LeMond III

[Benotti69]

Re:

Of course Armstrong went after Lemond's business.

yes he did, but only after, IIRC, the famous "greatest comeback or greatest fraud" quote......which put LeMond in front of trek/armstrong's dollar making train.

 

[kwikki]

Yes, but that was Lemond's first publicised expression of scepticism, IIRC.

Armstrong's reaction was to phone Greg, accuse him of EPO use himself, then Greg started receiving calls from Trek etc saying that his comments were harming their business, and making good veiled threats to harm Lemond Inc. Do we think Armstrong had a hand in this?

I do.

 

[Maxiton]

Re:

But let's be clear. LeMond didn't go after Armstrong because Armstrong threatened his business.

Armstrong went after Lemond, because LeMond threatened his business.

Only one of them was telling the truth and only one of them had nothing to gain personally from their actions. Sure, LeMond rolled over for a while, but not for long.

Why would Lemond go after Hinault et al? There is no point. They were no longer riding. It would be utterly blinkered to pretend that Lemond WASNT the major catalyst behind Armstrong's eventual exposure. Sure, Walsh helped, Kimmage went out of his way to help, but it was Lemond that lined up the ball for Landis to boot into the back of the net.

Agreed. And if it turned out that LeMond was behind Walsh and Pierre Ballester, or that they were working at his behest, would it surprise anyone?

Ultimately, though, it took Armstrong to expose Armstrong. All the LeMonds and Walshes and Betsys et al. in the world couldn't have touched Armstrong if A) he hadn't dissed Landis, and B) hadn't made a needless, utterly gratuitous comeback. Move on with his life away from competing at the Tour, and arrange for Landis to get on a team, any team: LA would still be flying high.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

But let's be clear. LeMond didn't go after Armstrong because Armstrong threatened his business.

Armstrong went after Lemond, because LeMond threatened his business.

Only one of them was telling the truth and only one of them had nothing to gain personally from their actions. Sure, LeMond rolled over for a while, but not for long.

Why would Lemond go after Hinault et al? There is no point. They were no longer riding. It would be utterly blinkered to pretend that Lemond WASNT the major catalyst behind Armstrong's eventual exposure. Sure, Walsh helped, Kimmage went out of his way to help, but it was Lemond that lined up the ball for Landis to boot into the back of the net.

Agreed. And if it turned out that LeMond was behind Walsh and Pierre Ballester, or that they were working at his behest, would it surprise anyone?

Ultimately, though, it took Armstrong to expose Armstrong. All the LeMonds and Walshes and Betsys et al. in the world couldn't have touched Armstrong if A) he hadn't dissed Landis, and B) hadn't made a needless, utterly gratuitous comeback. Arrange for Landis to get on a team, any team, and move on with his life away from competing at the Tour: he'd still be flying high.

That is the way it usually works. Eventually they do something to get caught. Something they know is going to come back and get them but do it anyway. He stuck it to Floyd. He probably knew this guy could throw in the towel and bring it all down.

I forget what that is called. When someone wants to get caught but does not know it.

But to be Fair - Lance came after Greg once the Ferrari hit the wall.

 

[kwikki]

Cycling has a short memory.

Remember straight after his final TdF victory in 05 that the French media (L'Equipe) accused him of doping.

3 years later....welcome back , Lance. We've missed you................r money

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

Yes, but that was Lemond's first publicised expression of scepticism, IIRC.

Armstrong's reaction was to phone Greg, accuse him of EPO use himself, then Greg started receiving calls from Trek etc saying that his comments were harming their business, and making good veiled threats to harm Lemond Inc. Do we think Armstrong had a hand in this?

I do.

Yep. Armstrong had a % of Trek at the time.

 

[kwikki]

Not only that, but Trek became the must have race bike post 1999. Imagine the money Trek must have paid Armstrong in return for the money he made for them.

Money money money money....

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

There are some people clearly enjoying themselves, here. Good for them.

