Kristoff

[hrotha]

Wonderlance was special. This guy has nothing on him.

 

[Saint Unix]

Re:

For my norwegian friends on VGD-sykkel whom I know read frequently on the Clinic:

This is "WillyVoet"

I have been blocked due to recent discussion on VGD. Feel free to communicate this to others on the forum and, if you whish, hold MOD responsible for unfair and unjust doings. I will however not return.

Wish you tailwinds and sunshine!

WV.

So you were blocked and utvilsomt wasn't?

I've had my bad experiences with the moderators on that board but... come on. That takes the cake.

 

[red_flanders]

Hey guys, can we not do this? I don't see a need to call someone a troll just because they're a fan of Kristoff and believe in their compatriots. I'm not saying don't argue the relevant points, but can we stop calling everyone who doesn't think everyone is doping a troll? Please?

If you think someone is a sockpuppet, report the evidence.

I for one appreciate having what actually appears to be a genuine new poster here with a new perspective. Can we not run them off please?

I'd rather be wrong about 10 trolls/sockpuppets than run off one earnest cycling fan.

 

[Christopher S]

I tend to agree with what red_flanders here says. In regards to my earlier mention of culture and/or ethics, I was referring to what the general public and the general consensus on doping is in Norway. That does NOT mean Norwegians doesn't dope, and to me Dag Erik Pedersen and Steffen Kjærgaard are equally dirty and shitty as all the other dopers (to use a recent example). As a previous poster here stated, it is shown through studies that ethics and/or culture does affect a nations athletes likelyhood to dope/us PEDs. I want to think Norway is one of those countries, however, I can't say for certain. What I can say for certain, is most of what I've written has been from a subjective standpoint.

As I've said from the very beginning - and as red_flanders points out -, if you want to disregard or dispute the beliefs of us who _don't_ condemn every rider having a good turn on the bike, bring out the evidence. Comparisons to a riders triumphs 4 years ago, indications and historical statistics aren't evidence. Now, the latter exist for a reason - not a shred of doubt about that -, but think of this if you will (with a grain of salt):

I'm willing to bet there are a lot of cyclist in todays peloton that care about their fans, genuinly. Who think it is truly endeering and uplifting to see familiar faces and their own flags on the sidelines. The connection - however vein or non genuine it is - to their fans, is perhaps one of the things potentially keeping a few, some, many or a lot of riders from doping. They might not want to disappoint their best fans, by cheating? They might not want to taint a sport loved by so many? Or they think back at how much it might've given them, and wants it to be in a similar or better position to give that to the future generation?

If how the fans look at cycling as a whole have any effect at all, on wether riders choose to dope or not, I do think it is worth not condemning every rider to have a good spell, merely based on historical evidence or the logo on his jersey. Imagine, if how us fans express ourselves and think of this sport actually does affect the riders; what if we all unanimously went "well, you're all doping anyways". Wouldn't that destroy a potential reason for riders NOT to dope? And isn't that what we, as fans, really want - a clean peloton?

I might be stretching this, but the point is - we as fans shape the future of the sport, if not by much, but by little -, and it might just go a long way to lend some faith to some of the riders, and save the fire for the blatantly obvious.

Anyways, hopefully this can be a constructive and good debate going forwards, and I look forward to hearing everyones thoughts in the coming time.

 

[hrotha]

Plenty of people here don't automatically label everyone who performs as a doper. Most of us, however, are particularly opposed to BS nationalistic rationalizations.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Plenty of people here don't automatically label everyone who performs as a doper. Most of us, however, are particularly opposed to BS nationalistic rationalizations.

Not the belabor the point, but I think it's one thing to point out BS nationalistic rationalizations and another to call someone a troll for making them. To me it's the difference between productive discussion and ostracizing people from the site.

We can stand some new blood in here, for sure. IMO.

