First EPO users in the peloton?

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Dec 7, 2010
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djpbaltimore said:
Look at the top of this page for your answer. I guess LeMond is not aware that EPO requires longer to generate RBCs, so that is why trauma patients receive transfusions. Makes sense as he is not a doctor. If EPO was beneficial for this use, wouldn't Amgen be marketing it for that very purpose? I guess they just don't want that money. Plus, in the time period where he was injured it wasn't in widespread use. This confirms my point that the likelihood that he had a medical prescription for EPO was essentially 0%.
I don't see him holding a prescription for EPO either. One would have to be in his medicine cabinet to know the 100% truth on the matter.

Greg time and again makes himself look stupid with comments such as "if I would have had a blood transfusion or EPO it would have sped up my recovery dramatically" Which also points to the reason you can't trust what he says with respect to when certain drugs came into the peloton or why he has said certain things and not said certain things. Not because I think he is a total liar but because he is so dammm inconsistent. You can't really follow what he had or did not have wrong with him during the shooting recovery or after. No idea.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Glenn_Wilson said:
...
But the time line (EPO in the Peloton) has been pushed back a bit from what was previously noted.
well, there are two documented points in time where EPO would have benefitted him/his recovery.
- 1987 post-shooting.
- 1989 anemia.
those are merely the *documented* points in time.
for both times there isn't much doubt in my mind that epo would have been available to him if he'd wanted it.
He had the money, he was in the right place, and he knew the right people (Weisel, Vanmol, Eddie).

In the end, whether he got some in 1987 or only in 89 becomes a bit of a moot point.

If you add it to Greg's investment in Montgomery, his whole history/friendship with Eddie B., Eddie B's own history, the iron shots, Greg's 'unidentified virus' in 1990, his allergies, his anti-flu vaccinations, the inconsistencies in his interviews, you get a compelling picture.
Well, compelling to me, clearly not to everybody in here.
You then look at Max Testa's statement ("Greg doped too much"), that Dutch 1990 whistleblower (http://postimg.org/image/vgxgqxt7f/), and the rumor that Lemond used EPO and doping as reported by other (ex)proriders (Starr, Dhaenens, Boogerd, Floyd)...
I mean there is just so much smoke there (in my humble view).
edit: also, the coincidence of two guys (Lemond and Hampsten) from a non-cycling country becoming world-class GT riders in the same era has a major Sky-feel to it.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Glenn_Wilson said:
djpbaltimore said:
Look at the top of this page for your answer. I guess LeMond is not aware that EPO requires longer to generate RBCs, so that is why trauma patients receive transfusions. Makes sense as he is not a doctor. If EPO was beneficial for this use, wouldn't Amgen be marketing it for that very purpose? I guess they just don't want that money. Plus, in the time period where he was injured it wasn't in widespread use. This confirms my point that the likelihood that he had a medical prescription for EPO was essentially 0%.
I don't see him holding a prescription for EPO either. One would have to be in his medicine cabinet to know the 100% truth on the matter.

Greg time and again makes himself look stupid with comments such as "if I would have had a blood transfusion or EPO it would have sped up my recovery dramatically" Which also points to the reason you can't trust what he says with respect to when certain drugs came into the peloton or why he has said certain things and not said certain things. Not because I think he is a total liar but because he is so dammm inconsistent. You can't really follow what he had or did not have wrong with him during the shooting recovery or after. No idea.

and he taped the Oakley rep Stephanie McIlvain and when she asked him if he was taping it, he played all dumb and coy and that may well be confirmation bias, cos lets just say, Greg has got the Stanislavski method down pat
 
Jun 9, 2014
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sniper said:
Glenn_Wilson said:
...
But the time line (EPO in the Peloton) has been pushed back a bit from what was previously noted.
well, there are two documented points in time where EPO would have benefitted him/his recovery.
- 1987 post-shooting.
- 1989 anemia.
those are merely the *documented* points in time.
for both times there isn't much doubt in my mind that epo would have been available to him if he'd wanted it.
He had the money, he was in the right place, and he knew the right people (Weisel, Vanmol, Eddie).

In the end, whether he got some in 1987 or only in 89 becomes a bit of a moot point.