3 comments I have to make at this point :

1/It's been said over and over again that Greg was apparently given a "free pass" by many people regarding doping, which lead to this thread. It's ironic to observe that now, after 236 pages, only Froome and the Sky team (over the first 10 pages of threads currently on the forum) have actually drawn more attention. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think any rider retired for 20 years or more was given the same treatment. That's hardly a "free pass". On the contrary. Especially when every one of Greg's relative was considered, at one point or another, a possible dope enabler. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think any other discussion reached those extremes.

2/After all this... We're still at the "guilt by association" point, which is fair, but fails to answer the question : did Greg LeMond dope or not ? If guilt by association is enough to convict a rider, we don't need the clinic : everyone in the pro peloton is/was guilty by definition.

3/It's been said that, if a few forum members can raise such a "cough" burden of proof "cough", a pro investigater/journalist could probably do even more... On this matter, I want to say : what's telling you nobody did or tried ? Maybe there was an investigation, and since nothing substantial came out of it, case was dropped. I'm not an investigator, nor a journalist, but in my opinion, their work is way more than just "connecting dots" over internet. It's about collecting proof, finding witnesses, questioning witnesses credibility and agenda, gathering facts, interviewing those witnesses, consulting experts... I think humility has been lost somewhere in those 236 pages.

As I said, some people are clearly enjoying themselves. Good for them. ButI have yet to see something conclusive.

Hey, I'm just a fanboy, what do I know ?

 

[kwikki]

I agree with you, but others won't.
I haven't actually seen any evidence, let alone proof.

 

[sniper]

...
i think the problem is he straddled the epo revolution with no change in performance levels......in fact he got worse...hardly what you would expect from someone at the heart of the revolution...

let's put this argument to bed, because it's way past its bedtime.

Problem? For you maybe. Certainly not for the hypothesis that Lemond used EPO.

Indurain: who knows what made him go backwards in 1996. Does the fact that you don't know pose any 'problem' to the hypothesis that he doped? Of course not.
Now, I could rest my case here, but I'll give some other examples:
Planckaert: a leg problem took him out of contention, just ask pcmg76. Certainly had little to do with PLanckaert being clean.
All the PDM'ers, where did they go in the early 90s? Again, cleanliness or a lack of EPO supplies had zilch to do with the issue. Health issues, more likely. In the case of Draaijer, 'health issue' is quite the understatement.
Or take Lance 2009 and especially Lance 2010, again, who knows why he declined.
You don't. I don't. Oprah don't.
And nota bene: rumor has it that in 2009 Lance was at the very heart of what some would call a revolution, allegedly being one of the very first users of aicar. Still couldnt keep up.
What happened to Riis?
Jan Ulrich?
Boris Becker?
Tyger Woods?
Just saying: there is always stuff we don't know or have trouble fully understanding, yet in most cases (such as the above mentioned cases) this has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether these riders doped yes or no.

Furthermore, you fail to acknowledge what most observers - except perhaps Wilcockson, Hampsten and Lemond - have acknowledged long ago, namely that EPO was already in use in the peloton in 88 if not 87. Now, Lemond didn't exactly suck in 89 or in 90, did he, nor was he that far behind in 91. And Hampsten, winning Romandy in 1992 and 4th in the TdF, with Max Testa doing his 'nutrition'. Clean? Gimme a break.


Now, as for why Lemond may have fallen behind, sure, one option is that he was clean.
But the point is: that's not even close to being the only option.
First, there was the hunting accident. You really want to trivialize the impact that shooting had on his performances and recovery? His lungs and kidney(s) got damaged. Yikes. He himself surely didn't trivialize the impact when he claimed that he'd have beaten Fignon by multiple minutes in 1989 if it hadn't been for the shooting. Even if he doped like it was 1999, what he pulled off after the shooting constitutes a small mircale.

