First EPO users in the peloton?

["Jeff"]

I got another one that MIGHT be EPO related. Geert De Vlaeminck, son of the famous Roger De Vlaeminck dies in the middle of a cyclocross race of a heart attack. Does anyone have any extra information to prove/disprove the possibility it was EPO-related? The era is right.

And then there's this story in Dutch: http://ronnydeschepper.com/2012/07/05/wielrenner-rob-goris-30-overleden/

Money quote: ... Back then you had all these sudden cardiac deaths in the pack: sixteen, if I'm not mistaken. Patrice Bar, Gert Reynaert, Bert Oosterbosch - many riders have died in their sleep. I'm not saying it all EPO was due - I'm not a doctor - but as many insiders suspect that the injudicious use of EPO had to do. J'avais trop peur: I am not touched. "

Patrice Bar's name again tied to death by PED.

He was the son of Eric de Vlaeminck, not Roger.


That Tulip squad has been one of the most underperforming teams ever, right there with Ton Ton Tapis. No surprise that team was dismantled after a few years. Awful jerseys too.

 

["Jeff"]

I real example of a victim of the doping culture....little wonder good folk gave up cycling.
I wonder what he thinks about British Cycling now?

Let's not exaggerate.

I appreciate some of the inside information. I respect the fact he has done more than 99,95% of the people on this site but he's not a victim of the doping culture.

 

[DirtyWorks]

He was the son of Eric de Vlaeminck, not Roger.


That Tulip squad has been one of the most underperforming teams ever, right there with Ton Ton Tapis. No surprise that team was dismantled after a few years. Awful jerseys too.

Original post fixed. Thank you.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Here's some more deaths attributed to EPO from none other than Paul Kimmage's "Rough Ride"

Bert Oosterbosch
Joachim Halupczok
Johannes Draaijer

http://books.google.com/books?id=mh...en#v=onepage&q=Bert Oosterbosch sleep&f=false

And previously mentioned by esasofina, Patrice Bar.

What's good about that books URL is it recounts Hein's wall of denial at the time as I remember it. That's who we're dealing with. Dead people? No problems here.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Here's some more deaths attributed to EPO from none other than Paul Kimmage's "Rough Ride"

Bert Oosterbosch
Joachim Halupczok
Johannes Draaijer

http://books.google.com/books?id=mh...en#v=onepage&q=Bert Oosterbosch sleep&f=false

And previously mentioned by esasofina, Patrice Bar.

What's good about that books URL is it recounts Hein's wall of denial at the time as I remember it. That's who we're dealing with. Dead people? No problems here.

Ok - I have a list of some riders who died around that era.

But quite frankly - I am loathe to post it as I have no idea of all the circumstances. While many may have been PED related I am sure not all were.
And this list also has several unexplained deaths early in the 80's, long before EPO.

 

[Cloxxki]

Ok - I have a list of some riders who died around that era.

But quite frankly - I am loathe to post it as I have no idea of all the circumstances. While many may have been PED related I am sure not all were.
And this list also has several unexplained deaths early in the 80's, long before EPO.

80's had bad blood bags and funky goo in needles. More than Edgar alone to bury.
Leak the list, you cycling patriot you. Someone else can incorperate it with theirs. Save a bro the reasearch, grant him a head start. DW is a good guy.
Thanks,
J

 

[kielbasa]

Here's some more deaths attributed to EPO from none other than Paul Kimmage's "Rough Ride"

Bert Oosterbosch
Joachim Halupczok
Johannes Draaijer

http://books.google.com/books?id=mh...en#v=onepage&q=Bert Oosterbosch sleep&f=false

And previously mentioned by esasofina, Patrice Bar.

What's good about that books URL is it recounts Hein's wall of denial at the time as I remember it. That's who we're dealing with. Dead people? No problems here.

Joachim Halupczok won the amateur worlds in 1989 in a solo breakaway. A year later he developed a heart arrhythmia that was treated surgically IIRC. He was forced to retire the same year he turned professional in 1990 due to continuing heart problems. Wikipedia mentions that the problems could have been a result of untreated respiratory infections.

He died in 1994 while warming up for a soccer match, not in his sleep and not due to "thick blood". The official cause of death was determined to be an infection of the heart muscle. I think the allegations of doping are circumstantial to the times and conveniently lumping him with the EPO crowd may be unfair.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

80's had bad blood bags and funky goo in needles. More than Edgar alone to bury.
Leak the list, you cycling patriot you. Someone else can incorperate it with theirs. Save a bro the reasearch, grant him a head start. DW is a good guy.
Thanks,
J

Ya, but the thread is about EPO.

