Oh my, now Olympic champion shooter Russel Marks criticizes Australia’s decision to ban sleeping pills and says it will cost the country medals at the London Olympic Games. Given the long distance Australian athletes have to travel to London and the jet-lag that will go with it, Mark says it will be unfair for Olympic team members like him to suffer for Hackett’s dependency problem.
“This will affect the amount of medals the team wins,” Mark told media outlets on Wednesday.
“If John Coates tells me I can only use sleeping pills for three nights in London, it will have an effect on my performance.
“If I don’t get a good night’s sleep it’s not worth me going, I need something to get me eight hours sleep.”
Former Olympic swimmer Travis Nederpelt agrees that this decision made so close to the Games could impact the performance of athletes by disrupting their routines. Despite having experienced some of the side-effects of using Stilnox when he once started sleepwalking on a plane, Nederpelt says the drug had a distinct advantage over other sleeping pills for athletes.
“I think it’s a legitimate thing to use as far as relaxing goes,” Nederpelt told The Australian newspaper.
“I’ve had really good nights’ sleep using Stilnox and come up feeling full of energy the next day. In my opinion, it was the only one that didn’t leave you feeling fuzzy.”
Read for instance The Washington Post and Yahoo! Sports
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