If you add it to Greg's investment in Montgomery, his whole history/friendship with Eddie B., Eddie B's own history, the iron shots, Greg's 'unidentified virus' in 1990, his allergies, his anti-flu vaccinations, the inconsistencies in his interviews, you get a compelling picture.
Well, compelling to me, clearly not to everybody in here.
You then look at Max Testa's statement ("Greg doped too much"), that Dutch 1990 whistleblower (http://postimg.org/image/vgxgqxt7f/), and the rumor that Lemond used EPO and doping as reported by other (ex)proriders (Starr, Dhaenens, Boogerd, Floyd)...
I mean there is just so much smoke there (in my humble view).
edit: also, the coincidence of two guys (Lemond and Hampsten) from a non-cycling country becoming world-class GT riders in the same era has a major Sky-feel to it.

So, you are jumping to conclusions based on what LeMond said about his own recovery? That isn't a medical opinion. Find a corroborating source or retract the claim. As for 1989, you do not treat all cases of anemia with EPO. Just anemia associated with CKD or cancer chemotherapy. Iron deficiency anemia is treated with (shocker) iron supplementation.

http://www.healthline.com/health/iron-deficiency-anemia#Treatment8

You can culture most types of bacteria easily for identification. Viruses were much more difficult to detect back then when PCR based assays were much less sophisticated. The fact that is was unidentified tells us very little of substance. Viral infections have typical symptoms and can be diagnosed without identifying the culprit. There weren't many antivirals around back then, so the need to identify the virus was really not too pressing.

USA has never been a cycling dominant country, but we have a population of ~300 million, so the fact that we develop athletes in most sports (even those below the radar) is not too surprising.
 
Apr 20, 2012
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Jeez, amateurs. Google Randy Eichner, 1987'ish.

<edited>

Jeez.

@Sniper: where do you think the rumour came from? Jan Gisbers himself perhaps?

Jeeez, you guys have a lot of catching up to do.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Fearless Greg Lemond said:
Jeez, amateurs. Google Randy Eichner, 1987'ish.

<edited>

Jeez.

@Sniper: where do you think the rumour came from? Jan Gisbers himself perhaps?

Jeeez, you guys have a lot of catching up to do.
what rumor? there are multiple rumors from different sources.
and no, i dont think gisbers is behind all of them.

as for dhaenens, he rode and trained with lemond, also when they werent on the same team, iinm.
he wouldnt have needed gisbers to know what lemond was or was not up to. But sure, for dhaenens and e.g. Boogerd i accept that gisbers cannot be discarded as a source.
but starr, floyd, lance, and testa? or esafosfina? Or the (i think australian) triathlon/cycling coach nick777 spoke to?
most of those guys wouldnt even know who gisbers was.

and testa,s statement can hardly be called a rumor anyway.
hampsten,s carreerlong coach and doctor, saying Lemond doped too much.
he,d be in the know, and he,d have no clear motivation to make that stuff up, or to give any false support to a rumor spread by gisbers.
 
Jul 4, 2009
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Fearless Greg Lemond said:
Jeez, amateurs. Google Randy Eichner, 1987'ish.

Dumb ****.

Jeez.

@Sniper: where do you think the rumour came from? Jan Gisbers himself perhaps?

Jeeez, you guys have a lot of catching up to do.

....from a Eichner article...


Physicians say they believe athletes began using the drug almost with the beginning of clinical trials in 1986. Then the deaths began. In 1987 five Dutch racers died suddenly. In 1988 a Belgian and two more Dutch riders died. In 1989 five more Dutch riders died, and last year three Belgians and two Dutch riders died. Transfusions of Extra Blood

....and....

"I began hearing about EPO two to three years ago through the grapevine in running circles," said John Treacy, a silver medalist in the 1984 Olympic marathon. "The story was there was this new drug that would take over from blood doping, and that it was much better."

Len Pettyjohn, coach of the Coors Light cycling team, which is competing in the 11-day Tour Du Pont in the Middle Atlantic States this week, said: "We've all heard about EPO. I could only speculate on its use now, but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't think any Americans are using it, but anybody doing something like that is certainly not going to talk about it." Education Program Started
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/19/us/stamina-building-drug-linked-to-athletes-deaths.html

....note the date of the article....a couple of years before 1993 it seems this made it into the NYT so it wasn't hidden in some corner so it could conceivably/conveniently be overlooked....hmmm...and the bolded bit is kinda interesting ain't it...

