Indurain's physiology

[grayrogers]

Cheers for the link to Thomas Davy's sworn testimony about systematic doping in Banesto. Only thing is, according to the article, "In Banesto, there was a system of doping with medical supervision," Thomas Davy, who rode with Banesto from 1995 to 1996, told the court."

So, his evidence doesn't go to Big Mig's first four wins. Not saying for a second Indurain didn't dope, tho.

Banesto rose from the ashes of what was the Reynolds team in the 80s -- the same Reynolds team of Delgado, who tested positive for a banned substance on the Olympic list but not the Tour list in 1988. I would think it more than likely that the team had a doping program long before Davy was on the team to witness it.

I admit to not having read all the previous pages, so I may repeat some other posts, but Indurain's previous Tours are an important indicator to his "natural" ability. He abandonned his first 3 Tours, and then finished 97th, 47th, 17th, and 10th before he started winning. He also finished in the 80s and 90s in the Vuelta, when he did finish, in the 1980s. So when did his natural ability start to kick in? Compare that to guys like Merckx, Hinault, Fignon, and LeMond, who either won or placed in the top 3 in their first Tours. In fact, it is only in the modern era where you see guys like Lance and Miguel finish so far back in their first Tours to then become the champion. I'm not sure there were any riders like that in the past, and certainly none who would go on to dominate the race for so many year.

He doped.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

...sorry to drop this post here but I was asked to move it from where it was originally posted...yes it is a cut and paste, but the story is still relevant since the graphs in question originated in this thread...the innuendo line refers to the the other thread, didnt edit, sorry...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ok...ok...so you will take innuendo as a cheap substitute for fact...well I have something here that I would love your input on and it is kinda innuendoism with some facts thrown in for good measure...its a bit of confusion at this point and badly needs some clarity...it involves numbers which is good...and seems like an interesting comparison...

...would like to start with some background assumptions...which represent some things that are generally agreed upon in these here parts...

...assume that EPO use trumps clean riders...

....assume that the EPO era started in 91...which is when Greg LeMond was faced for the first time with a peloton addled with EPO...and consequently lost because of it...

...assume that LeMond and Indurain were at reasonably similar levels in the 90 Tour...

...assume that LeMond is clean as a whistle throughout his career and Indurain is dirty post 90 ( and that his drug use directly leads to his Tour wins and LeMond's retirement )

...against this background I will introduce some wattage numbers gleaned from some graphs introduced on another thread on these forums...these graphs show wattage outputs for LeMond in 89 and Indurain in 94....when normalized for weight they show that LeMond actually had a higher output than Indurain....

...now these normalized graph numbers don't fit with our assumptions do they...as in LeMond's output as a clean rider is bigger than a doped rider who was level with him in the pre-dope days...

...so does this mean that LeMond really was the greatest rider of all time because he could beat the output of a very talented doper ( because if you run these numbers across the assumptions and the graph numbers LeMond is in the neighborhood of having an output 15% higher than Indurain, as in an absolute 5% gain as shown in the graphs plus a minus 10% to offset the gain Indurain would have gotten from drug use )...and what does it say about his reason for quitting...because according to the weighted numbers the 89 LeMond was markedly superior to the 94 Indurain...does this mean that Indurain didn't dope...or is this in realm of miraculous intervention...

...hoping you can bring some clarity to this...because I'm all mixed up...and apparently numbers don't lie...and then there are those assumptions...confusion..confusion...

....hope to hear from you soon...

Cheers

blutto

Even though you didn't introduce any "facts" or "wattage number"s in your post as you said you would, I have answered it in the appropriate thread.

Thread.
Post.

 

[Indurain]

I don't know what other pro's are like with their offspring, but I found it strange that Indurain was very happy that his son got into cycling and hopes he becomes a pro. I believed he doped, but why would a systematic doper want to have his child enter a world like that? LEmond is keeping his children as far away as possible. Just a thought.

 

[buckwheat]

I don't know what other pro's are like with their offspring, but I found it strange that Indurain was very happy that his son got into cycling and hopes he becomes a pro. I believed he doped, but why would a systematic doper want to have his child enter a world like that? LEmond is keeping his children as far away as possible. Just a thought.

Charles Barkley has stated that he didn't want his kids to get seriously involved in sports.

