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Jan Ullrich

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Le breton said:
I suggest you freshen up your knowledge of Kleibers' law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber's_law

Thanks for the link. It's hard to relay jest on the internet - but in the spirit of carrying it on! ...

At the end of the day, the theoretical basis for Kleiber's law will come from the laws of physics. It would more interest me if there was a rigorous derivation of this law from first principles.
 
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Dear Wiggo said:
Larger riders are also transporting more bone and internal structure body weight.

Don't get caught up in the "Large" word, it is more about muscle density

A great way to reduce bone density is to do non impact sports that make you sweat a lot.....like cycling
 
Race Radio said:
If you read my posts you will see that I very clearly said this is just one element. I also spelled out very clearly what the other elements were.....multiple times.

You are welcome to pretend that someone is saying muscle density is the common denominator but I am clear that it is one of multiple elements.

So here are the multiple elements:

There were 4 key elements to success in the EPO era

1. good Hct to Vo2 ratio
2. Muscle mass to weight ratio
3. Good doctors willing to take risks
4. Connections to the UCI to cover up questionable test

Jan had the first 3. Without them he never wins the Tour or gets on the podium. The level playing field you are referring to does not exist.

1) is mostly a low HT, which is not unique to Ulle or LA. About 15-20% of males have a HT around 40 or lower, IOW a select group but not an elite group. Another aspect of it could be a larger than average increase in V02 for a given increase in HT, but you haven't provided any evidence that Ulle exhibited this, nor indeed, even said that this was another aspect of it.

2) All climbing specialists seek to maximize this. You have not provided any evidence, other than a little anecdotal, to show that Ulle was naturally more endowed than his contemporaries in this respect. If, as you claim, Ulle clean was a relatively poor climber, this certainly doesn't support the idea that naturally he had a much higher than average muscle mass/body weight ratio.

But more to the point, there isn't any evidence that a high muscle mass to weight ratio increases the response to blood doping, which has to be the case if this element is a major factor in your assertion that Ulle was the best responder of all time. There is no theoretical basis to this claim that I'm aware of, nor any studies to support it.

3) I don't believe you have provided any evidence that Ulle was more willing than most riders to push the envelope, a la Riis. Maybe your contacts claim this. But in any case, you also concede that “Once the 50% level became the rule the Hct/Vo2 equation became far more important then the level of risk a rider was willing to take.” So for most of Ulle’s career, risk in this sense would not be a major factor, and we’re back to point 1), which is mostly a naturally low HT.

So your multiple elements boil down to:

1) a naturally low HT, but not that one that would make him unique in the peloton, by any means
2) better doctors

But you also say that the need for better doctors is mostly to take advantage of the superior muscle mass/body weight ratio:
add in the cocktail of drugs, under expert supervision, that when administered correctly and on schedule add lean muscle mass that can put that additional RBC to good use

Since, as I have noted, there is no evidence that this is possible, that differences in muscle mass can result in better response, the contribution of better doctors becomes questionable as well.

So your elements mostly boil down to 1), a naturally low HT. You yourself imply this when you say “There are many elements but the most basic is Hct/Vo2.”

Yes, prior to the passport, riders with naturally low HTs could increase their HT by more than riders with naturally high HTs. Common knowledge, though a low HT is not everything. Cunego and Contador reportedly have natural HTs greater than 50%, but both were able to win a GT prior to the passport.

While I'm at it, I just want to add that though I'm agnostic on the question of Ulle, I find it ironic that while a key argument that LA had a major doping advantage was that he never showed GT promise at a young age, the fact that Ulle podiumed in the TDF at age 22 is dismissed by his critics here.

Sure, he could have been super-responding back then, in 1996. But at the same time, LA couldn't even finish a TDF. Was this because of his cancer? Or because Ulle had found the right doctor and LA hadn't? But if it's mostly about a naturally low HT, the right doctor wouldn't make much difference.
 
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Merckx index said:
the fact that Ulle podiumed in the TDF at age 22 is dismissed by his critics here.

....After being dropping climbs in training camps and show no sign of being a dominate climber as an amateur.

The difference in response to multiple elements of oxygen vector doping varies vastly from rider to rider. It is silly to pretend that Jan was the one champion of the 90's who did not benefit from the unlevel playing field

If you read my posts you will I gave several other elements to success
 
Race Radio said:
....After being dropping climbs in training camps and show no sign of being a dominate climber as an amateur.

