LeMond III

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Fearless Greg Lemond: He also cried when 'notorious' 'doping doc' Bellocq died. Do better.

to be precise, Lemond said this when Bellocq died:

"I am devastated. He was a very kind man and we still saw him in Rome at the start of the week on the rest day of the Giro." (L'Equipe 07/06/1993)

http://www.cyclisme-dopage.com/portraits/bellocq.htm

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

...Lemond had only one kidney before he got shot.
According to the reports, the shooting damaged his kidney, so it seems fair to assume it was the remaining kidney that got damaged. Correct me if wrong ...

Gladly.

You are wrong. On multiple counts. Greg had two kidneys, and still does. One of them is only minimally functional.

EPO is not a treatment for kidney damage, it is a treatment for anemia. We have a bounty of kidney function such that even a mere single kidney need not be fully functional to sustain a normal life. Without knowing the extent of trauma to the affected kidney(s), there is no factual basis for ASSuMEing anything regarding whether EPO might have been even remotely beneficial, much less that it would have been the recommended course of treatment.

We do not know how many kidneys were involved, nor by how many pellets. But we know at least one pellet (possibly the only one that struck a kidney) remained lodged in a kidney because it was excreted by the same mechanism as a kidney stone normally is. Greg pissed it out. That it remained lodged in the kidney indicates that that particular pellet only would have created a single "entrance" puncture and no second "exit wound" to the involved kidney. That it managed to excrete a lead pellet also indicates that that particular kidney was performing rather as designed.

The shot in question was #2 bird shot, which is a bit less than 4mm in diameter, smaller than a BB. Owing to the small size of the projectile(s) and the relatively low velocity of a shotgun's pellets, the wound track probably was virtually indistinguishable from an ice pick stab wound, a rather straight and narrow channel with negligible peripheral damage apart from the crushing injury to tissues directly contacted by the pellet(s) as it/they transited the kidney(s) or liver.

That such a relatively small penetration trauma does not necessarily pose any substantial degree of risk, either to organ function or to patient life, is evidenced by the fact that doctors routinely perform (percutaneous) renal biopsies by inserting a needle through the skin and into the kidney to excise a small bit of tissue for lab analysis. This procedure also commonly requires numerous punctures, each creating its own separate wound in the kidney (which are left untreated), to collect sufficient tissue. And these sometimes can be performed as "outpatient" procedures, not requiring the patient remain in hospital after.

Greg's trauma surgeon (Dr. Sandy Beal) remarked at the time that he only made repairs to the intestines and the diaphragm, which indicates that he regarded the trauma to the liver and kidney(s) as so minor that his attempts to repair them would have been the source of even greater damage than the shooting itself. A point Dr. Beal himself further punctuated when he stated the chief threat to Greg was risk of infection stemming from the perforated intestines.

So even IF the healthy kidney had been struck, that still is not in any way an indication that its function might have been so impaired as to require ANY additional medical intervention, particularly in light of the fact that he necessarily would have remained bedridden for some several days while recovering from the laparotomy and pneumothorax (the latter also limiting him to intravenous feeding). And if the one pellet that Greg excreted in his urine was the only one which impacted a kidney, its single entry wound would not have been any more traumatic than the several *** from a biopsy needle.

Ignorance portrayed as proof, or at least as reasonable doubt, when it is in fact is neither.


There is exactly as much credible evidence that Lemond fired the shot from the grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza as there is he ever used PEDs.

If perchance I have overlooked Greg somewhere in this snap, don't hesitate to point him out.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

to get back to this for a sec:

...
I'm trying to follow this. Lemond won the Tour in 86, EPO came into the peleton in 92, or thereabouts. How then, if EPO was available before, did he have such a hard time beating Fignon and Chiappucci in 89, 90? Had he been on Epo, would he have not destroyed them? Or was everyone already on Epo?

He said this about 1989:

...my career, and what I did before I got shot … it was sub-par performance, or what I’d consider sub-par, against [Laurent] Fignon in 1989. If I’d had the same fitness in 1989 as I’d had before I got shot, I believe, with that condition, I would have been minutes ahead of him.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/09/news/storm-exclusive-interview-greg-lemond_347148#2lxDl3qoxk3tymhq.99

more from that interview:

VN: The timing of your comeback from the hunting accident coincided with the beginning of the EPO era.
GL: Yeah, but I’m glad I was able to come back. I could be dead. But 1986 was my best year. 1985 and 1986 were my best years, by far. I was able to handle the load. It wasn’t like you were handed your calendar, so you had 100 days of racing … I believe that, at age 18, I was physically as good as I was as a pro.

evading the question much?