And what to make of Max Testa, Hampsten's carreer-long coach and doc, who said Lemond had simply taken too much drugs. Far fetched? Not really. A top cycling&triathlon coach referenced by Nick777 said that at some point Lemond's blood was so thick his life was in danger.

Related: there was his mitochondria myopathy, which he himself has said put a fatal blow to his carreer.
Ow, and interestingly, albeit in the realm of speculation, his mitochondria myopathy was in some circles rumored to have been triggered by excessive steroid use. Far fetched? Again, hardly. Eddie B. we know for fact was drugging Polish and US juniors with hormones, amphetamines and blood transfusions. Steroids would not have been out of the question for Eddie. Lemond was, what, 14, 15, when Eddie took hi under his wings. 13 years later we arrive in 1991; that's plenty of time for drugs to have accumulative effect on his body.
None of that is proven, but it goes to show that there are so many possible factors that may have played a role in explaining Lemond's decline from 91 onwards.

So, no Lemond declining in 1991 doesn't pose any kind of obstacle to the hypothesis that may have used EPO.
In the end there are 'problems' (i.e. unknown elements/factors) in nearly every doping scheme. But hardly ever do these problems pose a threat to the very reality of that doping scheme.
We, Joe Public, don't have access to all the answers. Seldom does that mean that there is no doping.

 

[gillan1969]

Re:

...
i think the problem is he straddled the epo revolution with no change in performance levels......in fact he got worse...hardly what you would expect from someone at the heart of the revolution...

let's put this argument to bed, because it's way past its bedtime.

Problem? For you maybe. Certainly not for the hypothesis that Lemond used EPO.

Indurain: who knows what made him go backwards in 1996. Does the fact that you don't know pose any 'problem' to the hypothesis that he doped? Of course not.
Now, I could rest my case here, but I'll give some other examples:
Planckaert: a leg problem took him out of contention, just ask pcmg76. Certainly had little to do with PLanckaert being clean.
All the PDM'ers, where did they go in the early 90s? Again, cleanliness or a lack of EPO supplies had zilch to do with the issue. Health issues, more likely. In the case of Draaijer, 'health issue' is quite the understatement.
Or take Lance 2009 and especially Lance 2010, again, who knows why he declined.
You don't. I don't. Oprah don't.
And nota bene: rumor has it that in 2009 Lance was at the very heart of what some would call a revolution, allegedly being one of the very first users of aicar. Still couldnt keep up.
What happened to Riis?
Jan Ulrich?
Boris Becker?
Tyger Woods?
Just saying: there is always stuff we don't know or have trouble fully understanding, yet in most cases (such as the above mentioned cases) this has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether these riders doped yes or no.

Furthermore, you fail to acknowledge what most observers - except perhaps Wilcockson, Hampsten and Lemond - have acknowledged long ago, namely that EPO was already in use in the peloton in 88 if not 87. Now, Lemond didn't exactly suck in 89 or in 90, did he, nor was he that far behind in 91. And Hampsten, winning Romandy in 1992 and 4th in the TdF, with Max Testa doing his 'nutrition'. Clean? Gimme a break.

Now, as for why Lemond may have fallen behind, there are so many options that have nothing to do with him being clean. First, there was the hunting accident. You really want to trivialize the impact that shooting had on his performances and recovery? His lungs and kidney(s) got damaged. Yikes. He himself surely didn't trivialize the impact when he claimed that he'd have beaten Fignon by multiple minutes in 1989 if it hadn't been for the shooting.
And what to make of Max Testa, Hampsten's carreer-long coach and doc, who said Lemond had simply taken too much drugs. Far fetched? Not really. A top cycling&triathlon coach referenced by Nick777 said that at some point Lemond's blood was so thick his life was in danger.
Related: there was his mitochondria myopathy, which he himself has said put a fatal blow to his carreer.
Ow, and interestingly, albeit in the realm of speculation, his mitochondria myopathy was in some circles rumored to have been triggered by excessive steroid use. Far fetched? Again, hardly. Eddie B. we know for fact was drugging Polish and US juniors with hormones, amphetamines and blood transfusions. Steroids would not have been out of the question for Eddie. Lemond was, what, 14, 15, when Eddie took hi under his wings. 13 years later we arrive in 1991; that's plenty of time for drugs to have accumulative effect on his body.
None of that is proven, but it goes to show that there are so many possible factors that may have played a role in explaining Lemond's decline from 91 onwards.