Hey, given that blood boosting and other PEDs allow riders to train harder, this evidence that Ulle was not juiced in training could suggest that his performance in the Tour was even more awesome! Think of how much better he would have been if he had done that. And btw, do you know for a fact that the riders dropping him in training were not juiced?

If you read my posts you will I gave several other elements to success

I guess you’ll have to repeat them, then, because I don’t see anything else. Except a JV quote claiming that riders with higher V02 maxes benefited less from EPO. The quote doesn’t say, though, whether the V02 max is absolute or relative. Assuming the latter, this basically restates the premise that light, climbing types benefited less from blood boosting (nothing about densely-muscled, though; we're back to large vs. small). But nobody seems to be able to find that study.

The difference in response to multiple elements of oxygen vector doping varies vastly from rider to rider. It is silly to pretend that Jan was the one champion of the 90's who did not benefit from the unlevel playing field.

Yes, I think this is the essence of your claim. Allow me to restate it:

1) there are major individual differences in how riders respond to EPO and transfusions
2) based on their early showings, training camps, etc., along with their size, Ulle, LA and some others never could have won GTs clean
3) Therefore, they must have been have super-responders, getting substantially more benefit from doping than their rivals, even if there is relatively little scientific evidence explaining why this was the case.

That might be a good place to leave it. Again, I don't know, but I'm certainly willing to accept that they might have been super-responders, particularly in LA's case. But I draw the line at pushing explanations for this which have no scientific basis.

To summarize: RR has gone on and on about how I haven’t read all his posts, how I don’t have all the inside information that he has, but not once has he responded to calls, not just by me, to provide statements by these people he talked to. Not even to say whether he can quote them or not. Not once has he responded to the lack of scientific evidence for his claims. Not once has he responded to the non-scientific contradictions in his claims, the fact that a lot of known results in the peloton don’t fit them. If someone doesn’t read and acknowledge every last single one of his posts, he’s quick to call them on it. But he simply ignores large sections of my posts, can’t be bothered with the messy science. He pushes a theory of super-responding, doesn’t provide any coherent evidence for it beyond what is already known about low HTs, and a lot of people here give him a pass.

RR, you may be a good journalist, I certainly don’t question that these people told you, more or less, what you have repeated here. As I said before, I welcome attempts to explain how these riders won GTs, it's useful discussion. But you’re not a scientist, and you should know better than to swallow whole claims that you can’t evaluate. I really think you're in over your head here. If you can’t provide links with far more substance than what you've furnished here, or get these doctors to come in and defend their theories in detail and in person, you would be well-advised just to say, “this is what they claim”, and leave it at that.
 
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Merckx index said:
1) there are major individual differences in how riders respond to EPO and transfusions

Not just EPO and Transfusions. Most PED's that play a role in the process have large differences in response.

For example sildenafil. Until 2008 it was used by riders when racing at altitude. A study showed huge variance in riders response to the drug

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/aps-vih061906.php

Some in the responder group improved as much as 45%, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology published by The American Physiological Society. Non-responders improved an insignificant 1%.


While this all responder stuff may be news to you to many in the sport it is old news. Bruyneel would even use a riders potential to respond to doping in contract negotiations.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/m...even-deadly-sins/story-e6frfglf-1226537262827

"With your haematocrit level (Vaughters has a naturally high haematocrit, 48 or 49)," he said, "you will not be able to justify this salary."

This was nature being turned on its head: a naturally high haematocrit should be an advantage, but on Planet Doping it's a negative.
 
Race Radio said:
Not just EPO and Transfusions. Most PED's that play a role in the process have large differences in response.

For example sildenafil. Until 2008 it was used by riders when racing at altitude. A study showed huge variance in riders response to the drug

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/aps-vih061906.php

While this all responder stuff may be news to you to many in the sport it is old news.

Thanks for the link, I had not seen this before. But:

a) a more recent study found little or no effect at the same altitude.

b) the simulated altitudes used in both these studies were about 50% higher than the highest finish in TDF history (2645 m). Since the study you cited, and I believe others, found no effect at sea-level, there isn’t any evidence I know of that this effect would be significant at the elevations used in the TDF. It seems reasonable to conclude that any effect at this altitude would be less than at 3900 m. It seems the higher you go, the more likely an effect, and the greater the potential effect.

c) More to the point, though, again you have simply thrown out an example of an individual difference in responding to a drug. Talk about not reading someone's posts. I’ve never questioned that such differences exist, I've emphasized that they do. (It’s actually kind of funny. I’m a pharmacologist, and you’re lecturing to me about differential pharmacological effects. Maybe I should lecture to you about differential degrees of truth received from subjects of interviews). The question is whether there is any evidence that LA, Ulle, et al were able to benefit from this. If you can’t show that a particular body type or physiology type is a high responder (what you were trying to do, unsuccessfully, with the muscle mass theory), then the odds are just as good that some skinny climber is going to be a high responder to any given drug as someone like LA or Ulle.

