LeMond III

[Maxiton]

Re: LeMond

Other than maybe Rooks and Theunisse in 88,

i have no idea, but would love to know: do you think they were on epo already in 1988?
to my knowledge, Rooks admitted to using epo only after 1989.

there is no amazing performance jumps from Dutch and Belgian cyclists at that time so if people were trying EPO, it was not being utilized correctly perhaps resulting in some of those unfortunate deaths.

could this have been a matter of ressources (or lack thereof)?

A lot - or all - of those early EPO users probably went direct from pot belge to EPO. They had no idea what they were doing with the former, really, and obviously no idea what they were doing with the latter. Info on pot belge might give a good indication of their approach to EPO.

According to its Wikipedia entry

The term is commonly used to describe a mixture of drugs, variously constituted from cocaine, heroin, caffeine, amphetamines, and other analgesics. . . . A French reference also lists morphine in the mix, and notes that it can also be called "insane person mix," though it's unclear whether this refers to the potential results of its use, or the suggestion that "you have to be crazy to take it."

There is an interesting article on pot belge that appears on Vice Sports, called Cycling's Dirtiest Drug. It's well worth reading, but here are the opening paragraphs.

Cycling has had a reputation as a dirty sport for decades. But long before the world's top pros were using sophisticated blood-boosting PEDs to win races like the Tour de France, there was a harder, seedier and more dangerous drug running rampant through the professional and amateur ranks. Called pot belge, the drug was a homemade concoction of heroin, caffeine, and amphetamines, and it was a favorite of European riders in the mid 1980s.

"The Pot Belge was just this nasty, nasty drug," recalls John Eustice, a two-time U.S. professional champion who quickly had his eyes opened when he made the switch to the cutthroat European scene—a world of hard-nosed factory workers and farmers who would rather run you into a barbed wire fence then let you cut in front of them in the pack. "It was so powerful it became an epidemic. Guys went totally junkie on the stuff."

The amphetamine part of the equation was nothing new. Cyclists had been abusing speed for decades, popping pills like Pervitin—a German stimulant originally developed for Luftwaffe pilots during World War II—to fuel a taxing schedule that saw them racing upward of 140 days a year. Bike racing has never been a rich man's sport, and in the mid-twentieth century most of the riders needed to chase paltry prize money and appearance fees just to earn a living, sometimes driving 1,000 kilometers through a single night to get from one small-town race to the next.

But by the 1980s, World War II-era stockpiles of methamphetamine were rapidly dwindling, and dead-on-their-feet cyclists began looking for a substitute. Enter pot belge, a dirty approximation of the original that was being cooked up in Belgian backwaters by would-be Walter Whites and distributed through a sketchy network of riders looking to supplement their meager wages.

"Nobody knew what [pot belge] was, but being the dumb bike riders that they were they just took it because they needed something. Who knows where it came from," remembers Eustice, who says he never dabbled with the drug, before adding that even if he had, he'd never admit it.

If riders began as novice users, however, they quickly became experts.

"It was almost like being around people who are really into weed — they'd brag about [pot belge]," explains Joe Parkin, another American neophyte who chronicled his jump into the down and dirty word of Belgian bike racing in his memoir, A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium. "I had this one teammate who was always trying to deal it, and he would twirl [the ampoule], like someone does with wine, watching it come off the glass. He would do that, he would twirl it around and watch the clear liquid come off the glass and I guess how perfectly it came off the glass was somehow representative [laughs] of how amazing the dope was."

 

[sniper]

Re: LeMond

...
LeMond's unethical conduct at the Landis hearing certainly demonstrated that he wasn't for the antidoping movement.

Plenty of (high profile) publications on EPO already in 1991, linking it to cycling and pro-sport in general as well as to the deaths of several athletes. EPO, a drug produced by Amgen in California. Used by PDM riders and ADR doctors.
Father in law a renowned immunologist who joined him at GTs. His wife a former nursing student.

Yet Lemond didn't hear about EPO before 1993...
ow, and "obviously, drugs came on the scene in the 90s".

Indeed he seems to have taken 'antidoping' with a grain of salt.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Truth be told, what has LeMond actually done to "clean up cycling", other than ride in a open top car with dopers?

Nothing, he just talks about it now and then, mostly around Armstrong, he hasn't actually done anything.

 

[kwikki]

Other than be the first high profile person to openly doubt Armstrong, and follow up consistently, before during and after several of Armstrong's cases including USADA, then no, he hasn't done anything.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Other than be the first high profile person to openly doubt Armstrong, and follow up consistently, before during and after several of Armstrong's cases including USADA, then no, he hasn't done anything.

Yes, his motivation was certainly Armstrong. But no, for the anti-doping movement, he's done nothing. That much is true. LeMond had little to do with Armstrong "cases" other than SCA, which has nothing to do with "anti-doping".

 

[sniper]

Re: LeMond

...snipped for brevity...

thanks for that. interesting indeed.

