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The Boogie confesses

If no one else will, I'll open it... he always rode the Tour clean???

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/1...d-confession-about-doping-to-Dutch-media.aspx

“In 1996 I won a stage in the Tour de France, but after that race I didn’t move forward. Because of that stage win there were many eyes on me and more was expected of me,” he explained to De Telegraaf. “The fear that I could not fulfil those expectations began to dominate. I knew that EPO was the panacea. That many in the pack used it, that it was not traceable in controls and that it was readily available.

“During a training period in the winter of 1997, I first used EPO. It was not like I immediately thought that there was an engine on my bike, but in subsequent races I felt the difference uphill.”

Boogerd rationalised that decision, saying to himself that this is what professional cycling was about. “That I was more willing to do everything to become a good cyclist. I didn’t find it tough and I’ve never really seen it as something wrong.”

In the interview, Boogerd admits using cortisone and blood transfusions and, after repeated denials, has now accepted that he was indeed a client of the Humanplasma blood bank run by Stefan Matschiner.

However even though he made a lot of money from the sport and from his use of banned substances, he insists that he was a victim of the system. Because of that, he said that he won’t name names. “I’m owning up to the mistakes that I’ve made,” he said. “I am responsible for my decision to use doping and don’t want my mistakes to be on someone else. I possibly risk a heavier penalty. However, I am no traitor and love my principles.”

Talking about what prompted him to finally change his tune, the 40 year old ex pro explained that an encounter last Saturday at a football match was the tipping point. He said that an eight year old boy spoke to him and that his words were difficult to hear. “Hey Michael. I saw you yesterday in the newspaper. You have used doping, eh,” he relates the boy as saying, in front of Boogerd’s own son.

“I could have fallen to the ground,” he said, upon seeing his son’s reaction. “This confrontation was very painful. For me it was the umpteenth time I understood that I had to make a clean sweep. That the story must be told, so I can continue without that lie in my life.”

However Boogerd appears yet to be unwilling to fully embrace the truth, telling NOS Sport in a TV interview to be aired tonight that while he may have doped at certain points, that he never took substances during cycling’s biggest race. “It was in periods…usually periods of training in preparation for competitions,” he said, adding “I have always ridden the Tour clean.”
 
Jul 9, 2010
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Bad translation. What was quoted on the nos.nl website translates to he "often enough" rode the Tour clean. So he at least doped once in a Tour, let alone it's debatable whather you can be called "clean" if you went full bore on a doping program in the pre-Tour season...
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Fearless Greg Lemond said:
So Boogerd did not use HGH, how did he get those frontteeth?

;)
:D


incredible how quickly wikipedia sites are updated these days.
the german wikipedia site on boogerd already has the confession included.
 
Feb 3, 2013
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Not the biggest surprise in the world, understatement

What I always found the most suspicious is when doping stories started coming out, for example with VDB. People would confront Boogerd with the fact that he potentially lost races to cheaters, and if this didn't make him angry. He would always shrug it off with things like: "it won't retroactively give me the glory of the moment", "being named a winner after the fact doesn't give me any satisfaction", "rider so and so was never tested positive for the race in which he beat me" blah blah etc and generally being very blasé about the whole situation.

I know for a fact that if I lost to some cheater I would be livid. And I wouldn't care if it was 5 minutes or 5 years after a race. I would want to see justice done, and would use everything within my power to get it.

It remains remarkable though how convincing these types are at lying.
 
Aug 6, 2011
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spalco said:
No, bad translation, but not a big mistake. It's still a lie.

I don't thing he is lying, actually. That doesn't mean that I consider any single one of his tour performances as clean, but I think that in his conviction, his subjective view of the world, he rode a number of tours clean. For me, lying is the intentional act of delivering a false statement.

I think that Boogie holds the opinion that not using doping during or at a proximate time before the tour is "riding the tour clean". For me, even using prohibited substances during the off season to diminish the usual weight gain (think avoiding the Ulrich party belly) renders your tour performance 'dirty'. However, if you do not view it that way, you might consider your performance as clean and not lie when talking about it like that.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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iejeecee said:
Not the biggest surprise in the world, understatement

What I always found the most suspicious is when doping stories started coming out, for example with VDB. People would confront Boogerd with the fact that he potentially lost races to cheaters, and if this didn't make him angry. He would always shrug it off with things like: "it won't retroactively give me the glory of the moment", "being named a winner after the fact doesn't give me any satisfaction", "rider so and so was never tested positive for the race in which he beat me" blah blah etc and generally being very blasé about the whole situation.

I know for a fact that if I lost to some cheater I would be livid. And I wouldn't care if it was 5 minutes or 5 years after a race. I would want to see justice done, and would use everything within my power to get it.