Most rational athletes would rather their kids did not follow in their footsteps.

 

[buckwheat]

Plain and simply, I am not insulted by guys who were close to my level who were deified. I rode against Vinokourov, Boogerd and Hincapie amongst others at one point or another.
It looks like they were prepared to do things that I was not AND they were better than me.
I genuinely do not know of one rider who ended up a household name who wasnt a class above everyone before they signed a contract, which is why I'm not so insulted to see them succeed.

You are obviously an intelligent dude, so let me state this one more time - Im not an Armstrong supporter, but I know enough about what it takes to reach his level to know he never would have been a ****kicker, dope or no dope.

It's become apparent that by the time Hincapie reached the level where he was riding against the other guys you mentioned, he was already doping. So, you really don't know if he was better than you.

Also if you weren't prepared to take stuff, you really don't know what you were missing out on. All I can tell you is that I've experimented a little as a lark, and the effects of stuff that's even dubbed minor in the doping world, are pretty significant. I would say, like making you a different person.

Also, the mental attitude/borderline psychological problems are what many times separates the very good, from the guys that make it. I know this from personal experience, relatives who did make it. They were the latter, they were cut from a different cloth psychologically. Nutty, fearless, and selfish.

Thanks for the props on my intelligence, but actually I'm an idiot. Just successfully learned from getting my a$s kicked in many arenas.

 

[roundabout]

Banesto rose from the ashes of what was the Reynolds team in the 80s -- the same Reynolds team of Delgado, who tested positive for a banned substance on the Olympic list but not the Tour list in 1988. I would think it more than likely that the team had a doping program long before Davy was on the team to witness it.

I admit to not having read all the previous pages, so I may repeat some other posts, but Indurain's previous Tours are an important indicator to his "natural" ability. He abandonned his first 3 Tours, and then finished 97th, 47th, 17th, and 10th before he started winning. He also finished in the 80s and 90s in the Vuelta, when he did finish, in the 1980s. So when did his natural ability start to kick in? Compare that to guys like Merckx, Hinault, Fignon, and LeMond, who either won or placed in the top 3 in their first Tours. In fact, it is only in the modern era where you see guys like Lance and Miguel finish so far back in their first Tours to then become the champion. I'm not sure there were any riders like that in the past, and certainly none who would go on to dominate the race for so many year.

He doped.

To be fair Indurain did win then Tour de la CEE at 22 which had a stage to Luz-Ardiden, uphill finish at Briancon (over the Izoard) and a half-stage from Briancon to Sestrieres. Although it should be noted that he had Grewal (who gained over a minute on Indurain on the Izoard) and Esnault as his biggest competition

 

[durianrider]

Another point that people are missing is that certain riders keep their actual morning race weight very private. Why? Cos if you calculate the time for a climb and know their race weight, it becomes self evident what else is going on.

 

[laziali]

Banesto rose from the ashes of what was the Reynolds team in the 80s -- the same Reynolds team of Delgado, who tested positive for a banned substance on the Olympic list but not the Tour list in 1988. I would think it more than likely that the team had a doping program long before Davy was on the team to witness it.

I admit to not having read all the previous pages, so I may repeat some other posts, but Indurain's previous Tours are an important indicator to his "natural" ability. He abandonned his first 3 Tours, and then finished 97th, 47th, 17th, and 10th before he started winning. He also finished in the 80s and 90s in the Vuelta, when he did finish, in the 1980s. So when did his natural ability start to kick in? Compare that to guys like Merckx, Hinault, Fignon, and LeMond, who either won or placed in the top 3 in their first Tours. In fact, it is only in the modern era where you see guys like Lance and Miguel finish so far back in their first Tours to then become the champion. I'm not sure there were any riders like that in the past, and certainly none who would go on to dominate the race for so many year.

He doped.

Hey there rookie - make sure you read my post again The bit at the end where I say "So, [Davy's] evidence doesn't go to Big Mig's first four wins. Not saying for a second Indurain didn't dope, tho." There are two concepts here:

1. An allegation of fact - that Mig doped.

2. The evidence to support that allegation. There is plenty, albeit all circumstantial. You raise one piece of evidence. I raise another, making the point that Thomas Davy's testimony is evidence for Mig's final win in 95, but not before. Others, like RaceRadio with his reference to the scientific article co-authored by Mig's trainer makes another (which, by the way, more or less disposed of the question about physiology I posed in the OP that started this thread). And so on.