And my personal view is that blood doping was rarely used by those on the road. We know from Tylers book the downside to extraction - and in those days they had a full on schedule as well as poor storage.

As seem from the post above, many scenario's can be drawn from any riders untimely death. The main reason I compiled a list was to see if there was a spike, and to see if the numbers often quoted were accurate.

 

[Gregga]

Mr. Sturgess is here.You could PM him.

I found that in an old Winning from 1989, just before the IP WC
In the right column "Have drugs been made available to you ?"
Nothing about EPO but quite interesting.

 

[esafosfina]

Let's not exaggerate.

I appreciate some of the inside information. I respect the fact he has done more than 99,95% of the people on this site but he's not a victim of the doping culture.

Jeff, you are quite correct... I do not consider myself a victim of the doping culture one tiny bit. I made an informed choice not to dope, a choice that to be utterly frank, was a difficult one to make. It's not simply a question of yes/no... black/white... good/bad. (I realise this may sound ethically redundant... ) If it were many others would have decided to follow suit. I was ostracised for not 'taking better care' of myself by riders and staff that should have known better. And by 'taking better care', you all know what I mean...

All things said and done, I am no-one's victim, although I suffer the consequences of decisions made under duress.

 

[esafosfina]

I found that in an old Winning from 1989, just before the IP WC
In the right column "Have drugs been made available to you ?"
Nothing about EPO but quite interesting.

Good find Gregga! I've never seen this article... I remember doing the interview though!

 

[Gregga]

Good find Gregga! I've never seen this article... I remember doing the interview though!

Nice to see you here tonight... That's actually a piece of chance : I was studying english in Dublin in August '89, bought this magazine... I had never heard of you before ... a few days later the IP final was on the Irish TV and then I understood what kind of big engine you had !
It's funny to see another famous trackie was in the that magazine too.

 

[Arnout]

Jeff, you are quite correct... I do not consider myself a victim of the doping culture one tiny bit. I made an informed choice not to dope, a choice that to be utterly frank, was a difficult one to make. It's not simply a question of yes/no... black/white... good/bad. (I realise this may sound ethically redundant... ) If it were many others would have decided to follow suit. I was ostracised for not 'taking better care' of myself by riders and staff that should have known better. And by 'taking better care', you all know what I mean...

All things said and done, I am no-one's victim, although I suffer the consequences of decisions made under duress.

Can I ask a question about De Cauwer? I have heard that he "helped" certain cyclists becoming professional, guys that are still in the peloton. Could there be any truth in that?

 

[DirtyWorks]

Ok - I have a list of some riders who died around that era.

But quite frankly - I am loathe to post it as I have no idea of all the circumstances. While many may have been PED related I am sure not all were.
And this list also has several unexplained deaths early in the 80's, long before EPO.

I've got a similar list, and I didn't just put it up for the same reason. pm me the list or a link to the list.

As for mistakes ascribing epo to untimely deaths, I'm okay with being corrected. That's more or less the point of the thread for me at this point.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I've got a similar list, and I didn't just put it up for the same reason. pm me the list or a link to the list.

As for mistakes ascribing epo to untimely deaths, I'm okay with being corrected. That's more or less the point of the thread for me at this point.

All good.
I was thinking along the exact same lines - its on my home PC so I will send you it later. I don't mind it being public, per se - as you mentioned people can correct it. I guess I would like to emphasize that they are unexplained deaths that may well be due to natural conditions.
Sadly, we also know that some were not.

 

["Jeff"]

Can I ask a question about De Cauwer? I have heard that he "helped" certain cyclists becoming professional, guys that are still in the peloton. Could there be any truth in that?

As I may respond. That would not surprise me one bit. José already went to court regarding doping issues., like you know as well. For what it is worth, as co-commentator on the Belgian Television he is awfully quiet when the topic goes about doping, pay attention next time.

 

[coinneach]

Jeff, you are quite correct... I do not consider myself a victim of the doping culture one tiny bit. I made an informed choice not to dope, a choice that to be utterly frank, was a difficult one to make. It's not simply a question of yes/no... black/white... good/bad. (I realise this may sound ethically redundant... ) If it were many others would have decided to follow suit. I was ostracised for not 'taking better care' of myself by riders and staff that should have known better. And by 'taking better care', you all know what I mean...

