US cycling scene in the 70s and 80s

[sniper]

The guy on the right is Woldemar Gerschler.
Here together with Herbert Reindell in 1964 in Tokio in the medical treatment room of the German Olympic team.

 

[Merckx index]

Re:

Here's a link that makes a plausible connection between Astrand's research into doping, his closeness to Swedish skiers, and the improvements in the results of said skiers:
https://books.google.pl/books?id=5pTwCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=Per-Olof+%C3%85strand+blood+doping&source=bl&ots=DtQPwKB5-m&sig=XYmyzMTlGCJ-GML8UQVuOEHZE4o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAWoVChMI_8Smw-q5xwIVRtgsCh0QuwjS#v=onepage&q=Per-Olof%20%C3%85strand%20blood%20doping&f=false

I particularly like how the author is being sceptical of Astrand's disclaimer that his research into blood boosting was not aimed at performance enhancement. I think similar scepticism is warranted in the cases of Hagerman and Costill. (And Costill wasn't even making such disclaimers in his earlier caffeine studies.)

That page on Astrand and blood doping could have been written by you. Long on motive and opportunity, but short on evidence. The Ekblom story at the top of the page is interesting, but since it’s cut off from the previous page, we don’t know how it was documented. E.g., the immediately preceding words might have been, “So-and-so claimed that...”. We also don’t know if the alleged recommendation was for PE, or for treatment for some illness.

But the most interesting point I see there is the claim that blood transfusions go back to the late forties or early fifties:

Groundbreaking studies had appeared in prestigious journals in the 1940s after which few people connected with elite sport could have ignored the blessings of blood boosting

As I pointed out before, if transfusions were in general use at any time before EPO became available, then that drug should have had far less impact on bike racing than it actually did have. If even a few riders enjoyed success with transfusions in the forties or fifties, how could it have taken forty more years before the peloton as a whole understood the advantages of blood boosting? How could Merckx have dominated a peloton in which riders were transfusing unless he transfused? If he did transfuse, then surely his major rivals must have, and subsequent riders like Hinault, Fignon, and in this reading, Lemond. Why, then, did EPO have such a dramatic effect in the 1990s?

I could understand that maybe only a handful, the elite, transfused, whereas in the 90s, everyone was taking EPO. But if the elite had been transfusing all along, why did the best times on all the documented climbs come down so dramatically? You might argue that transfusers didn't take that much blood, but if we know anything about the history of doping it's that if something works at all, athletes will push the envelope. If some rider sees an improvement with 250 ml, he will want to take 500 ml, then a liter, however much he can get into his veins. There were no tests, no passport. Just as some riders in the 90s jacked up their HT to the high 50s or even 60s, why wouldn't some daring riders in this earlier period transfuse large amounts of blood?

There is one advantage of EPO. You can keep your HT elevated throughout the season with it, so you're always at your best for every race. If you transfuse, you probably have to target specific races. If these elite racers were well funded, they might have withdrawn blood during the off season, separated the cells, and stored them frozen. Thus their withdrawal periods would not have interfered with their racing. But it's still unlikely that they could have obtained enough blood in this way for races throughout the season. Yet Merckx raced and won throughout the season, all the monuments and other classics, short stage races, usually not just one but two Grand Tours...I really don't see how he could have blood boosted for all these races.

So maybe you want to argue that transfusions didn't start until Lemond. But why? If their effects had been known since the late 40s, why did it take 30 years for someone to try them? And even if they did start with Lemond, we know from the Olympics that they were being pushed on other riders as well. If Lemond transfused, some of his contemporaries must have as well. Then we have the problem of why EPO had such a dramatic effect.

This doesn't add up for me. If you want to argue that Lemond took steroids and other common drugs of his time, fine. If you want to argue that once in a while, Lemond or someone else might have tried transfusion, fine. I might not agree, but you can build a case for that. But the notion that Lemond's success depended on regularly transfusing requires us to believe that a) he was the first rider to use a PE technique that had been known and available for thirty years before he came along; and b) he was the only rider of his time using it. Dropping a) means bringing Merckx and all the others, even Anquetil, I guess (who did confess to injecting small amounts of ozone-treated blood), into the picture. Dropping b) means having to explain why EPO was such a game-changer.

 

[Oldermanish]

Re: Re:

Here's a link that makes a plausible connection between Astrand's research into doping, his closeness to Swedish skiers, and the improvements in the results of said skiers:
https://books.google.pl/books?id=5pTwCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=Per-Olof+%C3%85strand+blood+doping&source=bl&ots=DtQPwKB5-m&sig=XYmyzMTlGCJ-GML8UQVuOEHZE4o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAWoVChMI_8Smw-q5xwIVRtgsCh0QuwjS#v=onepage&q=Per-Olof%20%C3%85strand%20blood%20doping&f=false

I particularly like how the author is being sceptical of Astrand's disclaimer that his research into blood boosting was not aimed at performance enhancement. I think similar scepticism is warranted in the cases of Hagerman and Costill. (And Costill wasn't even making such disclaimers in his earlier caffeine studies.)

