• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this normal?

Page 3 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

Nomad, as someone who has witnessed his own share of medically-preventable tragedies (my mother was one of them), I understand your anger. But speaking more generally, and not to focus on any individual case, part of the problem may be that people expect drugs to be 100% safe. They aren’t, and if they are “only” 99% safe, i.e., significant side effects in 1% of the users, this may not be identified on the basis of studies with relatively small subject pools, as one of the links you posted notes. Studies with larger pools take more time and resources, at the same time that there may be a pressing need to get a potentially life-saving drug on the market. While I certainly understand there is a lot of greed and corruption in big pharma, they do get it from both sides, lawsuits when someone dies from an effect that was not recognized when the drug was approved, and complaints when it takes years for a drug to reach the market. Sure, pharma wants a quick review so they can start making money, but the public clamors for these drugs, too. Remember all the anger against the FDA when it was felt they weren't accelerating the process of getting AIDS drugs on the market.

Xarelto, a drug I’ve taken off and on for several years with no problems, may be a good example. The link says there have been 18,000 lawsuits, and 370 deaths linked to the drug. Xarelto is used by millions people (as the link notes, it’s a billion dollar industry), so while 18,000 sounds like a lot of complaints, it probably represents less than 1% of the users. That’s unfortunate, but that number has to be put against the number of strokes that are prevented by its use. It would be nice if we could have a miracle cure for everything, but the reality is that there are benefit-risk ratios for everything. Or as we say in the Clinic, there's a balance between false positives and false negatives, between sensitivity and specificity.

There's a great deal more to medical error than drugs, of course. My brother is a former doctor, and for years tried to get his peers to keep and publish accurate records so that the exact sources of iatrogenic deaths or other failures could be identified and corrected. He finally gave up in frustration; they didn't want to. But without denying the role of doctors, part of the problem, as with drugs, is the same with all modern technology. As it becomes increasingly more complex, it becomes increasingly more difficult to track, let alone understand, all the consequences.

Finally, while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us old folks doing high intensity exercise, I wouldn’t latch too firmly onto studies of gene transcripts. We really don’t know that much about what most of these genes are doing, particularly when some messages are up-regulated and some down-regulated. It’s certainly simplistic to equate larger numbers of messages altered with more beneficial effects. I don’t think the authors are doing this, but it’s possible, e.g., that expression of some genes is affected as a compensatory reaction to an unusual level of physiological stress or insult. This could be why there was a large set of genes affected only in older subjects. Speaking as a molecular biologist, I’d put more stock in the positive physiological and cellular effects of this exercise, also documented, than in sheer numbers of messages transcribed. Actually, speaking as a cyclist, I put even more stock in just how I feel after a hard ride.
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

Merckx index said:
Xarelto, a drug I’ve taken off and on for several years with no problems, may be a good example. The link says there have been 18,000 lawsuits, and 370 deaths linked to the drug. Xarelto is used by millions people (as the link notes, it’s a billion dollar industry), so while 18,000 sounds like a lot of complaints, it probably represents less than 1% of the users. That’s unfortunate, but that number has to be put against the number of strokes that are prevented by its use. It would be nice if we could have a miracle cure for everything, but the reality is that there are benefit-risk ratios for everything. Or as we say in the Clinic, there's a balance between false positives and false negatives, between sensitivity and specificity.
To try and drag this back to the topic: while people's personal medical experiences are really, really, really wonderful, if you enjoy that sort of thing, extrapolating from limited personal experience to explain a real world 'problem' is not very clever. And, as has already been pointed out in this thread - and is contained within the title - the real issue is not what the problem is, but whether or not there really is a problem. So, bringing in Merckx index's point about the one percent perception issue, let's not forget that, out of a cohort of 500 or so top level professional cyclists, each year we see reported just two or three cardiac-related issues, usually arrhythmia. That's a half of one percent. So, all the sob stories aside, what does that really tell us?
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

Cmon man..be realistic; it's not just the 370 deaths (so far) but a total of 15,043 adverse event reports, many of which are serious. The collateral damage of this drug killing 370 people and injuring thousands can't be justified for saving many more lives. I hope the famiies of the victims and injured can collect millions from the lawsuits!

https://drugsafetynews.com/2017/08/08/xarelto-injuries-deaths-40-2016/

And the fact that medical errors are now the *3rd* leading cause of death in the U.S. is egregious & completely unacceptable. The renowned & late Dr. Starfield of JH published a paper in JAMA back in 2000 articulating the problems in the system with the errors, drug deaths & injuries, etc. Now almost 20 yrs later nothing has changed and, in fact, has gotten much worse. So it's business as usual...Que Sera Sera.

