First EPO users in the peloton?

[DirtyWorks]

What if it was the deliberate decision of a doping doctor to use those Dutch amateur riders as guinea pigs to figure out the correct way to use EPO before giving it to the pros? I guess it's possible, but far-fetched.

Disagree. Read up on Conconi's experimenting with EPO. Here's a few excerpts.

he had carried out controlled experiments with 23 amateur triathletes and other athletes with EPO treatments but that he had not come up with a test to detect EPO use. The details of Conconi's 23 amateur athletes were later discovered by police after a raid at the University of Ferrara and that there were no 23 amateurs but elite professionals

Who was working with Conconi at the time? Michele Ferrari. Gewiss-Ballan, were connected to Conconi via Doctors Michele Ferrari and Ilario Casoni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Conconi

These are classy guys presumably employed by the University, getting money from the IOC for a test they never had any intention of completing, and getting paid by pro athletes. It's a large number of people perfectly fine with lying and cheating.

The funds to run Conconi's EPO business came from the IOC looking for an EPO test. That's 1993/94. The IOC does not move quickly. So, very soon after EPO was available, someone put EPO and endurance sports use together.

 

[GJB123]

So, killing one or two as a result of the worst kind of human experimentation is okay? I agree that one cannot attribute all of them to EPO. But, the number of deaths go up dramatically with the appearance of EPO.




I'm not sure what purpose your kind of denial serves.

Disagree. Administering EPO is a shot. Amateur Teams were/are administering shots as a regular matter. Remember that Eddie B. was re-infusing blood in the U.S. circa 1984 without any medical training whatsoever. Chris Carmichael and Rene Wenzel were injecting juniors with no-one knows what after Eddie B. was disgraced.

There are countless examples of the sophistication in cheating at the amateur level of sport.

I don't understand you. In one post you criticize me effectively for being naive when it concerns amateur cyclists and PED-use (and offer very little or no back-up for your claims) and in the next post you go on to state that Conconi and Ferrari experimented on pro's rather than amateurs. Make up your mind already!

I am not saying it is impossible that amateurs might be more advanced in PED-use, but rather I am saying it is unlikely that amateur riders in their droves got their hands on EPO before pro's. Simple Occam's razor.

Furthermore, where exactly did I state it was okay to kill one or two riders when experimenting with EPO? I am saying it is unlikely that amateurs were experimenting with EPO so their deaths are an unlikely candidate to be contributed to early EPO-use.

Regards
GJ

 

[DirtyWorks]

I don't understand you. In one post you criticize me effectively for being naive when it concerns amateur cyclists and PED-use (and offer very little or no back-up for your claims) and in the next post you go on to state that Conconi and Ferrari experimented on pro's rather than amateurs. Make up your mind already!

My point being there is no distinction. On the paid pro side, there's some money to be made everywhere. On the amateur's side, hunger is a fantastic motivator.

I am not immune to bad communiction. What kind of factual references do you need?

I am saying git is unlikely that amateur riders in their droves got their hands on EPO before pro's. Simple Occam's razor.

Occam's razor doesn't really apply here. I can make it work for pretty much anything.

-Amateur looking for any advantage possible takes EPO.
-Pro looking for any advantage possible takes EPO.

See? Go Occam's Razor! If you disagree with me, I am open to being wrong. It wouldn't be the first time! I need some new facts though.

 

[DirtyWorks]

How did the likes of Conconi, Ferrari etc figure out how to use it without having lots of athletes die?

Exactly. +1

more than 10 characters.

 

[hrotha]

Disagree. Read up on Conconi's experimenting with EPO. Here's a few excerpts.

he had carried out controlled experiments with 23 amateur triathletes and other athletes with EPO treatments but that he had not come up with a test to detect EPO use. The details of Conconi's 23 amateur athletes were later discovered by police after a raid at the University of Ferrara and that there were no 23 amateurs but elite professionals

Who was working with Conconi at the time? Michele Ferrari. Gewiss-Ballan, were connected to Conconi via Doctors Michele Ferrari and Ilario Casoni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Conconi

These are classy guys presumably employed by the University, getting money from the IOC for a test they never had any intention of completing, and getting paid by pro athletes. It's a large number of people perfectly fine with lying and cheating.

The funds to run Conconi's EPO business came from the IOC looking for an EPO test. That's 1993/94. The IOC does not move quickly. So, very soon after EPO was available, someone put EPO and endurance sports use together.

I know about Conconi. As you say, that was in 1993, so it's pretty irrelevant here, isn't it.