That page on Astrand and blood doping could have been written by you. Long on motive and opportunity, but short on evidence. The Ekblom story at the top of the page is interesting, but since it’s cut off from the previous page, we don’t know how it was documented. E.g., the immediately preceding words might have been, “So-and-so claimed that...”. We also don’t know if the alleged recommendation was for PE, or for treatment for some illness.

But the most interesting point I see there is the claim that blood transfusions go back to the late forties or early fifties:

Groundbreaking studies had appeared in prestigious journals in the 1940s after which few people connected with elite sport could have ignored the blessings of blood boosting

As I pointed out before, if transfusions were in general use at any time before EPO became available, then that drug should have had far less impact on bike racing than it actually did have. If even a few riders enjoyed success with transfusions in the forties or fifties, how could it have taken forty more years before the peloton as a whole understood the advantages of blood boosting? How could Merckx have dominated a peloton in which riders were transfusing unless he transfused? If he did transfuse, then surely his major rivals must have, and subsequent riders like Hinault, Fignon, and in this reading, Lemond. Why, then, did EPO have such a dramatic effect in the 1990s?

I could understand that maybe only a handful, the elite, transfused, whereas in the 90s, everyone was taking EPO. But if the elite had been transfusing all along, why did the best times on all the documented climbs come down so dramatically? You might argue that transfusers didn't take that much blood, but if we know anything about the history of doping it's that if something works at all, athletes will push the envelope. If some rider sees an improvement with 250 ml, he will want to take 500 ml, then a liter, however much he can get into his veins. There were no tests, no passport. Just as some riders in the 90s jacked up their HT to the high 50s or even 60s, why wouldn't some daring riders in this earlier period transfuse large amounts of blood?

There is one advantage of EPO. You can keep your HT elevated throughout the season with it, so you're always at your best for every race. If you transfuse, you probably have to target specific races. If these elite racers were well funded, they might have withdrawn blood during the off season, separated the cells, and stored them frozen. Thus their withdrawal periods would not have interfered with their racing. But it's still unlikely that they could have obtained enough blood in this way for races throughout the season. Yet Merckx raced and won throughout the season, all the monuments and other classics, short stage races, usually not just one but two Grand Tours...I really don't see how he could have blood boosted for all these races.

So maybe you want to argue that transfusions didn't start until Lemond. But why? If their effects had been known since the late 40s, why did it take 30 years for someone to try them? And even if they did start with Lemond, we know from the Olympics that they were being pushed on other riders as well. If Lemond transfused, some of his contemporaries must have as well. Then we have the problem of why EPO had such a dramatic effect.

This doesn't add up for me. If you want to argue that Lemond took steroids and other common drugs of his time, fine. If you want to argue that once in a while, Lemond or someone else might have tried transfusion, fine. I might not agree, but you can build a case for that. But the notion that Lemond's success depended on regularly transfusing requires us to believe that a) he was the first rider to use a PE technique that had been known and available for thirty years before he came along; and b) he was the only rider of his time using it. Dropping a) means bringing Merckx and all the others, even Anquetil, I guess, into the picture. Dropping b) means having to explain why EPO was such a game-changer.

I'd agree with you on logistics alone. Blood doping takes medical and storage planning to a level that riders & teams would need to dedicate resources for it. The PDM debacle showed how well that type of planning could go. I wouldn't rule out an effort to boost blood for a specific event or day of a GT. It was legal so it is likely.
The drugs that came to create the outlier performances were attempting to imitate the same advantage.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

The guy on the right is Woldemar Gerschler.
Here together with Herbert Reindell in 1964 in Tokio in the medical treatment room of the German Olympic team.

A photo is worth a thousand questions?

- What is the source of this photo?
- What is the context?
- What is in all those packages?
- Is this an implication that these two people are surrounded by the PEDs and other illegal drugs that they will be using during the olympics? If so, why?
- How many athletes were they responsible for?
- Is that an unreasonable amount of product given the number of athletes?
- What *is* in those packages?
- Why did you post this photo?

John Swanson

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
That page on Astrand and blood doping could have been written by you. Long on motive and opportunity, but short on evidence.

"short on evidence", only if you do not consider the history of sport and doping as evidence.
His suggestion that there is a link between Astrand's research and the improved ski results is just plausible reasoning based on the history of doping in topsport. Call it 'pattern recognition'.

Now reading up on one of the most famous German doping docs ever, Herbert Reindell (see photo, on Gerschler's left), and how he used to be 'antidoping' in interviews.
Pattern recognition.

 

[Dr.Guess]

Re: Re:

Here's a link that makes a plausible connection between Astrand's research into doping, his closeness to Swedish skiers, and the improvements in the results of said skiers:
https://books.google.pl/books?id=5pTwCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=Per-Olof+%C3%85strand+blood+doping&source=bl&ots=DtQPwKB5-m&sig=XYmyzMTlGCJ-GML8UQVuOEHZE4o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAWoVChMI_8Smw-q5xwIVRtgsCh0QuwjS#v=onepage&q=Per-Olof%20%C3%85strand%20blood%20doping&f=false

I particularly like how the author is being sceptical of Astrand's disclaimer that his research into blood boosting was not aimed at performance enhancement. I think similar scepticism is warranted in the cases of Hagerman and Costill. (And Costill wasn't even making such disclaimers in his earlier caffeine studies.)

