Lance doping confession - I want an apology from him!

rjsterry

First Aspect wrote:

Wrath Rob wrote:

First Aspect wrote:

I read the other day that Mercx tested positive three times in his career, but he did it all on mineral water, right? Anquetil openly discussed amphetamine use, but it wasn't illegal then, so we gloss over it and call it a level playing field.

Not true. Anquetil used what was legal at the time and therefore didn't cheat by the definition of the rules at the time.

Merckx, despite his protestations, was found guilty, was DQ'd and served his ban. Technically he was therefore a cheater. In his case though, his level of performance without drugs (we assume) was so superior to everyone else's that the need to cheat wasn't there, certainly before his accident and very possibly after it.

The difference between the 90's and before is what the drugs were able to do. HGH, EPO, testosterone and blood transfusions were able to turn "donkeys into race horses", they were game changes, creating situations where sprinters were suddenly able to keep up with climbers in the Alps or where someone who was mid-pack suddenly became a GC contender. As LA himself said, it was "not normal". Brandy, amphetamines etc were never able to do that as they didn't alter your basic physiology. A sprinter still wouldn't be able to race a climber up an Alp and a climber wouldn't be able to out-drag a sprinter on the flat.

You are chosing to believe some cheaters over others, surely? Why was Mercx only technically a cheater? If he tested positive three times these days, he'd be banned for life. Why do you believe that he was so superior because of natural talent, whereas LA isn't? Surely its simpler to assume that they are both the same, rather than one being the devil incarnate and the other being a natural superhero. Its just your belief, and reinforces the notion that LA is being unduly singled out and villified.

Are you really sure that amphetamines aren't terribly effective compared to EPO? Are they really capable of even handedly doping an entire peloton any more or less than any other drug? I'd say that their use gives an unfair advantage to people who are naturally more easily mentally fatigued or who have naturally higher body fat.

Lets get onto the swindling thing. Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis both cheated and then knowingly drummed up cash from fans' donations to defend themselves. I find that very difficult to forgive.

Tell me who LA did this to. He paid all his own legal costs, as far as I know. I suppose you think he cheated race organisers out of winnings or sponsors out of sponsorship monies and bonuses. However the distinction there is that all parties were benefitting from his presence by far more than the amount they "lost", and were along for the ride for just about as long as it suited them. And they knew what they were getting, else why do so many of the contracts have clauses dealing with positive tests?

Other riders were cheated out of careers, I suppose... hang on though, lets take a look at the records of the GC contenders of the same era. Stone the crows, they were all at it! So no one lost out really, other than a bunch of naturally less gifted riders who still wouldn't have won if the whole field had been clean.

Clearly I'm trolling a little. However I want you to make the case, not merely lambast one single cheat out of a larger group of more or less similar cheats.

I'm gutted Lance has gone down. We all knew he was at it, deep down, but it was much nicer to make believe.

Obviously LA is far from the only doper, and Floyd and Tyler's 'honesty' seems just as mercenary. But LA's doping and that of his team was, according to USADA, on a much greater scale. It's this scale that is the difference. The fact that even Lance had to reach for the example of East German state sponsored doping as a comparator says it all. Not only that but partly as a result of all this doping and the results that it gave him, Armstrong became 'the face of cycling'. Hamilton, Landis and others could never claim this. Arguably, Armstrong eclipsed even Merckx, at least to the general public. It's no surprise that having climbed so high, he's falling harder than others who have been caught doping.

Going back to the difference between doping in the '60s and that in the '90s and '00s, nobody suggested that speed didn't give people an advantage, but compared with modern doping it's use was crude, and the (useful) effects short lived.

rjsterry

First Aspect wrote:

Bondurant wrote:

"Are you really sure that amphetamines aren't terribly effective compared to EPO?"

Yep.

Make the case then. I know its the internet and all, but don't be lazy now.

