LeMond III

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

So, again, what's your view on the use of transfusions (or lack thereof) in GTs in the 80s?

My views are clear in the articles.

this is just nitpicking.

Nitpicking? To point out that the stupidity of the idea that A was not illegal therefore everybody should be questioned as to whether they were doing it or not? Honey, that's not nitpicking.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
Nitpicking? ... Honey, that's not nitpicking.

call it what you like, cupcake.

To point out that the stupidity of the idea that A was not illegal therefore everybody should be questioned as to whether they were doing it or not?

Lemond isn't "everybody". I really have to spell that out for you?

Repeat from previous post (I added it in late, so you may have missed it):

sniper: The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.). Lemond had a winners mentality. The pressure was on him from the day he became a pro. Transfusions weren't banned. So yes, it's fair to ask: why wouldn't Lemond be using transfusions?

Again, if you have the idea transfusions were rare in procycling in the 80s, share the idea with us.

fmkrol: My views are clear in the articles.

lame.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.).

Given the manner in which the LA84 transfusions were mishandled - riders falling ill and no separation of the red cells - one might be inclined to say that the expertise most certainly was not there in the US.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

...
Nitpicking? ... Honey, that's not nitpicking.

call it what you like. I'll stick to nitpicking.

To point out that the stupidity of the idea that A was not illegal therefore everybody should be questioned as to whether they were doing it or not?

Lemond isn't "everybody", cupcake.

Repeat from previous post (I added it in late, so you may have missed it):

sniper: The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.). Lemond had a winners mentality. The pressure was on him from the day he became a pro. Transfusions weren't banned. So yes, it's fair to ask: why wouldn't Lemond be using transfusions?

Again, if you have the idea transfusions were rare in procycling in the 80s, share the idea with us.

fmkrol: My views are clear in the articles.

lame.

sniper...whilst I am old enough to remember the contemporary accounts you may wish to acquaint yourself with Eddie Bs 'expertise' in blood doping in 1984

you wouldn't call it expertise...in fact...so shambolic was it, that if this is he best he could do for the biggest event he had been involved with, then I think we can safely put to bed the notion it was widespread and well practised in the US pre-1984

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.).

Given the manner in which the LA84 transfusions were mishandled - riders falling ill and no separation of the red cells - one might be inclined to say that the expertise most certainly was not there in the US.

well said that man....

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.).

Given the manner in which the LA84 transfusions were mishandled - riders falling ill and no separation of the red cells - one might be inclined to say that the expertise most certainly was not there in the US.

That's a fair point at face value (didn't know about the illnesses. You have a link to that?)

However..
Eddie brought US athletes to Poland to help them learn how to transfuse their own blood.
If the expertise for autologous transfusions was there in Poland in the mid/late 70s, it seems fair to assume Eddie brought the expertise with him to the States. I'd argue that the question whether, and if so how, he and Burke managed to *** it up at the Games in 84, is a different matter. Seems to me they were trying something new and (in addition to a load of medals ) it had some unexpected side effects (provided the illnesses were indeed due to badly applied transfusion techniques)

But, ok, say the expertise wasn't there in the US.
Was the expertise there in France/Europe in the early 80s?

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.).

Given the manner in which the LA84 transfusions were mishandled - riders falling ill and no separation of the red cells - one might be inclined to say that the expertise most certainly was not there in the US.

That's a fair point (didn't know about the illnesses. You have a link to that?)

But Eddie brought US athletes to Poland to help them learn how to transfuse their own blood.
If the expertise for autologous transfusions was there in Poland in the mid/late 70s, it seems fair to assume Eddie brought the expertise with him to the States. I'd argue that the question whether, and if so how, he and Burke managed to **** it up at the Games in 84, is a different matter. Seems to me they were trying something new and (in addition to the medals) it had some unexpected side effects (provided the illnesses were indeed due to badly applied transfusion techniques)

But, ok, say the expertise wasn't there in the US.
Was the expertise there in France/Europe in the early 80s?

sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

 

[Maxiton]

It seems to me LeMond was committed to playing by the rules, but also committed to going as far as the rules would allow. This is exactly what a competitor should be doing. Anything less isn't really competing.