So, no Lemond declining in 1991 doesn't pose any kind of obstacle to the hypothesis that may have used EPO.
In the end there are 'problems' (i.e. unknown elements/factors) in nearly every doping scheme. But hardly ever do these problems pose a threat to the very reality of that doping scheme.
We, Joe Public, don't have access to all the answers. Seldom does that mean that there is no doping.

sniper...I am not building the case that lemond didn't dope

you are building he case that he did

and your 'evidence' is all over the place...rumours of rumours of rumours

I am merely pointing out that when, say, someone robs a bank, that is usually associated with an increase in wealth. Lemond's performances, as an early adopter epo user (as you seem to think this is what happened), is not associated with any increase in performance levels

he robbed he bank and got poorer

or as a corollary....we know froome robbed the bank as we can see the money...we're just trying to figure out how he got in

 

[Semper Fidelis]

"Everyone gets everything he wants".

 

[sniper]

pcmg76 made an excellent point earlier on.
I can't find the post anymore, but it's about the view/claim that Lance and motorola only started using epo in 95/96-ish.
pcmg76, if you have time, could you elaborate on which sources that claim is built?
Is it Hamilton's book and Swart's SCA testimony?

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

...
i think the problem is he straddled the epo revolution with no change in performance levels......in fact he got worse...hardly what you would expect from someone at the heart of the revolution...

let's put this argument to bed, because it's way past its bedtime.

Problem? For you maybe. Certainly not for the hypothesis that Lemond used EPO.

Indurain: who knows what made him go backwards in 1996. Does the fact that you don't know pose any 'problem' to the hypothesis that he doped? Of course not.
Now, I could rest my case here, but I'll give some other examples:
Planckaert: a leg problem took him out of contention, just ask pcmg76. Certainly had little to do with PLanckaert being clean.
All the PDM'ers, where did they go in the early 90s? Again, cleanliness or a lack of EPO supplies had zilch to do with the issue. Health issues, more likely. In the case of Draaijer, 'health issue' is quite the understatement.
Or take Lance 2009 and especially Lance 2010, again, who knows why he declined.
You don't. I don't. Oprah don't.
And nota bene: rumor has it that in 2009 Lance was at the very heart of what some would call a revolution, allegedly being one of the very first users of aicar. Still couldnt keep up.
What happened to Riis?
Jan Ulrich?
Boris Becker?
Tyger Woods?
Just saying: there is always stuff we don't know or have trouble fully understanding, yet in most cases (such as the above mentioned cases) this has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether these riders doped yes or no.

Furthermore, you fail to acknowledge what most observers - except perhaps Wilcockson, Hampsten and Lemond - have acknowledged long ago, namely that EPO was already in use in the peloton in 88 if not 87. Now, Lemond didn't exactly suck in 89 or in 90, did he, nor was he that far behind in 91. And Hampsten, winning Romandy in 1992 and 4th in the TdF, with Max Testa doing his 'nutrition'. Clean? Gimme a break.


Now, as for why Lemond may have fallen behind, sure, one option is that he was clean.
But the point is: that's not even close to being the only option.
First, there was the hunting accident. You really want to trivialize the impact that shooting had on his performances and recovery? His lungs and kidney(s) got damaged. Yikes. He himself surely didn't trivialize the impact when he claimed that he'd have beaten Fignon by multiple minutes in 1989 if it hadn't been for the shooting. Even if he doped like it was 1999, what he pulled off after the shooting constitutes a small mircale.

