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What did "Actovigen" write on VN.com?

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Oct 25, 2010
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From Steve Frothingham on VN:

"Botany,

I removed several posters and their comments recently because of their ongoing and increasingly nasty dispute, which violated our comments section policies. You can find many examples in the comments section that demonstrate that I do not remove posters who are critical of VeloNews (unless the posts are obscene or make personal attacks).

You are welcome to repost Actovegin's posts that are not part of the dispute.

Trek? Where do you come up with this stuff?

-Steve"
 
Oct 25, 2010
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BotanyBay said:
From Steve Frothingham on VN:

"Botany,

I removed several posters and their comments recently because of their ongoing and increasingly nasty dispute, which violated our comments section policies. You can find many examples in the comments section that demonstrate that I do not remove posters who are critical of VeloNews (unless the posts are obscene or make personal attacks).

You are welcome to repost Actovegin's posts that are not part of the dispute.

Trek? Where do you come up with this stuff?

-Steve"

My reply. Natrually, they tagged mine for moderation. Will it see the light of day? Doubtful:

"Steve, don't treat me like I'm a moron, ok? Most of the doping stories you dare to run are taken from the AP wire service, and usually are old news by the time you do.

Wilcockson got an interview with McQuaid in the middle of a sea of doping scandals, and you guys let him get away with that bunch of posterior-kissing softballs? It's like scoring an interview with Nixon in 1974 and barely mentioning Watergate.

You guys are totally soft on your doping coverage. You only publish the few stories you do because you'd all look openly moronic to not post anything at all. When others come on to these forums (to fill in the coverage gap) with factual information to share, it gets deleted.

Go ahead, continue to behave like an ostrich and fill-up the holes in your coverage with more compelling tales of Cyclocross mania. Our sport is being turned upside down and you guys don't seem to give a damn. It's really sad. When did you guys sell your soul, and what was the price?"
 
Aug 13, 2009
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BotanyBay said:
From Steve Frothingham on VN:

"Botany,

I removed several posters and their comments recently because of their ongoing and increasingly nasty dispute, which violated our comments section policies. You can find many examples in the comments section that demonstrate that I do not remove posters who are critical of VeloNews (unless the posts are obscene or make personal attacks).

You are welcome to repost Actovegin's posts that are not part of the dispute.

Trek? Where do you come up with this stuff?

-Steve"

Nasty dispute? The only nastiness on those comments came from Armstrong groupies that did not like anyone who posted facts.

Straight out lie.
 
Race Radio said:
It is clear that many sites have an agenda.

I think I first discovered the forums about 7-8 years ago. I had lived and raced in Europe and knew a bunch of people in the sport and figured that everyone knew the same things I did....boy was I wrong.

For years I was routinely verbally assaulted, called every name in the book, simply for questioning the myth. I was often banned for no reason, simply because many did not want to hear the truth. For a long period I stuck to just talking about races because the environmental made it useless to discuss the issues that faced the sport.

I'm a regular poster on the velonews forum, and I've been saying for years how doped to the gills masters' racing is.

The prevailing wisdom was that master's races were so competitive because these guys were uber-dedicated athletes with disposable income to buy the best gear, follow the best diets and hire the best trainers.

I argued that even given all this, it is physiologically impossible for aging athletes to experience such a renaissance in their late 30s to early 40s.

It doesn't happen in any other sport but in cycling.

Then the master's racers started getting busted and all of a sudden there was a bit of a paradigm shift in opinion.

This is why the Armstrong myth is so strong in the US. Lance is one of the few athletes this demographic has that makes them believe they too can achieve stunning athletic feats if they just work hard enough. The cheating via PED use is seen, among these master's racers, not as cheating but as utilizing products that allow their natural athletic prowess to develop in the manner in which nature intended if it weren't for the fact that natural hormone levels decrease as we age. This is the myth sold to them by anti-aging clinics, that the aging process isn't part of the natural life cycle.