Cheers
 
Apr 23, 2016
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I raced in the junior category of a criterium in Holland in 1988 when a Dutch woman died in her race. I forgot her name, but I believe she placed second in worlds (tt or rr) a year or two beforehand.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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blutto said:
Fearless Greg Lemond said:
Jeez, amateurs. Google Randy Eichner, 1987'ish.

Dumb ****.

Jeez.

@Sniper: where do you think the rumour came from? Jan Gisbers himself perhaps?

Jeeez, you guys have a lot of catching up to do.

....from a Eichner article...


Physicians say they believe athletes began using the drug almost with the beginning of clinical trials in 1986. Then the deaths began. In 1987 five Dutch racers died suddenly. In 1988 a Belgian and two more Dutch riders died. In 1989 five more Dutch riders died, and last year three Belgians and two Dutch riders died. Transfusions of Extra Blood

....and....

"I began hearing about EPO two to three years ago through the grapevine in running circles," said John Treacy, a silver medalist in the 1984 Olympic marathon. "The story was there was this new drug that would take over from blood doping, and that it was much better."

Len Pettyjohn, coach of the Coors Light cycling team, which is competing in the 11-day Tour Du Pont in the Middle Atlantic States this week, said: "We've all heard about EPO. I could only speculate on its use now, but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't think any Americans are using it, but anybody doing something like that is certainly not going to talk about it." Education Program Started
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/19/us/stamina-building-drug-linked-to-athletes-deaths.html

....note the date of the article....a couple of years before 1993 it seems this made the NYT....hmmm...and the bolded bit is kinda interesting ain't it...

Cheers
good article, confirming much of what we,ve been saying about blackmarket clinical trial use of epo.
Reading the article one also easilyy understands why lemond would have been smart to have a kidney and/or anemia cover story ready, in case his use of the product should come out.
I think in fairness that remarkable cycling performances in 87 and 88 should be viewed in this light.
that would include hampsten and some vanmol-adr results.
sadly, even 1986 performances arent beyond epo,s reach it seems,
althouh for that year, focus can be pretty much resgricted to american lerformances.
 
May 14, 2010
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blutto said:

Thanks for posting that. I recalled reading that article, and its date, but when I went looking for it a few days back I couldn't find it. When a story makes it into the NYT, you know it's a thing.

Hopefully this will put to bed the false narrative that says EPO made its first appearances in the peloton in 91.
To reiterate what we've come up with in the past few weeks, blood doping (autologous transfusion) made its first appearance in the peloton in the very early seventies, and EPO possibly in 86, but more likely in 87, or 88 at the latest.

There's a lot of daylight between 88 and 91. Or twilight. We could call it the Twilight Zone.

Cheers.
 
Apr 20, 2012
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http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-06-24/sports/9106240140_1_repo-endurance-athletes-elite-athletes

''Doctors say an athlete would need only three doses a week for three weeks before competition to improve his performance significantly. Because the drug is sold legally only through the proper medical channels, athletes in the United States must go through the black market to obtain it. It is more easily obtained in Europe and Mexico, Snell said. Cost is estimated at $40 per normal dose.''

How about that for very expensive dopings...
 
Aug 12, 2009
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Maxiton said:
blutto said:

Thanks for posting that. I recalled reading that article, and its date, but when I went looking for it a few days back I couldn't find it. When a story makes it into the NYT, you know it's a thing.

Hopefully this will put to bed the false narrative that says EPO made its first appearances in the peloton in 91.
To reiterate what we've come up with in the past few weeks, blood doping (autologous transfusion) made its first appearance in the peloton in the very early seventies, and EPO possibly in 86, but more likely in 87, or 88 at the latest.

There's a lot of daylight between 88 and 91. Or twilight. We could call it the Twilight Zone.

Cheers.


