by 
To my friends, clients, competitors and USA Cycling officials,
My name is Kenny Williams and I’ve been racing my bike for 20 years. In June 2009 I broke and had surgery on my left collarbone. In my haste to return to the top of my game I purchased DHEA at the local Drug Store, without consulting anyone. 6 weeks later at Masters Track Nationals in Colorado Springs I was tested positive for this illegal drug. I do not deny the results of the test.I am ashamed that I’ve done something that hurts the sport of cycling and the community of people who have become the most important part of my life. I’m facing the very real possibility that I can try for the rest of my life to regain the confidence of the cycling community and my friends, but this cloud will be with me for the rest of my life. I am not asking for forgiveness, because I am admitting to my mistake and own all the horrible feelings that come with my bad decision. I am hoping for compassion and understanding. Compassion that I never intended to hurt anyone and understanding that if I could have one re-do in my life that this would be it. As I have done throughout my whole athletic life I will fight to re-gain my reputation as a fair man, tough competitor and drug-free cyclist. You can trust me when I say that I will never take a short-cut like this ever again.
Bike racing is one of the most important things in my life, second to my wife, whom I owe the biggest apology to for being so irresponsible. I am sorry Annette. I also feel horrible about the results I took away from the other athletes that I raced against. I am very sorry to have disappointed all of them. To my sponsors and my clients, I am sorry. To all in the cycling community and my friends, I am sorry.
Sincerely,
Kenny Williams
Tuesday, November 3
by 
a guy i know is buddies with one of the guys on the pursuit team that won the gold that’s in the shitter now because of this.
Keeny has been a big swingin’ dick on the Seattle racing scene for like 20 years. Track, crits, road, he’s won ’em all. His apology letter went around the local intertubes about six times last Wednesday. (Didn’t think to send it to DC, sorry chaps.)
If you read the comments on cyclingnews, which are often partially related to factual information, DHEA isn’t even an effective recovery supplement.
Kenny’s racing career is in its sunset years. The big down side for him will be the hit his coaching business takes. Some overachieving, hyper-competitive parents will yank their kids out of his program.
Which is sad, since if the tykes are stout enough to bubble up through the ranks, they’ll learn to dope soon enough…
My buddy’s kid won the Junior OHOP Cup a couple years back, but didn’t dope— he was the only junior that showed up for every race. Ha! He was getting all cocky about it, so at the last race, the stewards started him with the men and told him they’d DQ him if he got lapped. Lit a fire under his punk ass.
Way to go! This guy got it right. If you did it, fess up and move on with life! Nice work Kenny, mad props for being a man about it!
What’s next? Bostick out of retirement to set new world records? Longo wins her 50th world title? I mean, why let it end now? Bigger. Better. Faster. More. Cheaper.
Fucking Puh-the-tic for a Masters dude to be that invested. Symptomatic of the larger societal issue we’re all faced with: Being Too Awesome.
Isn’t DHEA a masking agent? Who within the pelican just fell due to that as a cop-out… of course. Sir Hamilton right?
Budunka lame man.
If you think its only DHEA your wrong . After a steroid block you go on this stuff to bridge the gap in a timely fasion to hit the time line for the stuff to kick in ala Hamilton . Boonon does the cola . Kenny does the DHEA .
This stuff has been used in horse racing as a masking agent its part of the culture of doping .French nordic skiers were masking with this stuff last year and were sanctioned . They busted them with the Hair test ala hair gate in Nice this spring . You just dont do DHEA . I’m real concerned about Kenny , I hope he goes all clean cause this is just not a good enough inhancer for a peak race but is an excelent mask for what is in your system to go undetected . And then you get to say well was just DHEA that was in my medicine that I took . Instead of , it was testo I cheated and so on . It s a trick that there on to now .He doped !!!!!!!!
“Isn’t DHEA a masking agent? Who within the pelican just fell due to that as a cop-out… of course. Sir Hamilton right?”
Gnome— right you are. Tyler copped a plea to DHEA in an “over the counter” ointment or some such.
