Kohl retires

[BigBoat]

So Dan Martin's just finished second in the Tour of Catalunya, a hard stage race. Are you certain he's doping. I believe he is not.

Why do you think he's not doped?

Even if he was a freak he still wouldnt come close to winning that race, no matter what. Entertaining you, to "what if he is clean?" if somebody as talented as that doesnt dope they miss out on a million dollars (Euros.) If he's clean now and he doped he would win the Tour de France this year for sure! He'd have millions in the bank almost immediately.... He'd be the next Contador! But more.WHY? Okay that Lemond guy tried to race without epo against the epo users 91-94. But he already had his millions and his Tour wins so he didnt care. Do your REALLY believe that some kid is going to go back to painting houses or roofing or auto mechanics?

The reality is he would have to choose between $50,000 and $2 mill..... Not even a second thought! ha, And anyways... Is there even a test for a a little "growth"? (HGH) And can you say: Autologous blood doping!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

The other problem with how doping works given it's illegality, is that the higher paid athletes get to be on the latest, most expensive and most effective products before the lesser paid athletes do.

Very, very true. You can afford the most discrete, knowing physician with the best stuff. Remember Michael Rasmussen's reaction to Whitney Richards dumping his Biopure down the drain? "Man, that shjt's expensive!"

By the way rumor has it that there is a new doping substance being used this year in the peleton, for which no test exists yet. Cera was evidently a real flop. Next!

Other than autologous blood doping, I don't think we're seeing more than microdosing of anything else during or near competition, but I could be wrong. We could be seeing Dynepo, or Hematide or Hemomer, and/or PFCEs or HBOCs. At least microdosed. I'm a little fuzzy on this, so maybe BigB can enlighten.

Keep one thing in mind though, you mentioned Conconi - before he was outed as being the supplier, he was actually on the committed trying to figure out a way to detect doping!

I'd say it's a pretty solid rumour, considering that the Fuji-Servetto team doctor was the one who alerted the press to riders using that new substance.

But can they catch it? That's the question? And how much was used before the word got through to the teams/riders? For example, in the Oil for Drugs mess, it became apparent to the police that an insider was leaking info to Dr. Santuccione about testing.

As I said yesterday somewhere, I have this increasing feeling we're going to see the police involved in another major scandal, maybe come July. There's this calm before the storm that just seems foreboding.

 

[issoisso]

But can they catch it? That's the question? And how much was used before the word got through to the teams/riders? For example, in the Oil for Drugs mess, it became apparent to the police that an insider was leaking info to Dr. Santuccione about testing.

As I said yesterday somewhere, I have this increasing feeling we're going to see the police involved in another major scandal, maybe come July. There's this calm before the storm that just seems foreboding.

Doubt it. The guy not only said it was undetectable, he didn't even name the substance. He just said everyone gets it from england.

 

[Anonymous]

the next Contador!

yup.. gotta agree with ya..

ok, maybe not the next contador, but maybe the next british grand tour winner.. and i think Dan will be a big target for sky.. the kid is special.. (and if we are continuing the theme of dopers lose there podiums, is the token winner anyway..)

Doubt it. The guy not only said it was undetectable, he didn't even name the substance. He just said everyone gets it from england.

jade goody's perfume..

that aside, not sure how seriously we can take rumours of an undetable, unnamed, substance, with undetermined benefits...

back to kohl.. the reports that he was doping his entire career certainly are interesting.. :?

 

[Anonymous]

Doubt it. The guy not only said it was undetectable, he didn't even name the substance. He just said everyone gets it from england.

jade goody's perfume..

that aside, not sure how seriously we can take rumours of an undetable, unnamed, substance, with undetermined benefits...

 

[dinger]

Almost all the top U-23 riders in Europe are doped. They dont stop at the pros!

You cant finish a Grand Tour clean if the field is heavily doped (red cell jacking). I've been saying this all along.

I totally disagree with you here. I rode for VC LaPomme for 3 and a half years and can safely say that they were the best under 23 team about. we won in france, italy and spain the two later countries who have a very bad name. 7 of my team mates are now with top teams in europe and winning. what they do now i dont know but as under23 we were as clean as you can be. in my three and a half years there the only thing that was ever bought from a chemist for me was a packet of vit-c and my manager even gave out to me cause it was gonna keep me awake lol I lived with these guys and i know for a fact no1 doped with the exception of one or two i used to question because i never knew what they did in there own time. but if the quote above about u/23 is true then we were awesome bike riders hahahah

as for the pro scene. i think you are ****ing against the wind. that is something that is never going to be beaten. to much old folk not willing to change and too much money to be made. dont mind the test it will always be there. money = corruptness

 

[Bala Verde]

back to kohl.. the reports that he was doping his entire career certainly are interesting.. :?

