Smoking and Athletics

The year is 2006, the Winter Olympics are near and athletes fill up with anticipation. These athletes are going to need to be on top of their game. The stakes are high. The excitement must be overflowing their capacity to think straight. I would imagine that smoking is definitely not one of their priorities now, or even ever. These are the top athletes in the world, and smoking is something that none of them do.

During the Winter Olympics the athletes are going to be under serious pressure as they represent with full hearted patriotism, their country. These athletes want to be top notch and win that gold medal. If one of the skiers were to smoke, they would breathe in high levels of carbon monoxide and inevitably not be able to absorb the correct amount of oxygen needed to go into the blood. When you smoke carbon monoxide is forced into your blood this inevitably reduces the amount of oxygen that is released from the blood into the muscles. So now imagine you were representing your country, your homeland, all the millions of people, your family, yourself...and you decide to smoke. As if your heart wasn't beating fast enough due to nerves, smoking would increase this even more plus this would hurt your muscles and cause your movement to be stiffer. Your breathing would consequently slow down and you would not be able to with hold your duration time without getting out of breath. This means that your airway grows a type of resistance; ultimately leave you feeling tired sooner and not able to keep up.

Imagine having the skills to be in the position to potentially win the gold medal. Now if you smoked, your chances would be shattered. Carbon Monoxide in the blood is deadly. "Once it leaves the lungs, oxygen is transported in the blood by attaching to the hemoglobin within red blood cells. Oxygen has a great affinity for hemoglobin. However, carbon monoxide has a much greater affinity (200 to 300 times greater than oxygen) and so binds preferentially to hemoglobin. Therefore, as the level of carbon monoxide in the blood increases, the level of oxygen decreases."( http://www.nsma.org.au/fitness.htm) You need oxygen. It is a fact of life. It is a source of life. Your body can't go anaerobic forever. You will eventually need to breathe on your own. This is not only for your lungs but there are other parts that need oxygen. This therefore has a major effect on heart and other muscle cells where there is a high demand for oxygen. Once