Granted, ER physicians & trauma surgeons are doing a tremendous job saving lives every day. But, IMO, most doctors who treat chronic diseases are merely foot soldiers for the pharmaceutical industry. They know nothing about nutrition, dismiss many dietary supplements as ineffective and continually push their drugs under the montra of "FDA certified safe & effective." And since doctors are trained to pay homage to "peer-reviewed" studies, when *** hits the fan with some of these drugs they simply fall back on these "peer-reviewed" studies that they hold in such high esteem. Heck, some of the journal editors now say you can't trust half of the medical studies anymore because of false info and fraud. Think of the stench coming from these studies that masquerade as the real deal. This is from the former NEJM editor Dr. Dr. Marcia Angell:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/top-editor-medical-journals-publish-fake-science-in-big-pharmas-pocket/article/2622228

And another journal editor pissed-off:

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/05/16/editor-in-chief-of-worlds-best-known-medical-journal-half-of-all-the-literature-is-false/

But all is well & good with the medical system.

Rainbows & marshmallows.
 
Mod hat on:

Ok, this has gone way off topic. If you want to discuss practices within healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry you're welcome to make a thread in the Cafe where this kind of discussion belongs, but lets stop it here. I'll even move the posts across if you want?

Cheers,

KB.
 
Re: Re:

Tricycle Rider said:
fmk_RoI said:
Not WT level, but CCC Sprandi-Polkowice's Paweł Cieślik (31) - he's only ever been a conti or pro-conti rider - has been sidelined with a hole in his heart (ASD / PFO). (Polish article.)
Due to my lack of speaking/reading the Polish language - is the hole understood to be congenital? Or, is it believed to have been cause by PEDs? Please translate.
1) It doesn't say - but there's probably a clue in it being a PFO

2) What doctor on earth would state that the cause was PEDs?

3) I have translated the key points of the article
 
Re: Re:

Tricycle Rider said:
So, why bother posting this in your very own thread in the Clinic if it's got very little to do with PEDs? (Just pretend I'm slow, like most of the posters here judging by your replies.)
If for just one minute you could stop trying to be rude AF and score petty points, you might have noticed that PEDs are not being presumed to cause any of the incidents listed. In point of fact, the whole purpose here is to ask if some aren't just too quick off the mark in blaming PEDs for everything, from crashes to heart conditions.
 
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

On holiday drinking expresso in the lobby bar. I watched the beginning of two European games from the UK and France respectively. Before each game a minute's silence for Davide Astori. The silence in Manchester is particularly impressive. What went wrong with Astori? The club admitted he was constantly "monitored" by medical staff. Is this true? Are players' vital organs being constantly monitored? The bit I believe is that he sees a doctor regularly but it is not to monitor his heart.
 
Feb 5, 2018
270
0
0
Visit site
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

fmk_RoI said:
Over the last couple of years elite professional cycling has seen a number of riders sidelined either temporarily or permanently with cardiac conditions.

2017: Ramūnas Navardauskas (29, arrhythmia); Lars Boom (31, arrhythmia)

2016: Gianni Meersman (31, arrhythmia); Johan Vansummeren (35, arrhythmia); Michael Rogers (36, arrhythmia)

2015: Will Walker (28, arrhythmia); Romain Zingle (28, inflammation)

2014: Niels Albert (28, arrhythmia); Robert Gesink (27, arrhythmia); Olivier Kaisen (30, arrhythmia); Klaas Lodewyck (26, arrhythmia)

2012: Haimar Zubeldia (35, arrhythmia)

2011: Mario Aerts (36, arrhythmia)

2010: Nicolas Vogondy (32, arrhythmia); Kim Kirchen (31, cardiac arrest)

2009: Nicolas Portal (29, arrhythmia)

And then there's the deaths. Last year Gijs Verdick (21) suffered a heart attack during a U23 race in Poland and died a week later. Earlier in the year Roubaix-Lille Métropole's Daan Myngheer (22) suffered a heart attack during the Critérium International and died in hospital two days later. In 2012 Rob Goris (30) of pro-conti squad Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda suffered a heart attack during a visit to the Tour de France.