Microdosing of EPO up to a max hct level of 50 vs. as much amphatamine as your heart can take (which is all fine and dandy providing you don't get asked to give a urine sample after breaking the hour record that is, in which case, leave it 48 hours or so and then give a sample...)

http://drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/doping-with-the-amphetamines/

The advantage it gives is allowing an athlete to push closer to the limits of their physiology. That's quite different from drugs which actually alter the athlete's physiology on a medium term basis. Also if you are doing something hot - like riding up Mt. Ventoux - it is likely to kill you as it interferes with your bodies ability to regulate heat. Given the lengths cyclists go to to keep cool

The biggest problem with the usual lay-media analyses (and by now the confirmed “lore”) is that they seem to overlook the fact that amphetamines have specific pharmacological effects which dysregulate body temperature. This has been known for a loooong time: A quick Pubmed search pulls some 255 references dating back to 1957. You will note most lay reports focus on the stimulant properties, i.e., that amphetamine let Simpson ride harder.

In animal models, under at thermoneutral or higher ambient temperature conditions, the amphetamines elevate body temperature which can be a proximal cause of amphetamine-related fatality. In rodents, if you push the ambient temperature up, alter bedding, social housing, humidity, etc in ways that counter heat shedding you increase the drug lethality

daviesee

First Aspect wrote:

....Lets get onto the swindling thing. Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis both cheated and then knowingly drummed up cash from fans' donations to defend themselves. I find that very difficult to forgive......

....Other riders were cheated out of careers, I suppose... hang on though, lets take a look at the records of the GC contenders of the same era. Stone the crows, they were all at it! So no one lost out really, other than a bunch of naturally less gifted riders who still wouldn't have won if the whole field had been clean..

Hamilton & Landis collected money to defend themselves. Armstrong used his ill gotten gains to sue, and ruin those who told the truth. A fine line maybe in your opinion but a line none the less.

Not all cyclists doped so you don't know how the results would have panned out if no one was. Stop peddling the myth that all cyclists doped.

He was far from the only one but he took things to a new level. The punishments should be taken to a new level too. That is not personal, only logical.

meanredspider

daviesee wrote:

He was far from the only one but he took things to a new level. The punishments should be taken to a new level too. That is not personal, only logical.

What's the reference for the assertion about a "whole new level"? Certainly Hamilton's book suggested Hamilton (and plenty of others) was doing pretty much exactly the same things as Armstrong. Festina had obviously, completely independently of LA, taken it to a pretty serious level.

And when you say not everyone was doping, you are right. Those that weren't doping, though, were, almost by definition, not in the race. It's clear from the times that riders are doing today (probably clean though on better bikes, with better training and better support), clean riders simply aren't capable of the speeds they were doing back then without the help of doping.

Cycloslalomeur

Comparing amphetamines to blood doping is just plain silly. My grandad was on Pervitin during the war and told me it didn't actually render you any faster or stronger, it just made you think you were, which obviously comes with inherent risks in combat as well as in endurance sport.

Sorry Spider, I'm still hung up on this level playing field stuff. There are both quantitative and qualitative differences between the boost gained from (blood) doping on one hand and other advantages, chiefly cash, on the other.

Again, the former is the fact that the performance leap provided by erythropoeietin, synthetic oxygen carriers and the like is so massive that there's no point in even mentioning other advantages on the same day.

But there is also the issue of transparency. Who knows which riders dope and which don't, what their natural response to drugs is, how much they're willing to gamble in terms of their health and so on. By contrast, even if a team was able to hide its finances, they're glaringly obvious. Just count the number of rear axles on the team coach and the number of world champions acting as domestiques. In a way this makes the sport more exciting, not less, as spectators get to root for the underdogs we all love.

daviesee

meanredspider wrote:

daviesee wrote:

He was far from the only one but he took things to a new level. The punishments should be taken to a new level too. That is not personal, only logical.

What's the reference for the assertion about a "whole new level"? Certainly Hamilton's book suggested Hamilton (and plenty of others) was doing pretty much exactly the same things as Armstrong. Festina had obviously, completely independently of LA, taken it to a pretty serious level.

Festina is when the whole thing should have been shut down, so fair enough on that one. That it wasn't is why we are here today with cyclists still currently being caught. The UCI has to take some of the blame for what has happened, and all the blame for future events.

meanredspider wrote:

And when you say not everyone was doping, you are right. Those that weren't doping, though, were, almost by definition, not in the race. It's clear from the times that riders are doing today (probably clean though on better bikes, with better training and better support), clean riders simply aren't capable of the speeds they were doing back then without the help of doping.

:?:
Isn't that the whole problem?
Who thinks Graeme Obree wouldn't have won a few time trials had his professional carreer lasted more than a few hours?