Freddy Sergeant, ADR soigneur in 1989, was one of the principal suspects in a doping case that went to court in 2006, involving the Roux brothers (and I think Jalabert), and evolving around the distribution of pot belge in the 90s.

http://www.gva.be/cnt/oid471082/archief-strafvermindering-voor-freddy-sergeant
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ten-charged-in-bordeaux/

Lemond is rumored to have been a client of Sergeant in 1989 on this forum:

ivm Lemond: toen hij de tour in 1989 won zou hij toen bij mijn vroegere werkcollega F. Sergant op het werk zijn gesignaleerd. (gerucht uit de 90-er jaren op het werk).

http://www.fiets.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29194&start=1620

I'm not concluding anything from that, btw.
maybe somebody knows more?

 

[pmcg76]

Re: LeMond

Other than maybe Rooks and Theunisse in 88,

i have no idea, but would love to know: do you think they were on epo already in 1988?
to my knowledge, Rooks admitted to using epo only after 1989.

there is no amazing performance jumps from Dutch and Belgian cyclists at that time so if people were trying EPO, it was not being utilized correctly perhaps resulting in some of those unfortunate deaths.

could this have been a matter of ressources (or lack thereof)?

If you have no idea then maybe you should stop claiming it as fact then.

I dont think Rooks or Theunisse were on EPO in 1988, maybe they tried a blood bag as based on the Tour diaries of Bertus Folk. As other posters suggested, Rooks was a good rider before EPO, top ten in Tour 86 and that 88 Tour was weird. No defending champion again, Mottet, Fignon and Bernard all dropped out, Hampsten underperfoming, you have Bauer finishing 4th who again is cited as a clean rider but hardly a Tour contender. Theunisse was the big improver that year but he was jacked up on testosterone as evidenced by the positive test which was punished by a measly 10 minute penalty. As I said different times.

 

[sniper]

Re: LeMond

...
I dont think Rooks or Theunisse were on EPO in 1988, maybe they tried a blood bag as based on the Tour diaries of Bertus Folk. As other posters suggested, Rooks was a good rider before EPO, top ten in Tour 86 and that 88 Tour was weird. No defending champion again, Mottet, Fignon and Bernard all dropped out, Hampsten underperfoming, you have Bauer finishing 4th who again is cited as a clean rider but hardly a Tour contender. Theunisse was the big improver that year but he was jacked up on testosterone as evidenced by the positive test which was punished by a measly 10 minute penalty. As I said different times.

great, so Rooks uses EPO but doesn't improve going into the 90s.
So how does Lemond not improving going into the 90s show that Lemond wasn't on EPO?

I was considering the possibility that they (Rooks, PDM) were on EPO in 1988 already, but that for legal reasons, Gisbers and the bunch decided to 'date' their use of EPO in 1990. Not sure if that makes sense.
Anyway, we have the Dutch and Belgian deaths in 87 and 88 being linked to EPO, though I don't think there is hard evidence for that either.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: LeMond

...snipped for brevity...

thanks for that. interesting indeed.

Freddy Sergeant, ADR soigneur in 1989, was one of the principal suspects in a doping case that went to court in 2006, involving the Roux brothers (and I think Jalabert), and evolving around the distribution of pot belge in the 90s.

http://www.gva.be/cnt/oid471082/archief-strafvermindering-voor-freddy-sergeant
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ten-charged-in-bordeaux/

Lemond is rumored to have been a client of Sergeant in 1989 on this forum:

ivm Lemond: toen hij de tour in 1989 won zou hij toen bij mijn vroegere werkcollega F. Sergant op het werk zijn gesignaleerd. (gerucht uit de 90-er jaren op het werk).

http://www.fiets.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29194&start=1620

I'm not concluding anything from that, btw.
maybe somebody knows more?

you cannot be involved in pro cycling and not be involved with people heavily involved in doping...all it proves is that pro-cyclists dope...this we know

without hard evidence (which you don't have) then its just down to your own reading of the situation

I knew lots of people who were involved with class A drugs...doesn't mean I took them or distributed them...but you could build up a pretty good case against me on circumstantial evidence

...and so....here we are...

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

Other than be the first high profile person to openly doubt Armstrong, and follow up consistently, before during and after several of Armstrong's cases including USADA, then no, he hasn't done anything.

Yes, his motivation was certainly Armstrong. But no, for the anti-doping movement, he's done nothing. That much is true. LeMond had little to do with Armstrong "cases" other than SCA, which has nothing to do with "anti-doping".

I suppose we can only come to a judgement based on our knowledge, and if our knowledge is limited then our judgement will have little value. We can't fault you for that. You cannot know what you dont know, and I'm sure in the light of new knowledge you will amend your opinion.

As I said earlier, LeMond was the first high profile person to express concern that Armstrong was doping. This was in 2001, when Armstrong was the highest profile cyclist in the world. At the time Lemond had no reason to take this stance (Yes, I know the Lance fan boys will say it was jealousy) so if the stance wasn't taken for anti-doping reasons I'd be fascinated to know what it was. Particularly as Lemond went on to be consistent in his attitude and stance on the issue, to his own financial detriment, after briefly deciding to stay quiet.