The number of cardiac cases listed above doesn't necessarily suggest that there is a problem that cycling is failing to confront. Cyclists have always had heart problems: look at Franco Bitossi, look at Eddy Merckx. Cyclists, often times they suffer the same problems as everyone else (even though anti-doping rules deny them the same treatments as everyone else, but that's a story for another day). And the numbers above aren't particularly high when you consider the size of the professional peloton (which, at WorldTour level alone, is more than 500 riders). But, given the myth of the EPO deaths, you tend to notice these things, they tend to stick in the mind, and you want some sort of explanation, preferably one that doesn't just say nothing to see here, move along, one that actually explains to you what is actually at play here.

So, what the hell is going on, something or nothing?

nb: I'll edit the above list if additional names are suggested, but only within a reasonable time period (the last ten years) and only for elite-level cyclists.

is rthere any research on riders going back to the 60s/70s? im sure there were plenty of cases back then also; to know if there is an increased incidence of it today, we would need this info
 
Mar 27, 2018
4
0
0
Visit site
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

Maybe Add 2009 - Steve Larsen, died while running?

fmk_RoI said:
Over the last couple of years elite professional cycling has seen a number of riders sidelined either temporarily or permanently with cardiac conditions.

2017: Ramūnas Navardauskas (29, arrhythmia); Lars Boom (31, arrhythmia)

2016: Gianni Meersman (31, arrhythmia); Johan Vansummeren (35, arrhythmia); Michael Rogers (36, arrhythmia)

2015: Will Walker (28, arrhythmia); Romain Zingle (28, inflammation)

2014: Niels Albert (28, arrhythmia); Robert Gesink (27, arrhythmia); Olivier Kaisen (30, arrhythmia); Klaas Lodewyck (26, arrhythmia)

2012: Haimar Zubeldia (35, arrhythmia)

2011: Mario Aerts (36, arrhythmia)

2010: Nicolas Vogondy (32, arrhythmia); Kim Kirchen (31, cardiac arrest)

2009: Nicolas Portal (29, arrhythmia)

And then there's the deaths. Last year Gijs Verdick (21) suffered a heart attack during a U23 race in Poland and died a week later. Earlier in the year Roubaix-Lille Métropole's Daan Myngheer (22) suffered a heart attack during the Critérium International and died in hospital two days later. In 2012 Rob Goris (30) of pro-conti squad Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda suffered a heart attack during a visit to the Tour de France.

The number of cardiac cases listed above doesn't necessarily suggest that there is a problem that cycling is failing to confront. Cyclists have always had heart problems: look at Franco Bitossi, look at Eddy Merckx. Cyclists, often times they suffer the same problems as everyone else (even though anti-doping rules deny them the same treatments as everyone else, but that's a story for another day). And the numbers above aren't particularly high when you consider the size of the professional peloton (which, at WorldTour level alone, is more than 500 riders). But, given the myth of the EPO deaths, you tend to notice these things, they tend to stick in the mind, and you want some sort of explanation, preferably one that doesn't just say nothing to see here, move along, one that actually explains to you what is actually at play here.

So, what the hell is going on, something or nothing?

nb: I'll edit the above list if additional names are suggested, but only within a reasonable time period (the last ten years) and only for elite-level cyclists.
 
Mar 27, 2018
4
0
0
Visit site
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

Add Glen Winkle Maybe, and definitely read his story: http://www.afathletes.info/AFIB/Glen_Winkel.html


fmk_RoI said:
Over the last couple of years elite professional cycling has seen a number of riders sidelined either temporarily or permanently with cardiac conditions.

