

[Grandillusion]

Re:

http://www.nationalacademyofkinesiology.org/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/129/TAP_18_LimitsofHumanPerformance_03.pdf

I just learned yesterday that Diamox is on WADA's list of doping substances (diuretic). Wanting to see what was posted in the forum on the subject, I found this thread in which I had posted on the forum for the 1st time, prompted by the fact that Python had mentioned a VO2 max of 48 ml/min.kg for Messner.
Having heard Di Prampero mention an estimated value of 80 ml, I decided this time to look for the root of that estimate.

And I found it, see 1st line.
80 ml for someone able to climb 1000 m in 34 min. in training seems consistent.

Yep, the advent of diamox (acetazolamide) as the go to drug for high altitude sickness (along with hydrocortisone injections in the case of truly life threatening pulmonary or cerebral oedema), means the heroic age of gods like Messner, Kukuczka , Kurtyka and Loretan are gone forever. Every wannabe Tom *** & Harry can just jack up on diamox. Pity.

 

[GreasyChain]

There is no such thing as a performance enhancing drug. Just medicine, as this thread proves. Just becsaue some sports adopt entirely arbitrary rules outlawing or restricting medicines that the rest of the planet consumes on a daily basis doesn't mean that normal people should put up with their demented World view.

Why is somebody a cheat because they took day nurse or a sniff of a vicks inhaler for a bunged up nose? why should anybody be hounded out of their sport for taking the wrong headache pill on the wrong day. or eating a steak in Argentina or China?

It's all total and utter bollocks and every sad tinfoil wearing mentalcase on the clinic should be ashamed to spend so much time worshiping ath the altar of "clean" sport.

 

[Grandillusion]

Re:

There is no such thing as a performance enhancing drug. Just medicine, as this thread proves. Just becsaue some sports adopt entirely arbitrary rules outlawing or restricting medicines that the rest of the planet consumes on a daily basis doesn't mean that normal people should put up with their demented World view.

Why is somebody a cheat because they took day nurse or a sniff of a vicks inhaler for a bunged up nose? why should anybody be hounded out of their sport for taking the wrong headache pill on the wrong day. or eating a steak in Argentina or China?

It's all total and utter bollocks and every sad tinfoil wearing mentalcase on the clinic should be ashamed to spend so much time worshiping ath the altar of "clean" sport.

Bit of an odd post! What do you think the anti-doping bodies are for then? EPO may be a fantastically useful drug prescribed properly for the use it was developed for, but endurance athletes abusing it (and dying in their sleep from that misuse...check it out, quite a few cases are on the record) is not the realm of the 'tinfoil hatter'.
My lament for the glory days of the Kukuczka's and Kurtyka's of this world is just a personal sense of something lost. Those guys pushed the boat out to an extraordinary level. Luckily mountaineering has no formal competition, it's not a sport in the same way as say cycling. Not a sport at all really. I trust that guys like Steve House for instance have enough personal integrity to keep to his own unwritten rules when trying his outstanding alpine style efforts. i.e. No diamox. But no guarantees others would resist the temptation. It's all arbitrary and self regulating thank goodness, but the innocent glory days of late 70s to 80's can never come back.

 

[chuckmicD]

Pretty sure sildenafil is regularly used, especially to treat altitude sickness. It's proven effective in that capacity as far as I know.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Viagra has also been used at altitude:

http://www.webmd.com/men/news/20050201/viagra-may-help-severe-altitude-sickness#1
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/aug/30/health/he-everest30

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/everest/article611487.ece

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

Yep, the advent of diamox (acetazolamide) as the go to drug for high altitude sickness (along with hydrocortisone injections in the case of truly life threatening pulmonary or cerebral oedema), means the heroic age of gods like Messner, Kukuczka , Kurtyka and Loretan are gone forever. Every wannabe Tom **** & Harry can just jack up on diamox. Pity.

Surely Messner and co. haven't had Diamox in their times?

Anyway you could say heroic age of gods like Mallory are gone forever and every wannabe Messner and Kukuczka can just wear some Goretex, light ropes etc. etc. Btw. gods like Messner took methamphetamine, so...does it change game?

Diamox helps when you actually develope altitude sickness. I don't know whether Diamox enhances performance as such, if you don't have any problem.