 

[Berzin]

Re:

[quote="As a previous poster here stated, it is shown through studies that ethics and/or culture does affect a nations athletes likelihood to dope/us PEDs. I want to think Norway is one of those countries, however, I can't say for certain.[/quote]

You can be certain of this if this is what studies actually show. Why don't post links to these studies so we know what you're talking about? Cultural moral superiority smacks of jingoism, and it's been proven to be a false narrative, in sports and in life.

[quote="[url=http://forum.cyclingnews.com/viewtopic.php?p=1685273#p1685273]What I can say for certain, is most of what I've written has been from a subjective standpoint.[/quote]

If it's subjective, then how can you be certain of what you're talking about? You can't.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Any more questions you want me to answer dearest Foxy?

No questions... just common sense:
1.) If much money is on stake, the country doesn´t matter. No ethics advantage, and what the heck else... The "1% country" could be very much Germany because it´s no secret OOC testing is more prevalent than let´s say in Kenya. So have Germans higher ethics? Ofc not. Just fear baby, fear...
2.) Poor country > poor dope technique > more suspicious samples... Rich country/athlets > sophisticated dope techniques (see LA, Horner, MLB, NHL, AFL, what the hell) > less suspicius samples
3.) Norway has how many riders in the (cycling) testing pool? 50? Now compare that with Italy or France > less caught doesn´t mean less doping. It´s about percentages & math baby...

 

[SeriousSam]

It is no doubt true that athletes from different nations, once you control for sport, dope with different frequencies. If we knew this for two countries, and all we knew that rider A is from country Y and rider B from country Z, we ought to believe it is more likely A dopes than B.

There are plenty of factors that could cause the type of person that pursues pro sports (self-interested homo sporticus) to dope in Y but not in Z, such as tighter control, fewer doping enablers, less pronounced culture of doping etc. What I highly doubt is that culture or mentality in a broad sense plays any significant role (eg hard working and honourable Brits don't dope).

At any rate, all these factors would not explain much variation in doping. The case against Kristoff over and beyond the median rider in the peloton is that clean athletes are unlikely to dominate talented dopers. Kristoff is much more likely to dope than the average pro, there can be no doubt about this.

The case against the median rider in the peloton is continued historical evidence of doping, the huge incentives to dope riders face, and experts assuring us (and riders of the past demonstrating) that the tests can be beat.

 

[sniper]

I think Stein Ørn (mentor of young Norwegian cycling talent including Kristoff and Bystrom, also Kristoff's stepfather) is an interesting person.
Specializes in cardiovascular diseases (hence in hematocrit/hemoglobin related issues), and has written a few articles on Growth Factor (IGF, HGH). If you'd want to gear up responsibly, Stein Ørn would be your go-to guy.

 

[alspacka]

Enjoyed reading this thread very much. Bjorn, I admire your spirit and envy your optimism.

Of course there is much talk and suspicion, with the consecutive wins. Looking at the circumstances of each though I'm not sure Kristoff has done anything hugely remarkable. We'll see how long it continues.

I don't know if he's doped. Depends on peloton % at large (tautology yes). Katusha, so, probably.

Also, I get that the "if only we'd thought of training" comments are funny, but I would suggest that methods in all sports are improving constantly. The idea that something novel might have emerged from Norway is not so outlandish. That the secret is super compensation not so much.

 

[alspacka]

Also wonderlance was way too obvious to be funny.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

We can stand some new blood in here, for sure. IMO.

agreed, and what about some old blood.
Banning theHog for 6 months, what's the rationale behind that? Did he hurt somebody? and Granville, Brodeal, still banned?

 

[Felice Gimondi]

The supreme ethics argument has been used in these and similar discussions in Norway for decades, not only in sports but also business related where finance scandals and fraudulent behaviour seen in southern parts of Europe "could never have happened in Norway" kind of attitude. This is a fading perception on the economic arena (even though we're on the better part of transparency rankings), but the idea still has a strong standing in the public when its about sports and especially winter endurance sports.

