7 Top Orienteering Athletes Have Died in 3 Years : Sweden Chases Disease Killing Runners

Swedish doctors and health officials met in Stockholm Thursday to discuss a mysterious illness believed to have killed seven top athletes in the past three years.

The seven who died all took part in the sport of orienteering, and all came from a small area of central Sweden.

The Swedish national team this week canceled training and races for its 50 runners after one of its members, Melker Karlsson, 24, died following a training session and a sauna last Friday.

The orienteering federation advised more than 200 other senior racers to avoid competition and ease up on training.

The Danish orienteering federation also ordered its team to stop training because of the risk that some of its runners may have become infected while running in Sweden.

In orienteering, cross-country runners use a compass and map to follow a route through woods and rough terrain. It is popular throughout the Nordic region, eastern Europe and parts of Western Europe and the United States.

Lillemor Palsson, the Swedish team doctor, said there does not appear to be any reason for ordinary recreational runners to be concerned, although tabloid newspapers in Scandinavia and Germany have published big headlines calling the disease the "jogger-virus."

Dr. Palsson said the disease appears to have been spread by close contact among members orienteering teams rather than by the strenuous physical exercise the sport entails.

She said there is no indication that the illness has stricken sportsmen and womenoutside the orienteering community.

Doctors believe the illness is a variant of a relatively widespread affliction called Taiwan Acute Respiratory Infection, or chlamydia pneumonia, which causes pharyngitis, bronchitis and pneumonitis, particularly in young adults.

Caused by a form of bacteria, it is usually cured within two weeks by tetracycline or erythomycin, two common antibiotics.

In the case of the Swedish athletes, Dr. Palsson said, the disease appears to have affected and weakened the hearts of its victims. She said all members of the Swedish team are having blood and heart tests in an investigation that could take several weeks. In the meantime, doctors are carrying out tests to confirm thatKarlsson died of the disease.

But meanwhile, the illness remains a mystery. "The only thing we know," said Dr. Palsson, "is that all those who died had lived in the middle of Sweden and had known one another."

Dr. Palsson said doctors and specialists involved with the infection were meeting in Stockholm to compare notes and discuss a strategy for investigating and treating the disease. She said a large proportion of the population has anti-bodies indicating exposure to a chlamydia infection, which can take various forms. But a method enabling positive identification of the Taiwan infection has been available only for a short time.

The infection is in many respects similar to Legionnaires' disease, and Dr. Palsson said it may have been responsible for an acute respiratory infection among Finnish army conscripts in the early 1980s.

She said it does not appear to be highly infectious, but may spread from person to person in close physical contacts. This is true of orienteering, where team members often share rooms or tents.

"Orienteering is a way of life," said Dr. Palsson, who has practiced the sport herself since 1964. Speaking in a telephone interview from Karlskoga, where she is a general practitioner, she said that it isthe kind of sport where "you meet a lot of people, and make a lot of friends. You go with your families and become very close."

Dr. Palsson has recently traveled with the national team to the United States and Canada and knewKarlsson well."The people who died were very well trained, and trained a lot," she said.

Sweden has about 50,000 orienteers, of whom 3,000 have been trained up to competition standard.Many also go cross-country skiing in winter.

In the senior men's competitions, the runners race for 90 minutes through steep and rough terrain."It is tough," said Dr. Palsson, "much tougher than ordinary jogging or running."

By Barry James
Published: November 13, 1992
Taken from the NY Times Website

Daß hier - wie in der Todesserie unter niederländischen und belgischen Radrennfahrern Ende der achtziger Jahre - etwa die auch im schwedischen Ausdauersport nicht unbekannte neue Dopingdroge Epo mitgemischt haben könnte, glauben die Sportmediziner nicht.

Ein Doping mit Epo (abgekürzt für "Erythropoietin"), einem gentechnisch nachgebauten körpereigenen Hormon, das die Zahl der roten Blutkörperchen und damit die Sauerstoff-Aufnahmefähigkeit und Leistung in die Höhe treibt, sei in diesem Falle nicht zu vermuten, meint Arne Ljungkvist, Doping-Kontrolleur und Medizinprofessor am Stockholmer Karolinska Institut: "Alle sind nach mehr oder minder leichtem Training umgefallen, nicht beim Wettkampf, da ist Epo-Doping unwahrscheinlich."

Aus Der Spiegel 47/1992 Der Spiegel redet von 8 Todesfällen (7 Männer, 1 Frau u.a. Johan Björkman

There are no indications that Swedish orienteers
have been exposed to doping or other toxic agents.

Aus: L. Wesslèn, C. Pahlson*, O. Lindquistt, E. Hjelm*, J. Gnarpe§, E. Larssont, U. Baandrup**, L. Erikssonf,*, J. Fohlman*, L. Engstrand*, T. Linglof*, C. Nystrom-Rosander*, H. Gnarpe§, L. MagniusH, C. Rolf|| and G. Friman* :An increase in sudden unexpected cardiac deaths among young Swedish orienteers during 1979-1992, European Heart Journal (1996) 17, 902-910

... I am a swedish elite orienteer and I can guarantee that none of the suspicious deaths som orienteers faced in the late 80's and early 90's was caused on EPO! The reason for the deaths has never been completely confirmed, although they all had congenital heart problem.

First of all, there were only one of them (Melker Karlsson) who were actually on top level, the best of the others were ranked about 100 in Sweden. To be this, the amount of training that is required is approximately 300 hrs / year. None of them earned a single penny on their hobby - they were all full time workers - I think most of them didn't even reach "break even" economically (at least I don't do as 20-placed). I wouldn't call them "elite orienteers", more a mixture between elite and jogger. Even at international top level orienteering, there is no money to earn. Most of the members of swedish national squad work around 60-80%.

Secondly, there is simply no doping culture in orienteering due to the lack of money. It is simply not in anyone's mind. It might be naive to believe that in one of the toughest endurance sports, nobody has ever used blood doping. But I actually think that this is the case. Although, I fear that we will as well face the problem in a rather soon future as more money gets in to the sport.

...

Marcus Millegård (aktuell no.52 im Weltranking), Aus: Forum des Team Saxo Bank