At Armstrong's comeback press conference in 2008 Lemond was in the front row and pressed Armstrong with questions about doping. Obviously nothing to do with doping.

It is notable that Lemond openly questioned the roles of sports doctors like Ferrari. Again, if this is not anti-doping, what was it?

As early as 2006, LeMond openly started questioning the role of the UCI in doping, referring to the UCI as "corrupt" in an interview in L'Equipe. McQuaid threatened to sue. Despite these threats he later he wrote an open letter in 2012 identifying Verbruggen and McQuaid as key players in the failure to fight doping in cycling. In 2007 Lemond proposed that to Prudhomme that the TdF should break away from the UCI in order to be able to clean up. Again he was threatened by McQuaid. Not anti-doping?

Speaking at an anti-doping 'Play the Game' conference in 2009, LeMond laid the blame for doping at the feet of doctors, managers and officials, noting that they escape the blame whilst riders take the punishment. Not anti-doping, I suppose??

Lemond didn't have to do any of this. It was all about anti-doping, and it resulted in great personal cost to him but he was one of the few people who didn't give in to Armstrong's bullying, and carried on holding Armstrong to account for his doping when the UCI, USADA, Le Tour were doing nothing. They were making money out of it whilst Lemond was losing time and money.

In 2009 Lemond wrote in Le Monde that Contador's ascent of Vernier was doped fuelled, as asked Contador to explain it. The following year Contador tested positive.

Not anti-doping?

Hopefully, now that you are possession of some facts and have had the large gaps in your knowledge filled you will be able to see why your statements are so incorrect and unfair.

 

[pmcg76]

Re: LeMond

...
I dont think Rooks or Theunisse were on EPO in 1988, maybe they tried a blood bag as based on the Tour diaries of Bertus Folk. As other posters suggested, Rooks was a good rider before EPO, top ten in Tour 86 and that 88 Tour was weird. No defending champion again, Mottet, Fignon and Bernard all dropped out, Hampsten underperfoming, you have Bauer finishing 4th who again is cited as a clean rider but hardly a Tour contender. Theunisse was the big improver that year but he was jacked up on testosterone as evidenced by the positive test which was punished by a measly 10 minute penalty. As I said different times.

great, so Rooks uses EPO but doesn't improve going into the 90s.
So how does Lemond not improving going into the 90s show that Lemond wasn't on EPO?

I was considering the possibility that they (Rooks, PDM) were on EPO in 1988 already, but that for legal reasons, Gisbers and the bunch decided to 'date' their use of EPO in 1990. Not sure if that makes sense.
Anyway, we have the Dutch and Belgian deaths in 87 and 88 being linked to EPO, though I don't think there is hard evidence for that either.

That statement from Rooks is unclear about using EPO after 89. Could it have been he was asked if he used EPO at PDM, but said no it was after 89 which is when he left PDM. I think we need the context to fully understand the quote as I had read it was 93 with Festina when he started on EPO. Regardless Rooks had a gradual decline like still Top 10 in Vuelta 92, 17th in Tour, 2nd in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Dutch Champion and by then was mid 30s. LeMond. No comparison really.

 

[Tienus]

During the Calgary olympics in February 1988 Yvonne van Gennip did the impossible and beat the unbeatable East Germans. I would be highly surprised if the PDM doctors did not know before the start of the tour how she did this.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re:

worth looking again at this article:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488551.html
Notably, it's from 10 June 1991.

- EPO is called a miracle drug by doctors and coaches. So yes, it had already proven itself to be just that in the years prior to the 10th of June 1991.
- Says the ""clinical trial stage" of epo started in the US in 1986. The drug had been developed in the early 80s.
- Says it helps increase the red blood cell count "within hours"
- Says it's officially only prescribed to people with damage to both kidneys (indeed, like Lemond in 87 after the shooting incident)
- links the deaths of several cyclists to EPO abuse, but also notes that the drug is "not dangerous when applied appropriately"
- a doctor is on the record claiming cycling is ahead of other sports in terms of epo.
- "Karriere macht die Droge derzeit vor allem in Westeuropa und in den USA." (transl: the drug is currently particularly prevalent in West Europe and USA), i.e. prevalent among countries that have the ressources to afford it.

The bolded is incorrect. People who write about science in the media often do not know enough about science that they are tasked to write about. Really, a noticeable difference takes more on the order of a week.

Your earlier use of the null hypothesis does not make any scientific sense in terms of LeMond. It is a statistical hypothesis based on differences between groups where sample sizes are greater than 1. I can see what you are trying to argue, but you should use a more accurate term.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: LeMond

...
I wish there were studies...but there's not....so in the absence of such I shall make it up based on observation and anecdote..

Lemond was at the junction of champions winning GTs (irrespective of PED use) vs donkeys winning GTs. Donkeys could become champions by either going full ret*rd or by ensuring governing body buy-in or both.

EPO (and HGH to a degree) brought about this change and once the genie is out the bottle...........

So whilst 'all GT winners may have taken PEDS' may be true...the implications on the rider are different...

