'Victims' of EPO" vs. "EPO wonders"

[B_Ugli]

Martin Earley was on the 91 PDM tour team that pulled out with 9 very sick riders, the story that came out in the late 90s being that it was due to incorrectly stored EPO. So I would lump him in with Kelly and the rest of that happy bunch.

IMO funny results from 90-94 (either good results from mediocre riders or poor results from quality riders) have less to do with what they were taking (i.e. I think they were nearly all taking EPO by 94) and a lot more to do with HOW they were taking it. The guys who had the doctors managing their usage got better results from the same quantity of EPO than the guys who pumped it in but didn't understand how to really grow the cells and combine that with their training plan. Eventually the science spread out and established methods of how to use EPO became standard.

I think you could probably do a EPO doping family tree. It would probably have Gewiss, Once and PDM pretty much at the top. Prizes for who would be the dopefather at the top.

 

[D-Queued]

I think you could probably do a EPO doping family tree. It would probably have Gewiss, Once and PDM pretty much at the top. Prizes for who would be the dopefather at the top.

Yes - I would contribute to the pool.

Dave.

 

[Le breton]

gilles delion -- french tour winner that never was.

QUOTE]

Absolutely. Gilles Delion was an incredible talent.

As for Jeff's list, some names seem pretty odd to me, like

Alvaro Pino - a crooked guy in my opinion, .......Niki Ruttimann, .......... Jean-Francois Bernard, ... Eric Breukink...

For quite of a few of the others I don't have an opinion.

 

["Jeff"]

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/doping-forum/why-jv-needs-come-clean-284497-4.html

I don't see him claiming to be a victim but I do think that many who chose to ride clean in the 90's and early 00's were victims. The sport had little room for them. Guys like Christophe Bassons, Martial Gayant, Charly Mottet, Alvaro Pino, Luis Herrera, Urs Zimmermann, Andy Hampsten, Greg LeMond, Frans Maasen, Niki Ruttimann, Eduardo Chozas, Jean-Francois Bernard, Steve Bauer, Anselmo Fuerte, Martin Earley, Eric Boyer, Laudelino Cubino, Eddy Bouwmans. Their careers were ruined when EPO came onto the scene

Seems to similar to be a coincidence ?

That person stole my list of riders. I'm not him, that's for sure but apparentely he agrees with me. And he's a wise guy on top of that. Nice find !

 

[icefire]

1) IMO clean and victim.
* Martial Gayant, Charly Mottet, Alvaro Pino, Luis Herrera, Urs Zimmermann, Andy Hampsten, Greg LeMond, Frans Maasen, Niki Ruttimann, Eduardo Chozas, Jean-Francois Bernard, Steve Bauer, Anselmo Fuerte, Martin Earley, Eric Boyer, Laudelino Cubino, Eddy Bouwmans, Edwig van Hooydonck, Jelle Nijdam, Sean Yates, Luc Roosen, Oliverio Rincon, Eric Breukink...
Who do you think ?

Alvaro Pino? Seriously? The former DS of Kelme, Phonak and Xacobeo? The loyal teammate of the late Alberto Fernández who tested positive in the Vuelta 1982 (he finished 3rd) together with the disqualified winner Arroyo and old Vicente Belda?
For those who might doubt the 'doping by association' argument, he was well after hist best years when EPO appeared. (Remember that riders' longevity 20 years ago was not what it is now, and he was 34 in 1990). Hardly an EPO victim in any case.

J.F.Bernard was not a victim of EPO. He was a victim of a terrible crash in the 1988 Giro. He never recovered his 1987 level after that crash. Beating Herrera and Delgado by more than 1:30 in the 1987 Mt Ventoux ITT should raise some questions though.

Fuerte and Cubino? Almost sure. Their performances dropped dramatically after 1990 (Fuerte was 28 and Cubino 27 at that time). They were more than decent climbers but both were awful TT riders. Cubino was quite inconsistent and lost the 1988 Vuelta to Sean Kelly in the mountains. Fuerte was more consistent and could have taken a few more podiums in the Vuelta, but his poor TT abilities were an obstacle to get higher than that.

 

[compete_clean]

TS: are you saying Bruekink was a victim of EPO (only) or that he was totally clean? I'm just asking because I raced in Holland too.

Andy Hampsten and Gilles Delion are the first ones to come to mind. If any of you raced with Gilles, you know how talented strong he was.

