Et tu, Miguel?
Comments
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Fair play I agree.
As for Contador and Evans, yes that was maybe not the best example.0 -
Exactly so! And those riders who were willing to go further than the others effectively dragged others into the same arena. As Zabel said, things got to the point were after being blown out of the back of the race you sat there and though, do I get another job or do I get onto a 'program'?Kléber wrote:... doping isn't a level playing field, it wasn't as if Dr Ferrari was handing out identically-sized pills to everyone who wanted them. Riders who took the biggest risks with their health won, guys like Riis when from handy domestique to Tour winner thanks to giant dosages.
As Walsh said there are riders who were dragged into doping, and others who did the dragging, including Armstrong...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=112082510 -
One of the problems with looking in the past and attempting to decide who was clean and who was not is that, doped or not, Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Armstrong were all physical freaks. Merckx had the biggest lungs ever, Hinault's thighbones were longer than they should have been, Indurain had an oversized heart and Armstrong had a huge capacity to process lactic acid.
This is why these characters cause so much arguments - it was obvious to all concerned that guys like Riis, Heras, Basso etc weren't clean but there is much more scope to argue about people who are superhuman in the proper sense of the word.
Indeed, it can be argued that you can trace all the new waves of doping to ordinary mortals attempting to race the freaks - steroids in the 70s and 80s, EPO to keep up with Mig and blood doping to keep up with Lance.0 -
Face the facts. Doping was still endemic in pro cycling last season and probabaly will be next season as well, especially given the problem of proving someone has blood-doped using thier own blood.thatlondon wrote:Face the facts, I would say it is almost certain that every champion prior to a couple of years ago has doped.0 -
Surely you aren't referring to Contador as in Contador of 'Team Disco' / Bruyneel fame? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!thatlondon wrote:What I care about is that Contador is clean...0 -
aurelio wrote:
Face the facts. Doping was still endemic in pro cycling last season and probabaly will be next season as well, especially given the problem of proving someone has blood-doped using thier own blood.thatlondon wrote:Face the facts, I would say it is almost certain that every champion prior to a couple of years ago has doped.
I don't especially disagree however there are methods and means by which this can be tested, and Vino was caught.
The main problem is the UCI and the ASO. The riders they want to win and win at any costs. I do not believe that it is NOT possible to introduce legislation and testing to stop the cheating. If you take prize money or sponsorship by cheating then in my eyes this is fraud and you should be prosecutable under the law. If a rider is found to have cheated then should be banned for life, and have to repay any financial gains due to this cheating as well as defend a possible prison sentence in court.
At the moment and since the dawn of time cheating is profitable and the UCI and ASO did sod all to stop it. Until that is the media finally got on the band wagon and the sponsors started to drop out.0 -
thatlondon wrote:I don't especially disagree however there are methods and means by which this can be tested, and Vino was caught.
Incorrect - Vino was using someone elses blood and that's easy to detect. They don't test for it most of the time which is likely why Vino took the risk.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Armstrong was not the 'One in a million' rider it was claimed. I would take off the rose-tinted and stars and stripes framed spectacles and take a look at all the data presented at the SCA hearing showing why this is such a myth. I also wonder why such a 'physical freak' was only capable of finishing one of his first 4 Tours, and that over one and a half hours behind the winner! True Tour-winning natural talent usually makes itself apparent a little quicker than that! (I don't deny that Armstrong was a gifted one-day specialist).OllyBianchi wrote:One of the problems with looking in the past and attempting to decide who was clean and who was not is that, doped or not, Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Armstrong were all physical freaks. Merckx had the biggest lungs ever, Hinault's thighbones were longer than they should have been, Indurain had an oversized heart and Armstrong had a huge capacity to process lactic acid.
What brought about the incredible increase in Armstrong's abilities post-cancer? The effects of chemotherapy? Come on! Next you will be claiming that if Ullrich (a genuinely exceptional athelete by all accounts, even if he was a doper) and so on had only done a bit of chemo rather than using Epo, steroids, blood doping and all the rest they might have beaten Armstrong!0 -
aurelio wrote:Come on! Next you will be claiming that if Ullrich (a genuinely exceptional athelete by all accounts, even if he was a doper) and so on had only done a bit of chemo rather than using Epo, steroids, blood doping and all the rest they might have beaten Armstrong!
