Merckx index said:
Obviously we’re speculating a lot in discussing this. But modern research (I provided a link a while back, the book The Doping Gene) suggests there are several factors in athletic performance:
1) Innate talent, what you see, e.g., when you have a bunch of young boys without any training run a certain distance. Some are naturally faster or have greater endurance at that point.
2) Innate response to training. Some individuals improve faster and/or to a greater extent under the same training regimen. Quite often, these are not the same who are innately better without training, which means that some of the naturally slower runners, after training, will perform better than some of the naturally faster.
3) Dedication. Some individuals are more willing to push themselves than others, to get the maximum benefit from the training. Probably there is a significant correlation with those who respond best to training, since it’s easier to train when you can see it’s having a great effect than when it isn’t. But there is more to it than that.
4) Response to doping. Some individuals benefit more from the same doping regimen than others.
My point was, first, that 1) is what got certain individuals into the program in the first place. If someone didn’t show great natural athletic talent, I doubt that the organizers would bother to see if he responded better to training than others. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I just can’t see them bothering to put everyone, even those who performed very poorly without training, into the same training program. Back in those days, I don’t think it was appreciated that there is a distinction between 1) and 2). This is a fairly new development in sports science. Moreover, given that the training program from the outset involved drugs, it would be much more expensive and labor intensive to put everyone, regardless of innate talent, into the program. Ideally, you want to single out a few of the most promising individuals, and focus all your resources on making them better.
So you had to be pretty talented just to get into the program. Now once in the program, some would respond better than others. But some of that response was due to 2), a naturally better response to training, and some to 3), a naturally stronger level of dedication or willingness to train, and some to 4) a naturally better response to drugs. I don’t see that the organizers would have made these distinctions, because, again, they all went together. From the outset, the training included drugs.
So someone emerging from this program might be a high responder to the drug program, but not necessarily if he was a high responder to training and if he had the necessary dedication. The ideal athlete would be someone who was high in all these categories, but even today we don’t know how likely it is that someone could be. At the very least, we could say that someone who responded in a more or less average fashion to the doping regimen (4) might have done very well if he was a high responder to training (2).
Also, because there was no EPO at that time, anyone who succeeded as a bike racer, where endurance is so important, must have had a lot of natural talent in that respect. The kinds of drugs in use at that time would improve strength and secondarily could affect endurance, but they would not have nearly the impact on it that blood doping would.
This doesn’t mean Ulle wasn’t a high responder to EPO. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. If he had a naturally low HT, he certainly would have been at an advantage over riders with a higher HT throughout the 90s. But I think natural gifts must have played a very large role in his getting into that position.
Lots of good points here.
Add that research has also demonstrated that aerobic capacity/capability can be greatly enhanced through training during the late teens.
Add the benefit of PEDs during that same period, and you have further possibilities of benefit from the Stasi program.
So, yes, he had natural talent.
And, yes, that talent would have been improved through training during his late teens.
But, it would have been further enhanced by Turbinol and all of the other benefits of the Stasi program.
As for the speculation on whether Jan might have been part of the program.
1. He was educated in the sports training system of the German Democratic Republic.
-> Really, that is all we need to know. You only got in if you were selected for greatness. Once you got in, you benefited from 'the system'
2. He was National Champion at 14/15 in 1988.
-> There is NO way that the Stasi program would have ignored a national champ in his mid teens.
3. The 'system', and his school, the KJS sports school, were not closed down until 1991 and there were a number of system graduates implicated, banned, etc. pre/post the 1992 Olympics.
-> As the Amateur World Champ in 1991, Ullrich was almost certainly still receiving support
4. Let's not pretend that somehow cycling was too pure for doping or attention by the GDR system.
-> The East German state established a vast, systematic doping programme in the 1970s using Turinabol, an anabolic steroid which encourages muscle growth and allowed the country to excel in swimming, athletics and
cycling.
Ex-official: East German teen athletes doped
5. Finally, let's use Ulle's own observation
-> If you cannot put 1 and 1 together, then I can't help you.
NOTE: Many of the 10,000 or so participants in the system did not know that they were being provided with banned substances. Thus, it is quite possible that Ulle received benefit without his knowledge.
Dave.
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