LeMond's position is fair and ethically unassailable and fully in keeping with the spirit of sports competition. But this doesn't mean he is under any obligation to reveal all his secrets.

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.).

Given the manner in which the LA84 transfusions were mishandled - riders falling ill and no separation of the red cells - one might be inclined to say that the expertise most certainly was not there in the US.

...you know this may be just me but I always find it strange when a thought sequence ends with an absolute certainty but begins with a qualifier....when I run across stuff like that I get this feeling that someone is trying to sell me something that, frankly, I don't want to, or should, buy...

...as in...." This might be the most perfect car ever seen on a used car lot since the dawn of time."....

...so....sure, the LA job didn't go as planned, but to draw from that that required expertise "most certainly" did not exist in the US is ridiculous and has a certain level of disingenuous to it ( either intended or accidental its still ugly as it doesn't serve the truth ) ....doing that kind of procedure is not rocket surgery and had been successfully used for quite some time....so for it to be used successfully was only going to be a matter of time as long as someone was bound and determined to use it....

....the crucial point here is not that it failed but rather that it was attempted....just as initial attempts to use EPO yielded some absolutely disastrous results, those particular results did not stop a flood of EPO usage....

Cheers

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

not following.
Maybe normally address my point instead?

Fmkrol says the 84 *** up (which wasn't really a *** up) shows there was no expertise.
To that I'd say (a) it wasn't a *** up, and (b) my question/argument concerned autologous blood transfusions. It seems though that Eddie and Burke were trying something new.
So fmkrol's point, while cleverly argued, does not discard my point that the expertise for aut. blood transfusions was there, and Lemond had access to it.

@fmkrol: could you expand on your view that the 84 program was a failure?
And this question is still open:

sniper: But, ok, say the expertise wasn't there in the US.
Was the expertise there in France/Europe in the early 80s?

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

...
sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

not following.
Maybe normally address my point instead?

Fmkrol says the 84 **** up (which wasn't really a **** up) shows there was no expertise.
To that I'd say (a) it wasn't a **** up, and (b) my question/argument concerned autologous blood transfusions. It seems though that Eddie and Burke were trying something new.
So fmkrol's point, while cleverly argued, does not discard my point that the expertise for aut. blood transfusions was there, and Lemond had access to it.

your confusing expertise with expertise ;-)

anyone with a syringe, a fridge and a vein arguably had the expertise to do it...

however having the expertise to do it efficiently and to guarantee results was not there...as '84 showed it was as likely to go wrong as right...

indeed even PDM hadn't mastered it in....whenever their debacle in the TdF was

If you want 'expertise' (as in a sophisticated program) you would have to wait until post-epo and the Italians...although arguably that was there earlier through Conconi....

That's not to say other sports hadn't evolved their own set ups (e.g. skiing and athletics)

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
your confusing expertise with expertise ;-)

anyone with a syringe, a fridge and a vein arguably had the expertise to do it...

however having the expertise to do it efficiently and to guarantee results was not there...as '84 showed it was as likely to go wrong as right...

indeed even PDM hadn't mastered it in....whenever their debacle in the TdF was

If you want 'expertise' (as in a sophisticated program) you would have to wait until post-epo and the Italians...although arguably that was there earlier through Conconi....

That's not to say other sports hadn't evolved their own set ups (e.g. skiing and athletics)

that's more like it. thanks and some fair points.

One counterpoint:
PDM were clearly trying something new. As so many teams and individuals would have been trying new stuff. They all want(ed) to be ahead of the game.
So, assuming for a sec that blood transfusions were commonplace in the 70s and early 80s, at least from the mid-80s onwards we would have seen experimentation with new stuff/techniques. (Eddie B. 84?)