And what to make of Max Testa, Hampsten's carreer-long coach and doc, who said Lemond had simply taken too much drugs. Far fetched? Not really. A top cycling&triathlon coach referenced by Nick777 said that at some point Lemond's blood was so thick his life was in danger.

Related: there was his mitochondria myopathy, which he himself has said put a fatal blow to his carreer.
Ow, and interestingly, albeit in the realm of speculation, his mitochondria myopathy was in some circles rumored to have been triggered by excessive steroid use. Far fetched? Again, hardly. Eddie B. we know for fact was drugging Polish and US juniors with hormones, amphetamines and blood transfusions. Steroids would not have been out of the question for Eddie. Lemond was, what, 14, 15, when Eddie took hi under his wings. 13 years later we arrive in 1991; that's plenty of time for drugs to have accumulative effect on his body.
None of that is proven, but it goes to show that there are so many possible factors that may have played a role in explaining Lemond's decline from 91 onwards.

So, no Lemond declining in 1991 doesn't pose any kind of obstacle to the hypothesis that may have used EPO.
In the end there are 'problems' (i.e. unknown elements/factors) in nearly every doping scheme. But hardly ever do these problems pose a threat to the very reality of that doping scheme.
We, Joe Public, don't have access to all the answers. Seldom does that mean that there is no doping.

Ow, my head.

Despite his well-deserved reputation it wasn't Eddy B that introduced blood doping to American cycling. It was Ed Burke: "The US blood doping programme began life in 1983 when Ed Burke, who held a PhD in physiology and was technical director to the cycling squad, first floated the idea of the US cyclists making use of transfusions. The US Olympic committee, USOC, told Burke he could go ahead but only if the cycling federation were willing to give the project the green light. So Burke took his proposal to the USCF, who stalled on the subject, saying neither yay nor nay. Burke's plan went into the bottom drawer." - http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/a-history-on-blood-transfusions-in-cycling-part-2/

And if you want to evaluate the Lemond/Weisel relationship you should at least read Wheelmen: https://books.google.ca/books?id=f0jhxi_YiLcC&pg=PT77&lpg=PT77&dq=lemond+weisel&source=bl&ots=AFSRvUSNic&sig=TT9IsxwWjvzmkMA_cKOmdUAYWPM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU-7a6wJvMAhVG8WMKHdeaAcwQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=lemond%20weisel&f=false
In 1998, Weisel outed himself as running a team that dopes. Greg's response? Pulls his $$$ out of Weisel's investment bank despite making large returns.

Mitochondrial myopathy isn't caused by anything you ingest. It is a GENETIC disorder. Here's another link for you to ignore: https://www.mda.org/disease/mitochondrial-myopathies/causes-inheritance

Second hand (anonymous) reports of some unnamed person in a different sport who likely never met Lemond is an authoritative source of his HCT? I think I'll pass on that one.

Eddy B first met Greg when he was 16. Not 13 or 14. Sixteen. You probably do want to read his Wikipedia entry. Quote:
Borysewicz opened an office at the Olympic Training Center in Squaw Valley, California. He said:

“ When I started, there was nothing. No office, nothing. I was the first guy, who don't speak English. I have only a telephone and have even to buy a desk. That was '78, OK? We make big steps. I have so many riders who win the Olympics, world championship medals.[5] ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Borysewicz

I'm sure I could go on, but why?

John Swanson

 

[sniper]

didnt u just ignore the link where lemond said he has one kidney, or the tons of links where people are in agreement that epo was on the black market already in 1988?
just saying, give the adhoms a rest.

yes, i want to evaoluate the lemond weisel relationship, and any help is welcome.
so many suddenly seem to have known about the weisel link, i must be lightyears behind on this topic, so any help is welcome.

i did read a few minutes ago that eddie became weisel,s personal coach already in 1985.
after that, weisel regilarly visited eddie,s training site.
i,d be interested to know if lemond was still in contact with eddie b in the period between say 1985-89, any ideas?

