injuryupdate
18-09-2003, 05:51 AM
Justine Henin-Hardenne has won the US Open after spending the night before on an intravenous drip, which was required to reverse the dehydration she suffered in the semi-final the night before. In itself this is not an unusual story, but it raises the blurry issue of what medical interventions should be legal in sport. In both the NRL and AFL, intravenous fluid use is banned during and in the 24 hours before a game, whereas in the NFL (US gridiron comp) intravenous fluid use during the game is commonplace. The Brisbane Lions made headlines with their use of half-time intravenous drips before the AFL banned it (almost 18 months after the Lions started using them). In tennis, many medical experts have felt that if Pat Rafter had been able to use IV rehydration during his five set matches that he would have won a couple of extra Grand Slams and maybe even a Davis Cup final. Rafter's case is a hypothetical as there is not enough of a break to run a drip during a tennis match, whereas in football matches, half-time is an obvious opportunity where players could use IV drips, and obviously the interchange bench can be used. Further complicating the issue is that there is no drug test that could be used to prove whether or not a player had been intravenously re-hydrated.