Cross-country skiing|The mysterious baking soda soup has reached big proportions in top skiing.
Toblach
Cry use and who doesn’t?
One of the big talking points of the ski season has been sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, which reduces acidification of the body and thus helps the athlete to perform better.
The use of baking soda is allowed, but the use of the substance has come to be labeled as part of the “gray area” of elite sports. The subject is sensitive, and many skiers do not agree to talk about it in public at all.
Last March, not a single Finnish skier admitted to using baking soda to improve their performance when asked about it. Some were visibly annoyed by the question.
During this season, for example, Sweden Maja Dahlqvist and Norway Johannes Hösflot Kläbo have revealed that they use a “miracle substance”.
Responsible coach of the Finnish sprint team Ville Oksanen says that he “can’t start lying” about it.
Ville Oksanen is part of the Finnish coaching staff.
“Some of our athletes use baking soda,” says Oksanen.
According to Oksanen, both sprinters and standard-distance skiers have taken part in the event.
“Some already used last season and some started this fall.”
Kerttu Niskanen swears emphatically that he is not one of them.
“I haven’t tried it anywhere other than in the kitchen in baking. Absolutely not!” he stated in Toblach on Monday.
Kerttu Niskanen has been successful in Italy.
British newspaper The Telegraph told last summer that the use of baking soda has exploded in elite sports. In addition to skiing, it is used, for example, by road cyclists and general athletes.
Sodium bicarbonate neutralizes hydrogen ions produced during hard sports performance. In this way, it reduces the acidification of the body and thereby improves performance.
According to information leaked from behind the scenes, at least one Finnish national team skier who started using it this season has experienced that baking soda washes away lactates in a significant way.
The use of baking soda in sports surfaced just under a couple of years ago, when the Swedish nutritional supplement company Maurten introduced a gel containing baking soda to the market. The company developed the product for years together with the top cycling team Jumbo-Visma.
For some athletes, the substance causes stomach symptoms.
Baking soda can also be used for cleaning.
According to Ville Oksanen, the athletes consume the baking soda preparation hours before the start of the competition so that it has time to be absorbed.
“At least there is no harm in it on a general level. There are many beliefs of all kinds, but there is also good research evidence of its benefits. I personally believe that it is a good thing in terms of performance, if only you can find a product that does not cause stomach problems.”
But why is baking soda perceived as such an embarrassing topic? Coach Oksanen doesn’t really know.
One Finnish skier refused to talk about the subject on Monday as well, because “he doesn’t need to”.
“All such new things are such that you don’t really want to talk about them. However, it is a substance that is used in cooking and baking, so I personally do not feel that it is a gray area. It is a natural substance.”
According to a Telegraph article, the effects of baking soda were first noticed almost a hundred years ago. The use became common only after an easier-to-absorb version of the substance became available on the market.
“If sodium bicarbonate were to be banned – which I don’t believe in myself – then it wouldn’t make any sense. However, the substance can be absorbed into the body normally,” Oksanen points out.