Lanark said:Apparently two Dutch journalists have written a book about doping at the Rabobank team (will be published tomorrow). Some juicy details:
The team management bought a Sysmex XE 2100 in 2007 to better test their riders and prevent a positive. They used this machine in the 2007 Giro. Rasmussen now good his blood from Matschiner instead of Humanplasma. In the 2006 Tour he used two Humanplasma bags of 220 milliliter. Matschiner only provided bags of 180 ml. Rasmussen was scared that two bags of 180ml wouldn't be enough in the Tour, so he did a little experiment in the 2007 Giro.
During that Giro he used two 180ml blood bags at the same time. Geert Leinders measured his blood the morning before and after the transfusion. His hemaglobin incread by 1 percentpoint, his hematocrit from 38.5 to 41.7. Not nearly enough to lead to any sanctions by the UCI. So in the 2007 Tour he used one bag before the start, and two bags simultanious at two ocasions (probably at the rest days).
It clearly shows how much Leinders and the rest of the team management were involved in the doping program.
Another nice detail. In the 2002 Tour Boogerd won what is probably his most celebrated victory, the stage to La Plagne. This was in large part thanks to his own brother, Rini Boogerd, who gave him a transfusions with his (Rini's) blood the day before in the hotel. Again, it was Leinders who did the medical work.
Quite interesting to note that 1/ from 2007 they used half-bags compared to the Hamilton's/Fuentes years
2/ in 2002 homologuous transfusions were common, which means the Ashenden's test was useful even if it probably only caught blood manipulation mistakes (Hamilton, Sevilla, Vino)