 

[sniper]

Apparently Max (Massimiliano) Testa has said Lemond's carreer nose-dived because he'd taken too much drugs.
Much in the same vein as that triathlon/cycling doctor that Nick777 spoke about.

From the interview linked above:

Asked, on follow-up, for further clarification of the claim that Max Testa, who now serves as a team doctor at BMC Racing, had told Cees Beers in 1994 that LeMond had taken drugs, LeMond sent the following response via email:

"In 1994 Cees Beers contacted Massimo Testa to see if he might have some insight to what was going on. Massimo supposedly cut to the chase with Cees and told him that I was finished and cooked because I took so many drugs in my career, especially after my comeback in 1989. Cees was shocked and told Massimo that I was not taking drugs and that there was something else going on. It never went further than that.”

http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/09/news/storm-exclusive-interview-greg-lemond_347148#2lxDl3qoxk3tymhq.99

 

[kwikki]

In answer to your previous post. It depends on what the interviewer meant. Was he inferring that Lemond's comeback was helped or hindered by epo coming into the peloton. If it is the former, then Lemond is evading. If it is the latter then he isn't.

Take your pick.

 

[sniper]

Re:

In answer to your previous post. It depends on what the interviewer meant. Was he inferring that Lemond's comeback was helped or hindered by epo coming into the peloton. If it is the former, then Lemond is evading. If it is the latter then he isn't.

yes, hence my question mark.
anyway, moved on from that already (see post above).

 

[sniper]

Lemond on Van Diemen:

Adrie Van Diemen, whom I consider one of the best physiologists in the world. In 1993 ... I hired Adrie as a full time trainer in August of 1993. http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/09/news/storm-exclusive-interview-greg-lemond_347148#2lxDl3qoxk3tymhq.99

Van Diemen? Was exercise physiologist for Rabo during the Leinders era.
Then worked for Garmin when Wiggins, VDV and Hesjedal had their peak performances.
About Garmin he said:

I enjoy the open mindset of this team. Maybe I make a blunder sometimes, so that the team has to go home sick, because I adminstered something stupid without checking the details. But hey, that's simply the risk of experimenting a lot.
http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4508/Sport/article/detail/1305580/2008/07/12/De-foefjes-van-Adrie-van-Diemen.dhtml

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

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.

Well that is interesting, and it shows that you have missed an important point about Lemond's attitude to doping.

He wasn't going to waste time on the past. His motivation was cleaning up the present.

Understand now?

He was not that forward thinking after Armstrong retired and became part of the past, was he? He was and still is focused on that past. It is very convenient that his focus does not extend back to his own generation.

Again. This is a man who has spent thirty years telling everyone he was robbed of winning the 1985 Tour. The 1980s were drenched in dope. All his rivals doped. They stole wins from him. Yet he, an incessant whinger if there ever was one in cycling, has never complained. Not once. Explain that. Explain how a man who for decades has carried a grudge about missing out on a win because of legitimate team orders never mentions races that were taken from him by illegitimate doping.

Explain why a man, who for an inexplicable reason you think has consistent views of doping, relies on second hand information from an era he did not race in for his examples of doping and clean athletes losing opportunities instead of relying on examples from his own era where he could provide first hand experience.

There is only one explanation that makes sense, and it does not feature LeMond as the one clean Tour winner in history

It's a rather good set of observations on LeMond. The "shift" came when Trek started to grow under the Armstrong train and that Armstrong was going to win a fourth Tour. Then all of sudden LeMond became "anti-doping".

 

[kwikki]

Lemond cannot have avoided working with people connected with doping in some way. Not saying Van Dieman was or wasn't, but I'm not sure that making those sorts of links will get us anywhere because as I said already, it is a fact that LeMond will have worked with people connected to doping.

Whether you can find some evidence to suggest he availed himself of the doping side of their expertise is the question. As you know, for me the jury is still out on that.

 

[DamianoMachiavelli]

Re:

Apparently Max (Massimiliano) Testa has said Lemond's carreer nose-dived because he'd taken too much drugs.
Much in the same vein as that triathlon/cycling doctor that Nick777 spoke about.