And so I'm still not sure (a) how much of a fiasco 84 really was and (b) what it tells us about the practice of aut. blood transfusions among US athletes in early 80s.
I'd still keep in mind the fact that Eddie took (junior) US athletes to Poland where they were taught how to autotransfuse. That's late 70s early 80s.

I don't think doing a succesful autologous blood transfusion was considered brain surgery in the US in the 80s. And again, this is Lemond we're talking about, the first procycling millionaire.
Not some amateur with limited means.

 

[sniper]

here's another question:
if you would have been found injecting EPO in 89 or 90, did the UCI have any kind of rule in place that would have covered it viz. that would have made it illegal?

 

[poupou]

Blood transfusion gives a clear increase of perfomance. Have we seen it during the 80's?

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

...
sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

not following.
Maybe normally address my point instead?

Fmkrol says the 84 **** up (which wasn't really a **** up) shows there was no expertise.
To that I'd say (a) it wasn't a **** up, and (b) my question/argument concerned autologous blood transfusions. It seems though that Eddie and Burke were trying something new.
So fmkrol's point, while cleverly argued, does not discard my point that the expertise for aut. blood transfusions was there, and Lemond had access to it.

your confusing expertise with expertise ;-)

anyone with a syringe, a fridge and a vein arguably had the expertise to do it...

however having the expertise to do it efficiently and to guarantee results was not there...as '84 showed it was as likely to go wrong as right...

indeed even PDM hadn't mastered it in....whenever their debacle in the TdF was

If you want 'expertise' (as in a sophisticated program) you would have to wait until post-epo and the Italians...although arguably that was there earlier through Conconi....

That's not to say other sports hadn't evolved their own set ups (e.g. skiing and athletics)

...different time, different continent, different drug, different application protocol....so what is your point beyond the fact that things can go wrong, all kinda of things...gee I got a flat in 83 in Canada, I heard of someone getting a flat in Norway in 93 does not constitute good evidence for a flat tire conspiracy ....

Cheers

Cheers

 

[Maxiton]

Re:

Blood transfusion gives a clear increase of perfomance. Have we seen it during the 80's?

If we saw it prior to late 1986 I'm not sure it matters, really, since it wasn't against the rules. If we saw it after 1986 it might just as easily have been EPO, which, prior to November, 1991, was also not against the rules.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

...
sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

not following.
Maybe normally address my point instead?

Fmkrol says the 84 **** up (which wasn't really a **** up) shows there was no expertise.
To that I'd say (a) it wasn't a **** up, and (b) my question/argument concerned autologous blood transfusions. It seems though that Eddie and Burke were trying something new.
So fmkrol's point, while cleverly argued, does not discard my point that the expertise for aut. blood transfusions was there, and Lemond had access to it.

your confusing expertise with expertise ;-)

anyone with a syringe, a fridge and a vein arguably had the expertise to do it...

however having the expertise to do it efficiently and to guarantee results was not there...as '84 showed it was as likely to go wrong as right...

indeed even PDM hadn't mastered it in....whenever their debacle in the TdF was

If you want 'expertise' (as in a sophisticated program) you would have to wait until post-epo and the Italians...although arguably that was there earlier through Conconi....

That's not to say other sports hadn't evolved their own set ups (e.g. skiing and athletics)

...different time, different continent, different drug, different application protocol....so what is your point beyond the fact that things can go wrong, all kinda of things...gee I got a flat in 83 in Canada, I heard of someone getting a flat in Norway in 93 does not constitute good evidence for a flat tire conspiracy ....

Cheers

Cheers

not sure I understand....

my point to sniper is that in cycling blood doping and its protocols did not appear to be sophisticated enough to support a rider at consistently world class levels season long. Eddie B, an expert for years allegedly, couldn't even manage anything other than a motel room botch job for a one off event. Try that season long across northern and southern Europe and the US. Lemond was good all season and in all types of events. I can buy it for athletics where focus is on individual races or in cycling for the hour record...but for Lemond, pre-shooting...no

 

[HelmutRoole]

Re: Re:

...
sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

not following.
Maybe normally address my point instead?