There have been several attempts to dig into what really happened in XC-skiing, Speed skating and biathlon in the 90', but so far there has been little success. Investigations have mostly been done by journalists, most notably norwegian and sweedish journalists, but they haven't been met with cooperation, transparency and full disclosure from sports associations, key representatives and former star atheletes as one would expect given this alleged culture in scandinavian countries.

Representatives from antidoping athorities in Norway have also red-flagged to norwegian sports association several blood-samples taken on norwegian atheletes from some years back where science can proove there is doping involved but where nescessary legislation to take further legal action is not in place. This representative quit his job, wrote a book where he basically calls the antidoping regime noneffective and that anyone can beat the system. Who these atheletes are is of course not disclosed. These things are debatted in norwegian media, but there is not much pressure on it.

A few years back there were sweedish journalists digging into unusual HB levels on XC-skiers in the 90'. They where promised full disclosure on all measured values from the norwegian ski federation but where only given nubers taken off-season, as if that would be sufficient to prove the atheletes where clean. The reason given behind this was that the norwegian ski federation did not have any samples of the HB-values on season as FIS was taking their samples so we didn't need to. What these values are and where they are is not given to the public. FIS has also in this particular aera "privatised" testing operations, labs and so on and has got full control of the whole chain, very few question the obvious issue of independancy. Journalists who ask unpleasant questions do not receive access to the atheletes, interviews etc. A whole TV-show with our greatest sports stars was cancelled due to a critical piece on TV2 (the program and what they found was nonsense, but nevertheless it illustrates the general attitude).

This winter the norwegian XC-skiers have dominated to such extent that many question what will happen in the future if other nations don't catch up. Especially the russians and finnish are not performing according to standards 10-15 years ago, and a former female well known athelete said on TV that one of the reasons for this is that these countries don't know how to train without doping, whereas norwegians have developed scientific and superior competencies on endurance training without doping and so on....so naturally we would prevail when the antidoping measures take effect

There are many many other cases with strange references to why things would not happen here etc, many doubt what was going on in the 90' but like footballers are gods in Spain, it seems as if XC-skiers are gods and untouchable in Norway.

So yes, in my opinion there was really something strange going on on several levels in Norway but we don't know what, where and how.

 

[Lyon]

Re:

Also, I get that the "if only we'd thought of training" comments are funny, but I would suggest that methods in all sports are improving constantly. The idea that something novel might have emerged from Norway is not so outlandish. That the secret is super compensation not so much.

Nothing that Bjorn mentioned is anything revolutionary, in Norway or anywhere else.

In my experience there is not so much an improvement as there are fads and trends, certainly nothing novel. It seems to me that the ceiling when it comes to knowledge about training was reached a few decades ago, which, of course, is why the Sky-camp is spouting their nonsense about "marginal gains". It is a half-truth, since little details and day to day management is all there is left to fight about.

The rest is drugs and opportunism.

 

[the sceptic]

norwegians are super nationalistic when it comes to sports. They also have never had any doping scandal with a famous athlete. I guess this is why they are 20 years behind on doping knowledge and sound like skybots/Lance fans when they emerge from norwegian forums.

 

[bjorn]

http://inrng.com/2015/04/how-to-beat-kristoff/
the easy way ---doping
the hard way----- training.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Re:

http://inrng.com/2015/04/how-to-beat-kristoff/
the easy way ---doping
the hard way----- training.

You'll have a hard time convincing me that Terpstra, Van Avermaet and Sagan didn't do both of those things

 

[bjorn]

Re: Re:

http://inrng.com/2015/04/how-to-beat-kristoff/
the easy way ---doping
the hard way----- training.