Don't get discouraged, though The more "Pharmstong haters / cancer lovers" on here, the less loud the drivel coming the Fanboys

 

[Le breton]

...
...I guess the bottom line is I really didnt know much about testing at the time( so the notes I found were pretty sketchy ) and the testing that was done was the budget model ( more to find major issues than anything else and I was just went along for something the whole team did )...so it wasn't a full blown VO2max...it was called a sub maximal test ( I think...this was almost 30 years ago...sorry to be so imprecise... ) and from what I remember numbers were then extrapolated from that...

....but the question still at times tickles the back of my brain...especially after I finally did some testing to deal with my asthma...suddenly knowing that I had a lung capacity beyond Indurain got me thinking...maybe I could have been a contender ( hahahaha )...

I skimmed through this whole thread as I was curious to know if I would learn something new about Indurain's doping program.

I didn't

In a post before this one you claimed to have a VO2 max in the upper 70's at a weight of 80 kg. So, roughly a VO2 max of 6-6.1 liters/mn. Outstanding.

Now you tell us that the upper 70's was just an extrapolation, which just means that your VO2max was high, but nobody knows its real value. Maybe 70, maybe less, maybe 90, but I doubt it.

Then you write knowing that I had a lung capacity beyond Indurain as if this were a relevant predictor of ability. You seem to think that there is a correspondance between lung capacity and VO2max. Well, there might be some positive correlation, but, sorry to burst your bubble, that's about it.

Elsewhere you say that Indurain's lung capacity was 11.4 liters!!!!!!!
In fact it was more like 7.8 liters, not so huge for a 78-88kg athlete.

Here is what wikipedia says

Physical advantages

Indurain had a physiology superior to fellow athletes. His blood took seven litres of oxygen around his body per minute,[22] compared to 3-4 litres for an ordinary person and 5-6 litres for fellow riders. His cardiac output is 50 litres a minute; a fit amateur cyclist's is about 25 litres. Indurain's lung capacity was 7.8 litres,[2] compared to an average of 6 litres. His resting pulse was as low as 28 BPM,[2] compared to an average 60-72 bpm, which meant his heart would be less strained in the tough mountain stages.[14] His VO2 max was 88 ml/kg/min; in comparison, Lance Armstrong's was 83.8 ml/kg/min and Greg LeMond's was more than 92 ml/kg/min.[23]

He consulted the Italian professor, Francesco Conconi, from 1987 and his weight dropped from 85 to 78 kg under his guidance,[5][6] "changing himself into an all-round rider", said Philippe Brunel in L'Équipe.[2] He was 10 kg lighter than when he was a junior.[24]

So, before posting and boasting maybe you should do some reading!

 

[Tangled Tango]

Charles Barkley has stated that he didn't want his kids to get seriously involved in sports.

Most rational athletes would rather their kids did not follow in their footsteps.

I like that; "rational athlete". In cycling does such an athlete exist? I know at my most envolved I was so obsessed with riding, racing, following races, gear, kit, that even I could see I was anything but rational. I think it has more to do with being a rational parent that lead Lemond and Barkley to steer their kids from professional sport. Notice how many movie stars do not do the same. I´d say there must be some similarities between the "rational athlete" and the "rational movie star".

 

[ergmonkey]

I skimmed through this whole thread as I was curious to know if I would learn something new about Indurain's doping program.

I didn't

In a post before this one you claimed to have a VO2 max in the upper 70's at a weight of 80 kg. So, roughly a VO2 max of 6-6.1 liters/mn. Outstanding.

Now you tell us that the upper 70's was just an extrapolation, which just means that your VO2max was high, but nobody knows its real value. Maybe 70, maybe less, maybe 90, but I doubt it.

Then you write knowing that I had a lung capacity beyond Indurain as if this were a relevant predictor of ability. You seem to think that there is a correspondance between lung capacity and VO2max. Well, there might be some positive correlation, but, sorry to burst your bubble, that's about it.

Elsewhere you say that Indurain's lung capacity was 11.4 liters!!!!!!!
In fact it was more like 7.8 liters, not so huge for a 78-88kg athlete.

