What gave Lance the better programme?

[redtreviso]

Lance ain't skeered... It might be a matter of what riders are the most willing to be a maxed out pharmacological experiment.. Having been through cancer and chemo Lance just may not have the same kind of regard for his health or life. His personality would go that way.. He would be the guy that does 20 shots of tequila or snorts a 4 foot line of cocaine to prove his lack of fear. Other riders might draw the line at waking up with heart failure symptoms in the middle of the night.. Lance would just hire someone to supervise his sleep.

 

[Cobblestoned]

I did not answer the question any better than the others.

Sure, I agree that Dr Ferrari is goooood. A Maestro as it were.
But why??

Maybe Plato points us toward the answer when discussing "Quality":

"And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"

Or maybe I can take the easy way out and just say that Dr Ferrari responds well to working with 7 time TdF Champions!

many other good responders, some not

Alessandro Bertolini, Gianluca Bortolami, Gianni Bugno, Mario Cipollini, Claudio Chiappucci, Armand de las Cuevas, Fernando Escartín, Gianni Faresin, Giorgio Furlan, Ivan Gotti, Andreas Kappes, Kevin Livingston, Eddy Mazzoleni, Axel Merckx, Abraham Olano, Daniele Pontoni, Tony Rominger, Paolo Savoldelli, Filippo Simeoni, Pavel Tonkov, Enrico Zaina, Beat Zberg

 

[Cobblestoned]

Nice! I'll play along:

Poor Cobblestoned. Didn't have an effective education and couldn't read at the level of his peers, even with his superbduperextraordinary ability to mash at the keyboard and click the "Submit Reply" button.

You're putting in a decent effort, and I like the touch you've added with the stunted English. My feeling is that your German is also stunted, adversely affected by the same head injury that's causing you to believe that doping was a level playing field when Armstrong was in the game.

I´m not sure I will ever forgive you for this statement and I´m not sure if anybody in this room will forgive you.

Pfffffff......the language-card

 

[Polish]

many other good responders, some not

Alessandro Bertolini, Gianluca Bortolami, Gianni Bugno, Mario Cipollini, Claudio Chiappucci, Armand de las Cuevas, Fernando Escartín, Gianni Faresin, Giorgio Furlan, Ivan Gotti, Andreas Kappes, Kevin Livingston, Eddy Mazzoleni, Axel Merckx, Abraham Olano, Daniele Pontoni, Tony Rominger, Paolo Savoldelli, Filippo Simeoni, Pavel Tonkov, Enrico Zaina, Beat Zberg

Yes, that is an impressive list I guess. Maybe even a donkey or two.
But early in his career, Ferrari showed no talent for winning the TdF.

It was only after Ferrari started working with Lance that a Ferrari donkey won the TdF multiple times. Lance transformed Ferrari into a 7 time winning TdF blood doctor!

 

[dbrower]

There is a lot in this issue of how well different individuals respond to doping.

I believe that for much of the last 15 years genetic "talent" was replaced with "natural response to doping products". Probably equally random, and sort of "unfair" but perhaps even more advantageous to the fortunate minority.

It seems to me that it comes down to genetics. The "fair" playing field has proportion of slow to fast twitch, and VO2max, and the like, called "talent", and we pretend that one is level. The "unfair" genetic playing field is how a body responds to things that we arbitrarily decide to prohibit.

The only distinctions are which sets of genes we arbitrarily decide to allow to dominate the competitive results. Exploitation of other differences is "unfair".

-dB

 

[Merckx index]

Why don’t we stick to facts here? Or at least distinguish them from speculation.

Fact: Six samples tested positive for EPO.
Fact: A corticosteroid positive was allowed to pass as a TUE.
Fact: Betsy, Emma, et al. said they heard him admit to PEDs
Fact: Most of his main rivals during the seven Tours were later shown to have doped.
Fact: Most multiple TDF winners showed great promise as GT riders at a young age (early 20s).

Speculation: LA had an exclusive deal with Ferrari.
Speculation: Ferrari’s program was better than that recommended by other doctors.
Speculation: No other rider either knew that Ferrari’s program was superior, was willing to try it, or was able to buy access to it.