That is interesting because we all now he rode for Rabobank in his neo pro years (2003-2004). He was 21-23 ath the time. That's also why dutch media are now reporting that Rabobank has voluntarily agreed to cooperate with the Vienna Investigations and it seems that this could entail that (unnamed) riders will testify/cooperate/make statements.

Some of the names circulating in the Viennese Puerto are Thomas Dekker, Michael Boogerd, Rasmussen and Menchov, but also Joost Posthuma and Weening.

Obviously, these are just rumours, and riders are probably named because they have always been (associated) with Rabobank.

 

[Stani Kléber]

I totally disagree with you here. I rode for VC LaPomme for 3 and a half years and can safely say that they were the best under 23 team about. we won in france, italy and spain the two later countries who have a very bad name.

Same country, different team for me. I agree completely with you, U-23 riding is not always so bad. Personally the only time I saw a needle was when I had to give a blood sample for the suivi, the French bio passport scheme that's been in place for a decade already and the team recruited an older rider to provide tactical experience but he was dumped within weeks after mentioning he used amphetamines in previous years. Zero tolerance.

Yes, there will always be some cheats. But the majority in France are doing it clean - even taking medals in World U-23 Championships - partly because they know they have to be clean if they want to turn pro.

It's easy to make sweeping assumptions but forum readers should beware some of generalisations made on here, they're just not true.

 

[BroDeal]

Same country, different team for me. I agree completely with you, U-23 riding is not always so bad. Personally the only time I saw a needle was when I had to give a blood sample for the suivi, the French bio passport scheme that's been in place for a decade already and the team recruited an older rider to provide tactical experience but he was dumped within weeks after mentioning he used amphetamines in previous years. Zero tolerance.

Yes, there will always be some cheats. But the majority in France are doing it clean - even taking medals in World U-23 Championships - partly because they know they have to be clean if they want to turn pro.

It's easy to make sweeping assumptions but forum readers should beware some of generalisations made on here, they're just not true.

I tend to think that BigBoat's assertions that no one can even finish a GT without being "super jacked" are a bunch of crap. But when it comes to getting in the top ten, I am right with him. The research on the gains in VO2Max that can be gained cannot be ignored. I just don't see how it is humanly possible to overcome the huge advantages that are given by blood manipulation.

 

[Escarabajo]

Same country, different team for me. I agree completely with you, U-23 riding is not always so bad. Personally the only time I saw a needle was when I had to give a blood sample for the suivi, the French bio passport scheme that's been in place for a decade already and the team recruited an older rider to provide tactical experience but he was dumped within weeks after mentioning he used amphetamines in previous years. Zero tolerance.

Yes, there will always be some cheats. But the majority in France are doing it clean - even taking medals in World U-23 Championships - partly because they know they have to be clean if they want to turn pro.

It's easy to make sweeping assumptions but forum readers should beware some of generalisations made on here, they're just not true.

I appreciate your feedback on this matter.
Thanks

 

[rhubroma]

I totally disagree with you here. I rode for VC LaPomme for 3 and a half years and can safely say that they were the best under 23 team about. we won in france, italy and spain the two later countries who have a very bad name.

as for the pro scene. i think you are ****ing against the wind. that is something that is never going to be beaten. to much old folk not willing to change and too much money to be made. dont mind the test it will always be there. money = corruptness

Your words are encouraging. But it must be remembered that there is a huge difference between an under 23 team in France over the last decade and the pros (which you seem to clarify).

In Italy, I don't know how it is today honestly. 15 years ago the majority of the diletanti I competed with certainly weren't on acqua e pane ("bread and water") only. Perhaps the sport has changed in the top amatuer ranks over the past several years, because of the scandals. But I believe at the pro level it's as sporco (dirty) as before. Everything changes at the pro level. For one, nobody goes uphill slowly. No one. Compared with the under 23-category. Such new demands on athletic performance mean that strong climbers in the under-23 cartegory often find themselves barely just faster than the sprinters in the pro ranks. Thus the recourse to doping becomes almost inevitable.

In any case, I still doubt that in Italy the under-23 category has cleaned itself up. Maybe it's better than 15 years ago, but it's still not totally clean.

 

[Stani Kléber]

I tend to think that BigBoat's assertions that no one can even finish a GT without being "super jacked" are a bunch of crap. But when it comes to getting in the top ten, I am right with him.

Certainly for most of the past 15 years it's been near-impossible so I know what you mean but there can be exceptions.

I want to believe Garmin's VDV but I scratch my head, I mean Kimmage was "embedded" with the team and is a believer but fifth on GC?