That page on Astrand and blood doping could have been written by you. Long on motive and opportunity, but short on evidence. The Ekblom story at the top of the page is interesting, but since it’s cut off from the previous page, we don’t know how it was documented. E.g., the immediately preceding words might have been, “So-and-so claimed that...”. We also don’t know if the alleged recommendation was for PE, or for treatment for some illness.

But the most interesting point I see there is the claim that blood transfusions go back to the late forties or early fifties:

Groundbreaking studies had appeared in prestigious journals in the 1940s after which few people connected with elite sport could have ignored the blessings of blood boosting

As I pointed out before, if transfusions were in general use at any time before EPO became available, then that drug should have had far less impact on bike racing than it actually did have. If even a few riders enjoyed success with transfusions in the forties or fifties, how could it have taken forty more years before the peloton as a whole understood the advantages of blood boosting? How could Merckx have dominated a peloton in which riders were transfusing unless he transfused? If he did transfuse, then surely his major rivals must have, and subsequent riders like Hinault, Fignon, and in this reading, Lemond. Why, then, did EPO have such a dramatic effect in the 1990s?

I could understand that maybe only a handful, the elite, transfused, whereas in the 90s, everyone was taking EPO. But if the elite had been transfusing all along, why did the best times on all the documented climbs come down so dramatically? You might argue that transfusers didn't take that much blood, but if we know anything about the history of doping it's that if something works at all, athletes will push the envelope. If some rider sees an improvement with 250 ml, he will want to take 500 ml, then a liter, however much he can get into his veins. There were no tests, no passport. Just as some riders in the 90s jacked up their HT to the high 50s or even 60s, why wouldn't some daring riders in this earlier period transfuse large amounts of blood?

There is one advantage of EPO. You can keep your HT elevated throughout the season with it, so you're always at your best for every race. If you transfuse, you probably have to target specific races. If these elite racers were well funded, they might have withdrawn blood during the off season, separated the cells, and stored them frozen. Thus their withdrawal periods would not have interfered with their racing. But it's still unlikely that they could have obtained enough blood in this way for races throughout the season. Yet Merckx raced and won throughout the season, all the monuments and other classics, short stage races, usually not just one but two Grand Tours...I really don't see how he could have blood boosted for all these races.

So maybe you want to argue that transfusions didn't start until Lemond. But why? If their effects had been known since the late 40s, why did it take 30 years for someone to try them? And even if they did start with Lemond, we know from the Olympics that they were being pushed on other riders as well. If Lemond transfused, some of his contemporaries must have as well. Then we have the problem of why EPO had such a dramatic effect.

This doesn't add up for me. If you want to argue that Lemond took steroids and other common drugs of his time, fine. If you want to argue that once in a while, Lemond or someone else might have tried transfusion, fine. I might not agree, but you can build a case for that. But the notion that Lemond's success depended on regularly transfusing requires us to believe that a) he was the first rider to use a PE technique that had been known and available for thirty years before he came along; and b) he was the only rider of his time using it. Dropping a) means bringing Merckx and all the others, even Anquetil, I guess, into the picture. Dropping b) means having to explain why EPO was such a game-changer.

I'd agree with you on logistics alone. Blood doping takes medical and storage planning to a level that riders & teams would need to dedicate resources for it. The PDM debacle showed how well that type of planning could go. I wouldn't rule out an effort to boost blood for a specific event or day of a GT. It was legal so it is likely.
The drugs that came to create the outlier performances were attempting to imitate the same advantage.

Isn't that a possible explanation why epo improved performances that much, that the logistics hindered the 10% rise in performance that blood doping could give (see p hemmingsson) ? Also, from what I've understood about cycling prior to indurai (or perhaps lemond) was that riders had to compete the whole year just to be able to make a living from the sport thus not allowing for the all year blood doping bonanza due to not having enough blood in their veins and bodies. I'm talking about autologous blood boosting that is and I'm pretty sure the 10% (or so) number is from that. But perhaps the blood doping let i.e LeMond train harder during the off season.
Just pure speculation of course. As a lot of you have pointed out, if blood doping was around then cyclist would have used it.
My thinking is that they did but couldn't perfect it until later when riders started peaking for certain events, but they still did it and experimented with it. I mean, cyclist do whatever it takes to get over the top.

Btw sniper, those links to astrand and ekblom and whoever said that the blood doping improved ski results, thanks for those

 

[sniper]

In 1972 Ariel did field work at the Deutsche Hochschule fuer Koerperkultur [DHfK] (German University for Body Culture and Sport) in Leipzig. The plan was to model the OTC on the DHfK.
All that really ugly doping stuff you heard about East Germany in the 70s and 80s?
The DHfK Leipzig, a.k.a. East Germany's "doping stronghold", was the center for that.