Anyway, I've made my stance and I am done here. I won't convince people otherwise and you won't convince me.

rjsterry

Interesting report here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/23/cycling-body-warned-doping-limits

So they knew EPO use was happening but were still developing the tests. Rather than investigate properly and have another Festina affair, they advised teams to back off the juice a bit to keep things plausible?

meanredspider

Cycloslalomeur wrote:

Sorry Spider, I'm still hung up on this level playing field stuff. There are both quantitative and qualitative differences between the boost gained from (blood) doping on one hand and other advantages, chiefly cash, on the other.

Again, the former is the fact that the performance leap provided by erythropoeietin, synthetic oxygen carriers and the like is so massive that there's no point in even mentioning other advantages on the same day.

But there is also the issue of transparency. Who knows which riders dope and which don't, what their natural response to drugs is, how much they're willing to gamble in terms of their health and so on. By contrast, even if a team was able to hide its finances, they're glaringly obvious. Just count the number of rear axles on the team coach and the number of world champions acting as domestiques. In a way this makes the sport more exciting, not less, as spectators get to root for the underdogs we all love.

I think you're missing my point slightly so maybe I haven't made it clear - and it is a purely academic point: in the broadest terms, the cheats have access to all the same stuff.

Some (chiefly those with more resources) will have access to the new and better stuff but that's the same in sport everywhere (whether that's F1, or swimming, or shooting or even soccer). It isn't always apparent (at least immediately) to the fans than some special swimsuit is going to confer an advantage onto its wearer. Or whether some clever slot-gap in the wing on an F1 car is making a difference. And the teams aren't going to announce it either. So to say it's all open and transparent is evidently false.

I'm not condoning the use of doping - very far from it - but I don't think that the differences between what doping offers (as a level playing field amongst the users) versus what other "legal" (and sometimes subsequently outlawed) sporting advantages offer aren't as big as you make out. Clearly, the "bread & water" riders may as well be riding mountain bikes so large is the difference between them and the dopers - that's certainly not a level playing field.

meanredspider

daviesee wrote:

:?:
Isn't that the whole problem?

Of course it is. No-one is defending doping here. I'm just no sure you can single out one doper.

Wrath Rob

First Aspect wrote:

You are chosing to believe some cheaters over others, surely? Why was Mercx only technically a cheater? If he tested positive three times these days, he'd be banned for life. Why do you believe that he was so superior because of natural talent, whereas LA isn't? Surely its simpler to assume that they are both the same, rather than one being the devil incarnate and the other being a natural superhero. Its just your belief, and reinforces the notion that LA is being unduly singled out and villified.

Are you really sure that amphetamines aren't terribly effective compared to EPO? Are they really capable of even handedly doping an entire peloton any more or less than any other drug? I'd say that their use gives an unfair advantage to people who are naturally more easily mentally fatigued or who have naturally higher body fat.

I'll bite

I think Merckx talent is well recognised and this goes back to my statement. Amphetamines give a short term boost either to speed or recovery, reducing fatigue. The effect is short term and if used during a race, you will still hit your natural limits of endurance, you just won't suffer as much until you hit them. Their affect is similar to adrenaline, you feel more alert, you don't feel as tired. They don't change your physiology by increasing your haemoglobin levels and thereby massively increasing your endurance. Not meaning to kick off the debate again, but amphetamine use were more of a level playing field. No-one got a massive artificial performance boost, sprinters were sprinters, climbers were climbers. They didn't help you train more/harder, they delayed the feelings of fatigue. You were still fatigued, you just didn't feel it as much. Don't get me wrong, I'm not stating that amphetamines should be allowed, they are harmful especially if abused and hence they are rightly banned.

Merckx was able to ride away from the peleton in the days before EPO and the like, so unless he was a very, very early adopter of EPO or was on some other drug that has never been identified then I think we have to state that on the balance of probabilities, his amazing talent was exactly that, talent and hard work.

tailwindhome

meanredspider wrote:

daviesee wrote:

:?:
Isn't that the whole problem?

Of course it is. No-one is defending doping here. I'm just no sure you can single out one doper.

The big difference between Lance and other dopers is that Lance has had the political connections, legal representation, financial resources and PR machine to drag this out for 15 years.