Do people think Basso is doing it? Certainly Casar got 6th in the 2006 Giro d'Italia, ahead of known Fuentes clients, and he's reputed to be totally clean. It can be done but the sad fact is that many GC contenders probably think it's not possible to make the top-10 clean.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Do people think Basso is doing it? Certainly Casar got 6th in the 2006 Giro d'Italia, ahead of known Fuentes clients, and he's reputed to be totally clean. It can be done but the sad fact is that many GC contenders probably think it's not possible to make the top-10 clean.

He may have got 6th but he was 23+ minutes behind ET !

1 Ivan Basso CSC 91h 33' 36"
2 José Enrique Gutiérrez PHO + 9' 18"
3 Gilberto Simoni SDV + 11' 59"
4 Damiano Cunego LAM + 18' 16"
5 Paolo Savoldelli DSC + 19' 22"
6 Sandy Casar FDJ + 23' 53"

 

[issoisso]

More importantly, without winning massive time in a breakaway Casar would've been 14th overall.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Good call Issoisso. I was trying to remember if that was where Casar got into that really big break.

Thanks Steni and Dinger for the good posts.

I tend to agree and I'd like to think there are a lot of amateurs clean, and that we're getting cleaner, but like BroDeal the numbers and times of the guys at top, maybe even the vast majority of riders in the top 50 or so are nearly impossible to me, and every time I start to think someone up there may be clean, someone like Kohl comes along and brings me back to reality.

 

[BigBoat]

I tend to agree and I'd like to think there are a lot of amateurs clean, and that we're getting cleaner, but like BroDeal the numbers and times of the guys at top, maybe even the vast majority of riders in the top 50 or so are nearly impossible to me, and every time I start to think someone up there may be clean, someone like Kohl comes along and brings me back to reality.

If the amateurs are top U-23 riders looking for a top Pro contract they probably are doped! If not then they probably are clean. If depends on the person really. Lots of masters 30+ like to dope. Why wouldnt they? Not only that but there's virtually no testing so they might as well be completely jacked on epo. I know the top cat 1 riders I raced with last weekend were jacked and admittedly so. I wasnt and I can tell you it sucked.

Clean riders on the Tour?....It depends on how many talented pros come in jacked. You see, if so much as 25 riders (not unrealistic considering they had Fuentes working with 38 Tour riders and the Vienna blood bank had many more) are blood doping the pace will be so incredible that nobody would even be able to keep up. If 5 riders were on EPO >> and the rest of the field was completely clean those 5 riders would win every single stage and finish 1-2-3-4-5 overall!! With 25 riders blood doping any totally clean rider (without recovery "help") would not be able to recover from the much much higher overall pace.

IT IS possible to do well clean in the Tour if the whole field is not jacked with a high crit. Lemond and Fingon (2 freaks that missed the epo boat in 91) finished 6th and 7th overall and this was against the first epo users on the Tour without epo. Lemond was in the best shape possible at 30 years old, and in all honesty most riders not on epo that year probably dropped out of the race. Now, as soon as everybody was jacked the next year Lemond didnt finish and Fingon declined further.

this is Professional sport were speaking of. Its high calibre mountain climbing in Europe with multi million dollars at stake. When the top 25 guys all have over 6 watts per kilo and they hit a long climb sh$t hits the fan and the clean riders will be dropped immediately. TOTALLY CLEAN that is. They have to win because winning equals sponsorship money and contracts.

The top pro pack does not like it when somebody like Kohl comes out and says everybody is doped. They want the general public (and the average rider) to believe most are clean and its just "a few bad apples." The reason for this is that corporate sponsors will not associate with drug use. ITs simply bad public relations and it dirties their image.

If a Pro came out and spoke badly on Lance Armstrong (e.g. said he blood dopes and still works with Dr. Ferrari) that rider would be fired immediately and never be allowed back to top level racing again! What does that say about the system?

Is just being on HGH and Insulin doping to you Alpe? What about caffeine or just IGF-1? What about a corticoids for my saddle sores which I deal with every time I ride? What about some pain killers for my sore back? Leg, tendon? What about some 02 carrier "helpers" like Actovegin (calf hemoglobin.) Or just EPO?

Surely Alpe, if any Grand Tour rider was clean it would have been the last place finisher in the Tour, and 138th place finisher from 2006, that nice French man Jimmy Casper.

 

[Panic Cycling]

One thing worries me, Big Phil Gilbert, outspoken clean rider, but then he switches to Silence-Lotto, teammate of Bernie Kohl. So is Gilby still clean or has he joined the dark side?

 

[BigBoat]

One thing worries me, Big Phil Gilbert, outspoken clean rider, but then he switches to Silence-Lotto, teammate of Bernie Kohl. So is Gilby still clean or has he joined the dark side?

I dont believe you can win in a big Euro race without a jacked crit at the very least. I dont believe him one bit.