Summary from Wikipedia:

The DHfK was the central state sponsored obligatory doping system of the DDR. The research in this area was done by ca. 20 collaborators of the Leipzig Research institute for Body Culture and Sport (FKS). From 1968 until 1972 in the context of a pilot study with top athletes, first attempts were made to investigate the effects of anabolic steroids. The classification of the DHfK as the "stronghold of German doping" eventually led to its closure.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Hochschule_f%C3%BCr_K%C3%B6rperkultur

For more detailed reading:
http://www.mdr.de/damals/archiv/artikel101700.html#anchor5
https://books.google.pl/books?id=8z99CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&dq=woldemar+gerschler+doping&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=leipzig&f=false

Back to Ariel and his field trip to Leipzig:

It was in one of these meetings with Bill Toomey and Russ Hodge that the idea of an Olympic Training Center was born. I often described my 1972 visit to the East German Olympic training facilities in Leipzig.
...
In addition to what I had seen in Leipzig, I explained the wide variety of options that we could and should provide to our own athletes. I presented our vision for a USOC Training Center that would rival anything that the Eastern bloc countries had.
...
Once again I described the scientific focus that the East Germans used for training in their Leipzig Center, as well as their other more secret locations. Although the United States is a huge country in size and population compared to the East Germans, they were far superior to the Americans in the support and preparation given to their athletes. The East Germans had decided to make athletic success a national priority and then set the plan into motion.
http://www.arielnet.com/chapters/show/gba-wri-01002-12/the-olympic-connection

From an article called "Olympic Shame", about the founding of the OTC:

The Colorado center was soon heralded as the future rival of East Germany's all-encompassing Sports Institute at Leipzig. According to the plan, the finest coaches, doctors, and researchers would always be on hand, enticing premier competitors from all over the country. The athletes would live at the camp year round, working in unity with the team of experts. http://www.astralgia.com/pdf/olympicshame.pdf

 

[sniper]

Just found this piece from Der Spiegel, August 1976.
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41147129.html
Some keywords: Olympic Games, Ekblom, Frank Shorter, Dardik, NASA, blood transfusions, steroids.
I'll translate some parts and post them up in the course of the day.

 

[sniper]

...
While I’m on the subject of Ariel, I want to make a couple of points that might reduce, though certainly not eliminate, the suspicion surrounding him. First, as I noted in my previous post, he apparently stopped all his studies of steroids well before the OTC was founded.

Just for the record (i dont think it matters much in the wider scheme of things), in the bibliography of this document (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Citation/1985/10000/Official_Document__NSCA_Position_Statement__Use.8.aspx) I found three more references to anabolic steroid studies from Ariel, dated 1973 (1x) and 1974 (2x).
I can post the full references later should you be interested (unfortunately no copy-paste, so I'd have to write them off).

 

[sniper]

Re:

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41147129.html

1976:
"I don't like losing", shouted Dr. Irving Dardik, member of the US medical team in Montreal.
"Our athletes don't like it either." Two weeks after the Olympic defeats the USA founded a sport-medical committee which should "shed light on all taboo areas". The committee plans to retrieve as much information from Europe as possible. "I reject the view that we should not be allowed to go as far [as those European countries] to achieve victory", said Dardik. "That sounds like sour grapes to me".

Dardik's plan 'to retrieve as much information from Europe as possible' were no hollow words.
As noted earlier, Ariel had done field work in Leipzig's DHfK.
Dardik himself had gone to the Deutche Sport Hochschule in Cologne, one of the doping strongholds of West Germany where people like Wildor Hollmann and Alois Mader were mixing it up.

"We do plan to review the lactic-acid business," says Dardik, who has also visited the Cologne Sports Medicine Institute,
http://www.si.com/vault/1977/10/31/626410/pricking-up-their-ears

Hagerman meanwhile was working with machinery sponsored by a West German company.

Across the hall, exercise physiologist Fritz Hagerman is setting up the latest gadget, a newly arrived pulmonary function testing machine donated by a West German company, the Jaeger Corp.
http://www.arielnet.com/articles/show/adi-pub-01076/md-aims-to-imppove-nation-s-health-using-olympic-athletes-as-walking-fitness-labs

Using this computerized machine donated by Jaeger of West Germany, exercise physiologist can determine the athletes total metabolic and cardiovascular picture.
...
While exercise physiologist Fritz Hagerman isn't as entertaining [as Gideon Ariel], his enthusiasm is infectious. His eyes widened and the words come fast as he dives into a detailed explanation of the role physiology can play in sports.

"Using the sophisticated machinery in this clinic, we can test the athletes current capabilities and potential, assembling the data into an individual profile for each athlete," says Hagerman. These profiles are given to both the athletes (before they leave) and a copy is sent to their coaches, along with an explanation of what it means.

The athletes take their turns on a variety of equipment: Cybex strength testing machines, treadmill, cycle, underwater body weighing (to determine the body's percentage of fat to muscle tissue), blood and urine analysis and a computerized Jaeger unit that measures metabolism and the complete cardio-vascular system. Constituting more than $150,000 worth of equipment, all of it was donated.
http://www.arielnet.com/articles/show/adi-pub-01202/the-center-of-attention

 

[acoggan]

I could say, Andy Coggan is performing studies aimed at helping riders get maximal performance from doping. Someone else can point out that he’s never published any studies of the performance enhancing effects of banned substances or treatments, nor shown any interest in doing so, to which I could reply, of course not, he doesn’t want to call attention to what he’s doing. He does it in secret. Likewise, if I were convinced Coggan was doing doping studies, I would dismiss any public statements he made denouncing doping. Of course he would say all the right things in public.

