The World Anti-Doping Agency is investigating whether Olympic ski jumpers have been injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid to make their crotches more aerodynamic – a scandal which has been dubbed ‘penisgate’.
The allegations first appeared in the German newspaper Bild, which claimed the professional athletes are injecting the substance – which is widely used as an aesthetic filler – directly into their penises to give them an advantage over their competitors.
While the rumours have not yet been confirmed, experts have expressed concern about the risks, warning it could cause infection, disfigurement, gangrene or even lead to amputation.
According to Dr Shirin Lakhani, an advanced aesthetics physician at Elite Aesthetics, injecting a penis with hyaluronic acid – which is often used in anti-aging treatments and penile girth enlargement – will make it bigger.
The athletes will then require a larger suit with more surface area, which increases the amount of lift an athlete can generate when competing allowing them to jump further.
As Sandro Pertile, the men’s race director for the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) explained: ‘Every extra centimeter on a suit counts.
‘If your suit has a 5 per cent bigger surface area, you fly further.
‘Of course, this is a competitive sport and everyone’s on the limit with the rules because everyone wants to win,’ he told the Guardian.
A bigger suit means more surface area stretched by the v-position of the legs in the crotch area, allowing athletes to jump further
But in order to make a noticeable difference, a man would need to inject their penis every six to 12 months, depending on absorption and particle migration.
Hyaluronic acid – a naturally occurring molecule which plays a crucial role in helping skin stay plump is injected into the soft tissue under the skin of the shaft.
In the UK, the ‘tweakments’ costs around £3,000 a shot though the treatments have little regulation.
A single hyaluronic acid molecule can hold up to 1,000 times its own weight in water, helping create structure, framework and volume to the injected area.
As such, hyaluronic acid injections can be used to improve the strength and duration of erections, Dr Lakhani explains, stimulating the growth of new, younger tissue and the increase of blood flow sometimes resulting in an increase in size and girth.
But, injecting the penis with hyaluronic acid also carries significant risks, Dr Lakhani warns.
‘Like with fillers elsewhere in the body, serious complications can occur if the filler is injected into a blood vessel ranging from infection to granulomas, which are small bumps beneath the skin.’
In rare cases, as documented by Japanese doctors in 2021, this can lead to gangrene, a serious condition where a loss of blood supply causes body tissue to die.
The acid is sometimes combined with a patient’s own platelet rich plasma (PRP) in non-surgical procedures which simulates the body’s natural healing response to injury, resulting in new blood vessels and nerve growth
‘Anyone who offers penile fillers at a cost that feels ‘too good to be true’, or promises results that seem to go above and beyond what feels realistic should be avoided’, Dr Lakhani says
Symptoms include common side-effects of the treatment including swelling of the skin.
The main treatment for gangrene includes surgery to remove damaged tissue, known as debridement, but in more severe cases it can be necessary to remove an entire body part.
When injected poorly or at the incorrect dose – including anything above 10ml of penis filler according to Dr Lakhani – other common symptoms include pain, disfigurement, inflammation, sensory change and erectile dysfunction.
FIS communications director Bruno Sassi maintains: ‘There has never been any indication, let alone evidence that any competitor has ever made use of a hyaluronic acid injection to attempt to gain a competitive advantage’.