I would not equate a post-epo GT winner with a pre-epo winner

Lemond won before and so he gets a pass from me until compelling evidence suggests otherwise..

for all intents and purposes, people were on epo when Greg won in 89 and 90.
American athletes were rumored to be on epo during the 88 games in seoul.

Or take Draaijer, he was on EPO not because it didn't work. By the time he died (February 1990), we may logically assume that the drug had already proven itself to be a miracle drug among the elite.

sniper

no we may not...the performances didn't change until 91 (little),92 (more) and then famously 93

With respect to cycling I can't say that the results were or were not completely changing. With long distance running some things were changing from 84 on. From my own personal experiences. Not that EPO was a player there but the doping seemed to have changed - more advanced or sophisticated maybe.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Other than be the first high profile person to openly doubt Armstrong, and follow up consistently, before during and after several of Armstrong's cases including USADA, then no, he hasn't done anything.

Yes, his motivation was certainly Armstrong. But no, for the anti-doping movement, he's done nothing. That much is true. LeMond had little to do with Armstrong "cases" other than SCA, which has nothing to do with "anti-doping".

I suppose we can only come to a judgement based on our knowledge, and if our knowledge is limited then our judgement will have little value. We can't fault you for that. You cannot know what you dont know, and I'm sure in the light of new knowledge you will amend your opinion.

As I said earlier, LeMond was the first high profile person to express concern that Armstrong was doping. This was in 2001, when Armstrong was the highest profile cyclist in the world. At the time Lemond had no reason to take this stance (Yes, I know the Lance fan boys will say it was jealousy) so if the stance wasn't taken for anti-doping reasons I'd be fascinated to know what it was. Particularly as Lemond went on to be consistent in his attitude and stance on the issue, to his own financial detriment, after briefly deciding to stay quiet.

At Armstrong's comeback press conference in 2008 Lemond was in the front row and pressed Armstrong with questions about doping. Obviously nothing to do with doping.

It is notable that Lemond openly questioned the roles of sports doctors like Ferrari. Again, if this is not anti-doping, what was it?

As early as 2006, LeMond openly started questioning the role of the UCI in doping, referring to the UCI as "corrupt" in an interview in L'Equipe. McQuaid threatened to sue. Despite these threats he later he wrote an open letter in 2012 identifying Verbruggen and McQuaid as key players in the failure to fight doping in cycling. In 2007 Lemond proposed that to Prudhomme that the TdF should break away from the UCI in order to be able to clean up. Again he was threatened by McQuaid. Not anti-doping?

Speaking at an anti-doping 'Play the Game' conference in 2009, LeMond laid the blame for doping at the feet of doctors, managers and officials, noting that they escape the blame whilst riders take the punishment. Not anti-doping, I suppose??

Lemond didn't have to do any of this. It was all about anti-doping, and it resulted in great personal cost to him but he was one of the few people who didn't give in to Armstrong's bullying, and carried on holding Armstrong to account for his doping when the UCI, USADA, Le Tour were doing nothing. They were making money out of it whilst Lemond was losing time and money.

In 2009 Lemond wrote in Le Monde that Contador's ascent of Vernier was doped fuelled, as asked Contador to explain it. The following year Contador tested positive.

Not anti-doping?

Hopefully, now that you are possession of some facts and have had the large gaps in your knowledge filled you will be able to see why your statements are so incorrect and unfair.

Vis-a-vis Contador, LeMond didn't say it was "doped fuelled" on Verbier (not Vernier), he said;

The American, writing in an opinion column in the French newspaper Le Monde, equated his smashing time on the 8.5km ascent to "a Mercedes sedan winning a on a Formula 1 circuit".

I'm a stickler for detail, important to get it right.


The common theme to LeMond anti-doping rhetoric is Armstrong and by extension of that the threat of LeMond's business interests.

LeMond has never said anything about Sky or Froome, recently LeMond appears to think cycling is clean nowadays, which is rather bizarre considering his statements on Armstrong and that Froome et al is beating some of Armstrong drug fuelled times on climbs.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: LeMond

...
I wish there were studies...but there's not....so in the absence of such I shall make it up based on observation and anecdote..

Lemond was at the junction of champions winning GTs (irrespective of PED use) vs donkeys winning GTs. Donkeys could become champions by either going full ret*rd or by ensuring governing body buy-in or both.

EPO (and HGH to a degree) brought about this change and once the genie is out the bottle...........

So whilst 'all GT winners may have taken PEDS' may be true...the implications on the rider are different...

I would not equate a post-epo GT winner with a pre-epo winner

Lemond won before and so he gets a pass from me until compelling evidence suggests otherwise..

for all intents and purposes, people were on epo when Greg won in 89 and 90.
American athletes were rumored to be on epo during the 88 games in seoul.

Or take Draaijer, he was on EPO not because it didn't work. By the time he died (February 1990), we may logically assume that the drug had already proven itself to be a miracle drug among the elite.

sniper

no we may not...the performances didn't change until 91 (little),92 (more) and then famously 93

With respect to cycling I can't say that the results were or were not completely changing. With long distance running some things were changing from 84 on. From my own personal experiences. Not that EPO was a player there but the doping seemed to have changed - more advanced or sophisticated maybe.