I think it would be highly entertaining for sniper to do the same "hit job" on me that he's done on Hagerman, Costill, etc.

 

[acoggan]

Re: Re:

if transfusions were in general use at any time before EPO became available, then that drug should have had far less impact on bike racing than it actually did have. If even a few riders enjoyed success with transfusions in the forties or fifties, how could it have taken forty more years before the peloton as a whole understood the advantages of blood boosting? How could Merckx have dominated a peloton in which riders were transfusing unless he transfused? If he did transfuse, then surely his major rivals must have, and subsequent riders like Hinault, Fignon, and in this reading, Lemond. Why, then, did EPO have such a dramatic effect in the 1990s?

Prior to the development of the high glycerol freeze technique:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5026166

it wasn't entirely clear that blood doping had an ergogenic effect, as the withdrawn blood couldn't be stored long enough for the body to replace it before it had to be reinfused. Only after Larry Spriet's paper in 1986 was it firmly established in the scientific community that it was indeed beneficial:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3781999

IOW, until blood began to be routinely stored for extended periods, you had to gamble with autologous transfusions, which presumably discouraged many from pursuing the practice. Comparatively speaking, injecting yourself with EPO is logistically much easier.

 

[sniper]

I think it would be highly entertaining for sniper to do the same "hit job" on me that he's done on Hagerman, Costill, etc.

What would be the point?
I don't see much parallels between you on the one hand and Hagerman and Costill on the other.
Do you have steroid studies on your publication list?
Were you recruited by Dardik?
Did you advocate for more cardiorespiratory conditioning of adolescents in order to identify outstanding athletes?
Did you do any physiological testing on Lemond together with Ed Burke?
Were you on Ed Burke's phd committee?

That said, I do wonder why you're sharing so little about a period you've apparently been quite close to (compared to other forum members at least).
You haven't addressed one single thing I posted about Dardik or Ariel.
Much of the time I've just quoted them, so you can hardly argue I've been distorting facts or pushing some agenda (but you will argue that nonetheless, no doubt).
More to the point: are you not concerned that they may have been doping juniors? Honest question.

 

[Zypherov]

I find it difficult to believe that some of the PDM Team in 1988 were the only team to partake in blood doping, during the 80's. I know that the logistics of blood doping during a three week grand tour or prior were not as they are now. But it still begs the question were other cyclists and team members trying blood doping.

 

[acoggan]

Re:

I think it would be highly entertaining for sniper to do the same "hit job" on me that he's done on Hagerman, Costill, etc.

What would be the point?
I don't see much parallels between you on the one hand and Hagerman and Costill on the other.

That's funny, because our careers have generally been quite similar (well, aside from my ~25 y side-trip into the medical school environment).

Do you have steroid studies on your publication list?

No, but in the name of science I've been injected with human growth hormone on two occasions - does that count?

Were you recruited by Dardik?

Never met him.

That said, when I was young Ed Burke encouraged me on several occasions to follow in his shoes, i.e., pursue applied sports science. My interests, though, have always been more basic than that.

Did you advocate for more cardiorespiratory conditioning of adolescents in order to identify outstanding athletes?

I advocate for more cardiorespiratory conditioning of adolescents, period. I also don't seen anything unethical at all about talent ID programs, or at least the principle.

Did you do any physiological testing on Lemond together with Ed Burke?

No, but I have tested a few other world class athletes, mostly women. Like Lemond, none of them have ever been sanctioned for doping. I also have been paid by Lemond to visit his company and share my ideas. Thus, if the standard is guilt-by-association-with-the-seemingly-innocent, I'm apparently your man.

Were you on Ed Burke's phd committee?

No, but like I said I interacted with him on perhaps a half-dozen occasions when I was younger (e.g., at a coaching clinic, at the 1980 Olympic Trials, etc.), and was one of three people asked to speak at his memorial service at ACSM after he died. (What I said was that although I did not know him very well, I admired his dedication to his passion, i.e., the sport of cycling, and greatly appreciated the advice he had given me at around the time I started college, which was load up on the science.)

That said, I do wonder why you're sharing so little about a period you've apparently been quite close to (compared to other forum members at least).
You haven't addressed one single thing I posted about Dardik or Ariel.

The explanation is simple: I've never had any interaction with them. Although I, e g., qualified for the U.S. Junior Worlds trials in 1977 (where Lemond won 2 of 3 races) and the 1980 U.S. Olympic trials (where he won one of the races by soloing across a ~2 min gap, dropping the break, then pulling out another ~2 min, all in ~10 miles), I never made it to the upper echelon of the sport where I'd really get noticed. I also stopped focusing on riding/racing to concentrate on my career after 1983, so wasn't paying a lot of attention in 1984 when the US blood doping scandal hit. It was only about 15 y ago that I sorta kinda got pulled back towards the applied side of things, and, e.g., have vistied the OTC in Colorado Springs.