Here is what wikipedia says

Physical advantages

Indurain had a physiology superior to fellow athletes. His blood took seven litres of oxygen around his body per minute,[22] compared to 3-4 litres for an ordinary person and 5-6 litres for fellow riders. His cardiac output is 50 litres a minute; a fit amateur cyclist's is about 25 litres. Indurain's lung capacity was 7.8 litres,[2] compared to an average of 6 litres. His resting pulse was as low as 28 BPM,[2] compared to an average 60-72 bpm, which meant his heart would be less strained in the tough mountain stages.[14] His VO2 max was 88 ml/kg/min; in comparison, Lance Armstrong's was 83.8 ml/kg/min and Greg LeMond's was more than 92 ml/kg/min.[23]

He consulted the Italian professor, Francesco Conconi, from 1987 and his weight dropped from 85 to 78 kg under his guidance,[5][6] "changing himself into an all-round rider", said Philippe Brunel in L'Équipe.[2] He was 10 kg lighter than when he was a junior.[24]

So, before posting and boasting maybe you should do some reading!

Did you really revive this thread just to take a shot at Blutto?

 

[Le breton]

Did you really revive this thread just to take a shot at Blutto?

No!
I was hoping to find out interesting data about Indurain, but didn't. Blutto's posts were interesting but...wrong
I guess I wanted to show something for my effort

 

[Mestre]

Next question

I always had a soft spot for Induraín, he always came across as being a gent, then and now, and judging from his past and present comments it would seem to be quite clear that he became heavily disenchanted with professional cycling. I can remember him referring to it as a "just a job" on several occasions and as recently as this year he said something along the lines of how he loves his bike and cycling, not professional racing, which are two different things.

Anyway, for it's worth, he made his experience with doping reasonably clear in a radio interview with Jose María García some time towards the end of the '90s:

J M García: Mr Induraín, please answer me truthfully. If you don’t want to tell the truth, then please don’t answer. Have you ever used peformance enhancing drugs?

Induraín: Ask another question.

J M García: If you don’t want to tallk about it, I have to understand that you did indeed dope.

Induráin: Next question.

A full transcription of the interview doesn't seem to exist on the Net, but it's mentioned - in Spanish - in numerous sites, for example:

Aquella entrevista a Induráin sobre el dopaje

A search with EPO + Induráin + otra pregunta + García will dig up a host more.

He's a pretty low-key sort of bloke these days, considering his status, and I wouldn't hold my breath for him writing a book - he seems to have had more or less his fill of pro cycling.

 

[blutto]

Did you really revive this thread just to take a shot at Blutto?

...ahhh...leave the poor boy alone...he is just jealous of my numbers...which is kinda ironic since they never translated into any kind of major success on the bike ( and discussing that disconnect between numbers and performance was the rationale for the original post )...

....oh there one more number in that numbers don't mean a thing meme...I had a 37in vertical but I was never anything but a real mediocre basketball/volleytball player....

...ironically my brother who basically had the same numbers was a star athlete in a number of sport disciplines...go figure...

Cheers

blutto

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Here is what wikipedia says

Physical advantages

Indurain had a physiology superior to fellow athletes. His blood took seven litres of oxygen around his body per minute,[22] compared to 3-4 litres for an ordinary person and 5-6 litres for fellow riders. His cardiac output is 50 litres a minute; a fit amateur cyclist's is about 25 litres. Indurain's lung capacity was 7.8 litres,[2] compared to an average of 6 litres. His resting pulse was as low as 28 BPM,[2] compared to an average 60-72 bpm, which meant his heart would be less strained in the tough mountain stages.[14] His VO2 max was 88 ml/kg/min; in comparison, Lance Armstrong's was 83.8 ml/kg/min and Greg LeMond's was more than 92 ml/kg/min.[23]

I have heard it said Indurain was called "locumotive lungs". Here's a quote from the BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6273202.stm

Spaniard Miguel Indurain, who took five successive titles, had lungs so big they displaced his stomach, leading to his trademark paunch.

Indurain's lung capacity was eight litres, compared to an average of six litres.

Not going to quibble of tenths of a liter (e.g. 7.8 vs 8)... it's a lot no matter. Imagine racing against him and hearing that slow steady blow behind you.