Fmkrol says the 84 **** up (which wasn't really a **** up) shows there was no expertise.
To that I'd say (a) it wasn't a **** up, and (b) my question/argument concerned autologous blood transfusions. It seems though that Eddie and Burke were trying something new.
So fmkrol's point, while cleverly argued, does not discard my point that the expertise for aut. blood transfusions was there, and Lemond had access to it.

your confusing expertise with expertise ;-)

anyone with a syringe, a fridge and a vein arguably had the expertise to do it...

however having the expertise to do it efficiently and to guarantee results was not there...as '84 showed it was as likely to go wrong as right...

indeed even PDM hadn't mastered it in....whenever their debacle in the TdF was

If you want 'expertise' (as in a sophisticated program) you would have to wait until post-epo and the Italians...although arguably that was there earlier through Conconi....

That's not to say other sports hadn't evolved their own set ups (e.g. skiing and athletics)

...different time, different continent, different drug, different application protocol....so what is your point beyond the fact that things can go wrong, all kinda of things...gee I got a flat in 83 in Canada, I heard of someone getting a flat in Norway in 93 does not constitute good evidence for a flat tire conspiracy ....

Cheers

Cheers

not sure I understand....

my point to sniper is that in cycling blood doping and its protocols did not appear to be sophisticated enough to support a rider at consistently world class levels season long. Eddie B, an expert for years allegedly, couldn't even manage anything other than a motel room botch job for a one off event...

He couldn't have gotten much more right than he did at '84 Olympics, right?

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...He couldn't have gotten much more right than he did at '84 Olympics, right?

me too, to be honest, I don't understand where the notion comes from that Eddie's 1984 program was a *** up.

Look at the cycling medals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_at_the_1984_Summer_Olympics

 

[HelmutRoole]

Re: Re:

...He couldn't have gotten much more right than he did at '84 Olympics, right?

this.

me too I don't understand where the notion comes from that Eddie's 1984 program was a **** up.

Look at the cycling medals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_at_the_1984_Summer_Olympics

Lasse Virén got it right in '72. And again in '76. it ain't rocket science.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: LeMond

jesus..it's like pulling teeth

so for the avoidance of doubt here's where we are

Blood doping was possible from, lets say, 1972

Everyone therefore must have been, until proven otherwise, been blood doping since 1972

Good work guys, fine detectives you'd make

you would actually be looking for the dudes credence tapes

 

[sniper]

Re:

It seems to me LeMond was committed to playing by the rules, but also committed to going as far as the rules would allow. This is exactly what a competitor should be doing. Anything less isn't really competing.

LeMond's position is fair and ethically unassailable and fully in keeping with the spirit of sports competition. But this doesn't mean he is under any obligation to reveal all his secrets.

good post and thoughts.

Otoh, if Lemond was blooddoping pre-86, it's difficult to fathom he'd drop the procedure post-1986.
It's (imo) not how doping and dopers work. If program X worked for you, you don't just drop it. Well, Hesjedal and the 6-monthers did, but apart from them...
Even if the real physical effects of a given method/product would be limited, there's still the placebo effects to benefit from.
Also, while transfusions were banned in 85/86, they were still a looong way from being able to detect it.
It reminds me a bit of the AICAR discussion wrt Wiggins 2009. Aicar wasn't banned in 2009, but I don't think it's farfetched to speculate that (a) Wiggins was doing other illegal stuff in 2009, not just AICAR and (b) Wiggins continued to use AICAR even after it got banned in 2011.

