Vino: Positive Drugs Test

Mutter, mutter...

When they look in the hotel mirror each morning there must be an belief held by the current perpetrators (the riders hellbent on winning at all costs - including their future health), those that steadfastly maintain the staus quo (the masonic ex-riders dining out on their now-questionable success of days gone by) and the rapacious media (demanding superhuman feats to help sell their wares) - that we, the audience they need to exist (like oxygen or fresh blood...), want or need a superhuman to entertain us??

From the armchair where I sit I cannot tell the difference between a 3kph increase in average speed, I still believe that there would be breakways from a field of non-drug users and that excitement would always prevail - even if it was a field of Cavendish's and Thomas's.

I'm not against drug usage per se - but I am against an unfair fight. If there are riders that are clean in the field getting cheated on by the users - then I won't be watching (or paying for merchandise) anymore. If the users want to split and race in a different event - I would probably watch both.

Sort it out!

Mr K

I am watching the start of the tour now , and the Tour manager has had very strong words against the UCI .

icantthinkofausername":33s9ccgc said:

Pantani had a naturally high red blood cell. When he broke his leg is 199? . The doctors were amazed by his red blood cell count. Even when he was in hospital with no drugs in him he was still over the UCI upper limit. Only once he had died people started considering that his RBC count was naturally high.

Click to expand...

The post 1995 (I think) crash is covered in the book too.

Pantani went to hospital with a very high red blood cell count but he became so anaemic that without treatment he would have died! His red blood cell count then climbed and the book includes a suggestion from the treating doctor that EPO was adminstered in the hospital (but not by one of the hospital staff)!

From the bits that I have read Pantani was regularly under the UCI upper limit too - I am saddened by all this as I thought that in his peak years Pantani was fantastic but I do accept that it was not unaided.

I don't want to come down as a Pantani basher - there are many as bad or worse e.g. Virenque - it's just a book that I happen to be reading as the latest events unfold.

Itv interviewing the reporters was very very interesting to me.
These are people who are of course cycling fans but upmost are now reporters that are having their articles on the front pages not four deep in the back and their reactions were still all the same disgust.

(Just finished the Pantani book and he was a cheat through his whole pro career. His normal Hemeo-crit was known by repeated testing to be 40-45. As tested by the Swiss dopeing farm.)

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Rasmussen out !!!!!

Can't see this guy anymore since the MTB world champs in Sierre Nevada in 2001 ! :twisted:

Fortunatley looks like no more scandels on the 'Boucle' today - almost dread to check the BBC news site. At least cycling is firmy in the news for once - just bad it's for all the wrong reasons.

Have to wonder why these riders like Vino, Landis etc take this stuff then go out on an epic break/ride an awesome tt and win? Do they think they'll get away with it? Do they mess up their masking agents for that day? Do they not realise they'll be tested??

As for Rasmussen what are they suggested he was doing during the missed tests? What sort of stuff could one do :?

I am assuming as no one was aware of his whereabouts, no one could test. I guess there are two benefits with doping - when training you can rain for longer and harder to get fit, and then again in the race when you need it.

Although not a positive test, he could have been doped up getting some good old TT practice in? Just my thoughts.

I read somewhere that there is typically one random off season drug test expected per rider. Hardly going to prevent training doped is it.

There was an interesting article this morning in the local paper stating that maybe the Tour is too hard and that doping is somewhere the only alternative for "small" riders to keep up with the inferno tempo given by the top champions.

Due to the fact that elimination timings are calculated based on the winner one, the gruppeto riders have to be fit enough to prevent their early elimination.

We shall not forget that 100% of the riders are professionnals, that their salary, income, status, lifestyle are based on their results. Your company bonus is a bonus additionnal to your salary, but if you want to spend today 2 hours on your PC browsing Retrobike.com, they can't. They have to perform, they have to have results, they have to bring their race leaders to the moutain tops, to the sprints, etc...

Yeah, it's their riders life, their everyday contribution, they have to be 100% and the day they perform at 95%, ... the clock has a sharp blade.

But there again, I'm talking about the small riders, the "porteurs de bidons" (bidon holders), I won't forgive the guys like Rasmussen, Vino or others.

Thinking on, why did Rabobank only withdraw Rasmussen after it was almost certain that he'd win the Tour - after all the missed appointments/not being where he said was public knowledge for at least a week and private knowledge I suspect for longer.

I'm not at all implying that this was the wrong decision just wondering why it took so long and at the timing of it.

And let's look at the list of known top draw riders using performance enhancing products in the last decade or so - Riis, Bugno, Chiapucci, Pantani, Ullrich, Hamilton (allegedly), Heras, Basso, Landis (allegedly) - a lot of World Champions in there and there's Delgado (although the masking agent was not on the UCI list at the time), Indurain (I forget but wasn't it an asthma inhaler?), Armstrong (from a prescribed saddle sore cream?).

If EPO gives you 10 to 12% and all the guys in contention for the Grand Tours are foaming at the mouth with one product or another, is it realistic that the winners are 'clean' but just that much better than their peers? Rhetorical question by the way.

Going your way, can we trust white-like-a-virgin Greg Lemond's doubts about Contador, critics about Armstrong, Landis and peers ? :?