 

[L'arriviste]

I would say that is far-fetched and incredibly unethical though doping doctors are not renowned for the highest set of ethics either I guess. How did the likes of Conconi, Ferrari etc figure out how to use it without having lots of athletes die.

I know Joachim Halupczok died but EPO had been in circulation for a few years by then. Any suggestions as to who those dastardly doctors might have been in the low countries, Van Mol? Rijkaert? Sanders? Janssen?

Rijkaert and Janssen seemed somewhat ethically minded according to some of their cyclists accounts, Sanders was found guilty of supplying EPO from 1990 onwards leaving Van Mol. Any other suggestions?

Anecdotally, we know that Conconi used EPO himself. But is it not simply that the margin of error in the 'trial and error' process was fairly broad?

With clinical supervision, many of the common side effects should have been recognised relatively quickly, enabling the practitioners to develop the techniques to address them. After all, Conconi was building on a bedrock of many more years of blood tweaking going back to Moser and the 70s.

Meanwhile with regard to those practitioners without access to all the knowledge Conconi et al had accrued and had not, as far as we know, shared among others, perhaps they were flying blind.

 

[GJB123]

My point being there is no distinction. On the paid pro side, there's some money to be made everywhere. On the amateur's side, hunger is a fantastic motivator.

I am not immune to bad communiction. What kind of factual references do you need?


Occam's razor doesn't really apply here. I can make it work for pretty much anything.

-Amateur looking for any advantage possible takes EPO.
-Pro looking for any advantage possible takes EPO.

See? Go Occam's Razor! If you disagree with me, I am open to being wrong. It wouldn't be the first time! I need some new facts though.

As I said before, I don't exclude the possibility at all, I just think it is unlikely. I use the word "think"''on purpose because we basically have no or very little concrete knowledge on the circumstances of those riders who died, since on most of them no autopsy was performed. So we are back to likelihoods.

No we know of enexplained heart troubles in normal young people and I would expect that number to be a little higher in people engaging in endurance sports as this might aggrevate any pre-existing heart condition. Again conjecture as there seems to be very little data to go on because (exspecially in those days) screening was marginal at best (I also refer to this thread and post in particular http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=856993&postcount=49). Now the number of deaths late '80-s amongst Durch and Belgian riders might have been statistically too high, but that doesn't mean we can attribute all deaths to EPO-use since we were already expecting some deaths.

Now we also know that old-school PED-use may lead to or aggrevate (pre-existing) heart conditions. So some of the statistoiclly "additional" deaths could be attributed to PED-use as such but not per say to EPO-use.

Now EPO was still in a clinical test phase in the mid '80-s so one can assume that it wasn't readily available in large numbers (as was discussed earlier in this thread). Now who is more likely to have heard of EPO, the amateur or the pro? I would say that given the medical assistance that is availble to pro's they are more likely to have been alterted to EPO by their team doctors or "personal trianers" than amateurs. Can I prove that? No, I can't, but simple logic (Occam's razor) dictates that it is the most likely assumption. Also cobined with what I do know of the Dutch amateur scene the word is that OED-use is (still) quite old school. So are we to believe that in the mid '80's this wholly different and that amateurs wre using cutting edge PED's in their droves so to lead to many (unexplained) EPO-deaths?

So given all the above, how do we end up with a relative large number of juniors and amateurs in Belgium and the Netherlands arguably dying of early EPO-use? Sorry, it just doesn't make sense to me, but again I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Regards
GJ

 

[Gregga]

Now the number of deaths late '80-s amongst Durch and Belgian riders might have been statistically too high, but that doesn't mean we can attribute all deaths to EPO-use since we were already expecting some deaths.

Now we also know that old-school PED-use may lead to or aggrevate (pre-existing) heart conditions. So some of the statistoiclly "additional" deaths could be attributed to PED-use as such but not per say to EPO-use.

I also think that old-school PED could have been the cause of this heart attacks among amateurs in the 80's, amphetamines particularly. What is in my opinion specific to EPO-use deaths is that they occured during the sleep just like Bert Oosterbosch and Johannes Draaijer.

 

[Le breton]

.......
I knew one pro racer who died in his sleep at age ~32, a "small" pro who had been on a 10 or so victories streak.
That was around 1965, well before EPO.

I am coming back on this because what I said was not exact.