Don't bring Ullrich into it - He was a product of the East German system so who knows if he was genuinely exceptional.
Cracks me up how Jan is still vaugely praised but Armstrong was an evil monster.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Only because he used someone else's blood! Use the rider's own blood, as was the norm with teams such as Discovery, and the chances of detection are virtually nil. All that can be done is to look for unusual variations in the riders heaemocrit levels and so on. However given the sort of legal tactics used by Landis -who fatuously argued that even multiple positive tests for doping using sophisticated IRMS techniques cannot be held to be evidence of doping- it would probably be hard to have such variations accepted as conclusive evidence of doping, no matter how marked. The 'passport' scheme being developed is supposed to get around this, but doubtless way and means will be found to get around such a 'control'. For example, maintaining a riders boosted heamocrit for much longer periods.thatlondon wrote:
I don't especially disagree however there are methods and means by which this can be tested, and Vino was caught.aurelio wrote:
Face the facts. Doping was still endemic in pro cycling last season and probabaly will be next season as well, especially given the problem of proving someone has blood-doped using thier own blood.thatlondon wrote:Face the facts, I would say it is almost certain that every champion prior to a couple of years ago has doped.0 -
I think Jan still seems to be liked becuase we tend to prefer talented failures rather than perfectly planning. He appeared to have no idea about training, no will power, not much tactical awareness and the decents proved he wasn't even that good at actually riding a bike, but got by on natural talent and guts.
Everyone could identify with him dragging himself into some sort of form and fighting his way around France every year - people like that sort of thing.0 -
True Ullrich was taken into the SC Dynamo sports school in 1986 when he was 13. However the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 when he was just 16! His first big success came another 4 years later when he won the world amateur RR title, so it's hardly right to claim he was something produced under the old regime of the DDR!iainf72 wrote:Don't bring Ullrich into it - He was a product of the East German system so who knows if he was genuinely exceptional.
In any case, I am not trying to praise Ullrich or excuse his doping. Rather I was pointing out that when it comes to the claim that Armstrong won because of some 'one in a million' natural talent, there are plenty of other riders around who known physical parameters are far more exceptional than Armstrong's were pre-cancer. (And much more significantly, prior to him 'getting on a program' according to many credible witnesses, including ex team mates of his).0 -
thatlondon wrote:Face the facts,
I would say it is almost certain that every champion prior to a couple of years ago has doped. And its not just the champions too since the dawn of time the peloton has been dirty.
Who cares what people did in the past, there was no competitive edge because of doping, they all doped. What is important is to make sure that future races are clean.
And Mig is sill God
This is absolutelytrue, and why Bjarne Riis is one of the people I respect most in cycling at the moment. IMO his yellow jersey was far from useless, and he is one of the few to come properly clean, at great personal expense.
Big Miig isn't God though. You'll get struck by lightning.Dan0 -
OllyBianchi wrote:One of the problems with looking in the past and attempting to decide who was clean and who was not is that, doped or not, Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Armstrong were all physical freaks. Merckx had the biggest lungs ever, Hinault's thighbones were longer than they should have been, Indurain had an oversized heart and Armstrong had a huge capacity to process lactic acid.
This is why these characters cause so much arguments - it was obvious to all concerned that guys like Riis, Heras, Basso etc weren't clean but there is much more scope to argue about people who are superhuman in the proper sense of the word.
Indeed, it can be argued that you can trace all the new waves of doping to ordinary mortals attempting to race the freaks - steroids in the 70s and 80s, EPO to keep up with Mig and blood doping to keep up with Lance.
I wouldn't believe any "facts" about armstrongs physiology which atre skewed by his uber impressive PR team.Dan0 -
flattythehurdler wrote:thatlondon wrote:Face the facts,
I would say it is almost certain that every champion prior to a couple of years ago has doped. And its not just the champions too since the dawn of time the peloton has been dirty.
Who cares what people did in the past, there was no competitive edge because of doping, they all doped. What is important is to make sure that future races are clean.
And Mig is sill God
This is absolutelytrue, and why Bjarne Riis is one of the people I respect most in cycling at the moment. IMO his yellow jersey was far from useless, and he is one of the few to come properly clean, at great personal expense.
Big Miig isn't God though. You'll get struck by lightning.