All things said and done, I am no-one's victim, although I suffer the consequences of decisions made under duress.

Well, maybe victim isn't the right word, but you sure could have had a different career if the sport was cleaner then

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Lots of mentions of Dutch riders, and a very euro-centric bent to this conversation.

This "study" mentions EPO and a host of other drugs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2683762

Abuse of drugs used to enhance athletic performance.

Nothing we don't know about already:

Secretion of human growth hormone may be stimulated by a variety of agents, but evidence that any subsequent increases in size and weight occur is lacking. Other substances tried by athletes include vitamins and minerals, naloxone, albuterol, and human recombinant erythropoietin

The study itself may be interesting, but its metadata was of more interest to me - St. Elizabeth Community Health Center, Lincoln, NE 68510.

ie someone in the US knew in 1989 that EPO was being or at least "tried" by athletes.

So what's the source? US riders returning from Europe? Contact with European doctors / hospitals / pro riders?

 

[esafosfina]

Can I ask a question about De Cauwer? I have heard that he "helped" certain cyclists becoming professional, guys that are still in the peloton. Could there be any truth in that?

Sorry for the tardy reply...

I certainly heard rumours to that effect, but to be perfectly honest with you, that's all they ever were - rumours.

I believe Jos was 'questioned' about practices, but I don't know what the upshot of that questioning was.

He certainly has been very quiet throughout this mess. But in his defence he always struck me as a very discreet person. He's gone through some awful things, and there were at one time rumours of him being threatened. His beloved dog was poisoned, so I am not totally surprised that he's keeping his own council.

 

[acoggan]

This "study" mentions EPO and a host of other drugs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2683762

Abuse of drugs used to enhance athletic performance.

Nothing we don't know about already:


The study itself may be interesting, but its metadata was of more interest to me - St. Elizabeth Community Health Center, Lincoln, NE 68510.

ie someone in the US knew in 1989 that EPO was being or at least "tried" by athletes.

So what's the source? US riders returning from Europe? Contact with European doctors / hospitals / pro riders?

Here's another paper by the same author - perhaps it will help:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2479267

 

[Lanark]

Peter Winnen wrote an opinion piece last saturday in which he said that he thinks EPO was first used in the peloton in 1988. He says that was the first time that non-climbers started to overtake him, and talking with some colleagues there were some strong hints to what was causing this miraculous transformation.

I don't know if these's have been posted before, but they are interesting to create a timeline. This is an article from the sports page of Het Limburgsch Dagblad (a Dutch regional newspaper) from februari 18 1988, during the Olympic Winter Games in Calgary. It has a small article that says the Foothills hospital in Calgary has done research on the performance enhancing effects of EPO. It says that EPO is even more effective on trained bodies than bloodd oping. It goes into some details of the effects of EPO, but it says it's undetectable, works better than blood doping and is less of a hassle. It concludes in saying that there aren't any major side-effects of EPO-use, and that it's currently not banned by the IOC.

Now Het Limburgsch Dagblad isn't a big newspaper, but it's hard to think that an article that pretty much spells out that athletes (and especially cyclists) would benefit a lot by EPO would go unnoticed by all athletes.

This is an article from the newspaper Amigoe from June the 7th, 1989. I had never heard of this newspaper, but apparently it's from Curacao. It says that during an symposium on drugs in sport in Monte Carlo a member of the IOC said that it was very easy in some countries to procure EPO. It goes into some detail why EPO would work even better than blood doping. After that it says that during the Olympics in Calgary the Canadian Nordic Skiing coach Marty Hall accused the Soviet athletes of using EPO.

 

[ToreBear]

Thanks Lanark!

Would be nice if Winnen named some names, so they could be asked though.

By the way have you heard of any doping labratory in Eindhoven in the late eighties early 90s?

I have a theory, but can't read or speak dutch, so I can't explore it any further. And googling this in english has been a dead end activity.

 

[Big Daddy]

Indurain. There is a reason why he is so protective of Armstrong.

 

[the asian]

Indurain. There is a reason why he is so protective of Armstrong.

He is a user, but definitely not the first.

 

[esafosfina]

Thanks Lanark!

Would be nice if Winnen named some names, so they could be asked though.

By the way have you heard of any doping labratory in Eindhoven in the late eighties early 90s?

I have a theory, but can't read or speak dutch, so I can't explore it any further. And googling this in english has been a dead end activity.

Just to clarify 'doping labratory'... do you mean a lab that tested (ie; anti-doping) or a lab that offered 'assistance' in all its forms?