He also was well known to the general sports fan/ Joe Public. I'm sure most non cycling fans wouldn't know who Landis or Hamilton even are.

But you are correct to say that his cheating was no different to the rest of the cheating generation*




* I reserve the right to amend this statement if evidence emerges that Armstrong was getting preferential treatment (tip offs and the like) from the UCI or doping agencies

rjsterry

TailWindHome wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

daviesee wrote:

:?:
Isn't that the whole problem?

Of course it is. No-one is defending doping here. I'm just no sure you can single out one doper.

The big difference between Lance and other dopers is that Lance has had the political connections, legal representation, financial resources and PR machine to drag this out for 15 years.

He also was well known to the general sports fan/ Joe Public. I'm sure most non cycling fans wouldn't know who Landis or Hamilton even are.

But you are correct to say that his cheating was no different to the rest of the cheating generation*




* I reserve the right to amend this statement if evidence emerges that Armstrong was getting preferential treatment (tip offs and the like) from the UCI or doping agencies

Verbruggen has stated that, to try and 'control' doping, the UCI did 'tip off' teams/riders when their Hct levels got close to what couldn't be explained other than through doping (see my post above).

meanredspider

TailWindHome wrote:

The big difference between Lance and other dopers is that Lance has had the political connections, legal representation, financial resources and PR machine to drag this out for 15 years.

He also was well known to the general sports fan/ Joe Public. I'm sure most non cycling fans wouldn't know who Landis or Hamilton even are.

But you are correct to say that his cheating was no different to the rest of the cheating generation*

Yes - he had that influence because he was so "successful" (at his cheating). That gave him money & influence. Money & influence is very often enough. Unfortunately, twas ever thus.

I'm interested, though, on how/why people think he became successful first. Did he have access to better doping from the start? Is he super-responsive to the doping? Did he have some other influence in the sport before he was successful? That's a grey area in my understanding. From the point at which he was successful (especially as the "miracle cancer survivor" which the public & media would have loved), it's easy to see how it happened. I just don't know how he got there.

meanredspider

rjsterry wrote:

Verbruggen has stated that, to try and 'control' doping, the UCI did 'tip off' teams/riders when their Hct levels got close to what couldn't be explained other than through doping (see my post above).

I don't doubt that there was some collusion - it was in nobody's interest (with a stake in the sport) to have more Festinas

bigmat

meanredspider wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

The big difference between Lance and other dopers is that Lance has had the political connections, legal representation, financial resources and PR machine to drag this out for 15 years.

He also was well known to the general sports fan/ Joe Public. I'm sure most non cycling fans wouldn't know who Landis or Hamilton even are.

But you are correct to say that his cheating was no different to the rest of the cheating generation*

Yes - he had that influence because he was so "successful" (at his cheating). That gave him money & influence. Money & influence is very often enough. Unfortunately, twas ever thus.

I'm interested, though, on how/why people think he became successful first. Did he have access to better doping from the start? Is he super-responsive to the doping? Did he have some other influence in the sport before he was successful? That's a grey area in my understanding. From the point at which he was successful (especially as the "miracle cancer survivor" which the public & media would have loved), it's easy to see how it happened. I just don't know how he got there.

He would appear to be a super-responder to EPO (low natural HCT, otherwise a very strong athlete), also had the psychology and the connections to really make the most of the drug I guess. I have heard rumours that the cancer should have been very obvious from the drug tests that were carried out pre-cancer and that the UCI's failure to spot it or at least act on it might have given him some leverage. Don't really follow the argument too well but I'll just put that one out there!

As for Merckx, I'm not a believer. It is certainly possible that he was a blood-doping pioneer although no evidence of this that I'm aware of. His conduct post retirement (support for Armstrong, links with Ferrari, his son, almost never fails to be an apologist for current dopers) certainly doesn't come across too well.

rjsterry

A bit of googling last night, and I found quite a good academic summary of the history of doping in sport. Somewhat dispiritingly, it described drug use in sorts throughout the 20th century as "pandemic", from the earliest liquide tesiculaire (I swear I'm not making that up) up to the present carefully designed regimes.

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/ISS/ISS2401/ISS2401e.pdf

tailwindhome

First Aspect wrote:

Bondurant wrote:

"Are you really sure that amphetamines aren't terribly effective compared to EPO?"