From the interview linked above:

Asked, on follow-up, for further clarification of the claim that Max Testa, who now serves as a team doctor at BMC Racing, had told Cees Beers in 1994 that LeMond had taken drugs, LeMond sent the following response via email:

"In 1994 Cees Beers contacted Massimo Testa to see if he might have some insight to what was going on. Massimo supposedly cut to the chase with Cees and told him that I was finished and cooked because I took so many drugs in my career, especially after my comeback in 1989. Cees was shocked and told Massimo that I was not taking drugs and that there was something else going on. It never went further than that.”

http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/09/news/storm-exclusive-interview-greg-lemond_347148#2lxDl3qoxk3tymhq.99

So it is not just riders from Lance's and Floyd's time, a decade after LeMond had retired, who talked about LeMond's drug use. Contemporary dope doctors knew about it. This appears to be one of cycling's many open secrets that everyone in and around the peloton knows but the public has been sold a bill of goods. No wonder LeMond refuses to talk about the doping of his teammates and rivals. Living in a house with that much glass, he is probably afraid to sneeze to hard.

I think LeMond put it well.

'I always say that if people don't want to share stuff, they've got something to hide,' said LeMond.

 

[Maxiton]

Re: Re:

Apparently Max (Massimiliano) Testa has said Lemond's carreer nose-dived because he'd taken too much drugs.
Much in the same vein as that triathlon/cycling doctor that Nick777 spoke about.

From the interview linked above:

Asked, on follow-up, for further clarification of the claim that Max Testa, who now serves as a team doctor at BMC Racing, had told Cees Beers in 1994 that LeMond had taken drugs, LeMond sent the following response via email:

"In 1994 Cees Beers contacted Massimo Testa to see if he might have some insight to what was going on. Massimo supposedly cut to the chase with Cees and told him that I was finished and cooked because I took so many drugs in my career, especially after my comeback in 1989. Cees was shocked and told Massimo that I was not taking drugs and that there was something else going on. It never went further than that.”

http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/09/news/storm-exclusive-interview-greg-lemond_347148#2lxDl3qoxk3tymhq.99

So it is not just riders from Lance's and Floyd's time, a decade after LeMond had retired, who talked about LeMond's drug use. Contemporary dope doctors knew about it. This appears to be one of cycling's many open secrets that everyone in and around the peloton knows but the public has been sold a bill of goods. No wonder LeMond refuses to talk about the doping of his teammates and rivals. Living in a house with that much glass, he is probably afraid to sneeze to hard.

I think LeMond put it well.

'I always say that if people don't want to share stuff, they've got something to hide,' said LeMond.

Reminds me of the epigram that other anti-doping crusader and champion of LeMond, Race Radio, had (or has) on his Twitter account:

Professional cycling is like sausage, I love it but don't want to know how it's made.

"Don't want to know how it's made" . . . . So much for anti-doping.

I like Max Testa. He headed up a very advanced sports physiology and medicine program in San Francisco for a while, but by the time I found out about it he'd just left for greener pastures. Right now, if I'm not mistaken, he's in business with his former protege, Olympic speedskater Eric Heiden, who got a medical degree after his Olympic career was over. They wrote a book together, Faster, Better, Stronger: Your Exercise Bible for a Leaner, Healthier Body, which is actually quite a good book (in the edition I bought, at least) that I can recommend.

So I wonder why he would say that about LeMond and why no one has ever followed up on it?

 

[kwikki]

A sports physiologist called Max Testa?

Is that a bit like Porno star Max Hardcore?

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
I like Max Testa. He headed up a very advanced sports physiology and medicine program in San Francisco for a while, but by the time I found out about it he'd just left for greener pastures. Right now, if I'm not mistaken, he's in business with his former protege, Olympic speedskater Eric Heiden, who got a medical degree after his Olympic career was over. They wrote a book together, Faster, Better, Stronger: Your Exercise Bible for a Leaner, Healthier Body, which is actually quite a good book (in the edition I bought, at least) that I can recommend.

So I wonder why he would say that about LeMond and why no one has ever followed up on it?

why indeed.
Max Testa was also Andy Hampsten's doctor and coach his entire carreer, so Max would be in the know.

 

[blutto]

Re:

A sports physiologist called Max Testa?

Is that a bit like Porno star Max Hardcore?

...okie dokie...

Cheers

 

[Maxiton]

Re:

A sports physiologist called Max Testa?

Is that a bit like Porno star Max Hardcore?

Maybe before he got his degree he visited a site like this one.

 

[GJB123]

Max Testa working with Eric Heiden. That will have sniper excited.

 

[Stingray34]

Re: LeMond

Arguing about Lemond like this is a bit futile. But, in other news, a team of Macaque monkeys have just written the sequel to Tolstoy's War and Peace. Apparently, it's pretty good.