Hey Kenny, You are some kind of dumb ass. Did you not get the memo, Tyler Hamilton used DHEA for depression. Busted for doping. All over the internet. DHEA is about the dumbest suppletment to get busted for, maybe that garlicly BO was the giveaway. I had a friend that used DHEA in the 80’s, stunk to high heaven. I couldn’t tell you if it helped him or not but you sure didn’t want to be around him. All sorts of alternative stuff out there that is on the list that a person could take and get tested for and if you are going to race don’t do it.
I do not accept your apology. You’re sorry your friends think you’re a Douche, You’re sorry the wifie just realized you’re not the man she married. You’re sorry the clients of your athletic training business will need to teach their children that there has to be consequences for your actions and take them to some other coach. But most of all you’re sorry you got caught…nobody thinks they’ll get caught and nobody who cheats thinks of who they’ll hurt when they do.
He should also be banned from working with kids (involved in cycling).
Also, I said in the previous comments: The apology is bullshit. It is MANDATED in order to start serving the suspension. If he hadnt issued it, the penalty would be delayed until he apologizes. Basically they forced him to say sorry. its bullshit.
Just fucking quit. It’s not worth it. So you took DHEA. Big fucking deal. Who cares. It’s not crack or meth. You didn’t inject someone else’s blood into your veins. Competition replaces reason. WITH OR WITHOUT ‘doping’
lOST AND LAST ,” big fucking deal ” Your missing the point . Were talking a failed test for a banned substance ,the same substance Tyler was banned 8 years for . You dont inject blood into your veins youd drip it , and finally crack and meth dont even apply here in any way . Easy now , 2-4 years for that one .
So Kenny – how was this DHEA gonna heal your broken collarbone?
stm— he’ll get 2 to 4, probly the short end of the range.
Kenny is a monster rider.
Ludo, you ignorant slut.
DHEA has no sulfur. It does not stink and will not make you stink worse than you already do. It won’t give you moobs or shrink your nuts. Nor will it give you pecs or enlarge your pasta-slim arms.
You are thinking of DMSO, which contains a great deal of sulfur. It’s fat soluble, so skin absorbs it readily. It’s handy for inserting your favorite active ingredient in vivo without going through the GI tract and thus the liver, which would metabolize out the desired goodness. Rub on a little DMSO, and you’ll smell like you ate the raw garlic special at Ava Maria’s Pasta Bowl.
Supplementing with DHEA isn’t performance enhancing. It’s banned because it’s a precursor to the potent stuff. DHEA to Andro to Testosterone or Estrogen. Supplementing with DHEA won’t raise andro, test, or estrogen levels in the blood. It raises only DHEA and DHEAs levels.
DHEA drops 10% per decade from age 30 on. So Lance is at a 10-15% disadvantage compared to his younger competitors. Is that fair?
Black guys testosterone levels are typically closer to the top range of normal than white guys. Is that fair? Does it matter?
Because DHEA is so close to testosterone, any sensitive assay of DHEA will report the presence of Testosterone. T won’t be present in any biologically effective amount, but it is there. That puts the drug testors panties in a bunch.
There is no hard science supporting improved recovery using DHEA. My own experience is that my legs recover better when beat up from long runs. But, I don’t race competitively, so I don’t feel any ethical qualms for using DHEA.
Should DHEA be banned as a performance enhancing substance? No fucking way. Including it on the list diminishes the gravity of the list, which should be restricted to actually performance enhancing substances.
The list is stupid. Why isn’t water on the list? Why not protein supplementation? Why not quercetin? Why is caffeine allowed until certain levels? The amount of caffeine needed to breach the rule is damn near enough to induce vomiting, but is a performance enhancer below that level.
Anabolic steroids should not be banned for certain high wear and tear sports — football, basketball, Grand Tour cycling. What is ethical about profiting by employing someone to participate in an activity with a 100% injury rate, up to the occasional death? It’s ethical to goad an athlete to push harder on a downhill to the point he goes over a guardrail? Require athletes to go all out for 21 days? Where is fucking OSHA on this one?
What should be required is to enable athletes to recover as fast and fully as possible from injuries large and small incurred from participating in sport. If that entails ingesting exogenous amounts of what’s already coursing through your bloodstream, make it legal. If it’s not already in there naturally, ban it.
Ban a substance if, as in EPO, you’ll die if your resting heart rate is so low it’ll make you clot and stroke out. E.g., Pantini.
