Tyler's Book

[luckyboy]

This bit about Vaughters struck me (spoiler below)
"tendency to ask uncomfortable questions, especially when it came to doping... visibly more nervous about doping than the rest of us"

 

[ManInFull]

I had hoped the book would solve the mystery of the HBT positive, but it doesn't. A footnote says that Ashenden speculated that during the process of freezing RBCs, they might have become contaminated with someone else's blood. Given that Fuentes had so many clients, I can imagine that could happen. This is also consistent with the fact that the actual test data indicated a very minor contamination, not the larger amount that would occur with a month or so following a transfusion. But Tyler had two positives--the Olympics and the Vuelta--and they involved different minor antigens, i.e., different blood samples. So there would have to be two slip-ups, not one.

Yeah, Tyler points out how shocked he was when he learned that Fuentes was providing his services to a significant portion of the peleton. With so many clients paying him to freeze their blood, Fuentes was bound to make a mistake. The process of freezing blood is much more complex than the one required to simply refrigerate blood.

 

[Bratam]

Has McQuaid questioned whether Armstrong has shown remorse for the damage he has done to the sport?

Of course not, Armstrong has not done any damage because he didn't talk.

McQuaid just keeps digging. Idiot. Pathetic.

All Good points. totally agree.

 

[ManInFull]

There are many details that are frankly mind boggling ( the Spaniard who couldn't afford the good program!?)

But the part of the book that really ****es me off the most is in the last chapter. The details around the "closure" of the US Federal investigation. Thos details should cause more than a few raised eyebrows.

I believe it was a political decision. Some think that a criminal indictment might come at a later date.

 

[KayLow]

Yeah, Tyler points out how shocked he was when he learned that Fuentes was providing his services to a significant portion of the peleton. With so many clients paying him to freeze their blood, Fuentes was bound to make a mistake. The process of freezing blood is much more complex than the one required to simply refrigerate blood.

Is the process of properly labeling blood more complicated when it is being frozen than when it is being refrigerated? I don't think a careful, competent person would mix up blood bags no matter how many of them there were.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

Is the process of properly labeling blood more complicated when it is being frozen than when it is being refrigerated? I don't think a careful, competent person would mix up blood bags no matter how many of them there were.

The freezing process is much more complicated and involves mixing in glycol in several steps to prevent the RBCs getting damaged by freezing. If blood from different riders was being processed at the same time, I guess mixups might be possible....maybe even improper cleaning of equipment?

The book suggest Fuents' assistant had dementia which may have caused the problems.

 

[luckyboy]

I like how it confirms an awful lot of what has been said here for years.
Lot of extra stuff too obviously.

Didn't realise Bassons' VO2 Max was that high, or hadn't read it anywhere before at least.

also wow the story about Lance and the guy in the car, Spring 2000

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

Didn't realize that about Bassons either, makes what was done to him even more outrageous IMO.

There's a lot of information to digest from the book. For example, how many known instances of dodgy blood can we now attribute to Fuentes? Hamilton during the 04 tour (perhaps explaining the Olympic positive) then the homologous positive from the 04 Veulta, that is at least 2 maybe 3 instances of dodgy Fuentes managed blood. It appears that Vino was also a Fuentes customer popped for homologous, another mixup there.....what other Fuentes blood stuff up incidents do we know about? Manzano? That's a pretty sobering catalogue of incompetence already.

 

[Mr.38%]

Ulrich, L'Alpe d'Huez 2003?

 

[Epicycle]

Didn't realize that about Bassons either, makes what was done to him even more outrageous IMO.

There's a lot of information to digest from the book. For example, how many known instances of dodgy blood can we now attribute to Fuentes? Hamilton during the 04 tour (perhaps explaining the Olympic positive) then the homologous positive from the 04 Veulta, that is at least 2 maybe 3 instances of dodgy Fuentes managed blood. It appears that Vino was also a Fuentes customer popped for homologous, another mixup there.....what other Fuentes blood stuff up incidents do we know about? Manzano? That's a pretty sobering catalogue of incompetence already.