Much of the time I've just quoted them, so you can hardly argue I've been distorting facts or pushing some agenda (but you will argue that nonetheless, no doubt).
More to the point: are you not concerned that they may have been doping juniors? Honest question.

Seems like ancient history now, don't you think?

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
Prior to the development of the high glycerol freeze technique:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5026166

it wasn't entirely clear that blood doping had an ergogenic effect, as the withdrawn blood couldn't be stored long enough for the body to replace it before it had to be reinfused. Only after Larry Spriet's paper in 1986 was it firmly established in the scientific community that it was indeed beneficial:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3781999

IOW, until blood began to be routinely stored for extended periods, you had to gamble with autologous transfusions, which presumably discouraged many from pursuing the practice. Comparatively speaking, injecting yourself with EPO is logistically much easier.

And the ones who weren't discouraged went on to win medals.

btw, I would say works such as Ekblom et al. 1972, Ekblom et al. 1976, Williams et al. 1978, Buick et al. 1980, or Gledhill's reference works from 1982 and 1983, to name just a few, went a long way in firmly establishing the potential of blood boosting (be it homologous or autologous).
By that time it was clear to everybody involved at the top end of endurance sports that blood doping was the way to go. Why do you think Dardik was propagating it in front of USOC in 1976/77?
Also, it was Gledhill 1983 that allegedly convinced Ed Burke to give it a try.
Spriet 1986 was Schnee von gestern.

 

[sniper]

@acoggan, thanks for that last post.
very interesting background and some good points.
will respond a bit more to that tomorrow.

 

[sniper]

btw, guys like Spriet, Buick, Gledhill, and some others who pioneered work on blood boosting were Canadian.
Imo that should put at least some question marks behind Steve Bauer and Alex Stieda.

 

[gillan1969]

Re:

btw, guys like Spriet, Buick, Gledhill, and some others who pioneered work on blood boosting were Canadian.
Imo that should put at least some question marks behind Steve Bauer and Alex Stieda.

......please tell me you have more links than just nationality????

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

I think it would be highly entertaining for sniper to do the same "hit job" on me that he's done on Hagerman, Costill, etc.

What would be the point?
I don't see much parallels between you on the one hand and Hagerman and Costill on the other.

That's funny, because our careers have generally been quite similar (well, aside from my ~25 y side-trip into the medical school environment).

Do you have steroid studies on your publication list?

No, but in the name of science I've been injected with human growth hormone on two occasions - does that count?

Of course that counts. But I still don't see much reason to scrutinize your background in the context of possible doping at the OTC.
If i may ask, when were those two occasions? (I've always been curious when roughly HGH began to make inroads into prosports in general and cycling in particular)

Were you recruited by Dardik?

Never met him.

That said, when I was young Ed Burke encouraged me on several occasions to follow in his shoes, i.e., pursue applied sports science. My interests, though, have always been more basic than that.

Did you advocate for more cardiorespiratory conditioning of adolescents in order to identify outstanding athletes?

I advocate for more cardiorespiratory conditioning of adolescents, period. I also don't seen anything unethical at all about talent ID programs, or at least the principle.

that's very fair.
But again, the reason it made me raise my eyebrows in the case of Hagerman is because (a) it was accompanied by references to certain Scandinavian researchers and to Gerschler, (b) Hagerman also has a steroid study behind his name and (c) Hagerman and his brother (Fritz and Topper) were both recruited by Dardik who had stated his aims quite explicitly.

Did you do any physiological testing on Lemond together with Ed Burke?

No, but I have tested a few other world class athletes, mostly women. Like Lemond, none of them have ever been sanctioned for doping.

Interesting. Olympic athletes? Has this resulted in any publications?

Were you on Ed Burke's phd committee?

No, but like I said I interacted with him on perhaps a half-dozen occasions when I was younger (e.g., at a coaching clinic, at the 1980 Olympic Trials, etc.), and was one of three people asked to speak at his memorial service at ACSM after he died. (What I said was that although I did not know him very well, I admired his dedication to his passion, i.e., the sport of cycling, and greatly appreciated the advice he had given me at around the time I started college, which was load up on the science.)

I heard he died relatively young (53), riding his bike.
I heard about Hagerman that he did some testing on himself, as did Costill.
We know from other cases that physiologists sometimes liked to test stuff on themselves. Do you think Burke would have tested stuff on himself? (sure, I'm cluthching at straws here, please don't feel obliged to answer.)

That said, I do wonder why you're sharing so little about a period you've apparently been quite close to (compared to other forum members at least).
You haven't addressed one single thing I posted about Dardik or Ariel.

The explanation is simple: I've never had any interaction with them. Although I, e g., qualified for the U.S. Junior Worlds trials in 1977 (where Lemond won 2 of 3 races) and the 1980 U.S. Olympic trials (where he won one of the races by soloing across a ~2 min gap, dropping the break, then pulling out another ~2 min, all in ~10 miles), I never made it to the upper echelon of the sport where I'd really get noticed. I also stopped focusing on riding/racing to concentrate on my career after 1983, so wasn't paying a lot of attention in 1984 when the US blood doping scandal hit. It was only about 15 y ago that I sorta kinda got pulled back towards the applied side of things, and, e.g., have vistied the OTC in Colorado Springs.