And I don't see any a priori reason to believe ethics (i.e. it being banned) played any role in Lemond's decision making. Ethics haven't played a role in the decision making of any of cycling's greats. I haven't seen too many reasons to believe Lemond would be different.
Which brings me to Lemond's PDM conflict and his whistleblowing on the use of testosterone.
I admit that that whistleblowing act should not be taken lightly.
I'd like to discuss that episode. For instance, I wonder why, if he did that out of ethical considerations, why he didn't spill on ADR. There's no denying that he knew what was going on there.
Which brings me back to esafosfina who rode for ADR in 1989. In here he's mentioned that Vanmol would sent around postpackages which included banned substances.
So why spill on PDM but not on ADR?

 

[sniper]

Re: LeMond

jesus..it's like pulling teeth

so for the avoidance of doubt here's where we are

Blood doping was possible from, lets say, 1972

Everyone therefore must have been, until proven otherwise, been blood doping since 1972

Good work guys, fine detectives you'd make

you would actually be looking for the dudes credence tapes

for the record, are you now dropping the "84 was a *** up" argument?

Everyone therefore must have been, until proven otherwise, been blood doping since 1972

For the n-th time, we're talking Lemond. Not 'everybody'.
Like pulling teeth indeed.

Compare it to aicar. AICAR is not something everybody can afford. So it's unlikely to be widespread at present. Is it therefore unlikely that Wiggins and Froome are on it?
Or take difficult-to-detect motorization. Again, unlikely to be widespread. Does that make the evidence for Cancellara less compelling?

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

Re: Re:

The expertise was there in the US, and Lemond was in contact with people who had the expertise (Borysewicz a.o.).

Given the manner in which the LA84 transfusions were mishandled - riders falling ill and no separation of the red cells - one might be inclined to say that the expertise most certainly was not there in the US.

That's a fair point (didn't know about the illnesses. You have a link to that?)

But Eddie brought US athletes to Poland to help them learn how to transfuse their own blood.
If the expertise for autologous transfusions was there in Poland in the mid/late 70s, it seems fair to assume Eddie brought the expertise with him to the States. I'd argue that the question whether, and if so how, he and Burke managed to **** it up at the Games in 84, is a different matter. Seems to me they were trying something new and (in addition to the medals) it had some unexpected side effects (provided the illnesses were indeed due to badly applied transfusion techniques)

But, ok, say the expertise wasn't there in the US.
Was the expertise there in France/Europe in the early 80s?

sniper...you are looking for evidence to back your theory

try it the other way round...

I was going to say that. I'm afraid this way of investigating gives way too much credit to rumours.

As for the Polish supposed "expertise" regarding blood doping... I don't know about Poland but since the fall of the Berlin wall we've had access to what east germans were doing. I think it's safe to presume their ethics were comparable. What east germans were doing had more to do with hormones : growth hormones (I believe they could not be detected at the time) and having female athletes go pregnant (often raped by their male coaches) so that they produced more hormones. Looked more like a bunch of wannabe Mengueles rather than doping experts. Take note that, in most cases (except said rapes, of course), athletes had no idea what they were given and could not refuse. I don't think all westerners would have agreed to such treatments.

I also have to ask : if Poland had so much "expertise" on the matter, how come they didn't come to pass as a dominant country for the olympics, at the very least ?

Also, I think that, by now, we would have known if blood doping was widespread in the 80's. Just as we know about amphetamines, hormones, EPO, motor doping... It does always come out somehow. Even the LA '84 story.

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

Edit : Sniper, just read your last posts. Just one thing : even if it's a minority of people, some individuals care about and live by ethics. Corruption works very well but it's not for everybody. You said Greg wasn't just "everybody". Well, maybe he was different from the bunch from that perspective too.

Do you remember when I asked if you dared ask Greg those questions ? My comment was lazy and out of line but I think the idea I had in the back of my mind is this : go to any of the riders we talked about : Froome, Cancellara, Wiggins, Indurain... And ask them. They will dismiss you or give you the politically correct answer. Ask Greg : he will sit down and talk with you. This I'm sure of.