It remains remarkable though how convincing these types are at lying.
and the lying is only growing new dimensions with garmin and sky.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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let's first watch the interview (tonight at 7:00 pm dutch time) and then discuss how clean he thinks he was. who knows what he's going to say about doping in the off-season.

anyway, the Dutch Radio 1 just broadcasted a short compilation of Boogerd's denials over the past coupla years. Fascinating.

then to realize there are still plenty of guys even in here, in the clinic, believing vaughters, millar and wiggins on their word.
the high number of gullible fans is why cycling is beyond repair.
 
Aug 6, 2011
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iejeecee said:
It remains remarkable though how convincing these types are at lying.

Indeed, he should have come clean years ago. After he retired, boogie did quite an extensive interview with Dutch sports journalist Mart Smeets. In that interview, Smeets asked him if he ever used doping and the answer was something like: "I have never done things that I consider to be cheating".

Most people thought of that as a denial, as for them doping would qualify as cheating; I immediately suspected that it was not, he did not view his doping use as cheating. Only in the weeks after that first interview, some journalists were not content with that vague answer and asked him directly, that is when the real lying began ("I did not use doping"). In that first interview after retirement, he never lied about using doping, he just did not view it as cheating. (Thus explaining his absence of wanting to get justice in doping cases, in his subjective opinion, doping was a normal and accepted part of the sports.)

At the end, though, he was just a plain liar for an extensive period of time.
 
Aug 6, 2011
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Catwhoorg said:

Here's the most important thing in your statement: People differ in opinions. I think Boogie has a, in my opinion, twisted outlook on doping. He really thinks using doping during the off season would not render his tour performance dirty, ergo, it's not lying.
 
So Rabo agreed to using EPO in 1996. Boogerd rode the 1996 Tour, and furthermore, he won a stage. He didn't climb as well as in the following year, when he came in the top 20, but he still did well in the mountains at only 24 years old (31st in the final GC). I'm going to call BS on his "I started in 1997" line.
 
hrotha said:
So Rabo agreed to using EPO in 1996. Boogerd rode the 1996 Tour, and furthermore, he won a stage. He didn't climb as well as in the following year, when he came in the top 20, but he still did well in the mountains at only 24 years old (31st in the final GC). I'm going to call BS on his "I started in 1997" line.

Hmmmm. What is the advantage for him for lying about using in 1996 or 1997? He admitted starting doping in the winter of 1997, so his best TDF performance (5th in '98) is after he claims he started doping. Apart from the one TDF stage win all his major wins were after he started doping. So it's not like he is trying to salvage his best wins or something, he pretty much makes it clear that his career is based on doping.
 
hrotha said:
So Rabo agreed to using EPO in 1996. Boogerd rode the 1996 Tour, and furthermore, he won a stage. He didn't climb as well as in the following year, when he came in the top 20, but he still did well in the mountains at only 24 years old (31st in the final GC). I'm going to call BS on his "I started in 1997" line.
What is the purpose of not involving 1996? maybe there is something else behind curtains that we don't know. Or maybe he wants to show that he had good talent when riding clean. I don't know.
 
Gulp!

"He did not say that I've used drugs, but he insinuates it," he said, correcting the interviewer’s first question. “I think half the peloton at that time rode around with bruises. That was because of the blood controls at the time. Nine out of ten times they put the needle into you, you got a bruise; when you walk into a hospital you get it exactly the same.”

“I don’t know why he has included me in it,” he continued. “Maybe it’s because of our argument in 2006. He showed no respect for the yellow jersey and I called him arrogant.”

Boogerd rode his entire career with the same team, signing for Wordperfect in 1993, which became Novell in 1995 and then Rabobank in 1996, and was a three-time champion of the Netherlands; he rode every Tour between 1996 and 2007, finishing all but the 2000 edition. The high point came in 1998, when he finished in fifth overall, but this position owes a lot to the number of riders and teams that abandoned the race in the wake of the Festina scandal.

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/7...o-Floyd-Landis-accusations.aspx#ixzz2MlukSdaU
 
iejeecee said:
Not the biggest surprise in the world, understatement

What I always found the most suspicious is when doping stories started coming out, for example with VDB. People would confront Boogerd with the fact that he potentially lost races to cheaters, and if this didn't make him angry. He would always shrug it off with things like: "it won't retroactively give me the glory of the moment", "being named a winner after the fact doesn't give me any satisfaction", "rider so and so was never tested positive for the race in which he beat me" blah blah etc and generally being very blasé about the whole situation.

I know for a fact that if I lost to some cheater I would be livid. And I wouldn't care if it was 5 minutes or 5 years after a race. I would want to see justice done, and would use everything within my power to get it.

It remains remarkable though how convincing these types are at lying.
Yeah, i agree. At least for the first few years i guess. After that i had realised that i couldn't change the situation anyway, i would hope i would have found peace with the situation and be happy that i could perform without the fear of getting caught or the feeling that i'm doing something that isn't right. A bit like how Moncoutie seemed to be capable of dealing with the situation.