Riis is one of the most fascinating characters in cycling at the moment. I think he is someone who is always looking for the unfair advantage over others and evaulates situations very carefully. The reason he took CSC in the direction he has this year is that it gives him an advantage in business terms, in just the same way as he got a performance advantage in his racing days. I suspect the the process in his mind which led to both of these decisions was the same.0 -
Perhaps, but didn't he get chucked out by CSC after he confessed?Dan0
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Armstrong physiology is a myth. He was an exceptional athlete, but then so are all the Tour riders. He just had a body that responded best to the types of doping he used and a win at all costs attitude that encouraged him to take them.
Without trying to dismiss Ullrich's doping, one thing that is consistently said by everyone that met him is that he was exceptional even without being prepared. Riders used to just stare at his legs in wonder.
I suppose its an advantage of being in a totalitarian state that you can single out kids for certain sports based on their natural physiology. No doubt he was given "vitamins" from an early age to help development though.It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.0 -
No, not everyone. I believe Chris Boardman was one rider robbed of the results he deserved because he didn't 'get on a program'. As Nicolas Aubier said in L'Equipe in January 1997, as reported in the reprint of 'Rough Ride':thatlondon wrote:Who cares what people did in the past, there was no competitive edge because of doping, they all doped.
"I don't think it's possible to make the top 100 on the ranking list without taking EPO, growth hormone or some of the other stuff... well know that's not true, Chris Boardman is there. During my first two years, I roomed with him a lot and never saw him take an injection. I still don't know how he managed to be competitive. "
Other almost certainly 'clean' riders, according to former team mates, soigners and so on giving the 'inside story' on doping incude Christophe Bassons, David Moncoutié, Charly Mottet, Gilles Delion and Philippe Gilbert .0 -
Timoid. wrote:Armstrong physiology is a myth. He was an exceptional athlete, but then so are all the Tour riders. He just had a body that responded best to the types of doping he used and a win at all costs attitude that encouraged him to take them.
Exactly so!0 -
Yet another "my hero's doping is not as bad as the other guys' doping" thread! If you're going to take a strong anti-doping stance in relation to guys like Rasmussen in one thread, you just can't turn around and say it was okay for Eddy, because they all did it and they worked hard and they won little money and... bla bla bla. News flash: they still all did it last year, they still work hard and they still win relatively little money. Zero justification to be found there. If it's bad now, it was bad then. And then the "at least my guy didn't take EPO" line comes back again. If amphetamines and steroids are classified under the "healthy diet" tab in your mind, it's your business, but most countries have laws that state these are most definitely nasty substances no one should be in possession of. How taking them to win bike races could be argued as acceptable, I don't quite grasp. And that a rider was incredible "even when not prepared" is hardly worthy of wiping his slate clean of all the "preparation". It makes it even worse that that rider resorted to the shady means in the first place.
Face it now: the riders we idolized were doped and it was wrong of them. Period. The faster you make peace with that fact, the better. At least us cycling fans have to put up with that crushing realization. Fans of most other sports still live in their little bubble of denial. We know our heroes were on the juice yet somehow try to justify our admiration of them. We cycling fans have become versed in cynicism these last years. It's about time we trade in our hypocrisy in exchange.0 -
And he rode a Trek, no wonder he beat the others.Timoid. wrote:Armstrong physiology is a myth. He was an exceptional athlete, but then so are all the Tour riders. He just had a body that responded best to the types of doping he used and a win at all costs attitude that encouraged him to take them.0 -
aurelio wrote:[Other almost certainly 'clean' riders, according to former team mates, soigners and so on giving the 'inside story' on doping incude Christophe Bassons, David Moncoutié, Charly Mottet, Gilles Delion and Philippe Gilbert .
and didn't Eric Caritoux win the Tour of Spain without drugs and then turned to them afterwards?0 -
Matchstick Man wrote:aurelio wrote:[Other almost certainly 'clean' riders, according to former team mates, soigners and so on giving the 'inside story' on doping incude Christophe Bassons, David Moncoutié, Charly Mottet, Gilles Delion and Philippe Gilbert .
and didn't Eric Caritoux win the Tour of Spain without drugs and then turned to them afterwards?
He's the one mentioned in Breaking The Chain in a passage which says something along the lines of "he only used them carefully and when he really needed to." Must have still been on good terms with Willy to get that said about him.0 -
aurelio wrote:This is the major reason doping is such a big issue! To a large degree the outcome of races reflects the effectiveness of the 'programs' the riders are on as much as it does the natural ability and guts of the riders themselves!
