Handball expert: What methamphetamines can do to goalkeepers
According to Fritz Sörgel, amphetamines stimulate performance both physically and psychologically. photo
© Daniel Karmann/dpa
Magdeburg’s Nikola Portner’s positive doping test is causing a stir in handball. What would methamphetamines do to a keeper? Expert Fritz Sörgel explains it.
From the perspective of doping expert Fritz Sörgel, it would not be surprising for a handball goalkeeper to take methamphetamines. In this position you have to be quick to react, the 74-year-old professor of pharmacology explained to the dpa: “Someone who raises his hand a tenth of a second faster holds the seven meter.”
Amphetamines would stimulate performance both physically and psychologically. “Being a goalkeeper is less about stamina and more about reaction speed under stressful conditions,” said Sörgel.
The National Anti Doping Agency Germany (NADA) had confirmed to dpa that methamphetamines had been found in a positive competition test from 30-year-old Swiss national goalkeeper Nikola Portner from SC Magdeburg and that it was crystal meth. Portner reacted with shock to the result and was provisionally suspended by the Handball Bundesliga Executive Board with immediate effect.
If you take such methamphetamines one or an hour and a half before the game, their effect is long enough to last you through a handball game, explained Sörgel. A certain psychological dependence could arise if one knew that “under these conditions, things get better with this medication.” In order for a real addiction to develop in the classic sense, you would have to take it more or less daily over a long period of time, said Sörgel.
dpa
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