Yep.

Make the case then. I know its the internet and all, but don't be lazy now.

If amphetamines are as effective as EPO Armstrong is going to feel really silly he gave Ferrari that $million

meanredspider

BigMat wrote:

He would appear to be a super-responder to EPO (low natural HCT, otherwise a very strong athlete)

Do we KNOW that or is that just conjecture? Anybody happen to know what his natural Hct levels are?

Can anybody explain to me why boosting your Hct to 50 is better than having natural Hct at 50?

tailwindhome

meanredspider wrote:

BigMat wrote:

He would appear to be a super-responder to EPO (low natural HCT, otherwise a very strong athlete)

Do we KNOW that or is that just conjecture? Anybody happen to know what his natural Hct levels are?

Can anybody explain to me why boosting your Hct to 50 is better than having natural Hct at 50?

I'm not sure anyone is saying that.

meanredspider

TailWindHome wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

BigMat wrote:

He would appear to be a super-responder to EPO (low natural HCT, otherwise a very strong athlete)

Do we KNOW that or is that just conjecture? Anybody happen to know what his natural Hct levels are?

Can anybody explain to me why boosting your Hct to 50 is better than having natural Hct at 50?

I'm not sure anyone is saying that.

What - that boosting to 50 is better than natural 50? Surely some of the riders have Hct close to or at 50? I have 3 colleagues whose Hct is around that number (one in excess of 50)

greg66_tri_v2.0

Wrath Rob wrote:

Merckx was able to ride away from the peloton in the days before EPO and the like, so unless he was a very, very early adopter of EPO or was on some other drug that has never been identified then I think we have to state that on the balance of probabilities, his amazing talent was exactly that, talent and hard work.

I wouldn't be quite so sure about that. I have read a biog of Tom Simpson - can't recall the name, but it might be Put Me Back On My Bike. In there (I think it's there, anyway), there is a discussion of drug taking in pro cycling in the 60s. The short point is that drugs were not all equal; the best ones were the most expensive, and the better you were, the more money you could make to buy the best drugs.

How you got onto this misnomered virtual circle, I don't know. But there's not much doubt in my mind that if you were racing then at the pointy end of the field you were able to afford the very best drugs that not everyone else would be able to afford.

What I find strange in the retrospective look at Tour winners is Hinault and Lemond. The BBC website had a graphic up recently which pinked up all the doper/dope associated Tour winners back to 1980. Indurain (5), Hinault (3), Lemond (3), Roche (1) Delgado (1) were the only "clean" winners pre LA (post was Sastre, Evans and Wiggins).

Indurain managed to wipe the floor with quite a few dopers in his time. Roche denied a finding by an Italian Court in 1993 that he'd taken EPO. It doesn't take much to get to the point at which pre-Sastre, in the last 30 years virtually the only clean winners appear to be Lemond and Hinault.

However, if you go back a further 10 years to 1970, you can colour six of those additional 10 winners pink (incl Merckx).

So suddenly you have Hinault and Lemond cleaning up in a period where dopers were riding but getting beaten, and which was bracketed before and after by doped Tour winners.

Genuinely slightly puzzled as to why this has never attracted more attention/enquiry.

If (as it appears to be) the finger of suspicion gets pointed at pretty well any dominant Tour win, how do those two stay above suspicion.

bigmat

meanredspider wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

BigMat wrote:

He would appear to be a super-responder to EPO (low natural HCT, otherwise a very strong athlete)

Do we KNOW that or is that just conjecture? Anybody happen to know what his natural Hct levels are?

Can anybody explain to me why boosting your Hct to 50 is better than having natural Hct at 50?

I'm not sure anyone is saying that.