 

[Grandillusion]

Re: Re:

Yep, the advent of diamox (acetazolamide) as the go to drug for high altitude sickness (along with hydrocortisone injections in the case of truly life threatening pulmonary or cerebral oedema), means the heroic age of gods like Messner, Kukuczka , Kurtyka and Loretan are gone forever. Every wannabe Tom **** & Harry can just jack up on diamox. Pity.

Surely Messner and co. haven't had Diamox in their times?

Anyway you could say heroic age of gods like Mallory are gone forever and every wannabe Messner and Kukuczka can just wear some Goretex, light ropes etc. etc. Btw. gods like Messner took methamphetamine, so...does it change game?

Diamox helps when you actually develope altitude sickness. I don't know whether Diamox enhances performance as such, if you don't have any problem.

Mallory died with oxygen cylinders strapped to his back! That was the start of the slippery slope in 1924. For more insight into just how extraordinary Kurtyka and Kukuczka were I recommend 'Freedom Climbers' by Bernadette McDonald. That generation of Polish Himalayan activists had to surmount incredible odds against the communist authorities just to be able to get to the Himalaya in the first place. Then their gear was primitive compared to their western counterparts. They (Kurtyka & Kukuczka) chose the hardest objectives in the best and lightest style ('Alpine style', no porters or camps). Definitely no oxygen, and diamox wasn't around then. There's a similar story attached to Slovenian mountaineering of the same period. McDonald has written a fine history of that too : Alpine Warriors.

Diamox has been used since its development as a preventative measure by Himalayan trekkers and mountaineers by the way, not just for treatment.

 

[Grandillusion]

And don't forget Diemberger and Buhl's fantastic pioneering Alpine style effort (with Schmuck & Wintersteller) on Broad Peak in (I think from memory) 1957.
Also Nortons amazing oxygen free effort on Everest in 1924 (same expedition as Mallory).

 

[Kokoso]

Grandillusion: I'm sorry but I don't understand your point at all. You've really confused me. It looks to me almost like you don't even react on what I wrote.

 

[Grandillusion]

Re:

Grandillusion: I'm sorry but I don't understand your point at all. You've really confused me. It looks to me almost like you don't even react on what I wrote.

I was simply pointing out that Mallory could be seen as the start of the ethical decline;he resorted to bottled oxygen back in 1924. Not to decry his effort too much, after all the cylinders weighed a ton in themselves, nothing like today's space-age super-light systems. Nevertheless Norton managed to get to 8600m unassisted, an incredible effort!
Just thought you'd like to read about the Poles, that's why I mentioned McDonald's history 'Freedom Climbers'. It's a fantastic story. Kukuczka's posthumously published autobiography is great too. But it costs about £200 these days on Amazon unfortunately.
Messner never took amphetamine either, I've no idea where you got that idea from. He trained like an Olympian and the only 'drugs' he took was raw garlic, the idea being it was good for vascular health.

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

Grandillusion: I'm sorry but I don't understand your point at all. You've really confused me. It looks to me almost like you don't even react on what I wrote.

I was simply pointing out that Mallory could be seen as the start of the ethical decline;he resorted to bottled oxygen back in 1924. Not to decry his effort too much, after all the cylinders weighed a ton in themselves, nothing like today's space-age super-light systems. Nevertheless Norton managed to get to 8600m unassisted, an incredible effort!
Just thought you'd like to read about the Poles, that's why I mentioned McDonald's history 'Freedom Climbers'. It's a fantastic story. Kukuczka's posthumously published autobiography is great too. But it costs about £200 these days on Amazon unfortunately.
Messner never took amphetamine either, I've no idea where you got that idea from. He trained like an Olympian and the only 'drugs' he took was raw garlic, the idea being it was good for vascular health.

I'm sorry I've to confuse Messner for Buhl, who used metamphetamine on Nanga Parbat. Later I suppose people would be clever enough not to declare "I've used metamphetamine and maybe that's why I was so good". Anyway that's not the point. I have a problem with you saying that Kukuczka or Messner were pinnacle of mountain climbing, "heroic gods" as you say. That's why I compared with Mallory, or Hillary for that matter, who were there decades ago, with woolen jumpers, linen ropes... In this perspective one could say that in times of Kukuczka or Messner that age of heroic gods was long gone. They had much better equipment, there were much more previuos experiences... But that's not my opininion. Every age has it's "gods". Great and not so great climbers.