 

["Jeff"]

J.F.Bernard was not a victim of EPO. He was a victim of a terrible crash in the 1988 Giro. He never recovered his 1987 level after that crash. Beating Herrera and Delgado by more than 1:30 in the 1987 Mt Ventoux ITT should raise some questions though.

This is so funny and ironical. I think you used wikipedia to share this information, which I wrote myself for the most part. This is information you just dont know, unless you used wikipedia. Its my text ! Thanks for the compliment but this is a complete fail.

The problem with some here is, every SINGLE great performance is immediately a case of doping. You just ignore the fact that Bernard was always an marvellous time trial specialist, especially uphill. We are talking about 1987 here too, 1987. In the last time trial he beat almost everyone with more than 2 minutes (Roche aside). He should have won the Tour if he was so doped...

Even if he was doped, certainly not EPO, and that's what this topic is all about. Besides we dont have to feel sorry for Delgado, at least he has been caught in contrast to Jeff Bernard. There has never been a single case against him but coincidence or not, got blown away when EPO really entered the peloton (1993), a few small results aside. No eyebrows should be raised, unless you are a complete pessimist.

And Pino ? You're talking about the general director Pino. I'm talking about the rider and yes of course he had passed the age of 30 but still. Sucked in time trials too but was always a good climber until 1990. Couldnt do squat anymore. Could be coincidence, definitely, but at least respond on the cyclist Alvara Pino and not what he has done when he was driving behind the wheel because I didnt say anything about that.

TS: are you saying Bruekink was a victim of EPO (only) or that he was totally clean? I'm just asking because I raced in Holland too.

I think he was more of a victim. If the EPO rumours of PDM are true * and those rumours are questionable * than I doubt he (and others) even knew what he was getting. And if he knew it, than he quit with it after what happened in 1991. We are talking about Breukink here. A pretty anxious person, downhill he was pretty bad because of that. If somebody thinks that Erik ****** Breukink was cheating with EPO and messing with his life/health during the 90's than we can better stop. We can base this on his personality and his results as well (1992-1995). EPO didnt do his career any favours. Everything is a matter of opinion, of course, but he is the last person I would suspect.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I think he was more of a victim. If the EPO rumours of PDM are true * and those rumours are questionable * than I doubt he (and others) even knew what he was getting. And if he knew it, than he quit with it after what happened in 1991. We are talking about Breukink here. A pretty anxious person, downhill he was pretty bad because of that. If somebody thinks that Erik ****** Breukink was cheating with EPO and messing with his life/health during the 90's than we can better stop. We can base this on his personality and his results as well (1992-1995). EPO didnt do his career any favours. Everything is a matter of opinion, of course, but he is the last person I would suspect.

Omg. Nothing biassed at all.

One name: Alex Zulle, ringabell?

Be a fanboy all u want but please dont insult peoples intelligence.

 

["Jeff"]

Omg. Nothing biassed at all.

One name: Alex Zulle, ringabell?

Be a fanboy all u want but please dont insult peoples intelligence.

I think you have big problem with your english. "Dont insult peoples intelligence, biassed ? "

Okay this was lame. I admit that.

Yet, somebody already pointed this out to you. This is not because we all have to speak it fluently but it seems like you dont understand it. That's the problem.

Alex Zulle, what's up with him, what's your point my friend ? A nice guy who had glasses and used EPO for almost his whole career ? Got caught. Yes all correct, what's the relation with Erik Breukink, what are you trying to say or why should this ring a bell ?

It seems like you are offended a bit because I had to correct you a few times but that's your problem. You're just acting like an expert sometimes but you are just not well-informed about a few things. Last time I didnt even both to respond because it's difficult to discuss things with somebody who is wrong on several accounts. Calling out Gert-Jan Theunisse about his season in 1990 while he was suspened for almost the whole season, was one of those things. It was quite funny and than I'm not allowed to make fun of that ?

Keep it up !

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I think you have big problem with your english. "Dont insult peoples intelligence, biassed ? "

Okay this was lame. I admit that.

Yet, somebody already pointed this out to you. This is not because we all have to speak it fluently but it seems like you dont understand it. That's the problem.

Alex Zulle, what's up with him, what's your point my friend ? A nice guy who had glasses and used EPO for almost his whole career ? Got caught. Yes all correct, what's the relation with Erik Breukink, what are you trying to say or why should this ring a bell ?

It seems like you are offended a bit because I had to correct you a few times but that's your problem. You're just acting like an expert sometimes but you are just not well-informed about a few things. Last time I didnt even both to respond because it's difficult to discuss things with somebody who is wrong on several accounts. Calling out Gert-Jan Theunisse about his season in 1990 while he was suspended for almost the whole season, was one of those things. It was quite funny and than I'm not allowed to make fun of that ?