 

[kwikki]

So.......sorry. Where was the enormous (reputed to be 15-25%) leap in Lemond's performance when he started taking EPO, sniper??

I was watching really hard at the time but I must have missed it.

 

[sniper]

Re:

So.......sorry. Where was the enormous (reputed to be 15-25%) leap in Lemond's performance when he started taking EPO, sniper??

I was watching really hard at the time but I must have missed it.

addressed two posts previously.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

didnt u just ignore the link where lemond said he has one kidney, or the tons of links where people are in agreement that epo was on the black market already in 1988?
just saying, give the adhoms a rest.

yes, i want to evaoluate the lemond weisel relationship, and any help is welcome.
so many suddenly seem to have known about the weisel link, i must be lightyears behind on this topic, so any help is welcome.

i did read a few minutes ago that eddie became weisel,s personal coach already in 1985.
after that, weisel regilarly visited eddie,s training site.
i,d be interested to know if lemond was still in contact with eddie b in the period between say 1985-89, any ideas?

Let's say you got this one right (I don't think so, but let's continue) and Greg only has one kidney. Living with one kidney: https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/onekidney <--- Save your time. There's almost zero effect.

Eddy B. Really did bring proper training programs to North America and helped a lot of young racers develop. This is where Greg got his first real coaching. As far as I know they became very good friends. A couple short years later and Greg was in Europe full time.

Weisel was a huge investor into American cycling. I'd be shocked if someone in America at the top of the sport (athletes, coaches, administrators, etc) didn't have a relationship with this guy right through the 90's.

John Swanson

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

So.......sorry. Where was the enormous (reputed to be 15-25%) leap in Lemond's performance when he started taking EPO, sniper??

I was watching really hard at the time but I must have missed it.

addressed two posts previously.

The only way your hypothesis works is if Lemond's hunting accident knocked his performance down hugely, he then started taking EPO which brought him up to a level still slightly lower than he was before.

But, despite having further time to heal the EPO stopped working in the early 90s and actually made him worse.

Whichever way you look at it no sense can be made. I'm not surprised because you are coming at this whole issue the wrong way round. You have decided to argue the case that Lemond doped, and after having made that decision you have desperately scrambled about looking for things to make a case. But because there isn't anything concrete you are resorting to using a hypothesis as evidence. It's no wonder your case is so inconsistent.

Who knows, maybe Lemond used epo, maybe he didn't, but if he did you've got to wonder why because it sure as hell isn't reflected in his performance.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

So.......sorry. Where was the enormous (reputed to be 15-25%) leap in Lemond's performance when he started taking EPO, sniper??

I was watching really hard at the time but I must have missed it.

addressed two posts previously.

yup missed that myself..its like a crime scene with no body

 

[Semper Fidelis]

"Someday this war is going to end"

 

[gillan1969]

Re:

...
i think the problem is he straddled the epo revolution with no change in performance levels......in fact he got worse...hardly what you would expect from someone at the heart of the revolution...

let's put this argument to bed, because it's way past its bedtime.

Problem? For you maybe. Certainly not for the hypothesis that Lemond used EPO.

Indurain: who knows what made him go backwards in 1996. Does the fact that you don't know pose any 'problem' to the hypothesis that he doped? Of course not.
Now, I could rest my case here, but I'll give some other examples:
Planckaert: a leg problem took him out of contention, just ask pcmg76. Certainly had little to do with PLanckaert being clean.
All the PDM'ers, where did they go in the early 90s? Again, cleanliness or a lack of EPO supplies had zilch to do with the issue. Health issues, more likely. In the case of Draaijer, 'health issue' is quite the understatement.
Or take Lance 2009 and especially Lance 2010, again, who knows why he declined.
You don't. I don't. Oprah don't.
And nota bene: rumor has it that in 2009 Lance was at the very heart of what some would call a revolution, allegedly being one of the very first users of aicar. Still couldnt keep up.
What happened to Riis?
Jan Ulrich?
Boris Becker?
Tyger Woods?
Just saying: there is always stuff we don't know or have trouble fully understanding, yet in most cases (such as the above mentioned cases) this has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether these riders doped yes or no.

