Why do all these olympic athletes have blood transfusion equipment?

[Smackem]

What do all these althetes do with blood transfusion equipment?

 

[BigJ]

Google "blood doping"

 

[tweakmm]

Get blood transfusions...?

 

[Abe Froman]

Higher levels of oxygen in the blood=higher level of performance. Still illegal.

 

[leftyman]

Maybe they are spelling machines.

 

[UbiSunt]

High red blood cell counts, it performs the same function as EPO without as much of the risk. Someone got busted at the last summer Olympics for this because he turned up positive for the steroid test even though he wasn't taking them at the time. Seemed he was on the drugs whenever he had the blood drawn and frozen.

BTW the US Cycling team invented this, and it's certainly not exclusive to us anymore.

 

[DrPizza]

Some athletes also train at higher elevations for the same effect. Although the increase in performance is marginal, the difference between gold and no medal is also often marginal.