If anyone has any hard evidence for any of what I have called speculation--or more generally, for the premise that a group of riders all doped may be so very unequally--I would love to see it. I AM NOT saying that I don't believe these are all reasonable propositions, only that I'm not aware of any actual evidence for them.

 

[The Hitch]

Lance ain't skeered... It might be a matter of what riders are the most willing to be a maxed out pharmacological experiment.. Having been through cancer and chemo Lance just may not have the same kind of regard for his health or life. His personality would go that way.. He would be the guy that does 20 shots of tequila or snorts a 4 foot line of cocaine to prove his lack of fear. Other riders might draw the line at waking up with heart failure symptoms in the middle of the night.. Lance would just hire someone to supervise his sleep.

interesting assesment of his psyche. I always wondered what the mentality of someone who is willing to do what he did to get the 7 tours (the doping and non doping aspects of it) might be. I myself see neither the doping nor the pain as worth it.

 

[The Hitch]

Yes, that is an impressive list I guess. Maybe even a donkey or two.
But early in his career, Ferrari showed no talent for winning the TdF.

It was only after Ferrari started working with Lance that a Ferrari donkey won the TdF multiple times. Lance transformed Ferrari into a 7 time winning TdF blood doctor!

lol nicely done.

 

[Cobblestoned]

I have another fact to speculate:

Ferrari <<>> Cecchini <<>> Fuentes <<>> Choina

the ring of fire

 

[The Hitch]

Why don’t we stick to facts here? Or at least distinguish them from speculation.

Fact: Six samples tested positive for EPO.
Fact: A corticosteroid positive was allowed to pass as a TUE.
Fact: Betsy, Emma, et al. said they heard him admit to PEDs
Fact: Most of his main rivals during the seven Tours were later shown to have doped.
Fact: Most multiple TDF winners showed great promise as GT riders at a young age (early 20s).
.

I dont think anyone on this thread has denied that Lance doped. His detractors say he had a better programme/ reacted better to drugs/ risked more, his defenders say he had the same programme and natural talent won him the 7tdfs.

We are not discussing whether or not he doped. Everyone knows he did. No one here even believes the "the scientists put epo in my samples" allibi.

 

[flicker]

Why don’t we stick to facts here? Or at least distinguish them from speculation.

Fact: Six samples tested positive for EPO.
Fact: A corticosteroid positive was allowed to pass as a TUE.
Fact: Betsy, Emma, et al. said they heard him admit to PEDs
Fact: Most of his main rivals during the seven Tours were later shown to have doped.
Fact: Most multiple TDF winners showed great promise as GT riders at a young age (early 20s).

Speculation: LA had an exclusive deal with Ferrari.
Speculation: Ferrari’s program was better than that recommended by other doctors.
Speculation: No other rider either knew that Ferrari’s program was superior, was willing to try it, or was able to buy access to it.

If anyone has any hard evidence for any of what I have called speculation--or more generally, for the premise that a group of riders all doped may be so very unequally--I would love to see it. I AM NOT saying that I don't believe these are all reasonable propositions, only that I'm not aware of any actual evidence for them.

FACT The ex-fans of My Lord Armstrong have such a strong dis-attachment/jilted feelings towards Lord Armstrong that they must research these skewed fallacies daily about Lord Armstrong in order for them to carry on their daily tasks. Those are lies Lord Armstrong won 7 Tours...clean. Get over it. The 4 best cyclists ever were Merckx, Coppi, Armstrong, Major Taylor. Ultra preguntas por favor?

 

[Merckx index]

I dont think anyone on this thread has denied that Lance doped. His detractors say he had a better programme/ reacted better to drugs/ risked more, his defenders say he had the same programme and natural talent won him the 7tdfs.

We are not discussing whether or not he doped. Everyone knows he did. No one here even believes the "the scientists put epo in my samples" allibi.

Yeah, believe it or not, I understood that all along. I was just emphasizing that the evidence/arguments for doping are often conflated with the notion that his doping gave him an advantage over other dopers. This is shown very clearly in the earlier post mocking Lace supporters who have come around to the idea that he doped, but who insist that since the peloton was doped, it was a level playing field. That poster assumes all of the evidence is of one piece, that once you accept that he doped, you inevitably have to accept that his doping gave him an advantage over other dopers. That was what I was challenging. Not as a reasonable argument, but as a fact that only deniers could argue against.