Yeah Manzano said he almost died while riding on a train after getting a transfusion. Another incident was at the Tour, where he fell of his bike and had to abandon was because he had been given some unknown drug Fuentes was experimenting with (great time to experiment...at the Tour).

About the transfusions, Manzano said, "One thing I did not see as normal was to leave the portions in a plastic tray without marking them, if you are going to extract from more people. The first thing you should do is to mark them and put them in a blood bank. We are not dogs, we are people and we have the right to be treated as such...Then I became aware that you must first do a cross check to see if it's your blood that is going to be put back into you."

An incident I've suspected was a screw-up by Fuentes' team was Basso on the Stelvio in the 2005 Giro. Ivan was in second on GC until he got really sick on stage 13. It culminated with him breaking down on the Stelvio, I remember Bjarne getting out of the car and draping a coat over Basso near the top of the climb. Of course at the time it was reported that Ivan had stomach trouble. He had a "miraculous" comeback, winning two stages, and would have won the overall if not for the miserable day on stage 13.

 

[Cloxxki]

We know from Operacion Galgo that Fuentes like to use that immigrant, Bezabeh (sp) as a bit of a guinea pig. Guy was pretty much unbeatable in cross-country running. And conveniently, in cross you don't get sureal split times as red flag, just competition all having a bad day.

 

[the big ring]

We know from Operacion Galgo that Fuentes like to use that immigrant, Bezabeh (sp) as a bit of a guinea pig. Guy was pretty much unbeatable in cross-country running. And conveniently, in cross you don't get sureal split times as red flag, just competition all having a bad day.

Like a bunch of pro cycling teams I know all having a bad day at some tours this year yeah? All of them except one. Lucy in the. With diamonds.

 

[ManInFull]

My apologies if this has been previously highlighted...It's rather amusing that Chris Carmichael gets nothing but disdain in the book. Tyler points out that Lance never mentioned any training tidbits from Carmichael during the many hours that Tyler trained with Lance. But, he states that Lance spoke about Dr. Michele Ferrari constantly...

Carmichael really benefited from being Lance's front-man "coach". Nice gig if you can get it...

 

[airstream]

An incident I've suspected was a screw-up by Fuentes' team was Basso on the Stelvio in the 2005 Giro. Ivan was in second on GC until he got really sick on stage 13. It culminated with him breaking down on the Stelvio, I remember Bjarne getting out of the car and draping a coat over Basso near the top of the climb. Of course at the time it was reported that Ivan had stomach trouble. He had a "miraculous" comeback, winning two stages, and would have won the overall if not for the miserable day on stage 13.

Indeed. It clearly matches Riis' propensity to different excuses (allegedly broken Tyler's collarbone, fake Contador's knee and now stomache trouble with Basso). And then we are obviously approaching to a misterious cowboy who lose 1'30 to Ulle in the TT in the Tour 2003. It was rumored Lance lost 2 or 3 kilos then.

 

[MD FACG FACP]

You are wrong JPM.
I think that Hamilton, Armstrong and Riis all lie.

What I don't think, is that every word that Hamilton writes is the truth.
And what does he not write about and why?

Everybody who has been or is involved in doping lies or hides facts about it.

Did you read the book?
I'm not sure there is much to tell after you talk about pi**ing blood for a few hours from a bad blood bag. Perhaps you rode in the pro peloton, and know more.

 

[Pazuzu]

I believe it was a political decision. Some think that a criminal indictment might come at a later date.

After the November election? I do think it likely political motives were behind the decision to close the investigation. However, I doubt it will be reopened. Although I'd love to see that happen.

 

["Jeff"]

Indeed. It clearly matches Riis' propensity to different excuses (allegedly broken Tyler's collarbone, fake Contador's knee and now stomache trouble with Basso). And then we are obviously approaching to a misterious cowboy who lose 1'30 to Ulle in the TT in the Tour 2003. It was rumored Lance lost 2 or 3 kilos then.

That was definitely a huge upset. I was really surprised about that outcome and thought we would be getting a great Tour de France.

It really looked like "Der Jan" had the upperhand in the beginning of that Tour. He even won some seconds on Lance in one of the first mountain stages. That was the first time ever.