Wow….Cheating when you are racing for peanuts. What a loser. I don’t believe the whole Tyler depression thing either as he has no credibility.
Good one SMY.
Wait, you already knew that.
Hey, leave Ludo Dierckxsens out of this!
Oh, wait, um, never mind…
“Anabolic steroids should not be banned for certain high wear and tear sports — football, basketball, Grand Tour cycling. What is ethical about profiting by employing someone to participate in an activity with a 100% injury rate, up to the occasional death?”
STY—
Er, what about the injuries/deaths that result from anabolic steroid use? Are those less unethical than than the injuries/deaths you allude to?
I’ve got a good friend, two-time Olympian (swimming) who’s dropped out of a long-established group ride with a bunch of his retired M.D. buddies because it’s been taken over by HGH fiends.
I’m glad he apologised to his wife Annette. Hold on, what’s this I found on Cyclingnews?
US Masters Cyclist tests positive
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced Tuesday that cyclist Annette Hanson of Kirkland, Wash., tested positive at the 2001 World Masters Track Cycling Championships in Manchester, Great Britain on October 11, 2001 for ephedrine, a prohibited substance under the UCI rules. Ephedrine is in a special category of prohibited substances in that it is commonly found in over the counter supplements.
Hanson (39) was suspended for one month from competition; beginning on December 11, 2001, the day the sanction was accepted, per UCI regulations. The national federation, USA Cycling, will carry out the sanction.
In addition, she will be disqualified from her first-place finish in the 2,000-meter individual pursuit at the 2001 World Masters Track Cycling Championships.
My guess is the innocent little wife will understand.
Mikey–
Since you raised the issue, why don’t you produce a statistic comparing steroid deaths to plain vanilla sports deaths.
Lyle Alzado? Maybe. Maybe not. How may people die of brain tumors who didn’t swill horse steroids while playing NFL football. Right.
There is no clinical evidence steroids cause ‘roid rage. Some people are bastards regardless of what they eat, shoot, smoke, etc.
How many kids die on the football field every year because the stupid coach overheats them and won’t let them drink enough performance enhancing water?
And if you want to get all statistical, how can you justify drinking alcohol, which causes how many tens of thousands of transportation deaths annually? Is there a DUI in your personal history? Ever driven impaired and not been caught?
And Kevin, finishing 45 minutes behind the winner in my age group is not called racing, it’s called jogging. In the days when I was standing atop the podium, I wasn’t taking DHEA.
I’m not better than you, Kevin and Mike, but I am
STY
StY, bring it down from eleven. your killing the little people.
STY, are you Tyler Hamilton :)?
“In addition, she will be disqualified from her first-place finish in the 2,000-meter individual pursuit at the 2001 World Masters Track Cycling Championships.”
I was wrong; the wifie knew all along who the man she married was and for that I am truly sorry. Wow, this apology thing is soooo easy.
Hey, I wonder how many supplements this couple recommend to the kids they coach.
Vintage DC, pure vintage.
I have seen the so called roid-rage first hand. Whether it is soley a result of steroids may not be clinically verified, but I saw several different people go from being “normal” high school kids to becoming hair trigger time bombs and the striking common denominator waw they were on the advanced program. They also all played football, but since several other players did not develop this major change in behavior, I can probably make a safe assumption that that was only a partial contributor.
The biggest reason was because they admitted first hand that they felt particularly hot during certain parts of their cycles. One guy stopped right after he came close to choking his girlfriend over an argument about choosing a fast food joint. Another continued to juice his way through junior college and until he moved up to division I.
DHEA as a first time fix? I doubt it. Suddenly after so many years decided to resort to the dark side to help recover from surgery, and DHEA was the choice? I just have my doubts.
“Mikey–
Is there a DUI in your personal history?”
STY— no. You’re a moron.
BTW, I passed Whoa#21’s cyclingnews reference back into the local scene and was surprised how negative the response was.
I am feeling less and less comfortable with my CAT2 worship.
Me, I only dope with non performance-enhancing substances. Keep the rubber side down, y’all.