 

[Merckx index]

I admire the way the average fanboy can employ a "shifting defence", of their idol.
They appear to experience no difficulty in seamlessly shifting their stance from "Lance was clean", to "Lance was dirty, but his programme was standard, off the shelf, issue."

Much the way you seamlessly shift from "not all doping programs are equally cheap" to "LA's program was head and shoulders better than Ullrich's, Basso's, Beloki's, Vino's, etc."

 

[blutto]

Can anyone address the OP's question? Hint: it's not, "Who had the better program", so could you all please shut up about that?

What makes a better - more effective, less detectable - doping program? It's an interesting question.

Anyone?

Bueller?

...that could be the $64,000 question....and the answer could be as follows....and this be the abridged version....

....an aquaintance/fellow rider who happens to be an oncologist/researcher once told me he thought the secret to Lance's success could be found in the drugs that Lance had taken during his cancer treatment and continued to take well after the fact....in his opinion these drugs ( and gawd knows how he knew this...but as researcher he was really connected...) were masking agents of a very high order...in fact the money line was something like this..."these drugs create a hole in the drug regs so big you could drive a semi full of drugs thru it at 90mph and not touch anything"..

...seemed like a great story but I had no footnotes or any other form of legitimization ( like I couldn't quote Voet or any other gold standard...)...until I ran into an article into the background of the reporter's inqury that eventually yielded the '99 samples...apparently ( and sorry I can't find the article or even remember where it could be....) the reporter was originally looking for drugs in Lance's system that were related to his cancer treatment...he ended up with what were the infamous '99 samples and the "other" thing kinda dropped from view...

...if this correct, this may be the key to a better/more effective programme...other-wise as Cobblestoned pointed out its sort of a level playing field and best guy won scenario...

Cheers

blutto

 

[Merckx index]

...that could be the $64,000 question....and the answer could be as follows....and this be the abridged version....

....an aquaintance/fellow rider who happens to be an oncologist/researcher once told me he thought the secret to Lance's success could be found in the drugs that Lance had taken during his cancer treatment and continued to take well after the fact....in his opinion these drugs ( and gawd knows how he knew this...but as researcher he was really connected...) were masking agents of a very high order...in fact the money line was something like this..."these drugs create a hole in the drug regs so big you could drive a semi full of drugs thru it at 90mph and not touch anything"..
blutto

I don't buy this at all. In the first place, I don't know what drugs he's talking about that are part of cancer therapy that function as masking agents. Masking what? EPO? I doubt it very much, and if it were the case, why does the evidence suggest that LA later turned, like other riders, to blood doping?

In the second place, with EPO, the limit is not so much detectability as HT. Even before there was a test for EPO, riders were limited by the 50% HT rule. So having some hypothetical masking agent that would allow you to take as much EPO as you wanted with impunity would only be of limited help. You could only raise your HT so much. Riders seemed to be able to do this by microdosing EPO, or if not that, certainly by blood transfusions, so someone with superior masking really wouldn't have much of an advantage.

 

[Oldman]

FACT The ex-fans of My Lord Armstrong have such a strong dis-attachment/jilted feelings towards Lord Armstrong that they must research these skewed fallacies daily about Lord Armstrong in order for them to carry on their daily tasks. Those are lies Lord Armstrong won 7 Tours...clean. Get over it. The 4 best cyclists ever were Merckx, Coppi, Armstrong, Major Taylor. Ultra preguntas por favor?

You just love chumming those waters, don't you?

 

[flicker]

You just love chumming those waters, don't you?

Yeah you need good bait to catch a whopper. Ever been to London and heard the East Indians pronounce whopper at Burger King over some nice John Coltrane. Ah Europe. Lance stole my virtue and left me in the gutter like a used kleenex

 

[Mellow Velo]

Much the way you seamlessly shift from "not all doping programs are equally cheap" to "LA's program was head and shoulders better than Ullrich's, Basso's, Beloki's, Vino's, etc."

Thanks for telling me what I mean.
Do you read what you write, or are you just too busy defending to keep up?
Shiftless.

 

[Merckx index]

Thanks for telling me what I mean.
Do you read what you write, or are you just too busy defending to keep up?
Shiftless.