Keep it up !

You are trying to be a funny man, but fail in that as well, reading comprehension isn't that difficult. Perhaps you are not so good in cryptic messages.

Nevertheless the point I was trying to make was Alex Zulle was also a very nice humble boy, was also a lady on descending, who would - in your retorica - have dreamed he would dope? Such a nice guy on the same ONCE team as your neighbourhood hero Erik Breukink? With the same doc named E. Fuentes? No, that Erik was the sole clean rider on ONCE!

Do you know Dutch riders riding clean [EPO clean I mean]? Winnen, Stevenhaagen and Bouwmans. Any more?

And again, you don't have to tell me anything about psycho Gert Jan T. and his succes at Peter Post. When you don't even understand the clear downfall of T. et R[ooks] in comparison with the major upcoming of Breukink at PDM you have blindfolds on.

In 1990 the sudden having to stop of Teun van Vliet was more upsetting than the again positive of dear old Gert Jan, quelle surprise with his natural high testosteron level.

But keep up the good Wiki Works! It was a real good read. Do you really think people don't know about Bernards' carreer?

Why were you busy on Pino? The man was 34 in 1990? What do you expect? A Tony Rominger?

You wanna know another EPO victim? Paul Kochli. Go wiki him.

PS: I really don't care Breukink doped, but stating him to be a victim of EPO is not correct imho.

 

["Jeff"]

You are trying to be a funny man, but fail in that as well, reading comprehension isn't that difficult. Perhaps you are not so good in cryptic messages.

Nevertheless the point I was trying to make was Alex Zulle was also a very nice humble boy, was also a lady on descending, who would - in your retorica - have dreamed he would dope? Such a nice guy on the same ONCE team as your neighbourhood hero Erik Breukink? With the same doc named E. Fuentes? No, that Erik was the sole clean rider on ONCE!

Do you know Dutch riders riding clean [EPO clean I mean]? Winnen, Stevenhaagen and Bouwmans. Any more?

And again, you don't have to tell me anything about psycho Gert Jan T. and his succes at Peter Post. When you don't even understand the clear downfall of T. et R[ooks] in comparison with the major upcoming of Breukink at PDM you have blindfolds on.

In 1990 the sudden having to stop of Teun van Vliet was more upsetting than the again positive of dear old Gert Jan, quelle surprise with his natural high testosteron level.

But keep up the good Wiki Works! It was a real good read. Do you really think people don't know about Bernards' carreer?

Why were you busy on Pino? The man was 34 in 1990? What do you expect? A Tony Rominger?

You wanna know another EPO victim? Paul Kochli. Go wiki him.

PS: I really don't care Breukink doped, but stating him to be a victim of EPO is not correct imho.

Only difference is that Alex Zulle has been caught and admitted he used it for years. Yeah in retrospect, even when we would not have had this kind of information, we could have said this. There's a small difference wit Zulle's results and Breukink's results and the era's when both had these results. There's absolutely no connection, its a waste of time.

Somebody is exactly saying what I wrote down about Jeff Bernard. That's laughable and no coincidence. Who's saying people dont know him ? But hey, just keep trolling and disagree on everything I say just because you were offended.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Only difference is that Alex Zulle has been caught and admitted he used it for years. Yeah in retrospect, even when we would not have had this kind of information, we could have said this. There's a small difference wit Zulle's results and Breukink's results and the era's when both had these results. There's absolutely no connection, its a waste of time.

Somebody is exactly saying what I wrote down about Jeff Bernard. That's laughable and no coincidence. Who's saying people dont know him ? But hey, just keep trolling and disagree on everything I say just because you were offended.

I tend to think we disagree and will not come to an agreement; so I am sorry for calling Breukink an EPO user solely on the arguments he had a supposed EPO overdose [some call it still intralepid] and being on ONCE with dear old Zulle/Jaja/the Hog/Stephens/Mauri, hell, who not? Terrados and Fuentes just forgot to put the needle in poor Erik's arm and made Jaja the sprinter a GT winner FFS!

EPO victim? Pedro Delgado of course! Perico is a nice guy, comes from my province, his sister in law's neighbour is a friend of my wife. He could never dope, with EPO that is. A little masking agent is no real dope of course.

Other victims?
The cycling loving community.
The journalists who are lying for over twenty years to keep their jobs.
The cycling youth who think these kinda performances is the standard.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Bump.