Let's face it, Boogerd got beaten by Vino, Valverde, Rebellin, Schumacher, Hamilton, Camenzind, VDB, Frank Schleck, di Luca, Astarloa, Casagrande, Bartoli, Rumsas, etc. etc. in the classics. At least the toplevel in cycling in his period used extreme doping/blooddoping. I don't see how a cyclist can make a difference and change that situation, when the teams, the cyclists and the uci aren't interested, capable or motivated to change the situation.

In that situation i guess in the end all you can do is first become very mad, and after that when realisation set in either quit, or mind your own business and simply race clean and keep out of trouble.
 
What about the story in which, during a Tour de France, he showed Landis his arms with the needle marks implying that he had a transfusion. Then he went wink wink with his eyes to Landis. So that was not trainning like he is implying in his confession.
 
Escarabajo said:
What about the story in which, during a Tour de France, he showed Landis his arms with the needle marks implying that he had a transfusion. Then he went wink wink with his eyes to Landis. So that was not trainning like he is implying in his confession.

We were once in the era of denying. Now we’re in the era of confessing whilst still denying!
 
There was a story from an anonymous source that Rabo started doping after the 1999 tour* where Boogerd was the highest finisher in 56th. Maybe that would be a tour where Boogerd wasn't taking anything during the race? From memory he lost a lot of the time in the Passage du Gois crash as he had only just caught up after an earlier crash so GC was out, dont know whether he tried and failed to target stages after that.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boogerd-doesnt-want-to-be-a-scapegoat-in-rabobanks-doping

*although that doesnt mean that no-one was doping in events before the race. Might mean they thought doping at the tour was risky given the events the previous year but then saw others getting away with it.
 
Roninho said:
Hmmmm. What is the advantage for him for lying about using in 1996 or 1997? He admitted starting doping in the winter of 1997, so his best TDF performance (5th in '98) is after he claims he started doping. Apart from the one TDF stage win all his major wins were after he started doping. So it's not like he is trying to salvage his best wins or something, he pretty much makes it clear that his career is based on doping.
Escarabajo said:
What is the purpose of not involving 1996? maybe there is something else behind curtains that we don't know. Or maybe he wants to show that he had good talent when riding clean. I don't know.
This would be my take. "I had the talent and I just needed the extra push to keep up, see, I'm not a total fraud".

Boogerd came 31st at 24 and 16th at 25, clean, in the pre-Festina days. He was 5th in 1998, but many contenders weren't there anymore, so while it was an improvement over 1997, it wasn't radical, but rather a pretty logical step forward. And after 1998 he was rarely again at his 1997 level in the mountains.

It doesn't add up.
 
Feb 3, 2013
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hrotha said:
He was 5th in 1998, but many contenders weren't there anymore.

I see many people blindly quoting this. I remember watching that tour and making a mental note that "in a number of years people are going to claim that Boogerd only made 5th because other contenders left/quit. And that is total BS"

The only guy that would have probably finished in front of Boogerd but quit was Escartin. Other than that Boogerd was on the wheel of Ullrich and Pantani for the entire tour. He only cracked in one stage, at which point Rinero came out of nowhere and passed him in the GC. I remember thinking how unjust that felt since he had never been prominently at the front before that :)

I understand it's all academic now, and there is no point in defending cheaters, even my memory might be a little foggy. But I made that mental note just for occasions like this, so there... :)
 
I'm not "blindly quoting" anything, I'm talking about the race as I remember it. Yes, only Escartín would have ended above him among those who withdrew willingly, but you don't account for the whole Festina squad, and hell, even for Casagrande, who in light of how strong the rest of Cofidis was I'd say could have been on the podium had he not crashed. Boogerd was very much not following Pantani and Ullrich. He was a rather big step beneath them.
 
Feb 3, 2013
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hrotha said:
I'm not "blindly quoting" anything, I'm talking about the race as I remember it. Yes, only Escartín would have ended above him among those who withdrew willingly, but you don't account for the whole Festina squad, and hell, even for Casagrande, who in light of how strong the rest of Cofidis was I'd say could have been on the podium had he not crashed. Boogerd was very much not following Pantani and Ullrich. He was a rather big step beneath them.

Nah, I remember him being on their wheel all throughout the mountains. Except for that one stage (which if I remember right was in extremely bad weather conditions). I would say that on average he rode where he finished. It's not like he was in a breakaway and gained 15 minutes and thats how he got in the top5. In my memory he totally earned it.
 
Wait, my point is not that he didn't earn it, but rather that it wasn't the sudden transformation you'd expect from a 26-year-old who gets on EPO for the first time. I see his progression from 1997 to 1998 as quite logical and linear, which is what doesn't add up with his claim that he did EPO for the first time for the 1998 season.
 

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