He didn't die at the time of his biggest successes, 1965, when he was probably one of the 10 best French racers, but 7 years later, in 1972, when he was presumably racing just for fun.

http://exclusivelo.skyrock.com/2970509461-FRANCOIS-LE-BIHAN-LE-MERCKX-BRETON.html

In 1972 I hadn't been living in France for a number of years but kept more or less (rather less) in touch with cycling via mail with my family. I assume my brother sent me a newspaper clip about Le Bihan's death.

Le Bihan was very much liked and unassuming, he never became a well-known racer nationally because he felt homesick as soon as he left Brittany and couldn't perform well.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I would say that is far-fetched and incredibly unethical though doping doctors are not renowned for the highest set of ethics either I guess. How did the likes of Conconi, Ferrari etc figure out how to use it without having lots of athletes die.

I guess Conconi and the rest had all the access through the scientific results published prior to the release of Epogen by Amgen in contradiction to the we are assuming amateurs and lower leagues pro's.

What intriges me is the statement made by Steven Rooks in a 2011 book by Mart Smeets, he stated he used EPO up to 50%, because 'then it was not forbidden'. Rooks ended his carreer in 1995, the 50% rule was announced in 1997. Explain that. Also, Rooks stated he used EPO AFTER 1989, maybe this to protect that years results and those of 1988? Riders always seem to be juicing after they have had their best results, 'at the end of my carreer' must be in 'the omerta book of gospels'.

I know Joachim Halupczok died but EPO had been in circulation for a few years by then. Any suggestions as to who those dastardly doctors might have been in the low countries, Van Mol? Rijkaert? Sanders? Janssen?

If I am correct van Mol was his team doctor at GB - MG Maglifico, we might say the predecessor to Mapei, with a 'young' fellow countryman named Zenon Jaskula wich in 1993 suddenly popped up and was third in the Tour. Poor Joachim died the next year in his sleep, we presume. That doctor still works with Lefevre nowadays, has been subject to numerous doping cases but the good man never was convicted.
http://www.dopeology.org/people/Yvan_Vanmol/

Rijkaert and Janssen seemed somewhat ethically minded according to some of their cyclists accounts, Sanders was found guilty of supplying EPO from 1990 onwards leaving Van Mol. Any other suggestions?

I think you are right about Janssen and Rijkaert but who knows. I read a part of Jeff d'Hondts book and he was quite certain Rijkaert was a 'clean' doctor in the sense he put the riders wellbeing above results untill nutcases like Virenque came around, riding pharmacies.

It is fascinating to see all the connections from that era. When for instance you look at the short pro carreer of Halupczok you can see he was teammates with Emmanuele Bombini, the later manager of Gewiss, the crit kings.

In my opinion the main connection is Conconi - Moser. The bloodbrothers. Conconi spiked Moser's blood in 1984 the conventional way, when he read of a more easy way through a seringue he mastered that art too. Hell, they even got Moser to better his 1984 record ten years later, at the age of 43!

When we look at Moser's late carreer - ended in 1988 with Chateaux d'Ax - we see a few interesting things. We see Stanga, we see Bugno, we see Rominger, we see a steady increase of performance with mainly two riders: Bugno and Rominger.
One for the classics, one for the Grand Tours. This untill 1990. What happened then? Did other 'pharmacies' opened their doors? Did other 'pharmacies' upped the risks? Where did Chioccoli find 20 minutes in the Giro 1991 compared to 1990? [http://www.dewielersite.net/db2/wielersite/ritfiche.php?ritid=131079] to [http://www.dewielersite.net/db2/wielersite/ritfiche.php?ritid=131090]

Off course he was preparated by Yvan van Mol, yes the man of the dead Polish rider. But still.

Another interesting thing was Matthieu Hermans statement of his use of EPO in the Tour of 1989, in the same book as Rooks atmitted taking EPO. He stated 'u know who our doctor was'. Meaning Fuentes. Fuentes was the team doctor of Hermans' Caja Rural team in 1988, in 1989 he was with Echevarri's team of Reynolds...

And so on, and so on...

Why isn't there a true wistleblower? Those arseholes have seen teammates dying, why don't the spill their guts?

 

[Cloxxki]

FGL: wow, interesting find on that Rooks book. Which journo's got the nuts to ask Smeets or Rooks to comment on this? Interesting fact checking by Smeets this would be.

 

[Gregga]

Rooks began climbing very well in the 1988 TdF !
Sure he had already won mountain stages of the Dauphiné but, that year he suddenly was able to follow Delgado, Herrera and Parra... I'm pretty sure he was under EPO that year but of course didn't confess it, just in order to keep a few lines of his best results.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

FGL: wow, interesting find on that Rooks book. Which journo's got the nuts to ask Smeets or Rooks to comment on this? Interesting fact checking by Smeets this would be.