You'll have a hard time convincing me that Terpstra, Van Avermaet and Sagan didn't do both of those things

i don't know do you?
but i know that it is a huge difference between Martin Jonsby sundby the best skier (on top in WC) from Norway and the best from Sweden. he trains over 200 hour more every year.
Why should it not be the same in cycling.
nothing is black or white. so i hope this forum will turn in to something more positive .

We can talk about the low moral of the cyclist in the field. but what of our moral. we can hang a man up on the wall without any evidence at all.

that is the reason why i had to log in to this forum and speak out.
When doping is starting to get better we must at leat try t set a lowest standard for our writhing.
( i ma not speaking on my English who is as bad as it can be )

 

[python]

Re:

The supreme ethics argument has been used in these and similar discussions in Norway for decades, not only in sports but also business related where finance scandals and fraudulent behaviour seen in southern parts of Europe "could never have happened in Norway" kind of attitude. This is a fading perception on the economic arena (even though we're on the better part of transparency rankings), but the idea still has a strong standing in the public when its about sports and especially winter endurance sports.

There have been several attempts to dig into what really happened in XC-skiing, Speed skating and biathlon in the 90', but so far there has been little success. Investigations have mostly been done by journalists, most notably norwegian and sweedish journalists, but they haven't been met with cooperation, transparency and full disclosure from sports associations, key representatives and former star atheletes as one would expect given this alleged culture in scandinavian countries.

Representatives from antidoping athorities in Norway have also red-flagged to norwegian sports association several blood-samples taken on norwegian atheletes from some years back where science can proove there is doping involved but where nescessary legislation to take further legal action is not in place. This representative quit his job, wrote a book where he basically calls the antidoping regime noneffective and that anyone can beat the system. Who these atheletes are is of course not disclosed. These things are debatted in norwegian media, but there is not much pressure on it.

A few years back there were sweedish journalists digging into unusual HB levels on XC-skiers in the 90'. They where promised full disclosure on all measured values from the norwegian ski federation but where only given nubers taken off-season, as if that would be sufficient to prove the atheletes where clean. The reason given behind this was that the norwegian ski federation did not have any samples of the HB-values on season as FIS was taking their samples so we didn't need to. What these values are and where they are is not given to the public. FIS has also in this particular aera "privatised" testing operations, labs and so on and has got full control of the whole chain, very few question the obvious issue of independancy. Journalists who ask unpleasant questions do not receive access to the atheletes, interviews etc. A whole TV-show with our greatest sports stars was cancelled due to a critical piece on TV2 (the program and what they found was nonsense, but nevertheless it illustrates the general attitude).

This winter the norwegian XC-skiers have dominated to such extent that many question what will happen in the future if other nations don't catch up. Especially the russians and finnish are not performing according to standards 10-15 years ago, and a former female well known athelete said on TV that one of the reasons for this is that these countries don't know how to train without doping, whereas norwegians have developed scientific and superior competencies on endurance training without doping and so on....so naturally we would prevail when the antidoping measures take effect

There are many many other cases with strange references to why things would not happen here etc, many doubt what was going on in the 90' but like footballers are gods in Spain, it seems as if XC-skiers are gods and untouchable in Norway.

So yes, in my opinion there was really something strange going on on several levels in Norway but we don't know what, where and how.

this is an excellent post !

the author - clearly a knowledgeable scandinavian - summarized well most points of the debate we had in the xc skiing thread for many years now.

an argument about differences in national attitudes towards doping is true enough... it is a cute argument when viewed from outside, particularly through the eyes of a fan. but it is a wrong argument when applied to the professional sports if looked at from the inside.

it is this insider view that the swedes who share a very similar cultural attitude towards doping were willing to explore in their xc- skiers much more readily than the norwegians.

the concerned and knowledgeable scandinavians like mads drange, bengt saltin - the insiders to anti-doping - are not taken seriously in norway.

for all i know, kristoff being a norwegian, could be an unwitting victim to such an attitude...

i will end by quoting you, gimondi

there was really something strange going on on several levels in Norway but we don't know what, where and how.

don't know b/c the norwegians don't WANT to know

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

http://inrng.com/2015/04/how-to-beat-kristoff/
the easy way ---doping
the hard way----- training.