I don't know enough about athletics...other than Coe's 800 WR time

whatever the Belgians were doing nobody noticed...it was the phenomenon that was Italy in the early 90s that signalled the arrival of epo big style...

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: LeMond

...snipped for brevity...

thanks for that. interesting indeed.

Freddy Sergeant, ADR soigneur in 1989, was one of the principal suspects in a doping case that went to court in 2006, involving the Roux brothers (and I think Jalabert), and evolving around the distribution of pot belge in the 90s.

http://www.gva.be/cnt/oid471082/archief-strafvermindering-voor-freddy-sergeant
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ten-charged-in-bordeaux/

Lemond is rumored to have been a client of Sergeant in 1989 on this forum:

ivm Lemond: toen hij de tour in 1989 won zou hij toen bij mijn vroegere werkcollega F. Sergant op het werk zijn gesignaleerd. (gerucht uit de 90-er jaren op het werk).

http://www.fiets.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29194&start=1620

I'm not concluding anything from that, btw.
maybe somebody knows more?

you cannot be involved in pro cycling and not be involved with people heavily involved in doping...all it proves is that pro-cyclists dope...this we know

without hard evidence (which you don't have) then its just down to your own reading of the situation

I knew lots of people who were involved with class A drugs...doesn't mean I took them or distributed them...but you could build up a pretty good case against me on circumstantial evidence

...and so....here we are...

Very true. I knew people who were convinced that I hit the hippy lettuce just because I was either friends with people who did or because I would come to school smelling like cig smoke. Both my parents smoked like chimneys and everything I owned smelled like that foul crap. So maybe they thought I smoked cig's also and therefore hit the hippy lettuce.

Yes I would agree that it is basically just down to ones reading of the situation. I don't take any cyclist word for clean cycling at all. Fools mistake really. We all make it once in our lives. We believe or want to believe in someone when knowing in our heart it just defies logic. That is the way I was with Greg. I want to believe him. I think the lack of a majority of fellow cyclist coming out against him does not in anyway make be believe in him further. For a very long time I refused to think or think about the possibilities. But I know that is a bad position because of the sport. I have no faith or would put no faith into him being clean.

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

Other than be the first high profile person to openly doubt Armstrong, and follow up consistently, before during and after several of Armstrong's cases including USADA, then no, he hasn't done anything.

Yes, his motivation was certainly Armstrong. But no, for the anti-doping movement, he's done nothing. That much is true. LeMond had little to do with Armstrong "cases" other than SCA, which has nothing to do with "anti-doping".

I suppose we can only come to a judgement based on our knowledge, and if our knowledge is limited then our judgement will have little value. We can't fault you for that. You cannot know what you dont know, and I'm sure in the light of new knowledge you will amend your opinion.

As I said earlier, LeMond was the first high profile person to express concern that Armstrong was doping. This was in 2001, when Armstrong was the highest profile cyclist in the world. At the time Lemond had no reason to take this stance (Yes, I know the Lance fan boys will say it was jealousy) so if the stance wasn't taken for anti-doping reasons I'd be fascinated to know what it was. Particularly as Lemond went on to be consistent in his attitude and stance on the issue, to his own financial detriment, after briefly deciding to stay quiet.

At Armstrong's comeback press conference in 2008 Lemond was in the front row and pressed Armstrong with questions about doping. Obviously nothing to do with doping.

It is notable that Lemond openly questioned the roles of sports doctors like Ferrari. Again, if this is not anti-doping, what was it?

As early as 2006, LeMond openly started questioning the role of the UCI in doping, referring to the UCI as "corrupt" in an interview in L'Equipe. McQuaid threatened to sue. Despite these threats he later he wrote an open letter in 2012 identifying Verbruggen and McQuaid as key players in the failure to fight doping in cycling. In 2007 Lemond proposed that to Prudhomme that the TdF should break away from the UCI in order to be able to clean up. Again he was threatened by McQuaid. Not anti-doping?

Speaking at an anti-doping 'Play the Game' conference in 2009, LeMond laid the blame for doping at the feet of doctors, managers and officials, noting that they escape the blame whilst riders take the punishment. Not anti-doping, I suppose??

Lemond didn't have to do any of this. It was all about anti-doping, and it resulted in great personal cost to him but he was one of the few people who didn't give in to Armstrong's bullying, and carried on holding Armstrong to account for his doping when the UCI, USADA, Le Tour were doing nothing. They were making money out of it whilst Lemond was losing time and money.

In 2009 Lemond wrote in Le Monde that Contador's ascent of Vernier was doped fuelled, as asked Contador to explain it. The following year Contador tested positive.

Not anti-doping?

Hopefully, now that you are possession of some facts and have had the large gaps in your knowledge filled you will be able to see why your statements are so incorrect and unfair.

Vis-a-vis Contador, LeMond didn't say it was "doped fuelled" on Verbier (not Vernier), he said;

The American, writing in an opinion column in the French newspaper Le Monde, equated his smashing time on the 8.5km ascent to "a Mercedes sedan winning a on a Formula 1 circuit".

