[Sports medicine and phlebology]

While phlebological problems have up to the present time excited relatively little interest in sports medicine, a more careful study does show the importance of phlebology. The present study seeks to emphasise this importance, presenting both the physiological aspects and the traumatological problems affecting the venous system in the athlete. In practice, a fundamental question arises, namely the necessity to determine once and for all whether the venous swelling so often observed in the athlete is or is not a prepathological state. At the present time, the great differences in the various statistics must certainly be due to different interpretations given to the situation.