Go figure that one out of you can.
 
Too bad, but understandable.

Kind of like watching Bobke on Versus. You know he knows.

As for RR getting banned on VN, astounding.

Having followed your posts for years now (other sites), I don't think I can recall your ever being banned... while I definitely have. Those incidents almost exclusively followed a demented Floyd fan's complaint.

There does appear to be something of a critical, educated mass here on CN - kudos to all of you. The PR guys are quickly spotted and countered. This has not been the case elsewhere.

It isn't a level playing field when the guys with the real agendas are given full latitude and underscores just how insidious the doping problem really is.

As for the suggestion that Botany repost's Actovegin's comments... hello, wasn't that a mod talking?

Dave.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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BroDeal said:
ACoggan posts here and he still maintains his "see no evil" approach; there is literally no athletic performance, no matter how outrageous, that might indicate the athlete is taking dope.

That is a gross misrepresentation of my position.
 
speaking of banning doping talk on other sites, there was an article in the telegraph about some rugby player being caught doping and the author suggesting that if you dope you get cuaght. In the comment section, i wrote that doping was rife in all sports, and that it is easy to pass tests, citing Landis and Kohl.

eager to read all the responces, when i checked the article a few hours later, the comment section was gone entirely.

How odd:rolleyes:
 
The Hitch said:
speaking of banning doping talk on other sites, there was an article in the telegraph about some rugby player being caught doping and the author suggesting that if you dope you get cuaght. In the comment section, i wrote that doping was rife in all sports, and that it is easy to pass tests, citing Landis and Kohl.

eager to read all the responces, when i checked the article a few hours later, the comment section was gone entirely.

How odd:rolleyes:

You should've known better.

The stuff about other sports was clearly O/T. Are Landis & Kohl Rugby League sell-outs?

Dave.
 
D-Queued said:
Too bad, but understandable.

Kind of like watching Bobke on Versus. You know he knows.

As for RR getting banned on VN, astounding.
Having followed your posts for years now (other sites), I don't think I can recall your ever being banned... while I definitely have. Those incidents almost exclusively followed a demented Floyd fan's complaint.

There does appear to be something of a critical, educated mass here on CN - kudos to all of you. The PR guys are quickly spotted and countered. This has not been the case elsewhere.

It isn't a level playing field when the guys with the real agendas are given full latitude and underscores just how insidious the doping problem really is.

As for the suggestion that Botany repost's Actovegin's comments... hello, wasn't that a mod talking?

Dave.

RBR not VN
 
Oct 25, 2010
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D-Queued said:
Too bad, but understandable.

Kind of like watching Bobke on Versus. You know he knows.

Frankie once gave me the situation on Versus. Talking about doping on Versus is like talking about FightClub. Don't talk about it. Many sponsors do business with the top personalities on the bike and behind the desk. The on-air staff has been sternly warned about it. You only talk about it in the context of cases like Rasmussen's exit or the cases you can't ignore (like Festina). But you never seek it out.
 
The Hitch said:
so is this the greatest cycling forum of them all :D

Or is there a number 1 contender?
I don't even bother going anywhere else. Not that I have a lot of time to spare.:cool:

I once used to read dailypeloton few years back, but I got tired of the doping denials from this website. I just stuck with this one and Eurosport.:)
 
Aug 13, 2009
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I emailed Steve Frothingham and received a very detailed, well thought out response.

He has reinstated Actovigen and his posts. If you have watched the comments section you will have seen that there has been some active back and forth with some less informed posters that has caused some chaos. Steve wrote

but there are too many for me to read them all closely and remember the names of the posters. So when I deleted your comments this morning, I didn't realize you were the same guy who had been making some good comments. I probably needed more coffee.

Steve went into detail about their coverage of doping, the challenges of it, and I agreed with many of his points.
 