I've not seen the narrative about it arriving in 91

there is a narrative about its effects being felt in 91...the two are quite separate



lemond (and hampsten) can claim GT winning ability (or potential) before even the/your earliest dates of epo..

of course that leaves them open to the charge of an extensive blood doping program before then...

but blood doping was not only crude but also known about by (it would seem) just about everybody...the pro peloton, being the pro peloton, then everybody would be doing it and so.....

...here we are....
 
May 14, 2010
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gillan1969 said:
Maxiton said:
blutto said:

Thanks for posting that. I recalled reading that article, and its date, but when I went looking for it a few days back I couldn't find it. When a story makes it into the NYT, you know it's a thing.

Hopefully this will put to bed the false narrative that says EPO made its first appearances in the peloton in 91.
To reiterate what we've come up with in the past few weeks, blood doping (autologous transfusion) made its first appearance in the peloton in the very early seventies, and EPO possibly in 86, but more likely in 87, or 88 at the latest.

There's a lot of daylight between 88 and 91. Or twilight. We could call it the Twilight Zone.

Cheers.


I've not seen the narrative about it arriving in 91

there is a narrative about its effects being felt in 91...the two are quite separate



lemond (and hampsten) can claim GT winning ability (or potential) before even the/your earliest dates of epo..

of course that leaves them open to the charge of an extensive blood doping program before then...

but blood doping was not only crude but also known about by (it would seem) just about everybody...the pro peloton, being the pro peloton, then everybody would be doing it and so.....

...here we are....

Indeed, we are here. This thread is about first EPO users in the peloton. So, in 86, 87, or 88 at the outside, it's effects were being felt. It's arguable these effects weren't widely recognized as being those of EPO, but they would have been felt for sure.

The awareness of these effects being caused by EPO spread with each year, as uptake spread and as effects increased. So we really can't say that any single year after 1986 represented awareness of the drug in the peloton. Awareness of it existed in 86, and effects of it would have been felt very shortly thereafter.

The logistics of blood doping - storage and transport - would have slowed its uptake, limiting its effective use for a long time to mostly the elite. In terms of logistics, EPO was far less problematic, and its potential efficacy far greater, so uptake would have been greatly accelerated, but still limited to mostly the elite in the beginning (barring some self-experimenters who had a high death rate). If 1991 is meaningful at all, then, it might be the first year of mass adoption.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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gillan1969 said:
...
I've not seen the narrative about it arriving in 91
You haven't looked properly then. It's all over this thread, especially in the earlier pages though.

There was also this 'narrative/argument/fact' presented by scienceiscool:
Scienceiscool:
First: clinical trials are very tightly controlled. Nobody is going to get their hands on EPO while it's in the clinical trial phase. If they did, doctors would quickly lose their license and pharmaceutical execs would be getting calls from the FDA.

Second: Google scholar is your friend. According to this article in the International Journal of Sport Medicine (1993) http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/7691771 EPO did not become commercially available until 1988. Repeat - 1988. Nobody in the peloton was using it until then. Full stop. Between then and 1993 it became common enough that the above article was published.
viewtopic.php?p=1901384#p1901384
I think both his first and his second point are at the very least challenged by the Eichner article (as well as by several articles linked earlier in the thread...let me know if you have trouble finding them).

Gillian:
there is a narrative about its effects being felt in 91...the two are quite separate
yes, that's another narrative. And a plausible one. If FGL is right, the price of EPO had sunk to 40 dollars per vial in 1991, so it would be available even to water carriers. And so, *if* Lemond was one of the (very) few topriders on EPO in 1989 and 90, it shouldn't come as a surprise that he looked more average in 91 and beyond.

Gillian:
lemond (and hampsten) can claim GT winning ability (or potential) before even the/your earliest dates of epo..

of course that leaves them open to the charge of an extensive blood doping program before then...
agreed on both accounts.