I'm a stickler for detail, important to get it right.


The common theme to LeMond anti-doping rhetoric is Armstrong and by extension of that the threat of LeMond's business interests.

LeMond has never said anything about Sky or Froome, recently LeMond appears to think cycling is clean nowadays, which is rather bizarre considering his statements on Armstrong and that Froome et al is beating some of Armstrong drug fuelled times on climbs.

I take it you realise that a lack of quotation marks around what Lemond said means that I am not quoting him. I'm interpreting it. Do you disagree with my interpretation? If you do what on earth do you think he meant with his analogy?

The common theme to Lemond's anti-doping rhetoric (glad to see you are now accepting it is anti-doping) is anti-doping.

You are quite correct about Lemond's lack of commentary on Sky but then he hasn't commented on much recently. Not sure why you feel he should. He has already done more for anti-doping than any other champion.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

worth looking again at this article:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488551.html
Notably, it's from 10 June 1991.

- EPO is called a miracle drug by doctors and coaches. So yes, it had already proven itself to be just that in the years prior to the 10th of June 1991.
- Says the ""clinical trial stage" of epo started in the US in 1986. The drug had been developed in the early 80s.
- Says it helps increase the red blood cell count "within hours"
- Says it's officially only prescribed to people with damage to both kidneys (indeed, like Lemond in 87 after the shooting incident)
- links the deaths of several cyclists to EPO abuse, but also notes that the drug is "not dangerous when applied appropriately"
- a doctor is on the record claiming cycling is ahead of other sports in terms of epo.
- "Karriere macht die Droge derzeit vor allem in Westeuropa und in den USA." (transl: the drug is currently particularly prevalent in West Europe and USA), i.e. prevalent among countries that have the ressources to afford it.

First: clinical trials are very tightly controlled. Nobody is going to get their hands on EPO while it's in the clinical trial phase. If they did, doctors would quickly lose their license and pharmaceutical execs would be getting calls from the FDA.

Second: Google scholar is your friend. According to this article in the International Journal of Sport Medicine (1993) http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/7691771 EPO did not become commercially available until 1988. Repeat - 1988. Nobody in the peloton was using it until then. Full stop. Between then and 1993 it became common enough that the above article was published.

Third: Greg Lemond never entered late stage kidney failure and would never have been prescribed EPO. He had anemia and it was treated with iron shots. In front of a journalist. If both kidneys were borked, he'd have a range of other, very serious symptoms.

John Swanson

Edit: I forgot my fourth point: It takes seven days to go from stem cell in the marrow to mature blood cell capable of oxygen transport. Not hours. No way it's hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_blood_cell

 

[blutto]

Re: LeMond

...
sniper

no we may not...the performances didn't change until 91 (little),92 (more) and then famously 93

indeed.
and we know for a fact that draaijer was on epo, and many others were, pre-1991.
which undermines your attempt to equate pre-1991 with pre-epo.

no...you asserted that it was "proven to be a miracle drug amongst the elite"

and as I can remember watching the races and reading about the races at the time (as opposed to looking at wikipedia - i think first hand recollection is important here) I know that there were no massive peaks in performance

I know when these were and they were as the dates given.

What proof do you have of it causing miracles in elite pro-cycling pre 91?

I agree. The most blatant early signs were guys like Bugno and Chiapucci becoming GT-contenders out of nowhere. I wouldn't even cite Rooks as Rooks had already proven at a young age to be a pretty gifted rider at least at one day events/monuments. The sea change witnessed post-91 also meant that Rooks didn't figure significantly anymore in GT's, he also became less and less a prominent figure in one day events/monuments.

And mind you, Rooks was definitely on the normal, regular gear in the 80's, there is no doubt about that.

....interesting that you would say that ( early adopter has success, gets swamped by later adopters )....now run that across the recently put forth Floyd thesis....

Cheers

 

[DamianoMachiavelli]

Re: Re:

Particularly as Lemond went on to be consistent in his attitude and stance on the issue, to his own financial detriment, after briefly deciding to stay quiet.

The only thing consistent about LeMond is his hypocrisy. Find a single statement by LeMond where he criticizes one of his competitors for beating him while doping. Find a single one. It should be easy. This is Saint LeMond, the anti-doping advocate who has built a myth of a career ended because of other riders doping. Find one complaint by him where he names a doping competitor and says he was robbed of a deserved win.

 

[pmcg76]

Re: LeMond

...
sniper

no we may not...the performances didn't change until 91 (little),92 (more) and then famously 93

indeed.
and we know for a fact that draaijer was on epo, and many others were, pre-1991.
which undermines your attempt to equate pre-1991 with pre-epo.

no...you asserted that it was "proven to be a miracle drug amongst the elite"

and as I can remember watching the races and reading about the races at the time (as opposed to looking at wikipedia - i think first hand recollection is important here) I know that there were no massive peaks in performance

I know when these were and they were as the dates given.