Sources:
http://m.sporza.be/cm/sporza.mobile/m_wielrennen/1.548438
http://www.volkskrant.nl/wca_item/boeken_detail/453/194588/Het-laatste-geel.html
Haven't read it myself, still looking for a cheap one.

Smeets and fact checking? Ahum...
For that matter: wich journalist is willing to dig deep? Yeah, those Danish guys and Ballestere/Walsh, the rest of them want to keep their meaningless cross the line interviews. Don't bite the hand that feeds you...

Rooks began climbing very well in the 1988 TdF !
Sure he had already won mountain stages of the Dauphiné but, that year he suddenly was able to follow Delgado, Herrera and Parra... I'm pretty sure he was under EPO that year but of course didn't confess it, just in order to keep a few lines of his best results.

Rooks had already showed he could climb, for instance in the Tour of 1986. His donkey teammate Theunisse came out of nowhere in 1988. But, Rooks should have never been a podium contender, even would have won if Delgado would have been sanctioned like Theunisse for his masking drug in that Tour.

 

[simoni]

C'mon, Rooks was hardly some carthorse pre-'88!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Rooks

LBL (at 22!) and Amstel Gold for starters.

 

[Race Radio]

Rooks is clear in his book when he started taking EPO, it was not in 89. He started in 94 after Gweiss shredded every race.

He also explained that he only went to 50% on the advice of his doctor. He felt that it was too dangerous. This is an interesting point as he clearly had concerns but did not say if he had heard of any rider deaths. He also talked about how he saw limited improvement from EPO as his natural Hct was high (47% IIRC)

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

The FIS did Hb testing at the 1989 XC skiing world championships. The average was lower than the population mean.

Different sport, but still.

 

[therhodeo]

I also think that old-school PED could have been the cause of this heart attacks among amateurs in the 80's,

There has been a rash of young people here in the states who have had heart attacks due to energy drinks and preexisting heart conditions.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Rooks is clear in his book when he started taking EPO, it was not in 89. He started in 94 after Gweiss shredded every race.

Did he also explain his drop in performance once he and buddy boy Theunisse switched from PDM to Panasonic in 1990?
1988 - 3rd in the Tour
1989 - 7th
1990 - 33rd
1991 - 26th

Thats quite a drop off in my book.

His teammate in 1994 at TVM, Skibby, wrote a book and stated he started in 1993 with PED's. Off course also in the last stage in his career, never on the highpoint off course.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/skibbys-book-released

He also explained that he only went to 50% on the advice of his doctor. He felt that it was too dangerous. This is an interesting point as he clearly had concerns but did not say if he had heard of any rider deaths.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a beautifull list of who is who in cycling, ergo, which team doctor is where? Nowadays with the internet we can easily find out the whereabouts of for instance a Ibarguren, track his record, where he worked and what the outcome was. The early days of the EPO - era, still ongoing, are still a blur. A lot of speculation.

But in regard of Rooks and his 50% it wouldn't surprise me if that was Rijkaerts' advise, the Lee Harvey Oswald of cycling.

He also talked about how he saw limited improvement from EPO as his natural Hct was high (47% IIRC)

When he states he began in 1994 and didn't juice above fifty unlike the Romingers and others he wouldn't have gotten results of course. Furthermore, who am I to say he is lying about his natural values.

The facts are he had a promising/good start of his career at Sem, with good old Willy Voet as soigneur, had a nice two years of maturing at Panasonic and subsequently had a hell of a ride at PDM. After PDM besides the odd result: nothing.

But, he didn't start doing EPO untill his last years, 1994. Sounds familiar to me.

 

[meat puppet]

The FIS did Hb testing at the 1989 XC skiing world championships. The average was lower than the population mean.

Different sport, but still.

Waaat, no way!? You have a link? FFWD 11 years and the values were quite different, I presume. Same host city though.

 

[blutto]

Eddy Plankaert was an early user if I recall correctly.

...in an interview, well after the fact, admitted he was on an EPO program when he beat Bauer at P/R in 90...but stated it really didn't have much effect!?!?...which, I guess was his way of saying he won it fair and square...

Cheers

blutto

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Waaat, no way!? You have a link?

Yes way.