I guess if we all keep at it, we may reach a satisfactory conclusion.

1989: it was the best of years, it was the worst of years. There was this ace American bike rider who...

 

[Maxiton]

Re: LeMond

Arguing about Lemond like this is a bit futile. But, in other news, a team of Macaque monkeys have just written the sequel to Tolstoy's War and Peace. Apparently, it's pretty good.

I guess if we all keep at it, we may reach a satisfactory conclusion.

1989: it was the best of years, it was the worst of years. There was this ace American bike rider who...

I like it, but can't resist pointing out that it would have more euphony if it went:

A Tale of Two Bike Riders

1989: it was the best of years, it was the worst of years. There was a clean bike rider, there was a dirty bike rider . . . .

 

[sniper]

Re:

Max Testa working with Eric Heiden. That will have sniper excited.

i find this much, much more interesting:

Hampsten: ... I had the same doctor who was my trainer, Max Testa, my entire career
http://nyvelocity.com/articles/interviews/andy-hampsten-interview/

So again, why would Max say Lemond used too much drugs?

 

[Maxiton]

So, it turns out Max Testa has his own thread in the Clinic, circa 2012:

The Massimo (Max) Testa Thread

I'm doing more research on the esteemed doctor right now, but that should get us started.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Re:

So, it turns out Max Testa has his own thread in the Clinic, circa 2012:

The Massimo (Max) Testa Thread

I'm doing more research on the esteemed doctor right now, but that should get us started.

Dont want to be an A hole but if you need to do research on Testa you are lightyears behind....

 

[Maxiton]

Re: Re:

So, it turns out Max Testa has his own thread in the Clinic, circa 2012:

The Massimo (Max) Testa Thread

I'm doing more research on the esteemed doctor right now, but that should get us started.

Dont want to be an A hole but if you need to do research on Testa you are lightyears behind....

Great, maybe you can save us some time, then, and supply the quotes, timelines, and specific references I'm looking for. Otherwise, your post is pointless.

And I am well aware, lest anyone think otherwise, that Testa has a long history in cycling, and is as dodgy as any other cycling doc. I was here when his thread was created (though I had forgotten about it), and knew about him before then, as I was using his book circa 2009. However, the bit where he says LeMond had to retire because of all the drugs he took is new to me; hence the excitement and the desire to dig up more details.

 

[thehog]

Re: LeMond

Arguing about Lemond like this is a bit futile. But, in other news, a team of Macaque monkeys have just written the sequel to Tolstoy's War and Peace. Apparently, it's pretty good.

I guess if we all keep at it, we may reach a satisfactory conclusion.

1989: it was the best of years, it was the worst of years. There was this ace American bike rider who...

The 1989 Tour was fun to watch. Fairly ad hoc racing going on, no one had a strong enough team. Of course Pedro would have won if he wasn't warming up like a Sky rider pre prologue.

 

[Elagabalus]

Re: LeMond

exactemundo.
and thanks for the bold face, because that (at least for me, and I think for some others), has always been the central underlying question: why does Lemond get the benefit of the doubt when so many others (for whom there is similarly little, or even less, evidence) do not. (Evans, Cancellara, Wiggins, Sastre, Yates, Sutton, you name them)

This is pretty simple, yet still overlooked in this thread on a daily basis:
All things equal (so disregarding all context and evidence with particular regard to Lemond), the null hypothesis, based on the history of cycling, should be that Lemond, like all those before and after him, doped to win the tdf. Like in other branches of science and reasonable debate, the null hypothesis determines where the burden of proof/evidence lies.

And so it's fair to say that Gillian (and others) are turning the tables when they ridiculize the evidence of Lemond doping, forgetting that the burden of proof, at least from a common sense cycling-historical perspective (which prevails in all Clinic threads except the Lemond thread), really lies with them, i.e. with those who claim Lemond was clean (as that hypothesis goes against the null hypothesis)...
)

I was going to mention this the other day but I was having way too much fun.

It's your claim. It's your burden of proof. It's that simple.

So convince us. You know, with evidence supporting your claims. Like Walsh did in "From Lance to Landis"(before he went over to the dark side).

Over to you, Sniper ...

 

[Starstruck]

it would be truly amazing if LeMond was 100% clean. I don't know either way but I highly doubt it. I don't think it's possible to be 100% clean then or now or ever in cycling. The culture just isn't about that at all. People believe what they want to believe though...particularly in the land of apple pie where anything is possible and the majority of the population believes angels are real.