What proof do you have of it causing miracles in elite pro-cycling pre 91?

point taken.
fact remains, there is no evidence for, and some evidence against, the claim that [pre-1991 = pre-epo], which is what matters most i think.

Having watched cycling in these days how can you say there is no evidence for the claim that pre-1991 is pre-EPO? It is not like we are saying nobody was or could have been on EPO before '91, just that EPO-use was not endemic and therefore by default sporadic in the peloton (there was ome talk of some miracle drugs) and that perhaps people hadn't mastered EPO-use yet to the extent that the did post-'91 when we had for example the infamous Gewiss-train at La Flèche Wallon (in 1993 I think).

Gewiss was 94 but it was amazing the very obvious trend in the rise of Italian cyclists in the 90s.

In the late 80s, there were 13-14 Italian teams kicking around but only 2 took part in the 88/89 Tours. By 1994 there were 8 Italian teams in the Tour and in 1996, half the Tour field was made up of Italian teams including the likes of Scrigno who had been the tin-pot team of Bruno Reveberi.

The 1989 Giro was one of the most international fields ever with half the field coming from abroad. By 1997 only 2 non Italian teams were taking part in the Giro. The race had changed from being regarded as relatively easy in the 80s to being too tough in the 90s.

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

worth looking again at this article:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488551.html
Notably, it's from 10 June 1991.

- EPO is called a miracle drug by doctors and coaches. So yes, it had already proven itself to be just that in the years prior to the 10th of June 1991.
- Says the ""clinical trial stage" of epo started in the US in 1986. The drug had been developed in the early 80s.
- Says it helps increase the red blood cell count "within hours"
- Says it's officially only prescribed to people with damage to both kidneys (indeed, like Lemond in 87 after the shooting incident)
- links the deaths of several cyclists to EPO abuse, but also notes that the drug is "not dangerous when applied appropriately"
- a doctor is on the record claiming cycling is ahead of other sports in terms of epo.
- "Karriere macht die Droge derzeit vor allem in Westeuropa und in den USA." (transl: the drug is currently particularly prevalent in West Europe and USA), i.e. prevalent among countries that have the ressources to afford it.

First: clinical trials are very tightly controlled. Nobody is going to get their hands on EPO while it's in the clinical trial phase. If they did, doctors would quickly lose their license and pharmaceutical execs would be getting calls from the FDA.

Second: Google scholar is your friend. According to this article in the International Journal of Sport Medicine (1993) http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/7691771 EPO did not become commercially available until 1988. Repeat - 1988. Nobody in the peloton was using it until then. Full stop. Between then and 1993 it became common enough that the above article was published.

Third: Greg Lemond never entered late stage kidney failure and would never have been prescribed EPO. He had anemia and it was treated with iron shots. In front of a journalist. If both kidneys were borked, he'd have a range of other, very serious symptoms.

John Swanson

Edit: I forgot my fourth point: It takes seven days to go from stem cell in the marrow to mature blood cell capable of oxygen transport. Not hours. No way it's hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_blood_cell

...I can say from personal experience that trying to use the bolded assertion as a blanket statement is absolute utter nonsense, rubbish....full stop...

...and as for pharmaceutical execs getting calls from the FDA...well , hate to break this to you because they get lots of calls from the FDA, and they have paid billions for the market results of the cheating they have undertaken with their clinical trials....that crew would sell their first born if they thought that would positively affect stock prices....

...yeah in theory clinical trials should be run ethically, with good book keeping, and oversight....but they aren't...in fact that business has become such a cesspool of scandal that has led to the death of thousands and thousands and thousands of people that if there were a gawd in heaven that industry would fill several prisons ....and if you think some pharmaceutical exec would ignore the huge money that exists in the PED market I have a bridge to sell you because you are talking like a very likely candidate...

...read, if its available in clinical trials, its available to anybody with either enough cash or pull ....and in the case of EPO can you guess who the pharmaceutical exec was who was ultimately in control of the EPO tap, who incidentally won some World Championships in 89, and who was a player in the teams associated with this forum's favourite cyclist ...hint, his name starts with W....

Cheers

 

[pmcg76]

Re: Re:

worth looking again at this article:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488551.html
Notably, it's from 10 June 1991.

- EPO is called a miracle drug by doctors and coaches. So yes, it had already proven itself to be just that in the years prior to the 10th of June 1991.
- Says the ""clinical trial stage" of epo started in the US in 1986. The drug had been developed in the early 80s.
- Says it helps increase the red blood cell count "within hours"
- Says it's officially only prescribed to people with damage to both kidneys (indeed, like Lemond in 87 after the shooting incident)
- links the deaths of several cyclists to EPO abuse, but also notes that the drug is "not dangerous when applied appropriately"
- a doctor is on the record claiming cycling is ahead of other sports in terms of epo.
- "Karriere macht die Droge derzeit vor allem in Westeuropa und in den USA." (transl: the drug is currently particularly prevalent in West Europe and USA), i.e. prevalent among countries that have the ressources to afford it.

