Denmark 1

Steen Hylgaard Jørgensen (19)

City/Region: Erslev, Viborg amt E-mail: steen.hylgaard@skolekom.dk Hobbies: Music, playing the guitar, cycling, and in the winter: skiing Career: Sports doctor School: Morsø gymnasium

Haematological Changes - EPO or Training?

Steen as a former racing cyclist himself became fascinated in the struggle to control doping after the Festina team where expelled from the 1998 Tour de France when they were found to be in possession of the human growth hormone erythropoietin (EPO). EPO stimulates the production of oxygen-rich red blood cells. He set out to establish whether demanding training programmes and dehydration could actually account for a high percentage of the oxygen carrying red blood cells (haematocryal values). It became clear to him that dehydration implies that the haematocryal value increases, albeit not very much, whereas training in itself does not seem to do so. Steen concluded that dehydration cannot possibly have increased the haematocryal value as much as, for instance, the rider Marco Pantani claimed after winning both Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia.