EPO in other sports

Posted by Mark on January 4, 2008 under doping | Read the First Comment

Having read quite a few books about EPO use in Cycling there are certain things in other news articles that catch my eye. Take, for instance, this sad tale about Scottish footballer Phil O’Donnell . He died of heart failure following a football match. He was only 35 years old.

Now I’m no doctor, but it still appears slightly strange to me for a healthy, fit, 35 year old chap to drop dead of heart failure. What makes this even more suspect is a further article talking about mysterious heart-related deaths in Scottish football.

The key paragraph from the article above is “Spanish international defender Antonio Puerta, 22, died earlier this season after collapsing while playing for Sevilla, and 16-year-old Walsall youth player Anton Reid collapsed and died during a training session in October”. Does this not reek of the deaths of young cyclists in the 90′s when EPO was becoming more prevalent?

I’m well aware the sport of cycling is still poisoned with drug use, but I’d put money on it’s fairly evident such popular sports as football have their issues too. Even Dr Fuentes claimed he had clients who were prominent footballers.