Very interesting.
I still wonder, how likely is it that these guys were only doing blood bags, and no other stuff, steroids etc.
Any thoughts on that?
Were you ever tempted? How easy would it have been for you to purchase dope in the late 70s?

Much of the time I've just quoted them, so you can hardly argue I've been distorting facts or pushing some agenda (but you will argue that nonetheless, no doubt).
More to the point: are you not concerned that they may have been doping juniors? Honest question.

Seems like ancient history now, don't you think?

I have to disagree.
The Germans are still in the middle of shedding light on their doping history (East and West), with research committees dedicated solely to illuminating that dark murky doping past. An 800-paged report was published not long ago detailing West German doping practices in the 70s and 80s. Similar reports had already been published on DDR doping. And still, there are broad complaints that the research into that period hasn't been enough.
Now, to my knowledge, there hasn't been any kind of remotely similar research put in process in the USA. Even though there is enough evidence that USOC has been complicit in organized doping in the mid/late 70s and early/mid 80s. Since nothing is being illuminated, I have no reason to believe anything has changed.

 

[Merckx index]

Re: Re:

Prior to the development of the high glycerol freeze technique:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5026166

it wasn't entirely clear that blood doping had an ergogenic effect, as the withdrawn blood couldn't be stored long enough for the body to replace it before it had to be reinfused. Only after Larry Spriet's paper in 1986 was it firmly established in the scientific community that it was indeed beneficial:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3781999

IOW, until blood began to be routinely stored for extended periods, you had to gamble with autologous transfusions, which presumably discouraged many from pursuing the practice. Comparatively speaking, injecting yourself with EPO is logistically much easier.

Actually, freezing cells with glycerol was discovered around 1950.

http://www.bloodbook.com/trans-history.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14825826
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14795743

Even w/o separation of cells and freezing, blood can be stored refrigerated for about five weeks, which is about the time it takes to recover Hb following withdrawal:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18466177

The anti-coagulant that extends cold storage of whole blood to five weeks was not discovered till 1979, but I believe even before that, it had been appreciated that separated cells can be stored a little longer under refrigeration.

In this century, of course, riders figured out a way to reduce the effects of withdrawal, by withdrawing and transfusing previously withdrawn blood at the same time. Obviously, riders today can feel a lot more confident about both the safety and efficacy of transfusing than riders in the 70s or 80s, and that's presumably why transfusing seems not to have been very popular back then, but the technology was there for someone willing to try.

 

[acoggan]

Re: Re:

Quoting is getting to be a bit of mess, so hopefully it will be clear which answers below go with which of your questions.

1. In the late 1980s, Kevin Yarasheski had funding from Genentech to do studies of hGH in older individuals. Since he had access to what at the time was something very pricey and in limited supply, he explored taking advantage of that fact by using it to assess the role of hGH in regulating metabolism during exercise in humans. I was a subject for a couple of those pilot experiments.

2. Well, let’s see…I have performed physiological testing on a couple of Olympians, silver (n=2) and bronze (n=1) medalists from Worlds, winner of the Tour de l’Aude, and of course my wife, a national champion (and who would have gone top 10 and possibly top 5 that year at Worlds if USAC hadn’t stupidly sent the silver and bronze medalists from Nationals instead). No publications from it, though, as this was all service work, not research. Except for testing my wife, it was all also ~25 y ago, and I haven’t done any physiological testing of athletes since. (OTOH, I have had interactions with/access to lots of data from numerous other elite performers in the last 10-15 y, but always remotely.)

3. It is has always been very common in exercise physiology for investigators to at least want to experiment on themselves – after all, why would you ask another healthy person to take a risk that you aren’t willing to take yourself? OTOH, it isn’t necessarily the best idea, as obviously you can’t really be entirely subjective about the risk:benefit ratio. In any case, while I know that Burke was often a research subject back in his graduate school days, he didn’t do a lot of research after that, so my guess is that he did not.

4. I have no idea what any of my competitors back then may or may not have been doing. Doping certainly wasn’t something anybody I knew ever even talked about, although I suppose if I had spent more time, e.g., hanging out in gyms versus riding my bike I would have been exposed to it. I also have no clue as to how easy or difficult it would have been able to obtain drugs illegally, as at the time I didn’t even use legal drugs, i.e., alcohol and caffeine. Yes, I wanted to be a successful cyclist, but I never would have been willing to cheat or risk my health to achieve that goal.

5. Aside from the fact that much information has been lost to history, part of the reason that I think that you’re on a fool’s errand here is that, unlike other state actors, the USOC has never had significant resources to direct towards elaborate doping efforts, even if they might or might not have been envisioned by some. For example, I recall Ed Coyle coming back from a visit to (I believe) Lake Placid, where he scoffingly related how the OTC biomechanists had film cameras set up on the downhill ski slope. When Ed asked who was going to analyze all of the data (a truly onerous task back in the day), the answer was “Nobody – we can’t afford the film, but have set up the cameras anyway to trick the athletes into thinking that they’ve got the best sports science support in the world.” Along the same lines, when Ed and John Ivy each managed to get $25k grants from the USOC to do some sports nutrition research (including helping support my dissertation), I remember John Ivy pointing out that this was first time they had funded anything external. Given the comparative shoe-string that the USOC sports science program has always lived on, it’s hard to envision how *they* could afford a sophisticated doping program.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Thanks, much appreciate the personal background. Very interesting, and props for that.
Nothing for me to comment on, except this:

...