2017: Ramūnas Navardauskas (29, arrhythmia); Lars Boom (31, arrhythmia)

2016: Gianni Meersman (31, arrhythmia); Johan Vansummeren (35, arrhythmia); Michael Rogers (36, arrhythmia)

2015: Will Walker (28, arrhythmia); Romain Zingle (28, inflammation)

2014: Niels Albert (28, arrhythmia); Robert Gesink (27, arrhythmia); Olivier Kaisen (30, arrhythmia); Klaas Lodewyck (26, arrhythmia)

2012: Haimar Zubeldia (35, arrhythmia)

2011: Mario Aerts (36, arrhythmia)

2010: Nicolas Vogondy (32, arrhythmia); Kim Kirchen (31, cardiac arrest)

2009: Nicolas Portal (29, arrhythmia)

And then there's the deaths. Last year Gijs Verdick (21) suffered a heart attack during a U23 race in Poland and died a week later. Earlier in the year Roubaix-Lille Métropole's Daan Myngheer (22) suffered a heart attack during the Critérium International and died in hospital two days later. In 2012 Rob Goris (30) of pro-conti squad Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda suffered a heart attack during a visit to the Tour de France.

The number of cardiac cases listed above doesn't necessarily suggest that there is a problem that cycling is failing to confront. Cyclists have always had heart problems: look at Franco Bitossi, look at Eddy Merckx. Cyclists, often times they suffer the same problems as everyone else (even though anti-doping rules deny them the same treatments as everyone else, but that's a story for another day). And the numbers above aren't particularly high when you consider the size of the professional peloton (which, at WorldTour level alone, is more than 500 riders). But, given the myth of the EPO deaths, you tend to notice these things, they tend to stick in the mind, and you want some sort of explanation, preferably one that doesn't just say nothing to see here, move along, one that actually explains to you what is actually at play here.

So, what the hell is going on, something or nothing?

nb: I'll edit the above list if additional names are suggested, but only within a reasonable time period (the last ten years) and only for elite-level cyclists.
 
The element of the equation that I think is being overlooked is how many of these people had a thorough heart health evaluation before they became competitive cyclists? Because if you don't know that, then you can't tell whether the sport is causing the condition or merely exacerbating a previously existing one.

Almost all endurance athletes have an abnormal heart. You could say, after a fashion, that it is normal for them to have an abnormal heart. It's called athletic heart syndrome. The same symptoms would be diagnosed pathological if the patient's athletic background wasn't known.

Basically, if you have engaged in endurance sport enough that it significantly lowered your resting heart rate (an indication of an increase in stroke volume), you probably have athletic heart syndrome (Miguel Indu-train allegedly had an RHR of 28). The "enlarged heart" that the Pharmstrong fanbois always used to crow about, as if it was a personal gift to him from the cycling gods, was nothing more than this.

And there also are other abnormalities commonly seen in attendance to athlete's heart, such as right bundle branch block. A cardiologist once told me that RBBB was endemic among performance athletes, affecting as much as 80% of them.

As I understand it, these are not necessarily pathological conditions (that is, indicative of heart disease), but they still are abnormalities, the very existence of which can complicate the matter of diagnosing heart health. And perhaps athlete's heart and RBBB and all the others also predispose cyclists to further pathological abnormalities, in the same manner as cycling predisposes them to exercise-induced asthma (but that takes me completely out of my depth and is entirely conjectural).

But it all starts from my opening question. How do you know there wasn't anything wrong with their heart before they took up cycling?
 
Feb 5, 2018
270
0
0
Visit site
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

fmk_RoI said:
53*11 said:
is rthere any research on riders going back to the 60s/70s? im sure there were plenty of cases back then also; to know if there is an increased incidence of it today, we would need this info
Please read the OP
fmk_RoI said:
Cyclists have always had heart problems: look at Franco Bitossi, look at Eddy Merckx.

thanks , i meant peer reviewed scientific papers dude
 
Mar 18, 2009
2,553
0
0
Visit site
Re: Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this nor

I did a quick search of PubMed using the terms "cardiac arrhythmia endurance athletes". The earliest article that turned up was from 1985.

I suspect that the lack of attention to this issue prior to that date reflects the fact that 1) such cardiac anomalies are, thankfully, still relatively uncommon, even in highly trained individuals, 2) mass participation in endurance sports is a relatively new phenomenon, and 3) the technology for recording ECG during daily life has gotten progressively more accessible.
 
from an AFP story, which asks "Can 'unseen' heart conditions, which have claimed the lives of many athletes over many different sports, ever be fully detectable?":
"According to the current rules of the UCI, teams are obliged to carry out the physical and cardiological examination and monitoring (of their riders)," said French doctor Francais Armand Megret, a member of the UCI's medical commission.