What - that boosting to 50 is better than natural 50? Surely some of the riders have Hct close to or at 50? I have 3 colleagues whose Hct is around that number (one in excess of 50)

Can't be bothered to do a search but I believe Armstrong's HCT is sufficiently low that paying $1 million to Dr Ferrari to bring it up to 50 made perfect sense to him. I'm no sports scientist however my vague understanding is that a high HCT is one of the things that helps make an elite endurance athlete. Its not the be all and end all though and there isn't a simple correlation between HCT and how fast you can ride up an Alp. However, the main benefit of EPO is boosting HCT therefore if your weakness as a pro cyclist is a relatively low HCT then EPO is a godsend, and you will reap far more benefit than somebody with a naturally high HCT. They can go over 50% - many cyclists had exemptions due to naturally high HCT (Wegelius, Cunego I think, and - cough- Ricco). I guess what I'm saying is that EPO could have been made for Armstrong - throw in the most sophisticated sporting drug programme this side of the Eastern bloc and you can see how he won 7 straight tours.

meanredspider

BigMat wrote:

Can't be bothered to do a search but I believe Armstrong's HCT is sufficiently low that paying $1 million to Dr Ferrari to bring it up to 50 made perfect sense to him. I'm no sports scientist however my vague understanding is that a high HCT is one of the things that helps make an elite endurance athlete. Its not the be all and end all though and there isn't a simple correlation between HCT and how fast you can ride up an Alp. However, the main benefit of EPO is boosting HCT therefore if your weakness as a pro cyclist is a relatively low HCT then EPO is a godsend, and you will reap far more benefit than somebody with a naturally high HCT. They can go over 50% - many cyclists had exemptions due to naturally high HCT (Wegelius, Cunego I think, and - cough- Ricco). I guess what I'm saying is that EPO could have been made for Armstrong - throw in the most sophisticated sporting drug programme this side of the Eastern bloc and you can see how he won 7 straight tours.

Yeah - I guess I still don't understand why these guys with naturally high Hct (our products are tested up to Hct of 60%) aren't already "doping quick"? To use my poor analogy of contact lenses, I have poor eyesight so lenses give me "perfect" vision. That's not going to make me better at shooting than a guy who already has perfect vision. All it does is remove my disadvantage.

If the body adapted to low Hct in training and was therefore "supercharged" by a doping Hct boost, surely it would pay someone with naturally high Hct to artificially depress it for training in order to benefit more from their natural (and legal) level? (a sort of bastardised version of altitude training)

tailwindhome

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

So suddenly you have Hinault and Lemond cleaning up in a period where dopers were riding but getting beaten, and which was bracketed before and after by doped Tour winners.

Genuinely slightly puzzled as to why this has never attracted more attention/enquiry.

If (as it appears to be) the finger of suspicion gets pointed at pretty well any dominant Tour win, how do those two stay above suspicion.

You try asking Hinault to p1ss in a cup for you!

Fat-Boy-Roubaix

Regarding Hct levels it is not your natural rested level that matters, endurance at the level of the TdF day after day depletes red cell count, and I am guessing as it has a fast burn rate they would transfuse blood taken at training camps whilst on EPO, thus restoring their blood back to rested and boosted levels.

It wouldn't on paper increase power but would increase the amount of time you can deliver that power.

So if they are taking blood post stage it will be much lowerthan it would have been at 8am, so pretty easy to be under 50 but maybe it would have been 60+ in the morning, thats why there are stories of cyclists setting HR alarms to go off in the night if their HR slowed too much and jumping on a turbo to thin out the blood

meanredspider

Fat-Boy-Roubaix wrote:

Regarding Hct levels it is not your natural rested level that matters, endurance at the level of the TdF day after day depletes red cell count, and I am guessing as it has a fast burn rate they would transfuse blood taken at training camps whilst on EPO, thus restoring their blood back to rested and boosted levels.

It wouldn't on paper increase power but would increase the amount of time you can deliver that power.

So if they are taking blood post stage it will be much lowerthan it would have been at 8am, so pretty easy to be under 50 but maybe it would have been 60+ in the morning, thats why there are stories of cyclists setting HR alarms to go off in the night if their HR slowed too much and jumping on a turbo to thin out the blood

That begins to make sense though I know they also doped ahead of time too (which, I understand, starts them at a higher base though only the high base of the naturally high Hct guys). I can see that the recovery of Hct would give them an advantage as the Tour went on. Presumably, though, this effect wouldn't be the same in the 1-day classics or short events?

greg66_tri_v2.0

meanredspider wrote:

BigMat wrote:

Can't be bothered to do a search but I believe Armstrong's HCT is sufficiently low that paying $1 million to Dr Ferrari to bring it up to 50 made perfect sense to him. I'm no sports scientist however my vague understanding is that a high HCT is one of the things that helps make an elite endurance athlete. Its not the be all and end all though and there isn't a simple correlation between HCT and how fast you can ride up an Alp. However, the main benefit of EPO is boosting HCT therefore if your weakness as a pro cyclist is a relatively low HCT then EPO is a godsend, and you will reap far more benefit than somebody with a naturally high HCT. They can go over 50% - many cyclists had exemptions due to naturally high HCT (Wegelius, Cunego I think, and - cough- Ricco). I guess what I'm saying is that EPO could have been made for Armstrong - throw in the most sophisticated sporting drug programme this side of the Eastern bloc and you can see how he won 7 straight tours.