Furthermore, you fail to acknowledge what most observers - except perhaps Wilcockson, Hampsten and Lemond - have acknowledged long ago, namely that EPO was already in use in the peloton in 88 if not 87. Now, Lemond didn't exactly suck in 89 or in 90, did he, nor was he that far behind in 91. And Hampsten, winning Romandy in 1992 and 4th in the TdF, with Max Testa doing his 'nutrition'. Clean? Gimme a break.


Now, as for why Lemond may have fallen behind, sure, one option is that he was clean.
But the point is: that's not even close to being the only option.
First, there was the hunting accident. You really want to trivialize the impact that shooting had on his performances and recovery? His lungs and kidney(s) got damaged. Yikes. He himself surely didn't trivialize the impact when he claimed that he'd have beaten Fignon by multiple minutes in 1989 if it hadn't been for the shooting. Even if he doped like it was 1999, what he pulled off after the shooting constitutes a small mircale.

And what to make of Max Testa, Hampsten's carreer-long coach and doc, who said Lemond had simply taken too much drugs. Far fetched? Not really. A top cycling&triathlon coach referenced by Nick777 said that at some point Lemond's blood was so thick his life was in danger.

Related: there was his mitochondria myopathy, which he himself has said put a fatal blow to his carreer.
Ow, and interestingly, albeit in the realm of speculation, his mitochondria myopathy was in some circles rumored to have been triggered by excessive steroid use. Far fetched? Again, hardly. Eddie B. we know for fact was drugging Polish and US juniors with hormones, amphetamines and blood transfusions. Steroids would not have been out of the question for Eddie. Lemond was, what, 14, 15, when Eddie took hi under his wings. 13 years later we arrive in 1991; that's plenty of time for drugs to have accumulative effect on his body.
None of that is proven, but it goes to show that there are so many possible factors that may have played a role in explaining Lemond's decline from 91 onwards.

So, no Lemond declining in 1991 doesn't pose any kind of obstacle to the hypothesis that may have used EPO.
In the end there are 'problems' (i.e. unknown elements/factors) in nearly every doping scheme. But hardly ever do these problems pose a threat to the very reality of that doping scheme.
We, Joe Public, don't have access to all the answers. Seldom does that mean that there is no doping.

Indurian was months away from retiral at the Tour 96...that may have had something to do with it

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

So.......sorry. Where was the enormous (reputed to be 15-25%) leap in Lemond's performance when he started taking EPO, sniper??

I was watching really hard at the time but I must have missed it.

addressed two posts previously.

The only way your hypothesis works is if Lemond's hunting accident knocked his performance down hugely, he then started taking EPO which brought him up to a level still slightly lower than he was before.

But, despite having further time to heal the EPO stopped working in the early 90s and actually made him worse.

Whichever way you look at it no sense can be made. I'm not surprised because you are coming at this whole issue the wrong way round. You have decided to argue the case that Lemond doped, and after having made that decision you have desperately scrambled about looking for things to make a case. But because there isn't anything concrete you are resorting to using a hypothesis as evidence. It's no wonder your case is so inconsistent.

Who knows, maybe Lemond used epo, maybe he didn't, but if he did you've got to wonder why because it sure as hell isn't reflected in his performance.

Sniper has found some links I don't think anyone would have guessed. Not me for sure.

I fall on the Greg doped like all the other guys did in the pro peloton. Not so much EPO but the more you post these links the more dots show up. Connected on the other hand ....Not so sure. But I understand sniper's exploration.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

Calling your arguments stupid does not equal calling you as a person stupid.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

yup missed that myself..its like a crime scene with no body

thats about the 5th eyeblinker in just as many posts. are you flirting with me?