To repeat, if you want to speculate that they were high responders to some drug or program, that this could be major reason why they were able to win Tours, I don’t have any problem with that. I do have a problem if you go beyond speculation and say, they definitely won Tours because of this, and could not have won without this.

Bruyneel would even use a riders potential to respond to doping in contract negotiations.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/m...even-deadly-sins/story-e6frfglf-1226537262827

"With your haematocrit level (Vaughters has a naturally high haematocrit, 48 or 49)," he said, "you will not be able to justify this salary."

This was nature being turned on its head: a naturally high haematocrit should be an advantage, but on Planet Doping it's a negative.

This is just a restatement of the lower HT is an advantage for doping, which I have again and again made clear I agree with. Interesting, though, that Contador rode for Bruyneel and managed to win a TDF pre-passport. I wonder if JB told him the same thing afterwards.
 
Race Radio said:
....After being dropping climbs in training camps and show no sign of being a dominate climber as an amateur.

The difference in response to multiple elements of oxygen vector doping varies vastly from rider to rider. It is silly to pretend that Jan was the one champion of the 90's who did not benefit from the unlevel playing field

If you read my posts you will I gave several other elements to success


I am still waiting for a single fact, data, name, result that would back up your opinions.
#So far you have provided zero.
 
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Bavarianrider said:
I am still waiting for a single fact, data, name, result that would back up your opinions.
#So far you have provided zero.

Can I suggest you and MI actually watch the tours of 96 and 97? Totally disgusting farce. Jan is a laboratory experiment, nothing more nothing less. Most scary experience of my life was competing against east Germans in 94/95. Massive physical specimens. Especially the women. Really, honestly frightening. Believe what you want but what I personally saw was incredible/ not possible.
 
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Race Radio said:
Actually I have given you plenty, you just ignored them.

Still waiting for a single example of Jan as an amateur showing that he had the potential to do this as a 3rd year Pro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5EocT-lKHI

That video 'shows' a few things.

1. Jan was NOT preferentially more muscular than anyone else, which calls into question your thoughts that Jan wouldn't have won without all his 'muscle'. This video doesn't support your comments.
2. That you don't need more 'muscle' to win a GT.

No one is saying that in 1997 Jan didn't max out on EPO etc...

But to call him an experiment as if all the other riders weren't? How is that relative when the other top 100 were maxed out on EPO and other drugs too. This is another instance where the validity of posters arguments fall apart.

Did Jan cheat completely clean riders? Yes, and that is very important.

Could a clean Jan have still beaten clean riders in a GT? There is more plausibility he would have than not; we will never know.
 
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Neworld said:
That video 'shows' a few things.

1. Jan was NOT preferentially more muscular than anyone else, which calls into question your thoughts that Jan wouldn't have won without all his 'muscle'. This video doesn't support your comments.
2. That you don't need more 'muscle' to win a GT.

No one is saying that in 1997 Jan didn't max out on EPO etc...

But to call him an experiment as if all the other riders weren't? How is that relative when the other top 100 were maxed out on EPO and other drugs too. This is another instance where the validity of posters arguments fall apart.

Did Jan cheat completely clean riders? Yes, and that is very important.

Could a clean Jan have still beaten clean riders in a GT? There is more plausibility he would have than not; we will never know.

You really should try to read what I actually write before you write this kind of stuff.
 
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Race Radio said:
You really should try to read what I actually write before you write this kind of stuff.

RR,

You're a good person. I am in awe of all the work you have done over the years. I am not trying to be difficult or adversarial just for sh1ts and giggles.

As it pertains to this thread you have written 'a lot of stuff' too. My response was not just to your latest post about Jan pre1997, but to your combined comments.

If you want posters to respond 'only' to each post without remembering the other ones, I will try to remember that in the future. I think your posts are related and so I responded in that manner.

I don't have knowledge of Jan pre 1993 other than what I read, so I cannot add anything useful. What I can request of you tho is what event or stage races were available to Jan pre1996 either that he did, or should have done, to satisfy you? Were there 'comparables' to the TdF when he was between 17 and 21 yrs old? Really?