Gillian:
but blood doping was not only crude but also known about by (it would seem) just about everybody...the pro peloton, being the pro peloton, then everybody would be doing it and so...
This seems like a bit of a simplification.
It would assume that effective blood transfusions in the late 70s and early to mid-80s would have been done by riders with the financial and medical means to organize it. That would, imo, have included Olympic athletes (confirmed by Les Earnest's article, see below), and high(er)-ranked pros. Not necessarily the water carriers.
We know blood transfusions were done in the US Olympic centre(s) already in 1976 (see below). Now, as you know, the young and no doubt very talented Greg Lemond spent quite some time training at the Olympic training centre, under the guidance of a certain Eddie B (who, nb, still in 1985, when it had already been illegalized, argued in the press that blood transfusions should be legal).
From Earnest's articles you get a compelling picture that blood transfusions were secretly endorsed by the US Olymipc committee at least in 1976 if not earlier.
Posted this before, but will post it again:
Les Earnest:
For example, the U.S. Olympic Committee claimed that they had a rule against blood doping whereas in fact there was none. There had been strong evidence of blood doping in the Olympics since at least 1976 but because they didn't have a good laboratory test for it they buried their heads in the sand and pretended it wasn't happening. http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/dopestrong.htm

Other Les Earnest article:
http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/dopes.htm
 
Jul 4, 2009
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Maxiton said:
blutto said:

Thanks for posting that. I recalled reading that article, and its date, but when I went looking for it a few days back I couldn't find it. When a story makes it into the NYT, you know it's a thing.

Hopefully this will put to bed the false narrative that says EPO made its first appearances in the peloton in 91.
To reiterate what we've come up with in the past few weeks, blood doping (autologous transfusion) made its first appearance in the peloton in the very early seventies, and EPO possibly in 86, but more likely in 87, or 88 at the latest.

There's a lot of daylight between 88 and 91. Or twilight. We could call it the Twilight Zone.

Cheers.

....to the bolded...very glad you pointed that because my original was done in some haste and I managed to miss a few key words that would have pointed that out ( and note that for some anything that appears in the NYT is considered really old news....or put another way you have missed a lot of the original story which has had the more incriminating elements safely hidden away either by the perps or the editors..)...

Cheers
 
Mar 13, 2009
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blutto said:
Maxiton said:
blutto said:

Thanks for posting that. I recalled reading that article, and its date, but when I went looking for it a few days back I couldn't find it. When a story makes it into the NYT, you know it's a thing.

Hopefully this will put to bed the false narrative that says EPO made its first appearances in the peloton in 91.
To reiterate what we've come up with in the past few weeks, blood doping (autologous transfusion) made its first appearance in the peloton in the very early seventies, and EPO possibly in 86, but more likely in 87, or 88 at the latest.

There's a lot of daylight between 88 and 91. Or twilight. We could call it the Twilight Zone.

Cheers.

....to the bolded...very glad you pointed that because my original was done in some haste and I managed to miss a few key words that would have pointed that out ( and note that for some anything that appears in the NYT is considered really old news....or put another way you have missed a lot of the original story which has had the more incriminating elements safely hidden away either by the perps or the editors..)...

Cheers

gatekeepers
 
Sep 30, 2010
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Maxiton said:
blutto said:

Thanks for posting that. I recalled reading that article, and its date, but when I went looking for it a few days back I couldn't find it. When a story makes it into the NYT, you know it's a thing.

Hopefully this will put to bed the false narrative that says EPO made its first appearances in the peloton in 91.
To reiterate what we've come up with in the past few weeks, blood doping (autologous transfusion) made its first appearance in the peloton in the very early seventies, and EPO possibly in 86, but more likely in 87, or 88 at the latest.

There's a lot of daylight between 88 and 91. Or twilight. We could call it the Twilight Zone.

Cheers.

Please provide links to people stating that EPO was introduced post '91 or even '93 or retract. I think THE narrative has Slaats been that the seachange visible post '91. You are using a strawman.
 
Jun 9, 2014
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Additionally, I don't think that article particularly supports a case for saying that use was limited mostly to the elite in the beginning. Too many non-elite riders died to make that claim plausible IMO. It also doesn't seem to imply that USA riders were the first users either.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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GJB123 said:
...
Please provide links to people stating that EPO was introduced post '91 or even '93 or retract. I think THE narrative has Slaats been that the seachange visible post '91. You are using a strawman.

This was Race Radio's 'narrative':

Race Radio said:
...
Rooks writes in his book that he first got a hold of EPO in late 1991. There was talk of a small group of Dutch Amateurs who supposedly got some in 1990. Some died but the real details of this are limited and seem to change as we get father from the time.