…beautiful…while we may get a few actual facts revealed (w/ certainly a whole lotta justification) what’s best yet is that we get a way more detailed look into the psyche & ego of “more obvious than most“…
…interesting take on the supposed clinically unverified roid rage…ya, ya, no doubt, pal…just everyday assholes bein’ everyday assholes…yep, that’s it & all about it…what a sadly disillusioned human being you are, bud, but it certainly explains the laughable moniker you’ve saddled yourself with…
…DHEA isn’t available at any drugstore in the USA It’s been off the shelf for well over a year.
I treat with an endocrinologist for primary hypopituitarism and hypogonadism and low testosterone…my endocrinologist told me DHEA doesn’t do shit for performance because the conversion to testosterone is MINIMAL at best
DHEA = masking agent. nuff said.
Re: roid-raging: I was once put on steroids for a back problem and I turned into a screaming maniac. I yelled at everybody I encountered. Weirdly out-of-body while also quite obviously out-of-mind. Threw them pills away before I lost all my friends and killed somebody. That was some scary shit.
You are all debating the effects of DHEA.
The fact is that it is banned. Whether it should be or not is not what the issue is here. He took a banned substance. He is not petitioning wada or usada to have it unbanned and willing to argue the merits or lack of danger.
The issue is not if it is harmful. The issue is that it is not allowed and he did it anyway.
Gnome ,your correct .See STM response #5.Dude was masking . Nuff
I think all dopers should show up at the STOMPariLLAZ ProDoperZ tour and see just how much they like dopin’. Pretty much guaranteed that the BingerHIllclimb will put them real deep in the hurt locker, then we’ll kick a real proper apology outta them.. viz. take a bonghit out of a moving vehicle while climbing at about 8700′ and don’t stop till 10,000, then prepare for the next stage of the PRODOPERZ TOUR, comin to telluride in 2010
suffer in style bitcheZ
May not be clinical trials, but there seems to be at least a little bit of science out there regarding the affects of steroids and “roid rage”. Seems like there may be a little truth to it beyond anecdotes…
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VM1-4HSY4RT-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9b45e580d8489ac3e4d7b3d2ed3e0bd6
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118700167/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
American Journal of Public Health: “Anabolic-androgenic steroid use and involvement in violent behavior in a nationally representative sample of young adult males in the United States” (may have to search for this one)
http://www.afpafitness.com/articles/articles-and-newletters/research-articles-index/anabolic-steroids-and-the-depression-connection/
Corrigan, Brian (1996). “Anabolic Steroids and the Mind.” The Medical Journal of Australia, 165:222-226, http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/MJA
Beaver KM, Vaughn MG, Delisi M, Wright JP (December 2008).
Pingback: This Day in Doping: Kenny Williams joins the fallen « Bike Intelligencer
I have raced Kenny and come up short every time. Now I wonder So dominate for so long you have to wonder how long he has used masking agents. The most troubling is that he is a coach and put his own ambitions over his clients.
hey E, (#34) i once had the same problem, but it was because doc tried to swap my marlboro reds with wellbutrin! you wanna win a race? quit smoking 2 days before it, and forget your SSRE that morning! if you don’t rip your handlebars clean out the quill and rip your sidewalls straight off the bead, you’ll wake up the next morning smoking and spit shining your cat-2 upgrade certificate.
seriously, though — dewdz need to get more creative with cheating. it’s been decades since i’ve seen a good ol’ fashioned frame pump in the spokes. sneak some water in your opponents’ innertyres. get a hooker to lay out in the street 3k’s from the finish — lord knows no cyclists are getting clam these days.
what else – um… oh yeah, i broke that toe out behind the bike shop that time when i was off the cigs, and on the wellbutrin. i had failed to remember that beneath the pile of emptied QBP boxes, sat a concrete baluster.
whoops.
Rumor has it that calling the entire pack of cat 3,4’s a bunch of soft somebitches that can’t pleasure their girlfriends can really turn up the tempo of a seemingly usual cat 3,4 race. Sometimes it’s best to really get ’em where it hurts.
that’s totally true, husky. that is performance enhancing commentary and it should be banned from the pelican. any time it is reported that some performance enhancing commentary was overheard, there should be mass dismay and let-down about the he(te)roes that we once believed in and that they’re now just a bunch of washed up hussies on wellbutrin, steroids, hemmheroids, and performance enhancing commentary, and that i can’t believe that hussy used to train my kid. i believe husky. tyler’s collarbone issue was NOT due to drug misuse. okay?