And, the general comments about 'always' being dropped in training camps...surely many clean and doped team leaders are dropped in various training camps? That was not exclusive to Jan was it?
 
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slowspoke said:
...Most scary experience of my life was competing against east Germans in 94/95. Massive physical specimens.

What sport was that?

I guess you've never competed against the Dutch, Russians, Norse, Hungarians, Slovaks and Czechs...
 
Neworld said:
RR,

You're a good person. I am in awe of all the work you have done over the years. I am not trying to be difficult or adversarial just for sh1ts and giggles.

As it pertains to this thread you have written 'a lot of stuff' too. My response was not just to your latest post about Jan pre1997, but to your combined comments.

If you want posters to respond 'only' to each post without remembering the other ones, I will try to remember that in the future. I think your posts are related and so I responded in that manner.

I don't have knowledge of Jan pre 1993 other than what I read, so I cannot add anything useful. What I can request of you tho is what event or stage races were available to Jan pre1996 either that he did, or should have done, to satisfy you? Were there 'comparables' to the TdF when he was between 17 and 21 yrs old? Really?

And, the general comments about 'always' being dropped in training camps...surely many clean and doped team leaders are dropped in various training camps? That was not exclusive to Jan was it?

I agree. RR has been good over the years but now he's trying to flex his "insider" muscles by beating up on guys in Internet forums.

There is little point in posting videos from 87 stating 'find me something earlier in his career that matches'.

You're not going to find YouTube videos of races in the GdR. In fact you're not going to find races from any junior races in the 80's from anywhere in the world for any rider. It's a stupid argument because no one is going to find anything. You're also not going to find 3 week stage races for juniors in the French Alps!

Jan won the world title and the Commenwealth Bank cycle classic. Not mountainess races but big wins demonstrating his obvious talent. In those days the CBCC was seen as the 2nd biggest race for riders from the Soviet republics.
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/young-ullrich-remembered)

No one doubts Jan's drug use. But its a little far fetched by Race Radio to suggest he was a chump.

Jan being dropped in training camps is a well known story. It's in his autobiography, its no secret. Sevilla had documented it as well. It's not inside information. Everyone knows it.

Jan would turn up in January like a ballon. By weeks end he was getting better.

Wiggins was dropped by Michael Barry at training camp. It's happens if you don't train over the winter and drink steins.

Tobias Steinhauser used to post on another forum in regards to Jan. And explained as much. Go talk to Bobby Jullich. He liked Jan and has tremendous respect for him. Knew he was a massive talent. You'd be hard pushed to find any *rider/insider from that era calling Ullrich a chump. A chump for not training but not a chump with no talent.

Jan is well liked. He doped like the rest.

History will show in time Jan wil be welcomed back into the sport. Armstrong not.


*bar JV
 
Race Radio said:
Actually I have given you plenty, you just ignored them.

Still waiting for a single example of Jan as an amateur showing that he had the potential to do this as a 3rd year Pro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5EocT-lKHI

I showed you that people talked about Ullrich winning the Tour de France at a very early age.

And you have provided zero facts at all, that's a fact.
Only your own opinion.
No statements, No results, no facts nothing.
I am still waiting for a list of riders who were that much more gifted than Ullrich and showed that at the age of 19.
Ohh i am still waiting for the gymrat picture, too.
As always all you do is writing hot air with no substance behind it what so ever.
 
roundabout said:
Eh, Steinhauser. Isn't Ullruch married to his sister?

Some said that it was the only reason Steinahauser made the TdF team one year.

He is. They married after his retirement.

He was with Gaby prior to this.

Not sure Steinahauser made the team because of that. Jan and Sara weren't together until 2006.

But you never know!
 
Bavarianrider said:
I showed you that people talked about Ullrich winning the Tour de France at a very early age.

And you have provided zero facts at all, that's a fact.
Only your own opinion.
No statements, No results, no facts nothing.
I am still waiting for a list of riders who were that much more gifted than Ullrich and showed that at the age of 19.
Ohh i am still waiting for the gymrat picture, too.
As always all you do is writing hot air with no substance behind it what so ever.

CORVOS_00016381-011.jpg




Muscle bound lab rat :rolleyes:

Rumor has it that Jan trained on George St hill. He rode it 106 times prior to the Games.

He knew how to win this race. And did.
 

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