You'll have a hard time convincing me that Terpstra, Van Avermaet and Sagan didn't do both of those things

Exactly. The main reason why riders dope out of competition is to allow them to train harder and recover more quickly between training sessions. It's disingenuous to try to separate training more from doping.

 

[SeriousSam]

Re: Re:

Also, I get that the "if only we'd thought of training" comments are funny, but I would suggest that methods in all sports are improving constantly. The idea that something novel might have emerged from Norway is not so outlandish. That the secret is super compensation not so much.

Nothing that Bjorn mentioned is anything revolutionary, in Norway or anywhere else.

In my experience there is not so much an improvement as there are fads and trends, certainly nothing novel. It seems to me that the ceiling when it comes to knowledge about training was reached a few decades ago, which, of course, is why the Sky-camp is spouting their nonsense about "marginal gains". It is a half-truth, since little details and day to day management is all there is left to fight about.

The rest is drugs and opportunism.

To be fair, if someone truly believed that they found a method of preparation that gives an advantage over what other people do, they wouldn't share it.

But the training regime of most elite sports stars is common knowledge. There are no secrets. Whatever sets them apart, it isn't training. It's talent and performance enhancing drugs.

 

[Lyon]

Re: Re:

i will end by quoting you, gimondi

there was really something strange going on on several levels in Norway but we don't know what, where and how.

don't know b/c the norwegians don't WANT to know

Lots of people within Norwegian sport have been wondering the same thing. It seems the XC-skiing is something of a closed group though, which is never good, and they have so far refused to share their knowledge.

Of course, the Swedes have some mysteries of their own. What about the experimentation with high-altitude training the Swedes performed in the late eighties/early ninties? What was it that made them suddenly stop? Why was Mogren, especially, so vocal against it? I always had the feeling something happened in one of those high-altidue training camps that scared the hell out of them.

However that may be,as soon as the Swedes stopped their research the Norwegians started theirs. It was a passing of the torch and the rest is history.

 

[Christopher S]

I think as it goes with XC, it is difficult to read into it too much. Of course, it seems like bad conduct at times from the norwegian ski federation. I still think it's worth mentioning in a sport with 9000 athletes on senior level (FIS) - with over a 1000 of them from Norway, how hard is it to dominate a sport that small? In reality, the only countries that REALLY care about cross country skiing, are Norway, Sweden, Finland and to some extent Russia. The US and Canada has taken a shine to it in the recent years aswell, but for the most part it is a sport that is mostly taken seriously in the aforementioned countries. Russia, Germany and most European countries prefers biathlon 9/10 times.

 

[robertmooreheadlane]

There are two reasons why the norwegians dope - One is because of the backlash and disdain with which the fans and the media treat them if they are not the best in the world, two is because when they are not racing they are all off in the most remote parts of the country training that they are pretty much guaranteed not to be caught up and tested.

You only have to look at the career of Ole Einer Bjoerndaal (?) on the biathlon team, 40 plus and still winning world cup races against all the best in the world, up until a couple of years ago.

If the norwegians had discovered such amazing ways of training in endurance then why are other endurance athletes not flocking to the shores of norway to train, the way triathletes go to boulder or the gold coast of australia to train, not becuase the drugs in boulder and australia are easier to get hold of, of course!!!

Why do the long distance runners head to kenya to train and not go to norway in the summer and learn this new wonder training method.

Why is there not some new training bible that is making someone a lot of money. Trust me the first time anyone thinks they come up with something new they cash in quick with a training plan and a book and a nice big coaching base with lots of high paying athletes eager to learn their new technique.

So unless they have started to put something in the water in Norway I am afraid I'm inclined to go back to BS nationalistic defence mechanism and cheating dopers.