First: clinical trials are very tightly controlled. Nobody is going to get their hands on EPO while it's in the clinical trial phase. If they did, doctors would quickly lose their license and pharmaceutical execs would be getting calls from the FDA.

Second: Google scholar is your friend. According to this article in the International Journal of Sport Medicine (1993) http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/7691771 EPO did not become commercially available until 1988. Repeat - 1988. Nobody in the peloton was using it until then. Full stop. Between then and 1993 it became common enough that the above article was published.

Third: Greg Lemond never entered late stage kidney failure and would never have been prescribed EPO. He had anemia and it was treated with iron shots. In front of a journalist. If both kidneys were borked, he'd have a range of other, very serious symptoms.

John Swanson

Edit: I forgot my fourth point: It takes seven days to go from stem cell in the marrow to mature blood cell capable of oxygen transport. Not hours. No way it's hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_blood_cell

...I can say from personal experience that trying to use the bolded assertion as a blanket statement is absolute utter nonsense, rubbish....full stop...

...and as for pharmaceutical execs getting calls from the FDA...well , hate to break this to you because they get lots of calls from the FDA, and they have paid billions for the market results of the cheating they have undertaken with their clinical trials....that crew would sell their first born if they thought that would positively affect stock prices....

...yeah in theory clinical trials should be run ethically, with good book keeping, and oversight....but they aren't...in fact that business has become such a cesspool of scandal that has led to the death of thousands and thousands and thousands of people that if there were a gawd in heaven that industry would fill several prisons ....and if you think some pharmaceutical exec would ignore the huge money that exists in the PED market I have a bridge to sell you because you are talking like a very likely candidate...

...read, if its available in clinical trials, its available to anybody with either enough cash or pull ....and in the case of EPO can you guess who the pharmaceutical exec was who was ultimately in control of the EPO tap, who incidentally won some World Championships in 89, and who was a player in the teams associated with this forum's favourite cyclist ...hint, his name starts with W....

Cheers

If the answer is Wiesel, then the next obvious question would be why were US Postal not on a team EPO program in 95-96 when they first went to Europe to compete.

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

worth looking again at this article:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13488551.html
Notably, it's from 10 June 1991.

- EPO is called a miracle drug by doctors and coaches. So yes, it had already proven itself to be just that in the years prior to the 10th of June 1991.
- Says the ""clinical trial stage" of epo started in the US in 1986. The drug had been developed in the early 80s.
- Says it helps increase the red blood cell count "within hours"
- Says it's officially only prescribed to people with damage to both kidneys (indeed, like Lemond in 87 after the shooting incident)
- links the deaths of several cyclists to EPO abuse, but also notes that the drug is "not dangerous when applied appropriately"
- a doctor is on the record claiming cycling is ahead of other sports in terms of epo.
- "Karriere macht die Droge derzeit vor allem in Westeuropa und in den USA." (transl: the drug is currently particularly prevalent in West Europe and USA), i.e. prevalent among countries that have the ressources to afford it.

First: clinical trials are very tightly controlled. Nobody is going to get their hands on EPO while it's in the clinical trial phase. If they did, doctors would quickly lose their license and pharmaceutical execs would be getting calls from the FDA.

Second: Google scholar is your friend. According to this article in the International Journal of Sport Medicine (1993) http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/7691771 EPO did not become commercially available until 1988. Repeat - 1988. Nobody in the peloton was using it until then. Full stop. Between then and 1993 it became common enough that the above article was published.

Third: Greg Lemond never entered late stage kidney failure and would never have been prescribed EPO. He had anemia and it was treated with iron shots. In front of a journalist. If both kidneys were borked, he'd have a range of other, very serious symptoms.

John Swanson

Edit: I forgot my fourth point: It takes seven days to go from stem cell in the marrow to mature blood cell capable of oxygen transport. Not hours. No way it's hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_blood_cell

...I can say from personal experience that trying to use the bolded assertion as a blanket statement is absolute utter nonsense, rubbish....full stop...

...and as for pharmaceutical execs getting calls from the FDA...well , hate to break this to you because they get lots of calls from the FDA, and they have paid billions for the market results of the cheating they have undertaken with their clinical trials....that crew would sell their first born if they thought that would positively affect stock prices....

...yeah in theory clinical trials should be run ethically, with good book keeping, and oversight....but they aren't...in fact that business has become such a cesspool of scandal that has led to the death of thousands and thousands and thousands of people that if there were a gawd in heaven that industry would fill several prisons ....and if you think some pharmaceutical exec would ignore the huge money that exists in the PED market I have a bridge to sell you because you are talking like a very likely candidate...

...read, if its available in clinical trials, its available to anybody with either enough cash or pull ....and in the case of EPO can you guess who the pharmaceutical exec was who was ultimately in control of the EPO tap, who incidentally won some World Championships in 89, and who was a player in the teams associated with this forum's favourite cyclist ...hint, his name starts with W....

Cheers

If the answer is Wiesel, then the next obvious question would be why were US Postal not on a team EPO program in 95-96 when they first went to Europe to compete.

...good question and am afraid I have no answer for it....

Cheers