Actually, I was hoping you had some evidence to back up what you think you mean. I'm still waiting, and believe me, if you have it, I will be grateful for it.

 

[blutto]

I don't buy this at all. In the first place, I don't know what drugs he's talking about that are part of cancer therapy that function as masking agents. Masking what? EPO? I doubt it very much, and if it were the case, why does the evidence suggest that LA later turned, like other riders, to blood doping?

In the second place, with EPO, the limit is not so much detectability as HT. Even before there was a test for EPO, riders were limited by the 50% HT rule. So having some hypothetical masking agent that would allow you to take as much EPO as you wanted with impunity would only be of limited help. You could only raise your HT so much. Riders seemed to be able to do this by microdosing EPO, or if not that, certainly by blood transfusions, so someone with superior masking really wouldn't have much of an advantage.

...I know this may come as a total shock to you but are drugs used to increase athletic performance other than EPO...whether this magic masking agent applied to them I really have no idea...but I do know there are a lot of drugs that could be used, that are not, simply because they are detectable...my post was simply mentioning an interesting possibility that was the result of two separate occurances of basically the same information...I was hoping that someone with some knowledge in the field would run with it...Lance may have doing something way out the ordinary...don't limit your inquiry to EPO...

Cheers

blutto

 

[flicker]

...I know this may come as a total shock to you but are drugs used to increase athletic performance other than EPO...whether this magic masking agent applied to them I really have no idea...but I do know there are a lot of drugs that could be used, that are not, simply because they are detectable...my post was simply mentioning an interesting possibility that was the result of two separate occurances of basically the same information...I was hoping that someone with some knowledge in the field would run with it...Lance may have doing something way out the ordinary...don't limit your inquiry to EPO...

Cheers

blutto

I do feel Lance may have found other magic elixers other than B.Doping +EPO. These so called doctors are always coming up with something. What did I here sea turtle blood. That sounds so scary.

 

[skk6691]

People respond differently to the same drug. A paper has been published where it looked at how cyclists responded to EPO. The authors found that there was a huge difference in improvement from 3% to 18%, so perhaps Lance was a good 'responder' and if he improved by 18% then that would transform anyone. Interestingly Floyd has been quoted as saying that he did not think epo made much difference to his performance. I have not been able to track this paper down but I think the research was done at the AIS if anyone can help it would be appreciated.

 

[step23]

check this very, very interesting article. Drug Test imo there should have been some cocktail of everything, which were not prohibited and/or detectable at the time. So those 'preparatores' who were at the front of the progress had some competitive advantage over the rest of the bunch.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Actually, I was hoping you had some evidence to back up what you think you mean. I'm still waiting, and believe me, if you have it, I will be grateful for it.

Of what I said?
Go buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/Put-Me-Back-M...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282204611&sr=8-1

It's all in there.

Of course, although this was my main point, which you chose to ignore.

As For: "LA's program was head and shoulders better than Ullrich's, Basso's, Beloki's, Vino's, etc."
You said it, I didn't, but there is a "spot the difference", in there.

As for the 50%HCT limit you mention in another post. I think you can find evidence that riders could easily beat that rule.

 

[sheenyp]

Was "Dr.Punto" a hematologist?

Dr. Rijkaert would not let the riders blood haematocrit level go above 53-54%.

Here is part of Dr.Ferrari's list:
15.12.94 - 24.5.95
Vladislav Bobrik (Rus) : 42.7 à 53
Bruno Cenghialta (Ita): 37.2 à 54.5
Francesco Frattini (Ita) : 46 à 54
Furlan Giorgio (Ita) : 38.8 à 51
Nicola Minali (Ita) : 41.7 à 54
Piotr Ugrumov (Rus) : 32.8 à 60
Alberto Volpi (Ita) : 38.5 à 52.6
14.1.95 - 24.5.95
Evgueni Berzin (Rus) : 41.7 à 53
14.1.95 - 9.8.95
Ivan Gotti (Ita) : 40.7 à 57
14.1.95 - 10.7.95
Bjarne Riis (Dan) : 41.1 à 56.3

Wow! Ugromov gets doped up to 60% and all for a 3rd in the Giro.

So a high Hct isn't the be all and end all then!