Jacky Maillot, a doctor with the Groupama-FDJ team, underlined that point: "In accordance with the UCI rules, every year we must put our riders through the most gruelling heart stress tests in order to obtain a medical certificate that has no contraindications (that would prevent riders from competing). The top-level riders also undergo a heart echography once every two years."

Despite a battery of tests, some heart defects simply cannot be detected, according to the experts.

"These tests are never 100%," Kris Van der Mieren, a member of the medical commission for the Belgian cycling federation, told AFP.

"Even the world's best cardiologist, carrying out all the available tests — a heart ultrasound, an electrocardiogram — would be unable to detect certain anomalies.

"The only thing we can do is make sure every rider is monitored very closely."
Megret, from the UCI's medical commission, suggests one change that should be considered:
For Dr Megret, there is one improvement that can be made: transferring any final decision to an external, independent expert.

"When a heart defect or anomaly is detected, it is the team doctor who makes the decision. But I believe an independent expert should determine which tests are carried out and who makes the decisions," he added.

"Our objective is to detect the risks involved, which tests must be done to detect them, and once the defect is found, which preventative and protective measures can be taken and how they can be integrated into the regulations so they can be applied," he added.
 
Deutsche Weil have posted a rather silly article. One point from it though:
According to a study by the French magazine Nouvel Observateur, the mortality rate among Tour de France competitors is almost three times higher than that of the general population.
Conventional wisdom has it that, because of cycling's long-standing doping problem, cyclists die younger than other people. To support this claim fans can point to the early deaths of Fausto Coppi (dead at 40), Gastone Nencini (dead at 49), Hugo Koblet (dead at 39), Tom Simpson (dead at 29), Roger Rivière (dead at 40), Louison Bobet (dead at 58), Jacques Anquetil (dead at 53), Luis Ocaña (dead at 48), Marco Pantani (dead at 34), and Laurent Fignon (dead at 50).

They can also point to research carried out by Jean-Pierre de Mondenard, published in Nouvel Observateur using this to support the claim that that "even though the link with doping has not been established, it is known that the life expectancy of those who have taken part in the Tour de France is lower than average."

De Mondenard's study – carried out in the 1990s – had looked at 667 former Tour riders (across multiple nationalities - how he 'corrected' for differing mortality rates in each country is not clear - though the report is frequently referenced I have never been able to find a copy of it) who raced between 1960 and 1990 and found that their mortality rate was higher than normal. This was especially true, it was claimed, of riders who entered the peloton after 1961, with De Mondenard saying that was down to the rise of doping.

However, in 2013 a team led by Eloi Marijon of the Paris Cardiovascular Centre presented an alternative take which flatly contradicted De Mondenard's findings. This study – Centenary of the Tour de France Group: Mortality of French Participants from the Tour de France 1947-2012 – looked at all 786 French Tour participants between 1947 and 2012, of whom 208 (26%) were known to have died by September 1, 2012.

Marijon and his team found that their mortality rate was 41% lower than that of the average French male. The team actually found that the average French Tour participant has added six years to his expected lifespan.

Marijon and his team also claimed that the French Tour veterans have shown a 33% lower risk of fatal heart attacks or strokes than the general population. Among the causes of death, Tour veterans were lower in all categories – including cancer – with the sole exception being death from traumatic injury, which is seen as an occupational hazard in cycling.

The main causes of death were given as neoplasms (including cancer) (32.2%), cardiovascular diseases (29%), infectious diseases (2.2%), endocrine and nutritional diseases (2.2%), neurological (2.2%), digestive system diseases (2.2%), and genitourinary disease (1.1%).

The mortality rates were consistent across all eras (1947-70, when the main doping was amphetamines; 1971-1990 when doping had moved on to steroids; and 1991-2012, when HGH and EPO were the main doping agents) and age groups, with the exception of the current generation of under 30-year-olds, where a non-significant higher death rate was observed, largely caused by "a particularly high frequency of traffic or race accident deaths."