Yes.aurelio wrote:Maybe, but the available research shows that not all riders benefit equally from Epo and blood-doping, not by a long shot.
Maybe I misunderstood your post. It just seems that everyone believes that a guy like Indurain won because he is a huge talent but that riders like Riis and Armstrong won because they supposedly benefited more from doping than everyone else.aurelio wrote:]
I wan't trying to argue any such thing!
I wasn't referring to you specifically. See above.0 -
I did a post here (before my 3 week vacation in california) and lost it by pressing the wrong button, so a little late, here goes.
The place to draw a line of minor drugs and these modern major drugs is the Berlin Wall.
I ask the question of where were the German or US riders before the mid 90's, can you name more than one each????
In 96 the joke was someone in the "CAFE" said he heard the former "Ariosta" rider RISS say he would win the TDF, hillarious. He had joined some obscure german telecom team. (so what) he's only a second rate rider from a team of self interest riders with big ego's.
Anybody remember the 1988 Olympic road race last lap with a break of 8/9 riders coming down the hill to a sharp "U" turn around a roundabout and 2 riders in pursuit. They make contact and after several attempts 2 riders get clear, one being the pursuit rider from east germany the other a west german. The east german becomes Olympic Champion Olaf Ludwig and the rider who helped him bridge the gap was Abdujaperov and we did not realise the significant of this until the Wall came down.
Now Armstrong (mark 1) or Riss have never been in a leading group over any mountain until with Riss on jet fuel (and armstrong going home for tests) a new regime is started and continued when Armstrong (mark 2) gets back.
So draw the line about 95/96 where before that all we heard about was asma/hay fever sprays and amphetamines and not east german or US of A athletics drugs.Organiser, National Championship 50 mile Time Trial 19720 -
The USA cycling team used blood doping to win gold medals at the 1984 Olympics. Lasse Viren was using blood boosting in the 1970s.deejay wrote:So draw the line about 95/96 where before that all we heard about was asma/hay fever sprays and amphetamines and not east german or US of A athletics drugs.
At the highest level athletes are prepared to do whatever it takes to win. They always have.0 -
Pure heresay, but a former college friend who went to the world Athletics championships to compete in a sprint event some time ago (1990s) told me that a well known former British middle distance runner (and multiple world record breaker) was the most doped athlete in British Athletics history. Apparently this particular athlete was said to be using all sorts of things, particularly blood doping. Wherever we look in history people were at it, across a whole range of sports.
The original post on here related to Mr Indurain. A very good friend was at university with a French guy who worked on the Tour during the summer. At that time he said that the urine samples were just dumped out of the window and they rarely even bothered to test them. He also said that Big Mig was on so many different drugs that his body wouldn't be able to take any more without causing a negative effect on his performance. Once again, pure heresay, but interesting anyway.0 -
That's about the seventh degree of hearsay, though I have little doubt it's true.
Dan0 -
andyp wrote:
The USA cycling team used blood doping to win gold medals at the 1984 Olympics. Lasse Viren was using blood boosting in the 1970s.deejay wrote:So draw the line about 95/96 where before that all we heard about was asma/hay fever sprays and amphetamines and not east german or US of A athletics drugs.
At the highest level athletes are prepared to do whatever it takes to win. They always have.
Yup I agree and saw a ANDY GREWAL (or somefink) out sprint Steve BAUER in the 84 event which I thought odd at the time. Whatever happened to him but Steve we all know as a gutsy (unlucky) rider.
FACT---none of this came to cycle racing till the 90's
FACT---there were no States or German riders winning major races. I know Andy Hampsten and Rolf Golz. but then Lemon could be a question I can't answer
In the States it stayed in their internal sports (including athletics) and the other remained behind the "curtain".
The tests that MIG did showed how large was his chest and the oxygen he could produce (I'm out of my depth here) and the enormous gears he could push.
Funny but I've just transferred my tape recording of the 1988 TDF to disc and there in the Team Time Trial is a big fella pulling the Phillips Team and Delgado and then in the mountains he is on the front again pulling the peloton
That's were you draw the line in my opinion, and let your innuendo go in the waste bin.Organiser, National Championship 50 mile Time Trial 19720