1994 was the year that it became fairly widely used and by 1996 it was mandatory.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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sniper said:
GJB123 said:
...
Please provide links to people stating that EPO was introduced post '91 or even '93 or retract. I think THE narrative has Slaats been that the seachange visible post '91. You are using a strawman.

This was Race Radio's 'narrative':

Race Radio said:
...
Rooks writes in his book that he first got a hold of EPO in late 1991. There was talk of a small group of Dutch Amateurs who supposedly got some in 1990. Some died but the real details of this are limited and seem to change as we get father from the time.

1994 was the year that it became fairly widely used and by 1996 it was mandatory.

who is father from the time?

this guy
Rupert-Murdoch--007.jpg


this gal?
Jerry-Hall-010.jpg


where is Wendi bingo? is she really fukcing putin. That story is almost too good to be true.
 
Jul 4, 2009
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....this from a fairly reliable source and one fairly closely situated to this forum....kinda odd that RR didn't mention 1989 but something further up the road isn't it...and this from a guy who sold himself as the knower of all things cycling.... anybody got any guesses why ? ....Race Radio's narrative indeed !....

Steven Rooks, runner-up to Pedro Delgado at the 1988 Tour de France, has admitted using to prohibited blood booster EPO during his career. He said that he used EPO after 1989 in a book entitled "Het laatste geel" [The last yellow - ed.] published this week by Dutch journalist Marc Smeets.

"Yes, I've taken EPO. It was necessary to finish high up in the classification," Rooks said.

The Dutchman won the mountains jersey, finished second overall and won stage 12 to L'Alpe d'Huez at the 1988 Tour. In 1989, he came seventh in the overall classification and won another mountain stage.

Rooks' other career highlights include Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1983 and the Amstel Gold Race in 1986. From 1986 to 1989, he rode for the PDM team, later for Panasonic, Buckler, Festina and TVM.

Two other former riders of the same generation, fellow Dutch men Gert Jakobs and Matthieu Hermans, have also admitted using the drug. Hermans also won a stage in the 1989 Tour, stage 11 from Luchon to Blagnac, and ten stages of the Vuelta a España

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rooks-admits-to-epo-use/

Cheers
 
Sep 30, 2010
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sniper said:
GJB123 said:
...
Please provide links to people stating that EPO was introduced post '91 or even '93 or retract. I think THE narrative has Slaats been that the seachange visible post '91. You are using a strawman.

This was Race Radio's 'narrative':

Race Radio said:
...
Rooks writes in his book that he first got a hold of EPO in late 1991. There was talk of a small group of Dutch Amateurs who supposedly got some in 1990. Some died but the real details of this are limited and seem to change as we get father from the time.

1994 was the year that it became fairly widely used and by 1996 it was mandatory.

Going back to a post in 2010 to support the claim about a perceived narrative. Do you have anything more recent like this decade? :rolleyes:
 
Oct 16, 2010
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GJB123 said:
...
Going back to a post in 2010 to support the claim about a perceived narrative. Do you have anything more recent like this decade? :rolleyes:
that was from a one minute search, all the time i'm gonna spend on this issue, if you don't mind. I'm sure if you'd take another five minutes yourself, you'd find more references, such as Lemond's very own "and of course drugs came on the scene in the early 90s".

Btw, it might be from 2010 but i've never seen or heard Race Radio backtrack from that, so i can only assume it's still his narrative.
 
Jul 4, 2009
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That interview also shows how the logic of hormone rebalancing seems to lead inexorably to blood doping. Here's Hinault on that subject: "[Francesco] Moser made use of auto-transfusion. So he was playing with his own blood. He did no more no less that the Finnish athletes, Lasse Viren and the others. It suffices to take some of one's own blood during the spring when it is rich, hyper-oxygenated, and to re-inject it when one is fatigued. Is that really doping? Maybe not, except if the blood is placed into a machine to re-oxygenate it to the maximum."

http://www.podiumcafe.com/2011/2/23/2010343/LeMaillotJauneBlanchi

...just sayin' eh...

Cheers