Yeah - I guess I still don't understand why these guys with naturally high Hct (our products are tested up to Hct of 60%) aren't already "doping quick"? To use my poor analogy of contact lenses, I have poor eyesight so lenses give me "perfect" vision. That's not going to make me better at shooting than a guy who already has perfect vision. All it does is remove my disadvantage.

If the body adapted to low Hct in training and was therefore "supercharged" by a doping Hct boost, surely it would pay someone with naturally high Hct to artificially depress it for training in order to benefit more from their natural (and legal) level? (a sort of bastardised version of altitude training)

This is exactly my thinking. The logical endpoint of the naturally low Hct argument is that you can take an anaemic and (say) triple their performance to superhuman levels. It seems to have built into it the assumption that the naturally low Hct athlete and the naturally high Hct athlete would compete evenly against each other without doping. That seems wildly counter-intuitive to me.

Hct is a measure of - in outline - how densely packed your overall blood volume is with red blood cells. The idea of raising your Hct as I understand it purely and simply to provide a greatly O2 transport around your body. I just don't understand how, if two people of similar mass and blood volume have their Hct levels at 50%, it makes any difference to their performance what their Hct levels would have been in different circumstances.

But then, I'm no doctor.

Fat-Boy-Roubaix

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/4017 ... in-cycling

Below was taken from this site, if it is anywhre near true is is scary...


HGH, IGF-1 and Actovegin are pretty much the minimum that riders take.

[...]

Now for a one day classic they just come to controls with a 49% hematocrit. They can get there with blood doping or Dynepo use (human identical epo) After morning controls they have about an hour, and sometimes a little more, to blood dope. Units of their own blood are slammed into them with blood pumps. You can infuse a litre of packed cells in about an hour with no issue. This is at least 3 units of pure red cells. This will boost your hematocrit by at least 5% and sometimes 8-9%! The top riders then line up at the starting line with a 55-59% hematocrit!!!

After the race the extra blood is taken out, the plasma is spun off and the red cells are frozen as above. They end up with a 50% hematocrit. Alternatively they can just bleed the extra blood out of you until you are at 50%.

[...]

In grand tours you have to pass morning controls with no more than a 50% hematocrit, just like for any race, so they either take the extra blood out of you after the stage and save for re-infusion after morning controls, or they simply jack you with IV saline and volume expanders like Hespan right before morning controls so your hematocrit is diluted to 49-50%. You still have the same O2 carrying capacity that you had at say 56% …the blood is just diluted down. This extra fluid also comes in handy in the stage.

If you blood dope for any length of time you must supplement with very tiny doses of epo and only via the IV route. Blood doping shuts down your own red cell production so you will have next to zero retics (immature red cells) in you …and if control sees this they will know you are blood doping.

First.Aspect

TailWindHome wrote:

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

So suddenly you have Hinault and Lemond cleaning up in a period where dopers were riding but getting beaten, and which was bracketed before and after by doped Tour winners.

Genuinely slightly puzzled as to why this has never attracted more attention/enquiry.

If (as it appears to be) the finger of suspicion gets pointed at pretty well any dominant Tour win, how do those two stay above suspicion.

You try asking Hinault to p1ss in a cup for you!

And he's French, which has to help. LeMond has a French name and rode on a French team? Understandable confusion?

I think there have been whispers about both Roche and Delgado. Indurain's impunity suprises me though.

rjsterry

Actually, Lemond is an interesting one, given how closely matched he and Fignon (who subsequently admitted doping) were. The impression I got from Fignon's autobiography is that pre-EPO doping was more about making up for the bad days (maybe because the drugs available had a more short term effect) rather than the organised season-long programme that we've seen with LA and others.