Thats not to say all the pros are doped. There are many that arnt, you just will not win jack in the European protour. There are many on more minor teams that are not doped though.

 

[Panic Cycling]

I dont believe you can win in a big Euro race without a jacked crit at the very least. I dont believe him one bit.

Thats not to say all the pros are doped. There are many that arnt, you just will not win jack in the European protour. There are many on more minor teams that are not doped though.

I have become skeptical about the grand tours. The directors make every stage so scary, but I was hoping a guy could win a classic and still be clean. Probably not, but that's my hope.

old Phil is 2:20 down in the Giro, I think he might be in the top 100.

BigBoat, thanks for your input by the way. What would be necessary for cycling to become clean? Shorter stages? More rest days? Or is it dirty no matter what?

 

[Bala Verde]

All hope is lost when even Team Managers start to say things like this:

Ich schaue mir den Giro nicht an - und wenn, dann als Realsatire.
I don't watch the Giro anymore - and if I would, only as a parody of the sport

kindly provided by Milram's Team Manager Holczer in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, after Kohl's public confession on German TV, where he stated that "top results are impossible without adequate preparation"

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/395/469947/text/7/

He seems to be rather pessimistic/realistic about the future of cycling. Holczer says that it is impossible to keep an eye on all riders 24 hours per day. Given Kohl's admissions - he did 3 bloodtransfusions during the Tour in 20 minutes or less, between interviews and massages, and where bloodbags were just brought into the hotel by Matschiner - how would any team be able to prevent these individual practices?

On top of that, team doctors, nurses or medical aidees, easily move from team to team. Andreas Blum, a former T-Mobile colleague of current (ex)Milram team doctor Schmid, was just as easily 'hired' by him, although everyone knew he (Blum) belonged to the tainted University of Freiburg doctor's clique. Besides having worked for T-Mobile, Blum also worked for Astana in 2007.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

All hope is lost when even Team Managers start to say things like this:

kindly provided by Milram's Team Manager Holczer in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, after Kohl's public confession on German TV, where he stated that "top results are impossible without adequate preparation".

Well, for one thing, Holczer isn't Milram's team manager. He was GM at Gerolsteiner, and has been out of the business since last fall.

Susan

 

[Bala Verde]

Well, for one thing, Holczer isn't Milram's team manager. He was GM at Gerolsteiner, and has been out of the business since last fall.

Susan

Ha, sorry about that. Mixed up the german teams.

 

[Biciclette Bianchi]

What would be necessary for cycling to become clean? Shorter stages? More rest days? Or is it dirty no matter what?

It's obvious that the only answer is less money involved. Any time that there is big reward for winning, there will be those who will do whatever it takes to get any edge at all. More and more sophisticated tests will only mean more and more sophisticated doping regimes and masking techniques. The big money will always be spent on the doping, so it will always remain a step or two ahead of the testing. I certainly would be in favor of holding on to samples for periodic retesting as new tools become available, and then immediate disciplinary action should anything be found amiss. It's unlikely that this will deter many, but could offer some hope for the sport.


Dave

 

[Escarabajo]

It's obvious that the only answer is less money involved. Any time that there is big reward for winning, there will be those who will do whatever it takes to get any edge at all. More and more sophisticated tests will only mean more and more sophisticated doping regimes and masking techniques. The big money will always be spent on the doping, so it will always remain a step or two ahead of the testing. I certainly would be in favor of holding on to samples for periodic retesting as new tools become available, and then immediate disciplinary action should anything be found amiss. It's unlikely that this will deter many, but could offer some hope for the sport.


Dave

Depends on how corrupt the system is anyway. They could have done that legally last year with all the samples from the Giro after the CERA busts in the TDF and the Sella bust. They chose not to do it. Why??? UCI did not want, the Giro organizers did not want, etc, etc.

 

[Biciclette Bianchi]

Depends on how corrupt the system is anyway. They could have done that legally last year with all the samples from the Giro after the CERA busts in the TDF and the Sella bust. They chose not to do it. Why??? UCI did not want, the Giro organizers did not want, etc, etc.

Agreed. I don't think that the organizers/promoters have any real interest in cleaning up the sport. The constant stream of bad publicity is already impacting sponsorship, and those with an interest in the success of the sport will not do what it takes to try to clean it up (it would only generate lots of bad press and probably not have any real impact on day-in and day-out parctices of the riders, anyway). In fact, I'm sure that they wish that they could simply close the Pandora's box. American football is smart to just pretend that there is no problem (can you imagine what they would find in the NFL if they really started turning over rocks). I'm not sure that I see a way forward from this point for cycling - there will just be a regular procession of high publicity doping scandals for the foreseeable future.


Dave