5. Aside from the fact that much information has been lost to history, part of the reason that I think that you’re on a fool’s errand here is that, unlike other state actors, the USOC has never had significant resources to direct towards elaborate doping efforts, even if they might or might not have been envisioned by some. For example, I recall Ed Coyle coming back from a visit to (I believe) Lake Placid, where he scoffingly related how the OTC biomechanists had film cameras set up on the downhill ski slope. When Ed asked who was going to analyze all of the data (a truly onerous task back in the day), the answer was “Nobody – we can’t afford the film, but have set up the cameras anyway to trick the athletes into thinking that they’ve got the best sports science support in the world.” Along the same lines, when Ed and John Ivy each managed to get $25k grants from the USOC to do some sports nutrition research (including helping support my dissertation), I remember John Ivy pointing out that this was first time they had funded anything external. Given the comparative shoe-string that the USOC sports science program has always lived on, it’s hard to envision how *they* could afford a sophisticated doping program.

Sophisticated? I agree, not in the Leipzig/Cologne sense of the word.
USOC and the OTC were very dependent on private funding.
That's where Ariel came into the picture. He brags quite a bit about how good he was at raising funding, you can read about that on his website, and Miller and Dardik were also actively involved in raising funding to get the OTC off to a successful start.
So I reckon that in those first three or four years of the OTC (1977- early 80s), there would have been enough funding and a manageable number of athletes to fund and develop an organized doping program.
They wanted/needed medals, and everybody knew that doping was the easiest way to achieve that.
So organized? I would say yes. Sophisticated? Not necessarily.

And then after those first couple of years, from what I can tell things started going backwards for the OTC, both financially and in terms of governance.
In the article "Olympic Shame", from 1985 (i think), there is an interview with Dardik where he deplores that he wasn't getting enough funding and support to make the OTC into a real worthy equivalent of the Leipzig sports medical centre. And he deplores that many of his initial plans (e.g. to get a whole army of mobile labs out there in support of athletes who couldn't live at the OTC) never materialized. Of course he was also fired in 1985.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Thanks, much appreciate the personal background. Very interesting, and props for that.
Nothing for me to comment on, except this:

...

5. Aside from the fact that much information has been lost to history, part of the reason that I think that you’re on a fool’s errand here is that, unlike other state actors, the USOC has never had significant resources to direct towards elaborate doping efforts, even if they might or might not have been envisioned by some. For example, I recall Ed Coyle coming back from a visit to (I believe) Lake Placid, where he scoffingly related how the OTC biomechanists had film cameras set up on the downhill ski slope. When Ed asked who was going to analyze all of the data (a truly onerous task back in the day), the answer was “Nobody – we can’t afford the film, but have set up the cameras anyway to trick the athletes into thinking that they’ve got the best sports science support in the world.” Along the same lines, when Ed and John Ivy each managed to get $25k grants from the USOC to do some sports nutrition research (including helping support my dissertation), I remember John Ivy pointing out that this was first time they had funded anything external. Given the comparative shoe-string that the USOC sports science program has always lived on, it’s hard to envision how *they* could afford a sophisticated doping program.

Sophisticated? I agree, not in the Leipzig/Cologne sense of the word.
USOC and the OTC were very dependent on private funding.
That's where Ariel came into the picture. He brags quite a bit about how good he was at raising funding, you can read about that on his website, and Miller and Dardik were also actively involved in raising funding to get the OTC off to a successful start.
So I reckon that in those first three or four years of the OTC (1977- early 80s), there would have been enough funding and a manageable number of athletes to fund and develop an organized doping program.
They wanted/needed medals, and everybody knew that doping was the easiest way to achieve that.
So organized? I would say yes. Sophisticated? Not necessarily.

And then after those first couple of years, from what I can tell things started going backwards for the OTC, both financially and in terms of governance.
In the article "Olympic Shame", from 1985 (i think), there is an interview with Dardik where he deplores that he wasn't getting enough funding and support to make the OTC into a real worthy equivalent of the Leipzig sports medical centre. And he deplores that many of his initial plans (e.g. to get a whole army of mobile labs out there in support of athletes who couldn't live at the OTC) never materialized. Of course he was also fired in 1985.

did that coincide with Lemond

 

[Starstruck]

I had a lot of fun riding junior in Canada in the late '80's (sometimes riding pro 1&2 as a junior). I don't think anyone that I was competing against (junior) was on anything more than vitamin pills, if they were it wasn't overwhelming. Some international junior races must have been different. There were a couple of local genetic freaks but they quit too when confronted with obvious need to dope to progress. It was a lot of fun. Friendly competition. Belgium was a drug addled freak show though. Still fun, but relatively pointless without the juice even as an amateur. This was made explicit at every turn (why are you here then?).