Not being a medical person, I'd like to hear what a person with expertise in physiology (e.g. doctor) has to say about what Indurain's extra lung capacity could have meant in terms of performance.

 

[Le breton]

...ahhh...leave the poor boy alone...he is just jealous of my numbers...

good reply

 

[Le breton]

How does that compare with Rocco Siffredi?

 

[happychappy]

Poor old "blutto" still can't write.

 

[blutto]

Poor old "blutto" still can't write.

...just an intregal part of my unparalleled charm...

Cheers

blutto

 

[woodburn]

...sorry to drop this post here but I was asked to move it from where it was originally posted...yes it is a cut and paste, but the story is still relevant since the graphs in question originated in this thread...the innuendo line refers to the the other thread, didnt edit, sorry...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ok...ok...so you will take innuendo as a cheap substitute for fact...well I have something here that I would love your input on and it is kinda innuendoism with some facts thrown in for good measure...its a bit of confusion at this point and badly needs some clarity...it involves numbers which is good...and seems like an interesting comparison...

...would like to start with some background assumptions...which represent some things that are generally agreed upon in these here parts...

...assume that EPO use trumps clean riders...

....assume that the EPO era started in 91...which is when Greg LeMond was faced for the first time with a peloton addled with EPO...and consequently lost because of it...

...assume that LeMond and Indurain were at reasonably similar levels in the 90 Tour...

...assume that LeMond is clean as a whistle throughout his career and Indurain is dirty post 90 ( and that his drug use directly leads to his Tour wins and LeMond's retirement )

...against this background I will introduce some wattage numbers gleaned from some graphs introduced on another thread on these forums...these graphs show wattage outputs for LeMond in 89 and Indurain in 94....when normalized for weight they show that LeMond actually had a higher output than Indurain....

...now these normalized graph numbers don't fit with our assumptions do they...as in LeMond's output as a clean rider is bigger than a doped rider who was level with him in the pre-dope days...

...so does this mean that LeMond really was the greatest rider of all time because he could beat the output of a very talented doper ( because if you run these numbers across the assumptions and the graph numbers LeMond is in the neighborhood of having an output 15% higher than Indurain, as in an absolute 5% gain as shown in the graphs plus a minus 10% to offset the gain Indurain would have gotten from drug use )...and what does it say about his reason for quitting...because according to the weighted numbers the 89 LeMond was markedly superior to the 94 Indurain...does this mean that Indurain didn't dope...or is this in realm of miraculous intervention...

...hoping you can bring some clarity to this...because I'm all mixed up...and apparently numbers don't lie...and then there are those assumptions...confusion..confusion...

....hope to hear from you soon...

Cheers

blutto

LeMond's numbers from 85 and 86 would be much better. He never was the same after the accident. Still very good but not great.

 

[Fester]

I have heard it said Indurain was called "locumotive lungs". Here's a quote from the BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6273202.stm


Not going to quibble of tenths of a liter (e.g. 7.8 vs 8)... it's a lot no matter. Imagine racing against him and hearing that slow steady blow behind you.

Not being a medical person, I'd like to hear what a person with expertise in physiology (e.g. doctor) has to say about what Indurain's extra lung capacity could have meant in terms of performance.

I am not a doctor, but I can tell you that lung capacity has not been found to be a performance limiting factor. Cardiac output is the most important factor, followed by the ability of the muscles to make use of the oxygen available to them.

 

[BillytheKid]

Most do have big engines?

Used to love watching Big Mig tearing the legs off Bugno, Chiappucci, Leblanc, Rominger etc. Assumed he was able to haul his 80kg carcass over the cols with the aid of some first gen EPO. Then I was reading another post here re Dim's cyclocross epic and was reminded that Indurain has a resting pulse of about 29, a lung capacity of 7 litres and a VO2 max above 90%.

Got me thinking. How does Big Mig's physiology rate compared to other GT winners? Maybe he was sufficiently freakish that he was able to win clean?

Thoughts? (apologies if this has been posted before - if so, a link would be great).

VN's reported in their 2009 Tour de France issue that all the top gc guys have big engines, but I don't remember them laying out any stats. No doubt Mig did have the right stuff, but does that prove one way or the other he had a little help along the way?