After those happenings I think Lance and Johan B. went to the pharmacy a couple of times more...

Until this day I still remember Lance Armstrong saying after he had won for the 4th time "This year was unnacceptable, it should, no it must go better next year" or something along those lines.

Now I understand what he meant...

 

[DominicDecoco]

Hamilton is an alcoholic!

http://www.sporten.dk/cykling/riis-sponsor-hamilton-er-alkoholiker

Lovely photo they picked for this article.

 

[trailrunner]

Can anyone attest to remorse in the book? Has it even been released in Switzerland yet?

I just finished reading the book. I would say that there's remorse and regret. TH also justifies why he did it (to keep up with everyone else that was doing it), and he never says that if he had it to do all over again, he would have quit rather than dope, but to say simply that there is no remorse is an attack on TH and an attempt to deflect attention from the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

 

[trailrunner]

I had hoped the book would solve the mystery of the HBT positive, but it doesn't. A footnote says that Ashenden speculated that during the process of freezing RBCs, they might have become contaminated with someone else's blood. Given that Fuentes had so many clients, I can imagine that could happen. This is also consistent with the fact that the actual test data indicated a very minor contamination, not the larger amount that would occur with a month or so following a transfusion. But Tyler had two positives--the Olympics and the Vuelta--and they involved different minor antigens, i.e., different blood samples. So there would have to be two slip-ups, not one.

I was hoping that this would be explained also. I always figured that the BBs had gotten mixed up, which would be easy to do with their system of codes, and all the rushing around and hiding they did. Note that TH also got very sick during one of those transfusions; I wonder if that would be the typical medical reaction if you had someone else's blood transfused in to you (does anyone know about this?).

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

So, I just read all of the reviews on Amazon - overwhelming good reviews.

However, there is this creepy guy commenting on EVERY single review...he and admits he has not read the book.

Suggest you (we) all flag his comment.

 

[Berzin]

And then we are obviously approaching to a misterious cowboy who lose 1'30 to Ulle in the TT in the Tour 2003. It was rumored Lance lost 2 or 3 kilos then.

I heard it was a bad blood bag, which to me makes more sense than the old "dehydration" excuse.

 

[hfer07]

I heard it was a bad blood bag, which to me makes more sense than the old "dehydration" excuse.

the other rumor was that the BBs were delayed due some tough logistics-I doubt the bad BB argument knowing now how careful & methodical the USPS crew was on those details....

 

[silverrocket]

The freezing process is much more complicated and involves mixing in glycol in several steps to prevent the RBCs getting damaged by freezing. If blood from different riders was being processed at the same time, I guess mixups might be possible....maybe even improper cleaning of equipment?

The book suggest Fuents' assistant had dementia which may have caused the problems.

That alone just stepped up the level of absurdity in this entire story. Will make for some great scenes when this is all eventually made into a movie.

 

[jilbiker]

I heard it was a bad blood bag, which to me makes more sense than the old "dehydration" excuse.

I almost don't want to watch cycling anymore after reading the book. Wow.
1/ The weight loss craze is a scam. Lose weight but increase power comes only through juice.
2/ A bad day could be a bad BB or a mistake while injecting, not that they woke up on the wrong side
3/ The ability to attack while others (and you) are physically suffering could be from from getting a BB shot the previous day not "great" natural endurance ability
4/ Rest days are juice up/recharge BB/juice days
5/ Coaches are a myth, the real coach is the doctor
6/ training is about hitting doctor's numbers
7/ the excuse stomach virus or toothache is a cover for something
8/ Going to "remote mountain" areas for training is a cover for something

What more can I say....it is a scam, the whole sport is a scam! But then so is the 9.58s we see in the 100m, or the MPhlips "records". So do we turn off all sport??...I am the wiser, don't buy all those training books and videos!

And this juicing is so dangerous, I wondered how/why do these people do it??? its playing with your life! There is nothing "easy" about juicing, it is high risk. period. And I don't mean the risk of being caught, I mean physical risk to the body. How do you think causing the body to contain more oxygen than it normally should will not have an impact? the body is way smarter than ALL people, it will adjust to these anomalies in the most unpredictable ways.