The study was largely inspired by claims that, rather than being good for you, high-level physical exercise actually has long-term deleterious effects. The authors were also inspired by concerns regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs, particularly in the years sine the Second World War. The report's key results, as summarised by Marijon and his team, are as follows:
"Among the 786 French cyclists who participated at least once in the Tour, 208 (26%) were known to have died by Sept 01, 2012. Compared to the general population, the overall SMR [Standard Mortality Ratio] was 0.59 (95% CI, 0.51–0.68, P<0.0001), with highly similar results over time. The mean additional life expectancy, compared to the general population, was estimated at 6.3±2 years. We observed a significant reduction in cardiovascular (SMR=0.68, 95% CI, 0.51–0.89, P=0.006) and cancer (0.51, 95% CI, 0.38–0.66, P<0.0001) deaths, whereas mortality related to accidents was similar (1.02, 95% CI, 0.67–1.49, P=0.90)."
Beyond the fact that French Tour veterans have lived longer than average, the conclusions that can be drawn from this study are far from clear. Comparing elite cyclists with the general population is fraught with danger. The French Tour veterans may have had a superior genetic endowment which itself may impact their life expectancy. Or, even allowing for the effects of doping, the benefit from participation in such a demanding sport may simply be down to a generally healthier lifestyle. Or, the higher mortality rates among the general population may be partly impacted by chronic diseases which rule out a sporting career.
 
Re:

fmk_RoI said:
Deutsche Weil have posted a rather silly article. One point from it though:
According to a study by the French magazine Nouvel Observateur, the mortality rate among Tour de France competitors is almost three times higher than that of the general population.
Claiming your odds are three times as great of being immortal if you don't compete in la Grande Boucle also to me seems a bit silly.
 
Re: Re:

StyrbjornSterki said:
fmk_RoI said:
Deutsche Weil have posted a rather silly article. One point from it though:
According to a study by the French magazine Nouvel Observateur, the mortality rate among Tour de France competitors is almost three times higher than that of the general population.
Claiming your odds are three times as great of being immortal if you don't compete in la Grande Boucle also to me seems a bit silly.
Heroes get remembered, legends never die.*



*Just a silly joke referring to a surely apocryphal "Babe Ruth" quote.
 
Found this today:
* Three riders who have been part of Veranda's roster have died of cardiac arrest in recent years: Rob Goris (2012), Daan Myngheer (2016) and Goolaerts.
* UCI demands yearly checks for cardiac condition but these are run by the teams. Members of the UCI Medical Commission are demanding a change on this so that the decision to declare a rider fit (or not) to race is taken by a medical authority not linked to the teams.
* Nevertheless, experts point out that these checks are not 100% reliable as predictors of cardiac arrests.

http://www.elmundo.es/deportes/2018/04/11/5acd1b9422601da36f8b4693.html
 
Re:

ice&fire said:
Found this today:
* Three riders who have been part of Veranda's roster have died of cardiac arrest in recent years: Rob Goris (2012), Daan Myngheer (2016) and Goolaerts.
* UCI demands yearly checks for cardiac condition but these are run by the teams. Members of the UCI Medical Commission are demanding a change on this so that the decision to declare a rider fit (or not) to race is taken by a medical authority not linked to the teams.
* Nevertheless, experts point out that these checks are not 100% reliable as predictors of cardiac arrests.

http://www.elmundo.es/deportes/2018/04/11/5acd1b9422601da36f8b4693.html
Much of that has already been posted, it's a syndicated AFP story. And no one is "demanding" anything - stop sensationalising such a sensitive topic, please.

Further, if you are going to go for sensationalism, could you at least check some facts? Goris rode for Accent Jobs–Willems Veranda, today's Wanty–Groupe Gobert, while Myngheer was riding with Roubaix-Lille Métropole.
 
Re: Re:

StyrbjornSterki said:
fmk_RoI said:
Deutsche Weil have posted a rather silly article. One point from it though:
According to a study by the French magazine Nouvel Observateur, the mortality rate among Tour de France competitors is almost three times higher than that of the general population.
Claiming your odds are three times as great of being immortal if you don't compete in la Grande Boucle also to me seems a bit silly.

Are you telling me that the simple act of not riding the TdF - something I am physically incapable of doing - does not make me immortal?
Damn...
 

TRENDING THREADS