Beginning at the world championships in 1989 and continuing through to the "trial worlds" in Trondheim, Norway in February 1996, the International Ski Federation (FIS) began randomly drawing blood samples from male and female skiers to monitor hemoglobin levels. In 89, the average values were actually just under normal population levels (15 g/dl). By 1996 they were far over normal levels.

http://www.sportsci.org/news/news9701/EPOfeat.html

Not sure why that's so surprising?

I've read it in official FIS documents as well but can't be bothered to find them.

FFWD 11 years and the values were quite different, I presume. Same host city though.

Yup.

Samples were obtained as part of routine International Ski Federation blood testing procedures from participants at the World Ski Championships [2001]. Sixty-eight percent of all skiers and 92% of those finishing in the top 10 places were tested.

Of the skiers tested and finishing within the top 50 places in the competitions, 17% had highly abnormal hematologic profiles, 19% had abnormal values, and 64% were normal. Fifty percent of medal winners and 33% of those finishing from 4th to 10th place had highly abnormal hematologic profiles. In contrast, only 3% of skiers finishing from 41st to 50th place had highly abnormal values.

http://journals.lww.com/cjsportsmed...Abnormal_Hematologic_Profiles_in_Elite.2.aspx

"Everyone does it." "Level playing field".

 

[pmcg76]

Did he also explain his drop in performance once he and buddy boy Theunisse switched from PDM to Panasonic in 1990?
1988 - 3rd in the Tour
1989 - 7th
1990 - 33rd
1991 - 26th

Thats quite a drop off in my book.

His teammate in 1994 at TVM, Skibby, wrote a book and stated he started in 1993 with PED's. Off course also in the last stage in his career, never on the highpoint off course.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/skibbys-book-released

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a beautifull list of who is who in cycling, ergo, which team doctor is where? Nowadays with the internet we can easily find out the whereabouts of for instance a Ibarguren, track his record, where he worked and what the outcome was. The early days of the EPO - era, still ongoing, are still a blur. A lot of speculation.

But in regard of Rooks and his 50% it wouldn't surprise me if that was Rijkaerts' advise, the Lee Harvey Oswald of cycling.

When he states he began in 1994 and didn't juice above fifty unlike the Romingers and others he wouldn't have gotten results of course. Furthermore, who am I to say he is lying about his natural values.

The facts are he had a promising/good start of his career at Sem, with good old Willy Voet as soigneur, had a nice two years of maturing at Panasonic and subsequently had a hell of a ride at PDM. After PDM besides the odd result: nothing.

But, he didn't start doing EPO untill his last years, 1994. Sounds familiar to me.

Actually Skibby admitted to doping from 91 and using EPO from 93 so includes many of his best performances whilst doping.

http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=10265

 

[pmcg76]

...in an interview, well after the fact, admitted he was on an EPO program when he beat Bauer at P/R in 90...but stated it really didn't have much effect!?!?...which, I guess was his way of saying he won it fair and square...

Cheers

blutto

He admitted he tried a course of EPO once and said it was at the end of his career, he never named a specific year.

 

[Race Radio]

Intensive training lowers Hct so it would be normal for a hard training endurance athlete to have a lower Hct. No surprise that the skiers had a lower Hct in 89 or a higher hct after the advent of EPO

 

[Lurker]

This is an interesting article from 1991 in which Draaijer's wife/widow Anna-Lisa says that he used EPO and implies that the drug had a role in his death.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488551.html

It's an early article taking about EPO use. Most of the articles talking about EPO in the early 90s were actually published after Festina, so this one is interesting to me. I used google translate to get it into english and it worked pretty well.

Has anyone seen the Manfred Krikke TV interview from 1997? He was the general Manager of PDM (Draaijer's team) and in it he supposedly describes EPO use by PDM in the early 90s.

It seems that PDM under Wim Sanders was engaged in systematic EPO use in 1990-1. I wonder if Sanders came up with the idea on his own, or if it was introduced to him by another doctor or rider. Does anyone know where Sanders worked before PDM? I believe he arrived there in 1990.

Also, I've had some difficulty tracing the career of Eric Rijckaert. He was a doctor at PDM and Festina. Wikipedia has him at PDM beginning in 1986, but in an interview Rijckaert claims that he arrived at PDM in 1992, having been at Tulip before that. I'd like to see some of the careers of the early 90s doctors traced from team to team. Do the Italian doctors and the Dutch doctors connect or are they working on their own?

Also, it seems that there is EPO "research" by doctors in different geographical regions, the Netherlands, Italy, Scandinavia. It would be interesting to see connections between the doctors in these different areas.