May 25, 2009
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Digger said:
RR is a legend guys.....I got banned from RBR for life over complaining about him getting banned there!!!! :D
Anyways, another person who may very well be posting on here is the guy who used to run the Cyclingfansanonymous blog. Absolutely brilliant for links and views on doping - but then he lost all faith around the time of the 'return' and stopped blogging.
There's another forum where moderation is extreme (ANTI-anti doping), BBC sport.
And this is why I would be very reluctant to annoy the mods on here. They really give us great freedom one way or the other and I think, whilst we can all lose the plot at times, we should never lose sight of this. It's only when you see the absolute bulls*** that exists on other forums that you appreciate this place - especially now that BPC is less and less prevalent.:)

Seriously, back in the day on RBR a bunch of us would try, in vain, to shed some light on "the myth" and inevitably moderator Coolhand would ban people who either 1) had too many well reasoned posts about how LA did PED's or 2) Said too many nice things about Lemond. - The RBR doping boards are by far the most ridiculous, one-sided forum.
 
May 25, 2009
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Race Radio said:
I think it was something like this

Hey John,

Maybe in the second part of the interview you could ask some questions about these topics

Walter Viru
We know from Jesus Manzano and Floyd Landis that Viru was the guy who gave the USPS team riders advanced notice of "Surprise" testing. Given that Viru was recently arrested for running a doping clinic at the same time he was running a UCI testing lab perhaps it would be a good thing to investigate this conflict of interest?http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/another-spanish-doping-ring-uncovered-by-police-raids

Blood Values.
The UCI has been tracking blood values for a decade. We know that you warned Tyler Hamilton and Levi about their crazy blood values.http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=features/2006/hamilton_appeal

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/sport...05_mit_auffaelligen_blutwerten_1.7088624.html

We know that Landis had his highest Hct level, higher then the limits Phonak agreed on with the UCI, in the 3rd week of a GT. Even McQuaid has said that rider Hct should drop in the third week.http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-tests-show-cycling-is-cleaner-mcquaid-says . If the UCI has been following Hct's levels for over a decade why did they continue to insist publicly that they did not have a doping problem when they knew this was not the case?

Rassmussen
The UCI rules in 2007 were clear. If a rider missed one Out Of Competition (OOC) test in the 6 weeks prior to a Grand Tour they cannot start that Grand Tour. Rassmussen missed 6 OOC test in the run up to the Tour but the UCI did say anything unitl the start of the Tour. Why did the UCI ignore their own rules?

Did it have anything to do with Verbruggen and Armstrong's attempt to buy the Tour? http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/on...ld-own-the-tour/2008/09/19/1221331205913.html. The deal failed when Armstrong and Verbruggen could not come up with the financing. Did the UCI withhold the information in order to cause maximum embarrassment to the Tour and reduce the price the asset Verbruggen was trying to buy? Prudhomme thinks so “Verbruggen wanted to buy the Tour, but we said ‘No thanks,’ so now he wants to get the price down,”

Conflicts of interest
Most people would agree that it is a huge conflict of interest for a rider to give money ($125,000-$5000) to a governing body. Many would also say that it is a conflict for that rider to team up with Verbuggen in an attempt to buy the sports largest event. Would Pat also agree that there is a conflict of interest in the way the McQuaid family uses the sport as it's personal piggy bank? Pat's brother organizes UCI races and sponsorships. His son is an agent for many rider. His nephew was given a job, thanks to Armstrong, at Oakley. Does Pat see how this could be seen as a conflict of interest?

I could go on but you get the idea.....

This post belongs in the cannon of doping evidence posts. Superb compilation. Is there a link to Viru running a UCI testing lab?
 
Aug 13, 2009
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oldschoolnik said:
This post belongs in the cannon of doping evidence posts. Superb compilation. Is there a link to Viru running a UCI testing lab?