Has anyone any info on Flavio Giupponi? Is he the 'Hampsten' of Italy? A strange carreerpath.

Nice article on Italian cycling 1989:
http://ricerca.gelocal.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1989/10/06/un-podio-tutto-straniero.html

 

[martinvickers]

Meet Alejandro Valverde. Nicest guy in the world.
Irredeemable doper.

Nice guys also dope. I can name hundreds.

True. The problem really is that the" whole cycling world" became convinced of the extent of the problem (we always knew there were problems) in 1998 with Festina. the whole Game blew up beyond anyone's ability to kid themselves. this despite the fact that EPO had been the key to the whole race for years through the induarain era on. Indurain was a pretty good guy. Doper, but a nice lad.

But the "whole world" beyond cycling grasped the extent of it this last few years, and for them the signal doper is Armstrong.

And Armstrong was a socipathic bast*rd.

So we end up with a link - doping to bad character. And maybe in other sports not as riddled with drugs as cycling, or as team driven, there's a small something to that - only the more ruthless, less moral might be willing to go the whole hog. Individual belief in the sport still matters. Even in sports with the troubles of athletics, for example, i don't doubt a good proportion are clean, just as I don't doubt a good proportion are dirty.

But in cycling, and a few other sports (weightlifting springs to mind, perhaps swimming for a while, too), the entire culture became irredeemable. Good buys doped, because a career was all but an impossiblity without it, and good guys need to eat too. It was a problem beyond the scope of individual decent guys to solve. The best they could do was abstain, and disappear.

I think that's what JV tries to hint at now, about the relative* success of the blood pasport et al. - bad guys will always try and get an unfair advantage, they are the scorpion, it's in their nature (see Di Luca), but a 'good guy' can at least hope to have a career without. There's some sort of choice.

* I'm well aware it's relative. And possibly transitory. And YMMV. But it reflect's I think JV's view

 

[DirtyWorks]

IMO funny results from 90-94 (either good results from mediocre riders or poor results from quality riders) have less to do with what they were taking (i.e. I think they were nearly all taking EPO by 94) and a lot more to do with HOW they were taking it.

#1: As published in an interview with a "preparer" doping well is like being a maestro of a symphony of untrained players. (paraphrased) There's an enormous learning curve for each athlete figuring out which dope works, and then to put it all together to create a super-responder if the athlete is doing doping with some structure and purpose.

#2: We know, based on JV1973's comments and other riders vague references that EPO use did not provide uniform results. You've got that creep still coaching young adults in a Colorado college that was selling EPO with various effect.

The better responders did *much* better. Levi and Armstrong are two examples among many.

Anyone have anything on a John Devine from the U.S.? I stumbled across some references to him the other day. http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=2691 Seems to have vanished, and didn't seem to flourish in the elite profession.

 

[ultimobici]

Bump.

Has anyone any info on Flavio Giupponi? Is he the 'Hampsten' of Italy? A strange carreerpath.

Nice article on Italian cycling 1989:
http://ricerca.gelocal.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1989/10/06/un-podio-tutto-straniero.html

Giupponi? He's the guy who attacked Fignon after a crash or he stopped for a leak?

 

[DirtyWorks]

So we end up with a link - doping to bad character.

One of my pet peeves is that quoted bit above. We know the federations and the IOC enable it yet the stories never implicates them. Marion Jones admits to a career of doping from teen years on yet the silence is deafening from the federation.

 

[42x16ss]

Anyone have an opinion on Phil Anderson? Doubt he was totally clean but he quickly went from a TdF & RvV/Ardennes contender to hunting stages and captaining teams on the road right about that time.

 

[simo1733]

I liked Sean Kelly I must say but when friggin Raul Alcala is winning a TT in any GT and stands on the podium with a somewhat disgraced face anyone should know 'something' is smelly.

My bias? Just look at Rooks and Theunissen after PDM and at Post:
http://www.dewielersite.net/db2/wielersite/coureurfiche.php?coureurid=4645

and

http://www.dewielersite.net/db2/wielersite/coureurfiche.php?coureurid=7165

That, my friend, are facts. A clear downfall whereas Breukink had a clear rise in performance in 1990 after his not too good - even bad, Post let him go - 1989.

I do not want to pick on your friend/hero but his 1990 season was extremely good. If he hadn't got an EPO overdose in 1991 he probably would have won.

Raul Alcala is still winning TTs now.Some say he was the most naturally gifted rider of his generation