I have seen it a few places. Here is one

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/manzano-had-warned-about-virus-doping-activities-1

“I want to give you an example, something I've never spoken about except to the police up until now,” he told L’Equipe’s Jean Issartel in June 2007. “It concerns one of the four Spanish Laboratories accredited by the UCI. This laboratory, which is in charge of sending the UCI vampires [doctors] to take the samples during the Vuelta and other races is the same lab that's in charge of the doctors’ visits to the cyclists. They follow the cyclists and give them the stamp of approval on their licenses.

“The owner of this clinic, a renowned haematologist, called Walter Viru, who is one of the doctors for Kelme, [in order] to alert them the day before the UCI vampires were coming to take the samples from the cyclists. And he did the same thing with Del Moral, the doctor for the US Postal team and then Discovery, [who is] a good friend of his.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Race Radio said:
I think it was something like this

Hey John,

Maybe in the second part of the interview you could ask some questions about these topics

Walter Viru
We know from Jesus Manzano and Floyd Landis that Viru was the guy who gave the USPS team riders advanced notice of "Surprise" testing. Given that Viru was recently arrested for running a doping clinic at the same time he was running a UCI testing lab perhaps it would be a good thing to investigate this conflict of interest?http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/another-spanish-doping-ring-uncovered-by-police-raids

Blood Values.
The UCI has been tracking blood values for a decade. We know that you warned Tyler Hamilton and Levi about their crazy blood values.http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=features/2006/hamilton_appeal

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/sport...05_mit_auffaelligen_blutwerten_1.7088624.html

We know that Landis had his highest Hct level, higher then the limits Phonak agreed on with the UCI, in the 3rd week of a GT. Even McQuaid has said that rider Hct should drop in the third week.http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-tests-show-cycling-is-cleaner-mcquaid-says . If the UCI has been following Hct's levels for over a decade why did they continue to insist publicly that they did not have a doping problem when they knew this was not the case?

Rassmussen
The UCI rules in 2007 were clear. If a rider missed one Out Of Competition (OOC) test in the 6 weeks prior to a Grand Tour they cannot start that Grand Tour. Rassmussen missed 6 OOC test in the run up to the Tour but the UCI did say anything unitl the start of the Tour. Why did the UCI ignore their own rules?

Did it have anything to do with Verbruggen and Armstrong's attempt to buy the Tour? http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/on...ld-own-the-tour/2008/09/19/1221331205913.html. The deal failed when Armstrong and Verbruggen could not come up with the financing. Did the UCI withhold the information in order to cause maximum embarrassment to the Tour and reduce the price the asset Verbruggen was trying to buy? Prudhomme thinks so “Verbruggen wanted to buy the Tour, but we said ‘No thanks,’ so now he wants to get the price down,”

Conflicts of interest
Most people would agree that it is a huge conflict of interest for a rider to give money ($125,000-$5000) to a governing body. Many would also say that it is a conflict for that rider to team up with Verbuggen in an attempt to buy the sports largest event. Would Pat also agree that there is a conflict of interest in the way the McQuaid family uses the sport as it's personal piggy bank? Pat's brother organizes UCI races and sponsorships. His son is an agent for many rider. His nephew was given a job, thanks to Armstrong, at Oakley. Does Pat see how this could be seen as a conflict of interest?

I could go on but you get the idea.....

This should be required reading for anyone with even a passing concern about the doping problem in cycling.
 
May 25, 2009
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Race Radio said:

This link is fascinating. Viru was at the same time the owner of a hematology clinic accredited by the UCI for testing in Spain and at the same time a team doctor Kelme? Unreal.

Has this link been proven? That is has Viru's ownership of this clinic and it's UCI accreditation been confirmed?

What's amazing is that you would think that the lab accreditation process would have some checks and balances - or be transparent enough to avoid conflicts like these but apparently not.

Definitely required reading here. The conflict is so blatant and it's consequences so obvious.
 
oldschoolnik said:
This post belongs in the cannon of doping evidence posts. Superb compilation...

+1

Excellent post by RR!

& while perusing the supporting links:

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news....amilton_appeal

"The report concludes that Tyler Hamilton did use someone else's blood to win the September 11 time trial in the 2004 Vuelta a España. And there is still an open case in front of the CAS, initiated by Viatcheslav Ekimov and the Russian Cycling Federation, that he used foreign blood to win the Olympic time trial in Athens.

October 20, 2004: Viatcheslav Ekimov and the Russian Cycling Federation appeals to CAS over the Athens gold medal."

And Closed here:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/hamilton-to-keep-olympic-time-trial-gold-medal

In hindsight, pretty brazen of the Russians to appeal, considering that Eki was a favored lieutenant during the majority of the Blue Train 'high cadence years' and post Landis revelations.

And, considering that the Eastern Block has historically been at the forefront of sports 'coaching,' perhaps the alternate 'Spice' Route...

Thanks to RR for raising the bar of posts and for successfully pressing the buttons to reactivate Actovigen, did you invite him/her to the Clinic?
 
Jun 13, 2010
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Race Radio said:
I think it was something like this

Hey John,

Maybe in the second part of the interview you could ask some questions about these topics

Walter Viru
We know from Jesus Manzano and Floyd Landis that Viru was the guy who gave the USPS team riders advanced notice of "Surprise" testing. Given that Viru was recently arrested for running a doping clinic at the same time he was running a UCI testing lab perhaps it would be a good thing to investigate this conflict of interest?http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/another-spanish-doping-ring-uncovered-by-police-raids

Blood Values.
The UCI has been tracking blood values for a decade. We know that you warned Tyler Hamilton and Levi about their crazy blood values.http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=features/2006/hamilton_appeal

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/sport...05_mit_auffaelligen_blutwerten_1.7088624.html

We know that Landis had his highest Hct level, higher then the limits Phonak agreed on with the UCI, in the 3rd week of a GT. Even McQuaid has said that rider Hct should drop in the third week.http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-tests-show-cycling-is-cleaner-mcquaid-says . If the UCI has been following Hct's levels for over a decade why did they continue to insist publicly that they did not have a doping problem when they knew this was not the case?

Rassmussen
The UCI rules in 2007 were clear. If a rider missed one Out Of Competition (OOC) test in the 6 weeks prior to a Grand Tour they cannot start that Grand Tour. Rassmussen missed 6 OOC test in the run up to the Tour but the UCI did say anything unitl the start of the Tour. Why did the UCI ignore their own rules?

Did it have anything to do with Verbruggen and Armstrong's attempt to buy the Tour? http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/on...ld-own-the-tour/2008/09/19/1221331205913.html. The deal failed when Armstrong and Verbruggen could not come up with the financing. Did the UCI withhold the information in order to cause maximum embarrassment to the Tour and reduce the price the asset Verbruggen was trying to buy? Prudhomme thinks so “Verbruggen wanted to buy the Tour, but we said ‘No thanks,’ so now he wants to get the price down,”

Conflicts of interest
Most people would agree that it is a huge conflict of interest for a rider to give money ($125,000-$5000) to a governing body. Many would also say that it is a conflict for that rider to team up with Verbuggen in an attempt to buy the sports largest event. Would Pat also agree that there is a conflict of interest in the way the McQuaid family uses the sport as it's personal piggy bank? Pat's brother organizes UCI races and sponsorships. His son is an agent for many rider. His nephew was given a job, thanks to Armstrong, at Oakley. Does Pat see how this could be seen as a conflict of interest?

I could go on but you get the idea.....

Nice post RR,

I will add another tidbit for all our fanboy readers that stop by here, also under the topic of conflict of interest . . . How about LA's uber-rich pal and financial mentor, Jeff Garvey, from Austin Ventures, who sits on the BOD of LAF.org AND Cycling USA. Perhaps Flicker or Polish can tell us how this works? And doesn't LA also have something to do with the U23 program at Cycling USA, like he sits on the board of that or has some other involvement?
 

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