Anti-doping activists kick ass

The truth wants to come out. It never changes.

In this particular matter, we have an investigation into the doping practices of the former German powerhouse squad Telekom team. Aka T-Mobile. Aka T-bag.

[Werner] Franke said he remains convinced that former T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz was not the only rider on the squad to be driven from Strasbourg to Freiburg after that year’s first stage to re-infuse a pint of his own blood. Franke said that witness accounts vary as to the precise number of riders who arrived in Freiburg, but insists “at least five and possibly six or all seven riders from the reduced team went to Freiburg that night.”

Oh, this is going to be good. When’s Jan going to finish that book of his. C’mon man, I’m thirsty. Gimmie a sip of that big ass glass of lemonade won’t you?

The chairman of both committees on which Franke now serves, attorney Hans Joachim Schäfer, the former president of the court of justice in Reutlingen, said he is less inclined than the activist Franke to reach a conclusion… quite yet.

“We suspect that there were stored blood bags in the clinic, but we have no proof,” he notes.

Schäfer declined to say whether the two doctors’ laboratories even had the necessary equipment to carry out the properly handle transfusions.

“Blood transfusion, if well done, is a complex business, where a peculiar infrastructure is needed,” Schäfer said. “But it’s also possible to do it without extremely expensive or specific equipment. Essentially, you merely have to heat the blood, connect the bags to tubes and a needle and let it run.”

Schäfer is also reviewing records from earlier years, focusing particularly on inconsistent records from 2005, where the panel ran across at least two allegedly faked names in patient documents from that year’s team.

“It should have been cyclists,” says Schäfer, noting that the values associated with the two samples were “near or even over limits” for hematocrit and other measures.

The panel is also reviewing the records of a third suspended doctor from Freiburg, Georg Huber, who provided then amateur riders Jörg Müller and Christian Henn with testosterone in the 1980s. At the same time, Huber launched a study, in which he concluded that testosterone does not enhance performance, but then he continued to supply athletes with the same treatment. Interestingly, Huber was named “sports doctor of the year” in 2005 for work he did with Germany’s anti-doping agency, the NADA.

Huber was extensively involved with German cyclists attending the 2000 Sydney Olympics, at which then Telekom riders, Ullrich, Alexander Vinokourov and Klöden, swept the podium. Huber reportedly arrived in Sydney with a variety of equipment, including blood centrifuges, used to monitor hematocrit levels.

Read more: www.velonews.com

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

10 Replies to “Anti-doping activists kick ass”

  1. I don’t really have a problem with doping at all. I think it should be looked at as just another training method, and should be monitored and supervised. That’s how the bodybuilders of Arnold’s generation did it—under medical supervision—and they seemed to have fewer problems. BUT, what’s the problem with blood packing? If they want to do that, it’s just a matter of giving the rider back his own blood, right? It’s not like they’re giving the riders drugs.

  2. The problem is doping is that what ever is deemed acceptable will then be exceeded by the cheats. Example: the magic 50 hemacrite level. The goal becomes to get right to the 50 level, then to exceed by just a little, then a little more, and a little more. Once the point of failure, getting caught is reached try something else. It’s a slippery slope.

    As for the example of body building, all you have to do is look at the state of bodybuilding to see how this scenario plays out, a total freak show of unhealthy monsters dying young.

    It’s unfortunate but in our society the winners, often the cheaters, are rewarded extensively while the clean competitors either quite, play a support role, or cheat in attempt to catch up. Cheating pays off big that is why they take the chance.

  3. Call me someone who doesn’t want to be someone’s nanny. If they want to potentially damage themselves for glory then go for it. I’m not your mom. How many people here or also for drug legalization?

    Ray’s argument is the same argument people use to keep pot illegal.

  4. I just gave blood the other day, did the red cell deal.Maybe I am a skirt, but I was sitting there in the chair thinking that there is NO way I could do that to win a bike race. I think that you have severe psychological issues if you can stack blood to win. There is a lot of finger pointing at a system, but it is an individual choice to do it.

  5. Doping is a matter of changing the workforce in a given profession. In cycling, it appears EPO or blood doping are required to secure a top job. What if it was required that a high % of lawyers needed to cheat to pass or excel on the bar exam? Would it deter many potentially excellent lawyers from going to law school? It boils down to unrealistic expectations. What if every woman underwent surgery for DD size breats, and that was rewarded with attention and fat pay checks, even national medals of honor. Every little girl growing up who wants to be “special”, and we all want to be special in some way, would have an unrealistic reality to compete with. There are incredible athletes that we will never see compete because of the strong deterence of the doping culture in sport.

  6. Arnold’s generation? The ones getting heart transplants at 48 & having severly impaired children? Yeah nothing wrong there.

    Yes, all dope should be legal within the general public, however if a sporting body wants to limit certain chemicals in its events, and test for them, then have at it.

  7. When bodybuilders in the 70s were using steroids they were legal and prescribed by doctors. It IS possible to use steroids responsibly and safely. I know people who do a cycle every year. A minimal cycle of Deca isn’t a big deal at all. When steroids were made practically impossible to get and dispensation fell into the hands of the “gym physicians”, problems started. The reason bodybuilders are freaks now is solely because there is no regulation. Arnold wouldn’t even place in the Olympia today.

    Nobody of Arnold’s generation is 48. Frank Zane is OK. Clarence Bass is OK. Sure there are people who died young but bodybuilding at that level is tough on the body. Franco Columbu is OK. Lou Ferrigno is OK. Arnold had a heart operation—but Jim Fixx DIED OF A HEART ATTACK. Does that, by your logic, imply that running is bad? Nah. Let people do what they want. Steroids and doping are part and parcel for the sport. Just like painkillers and anti-inflammatories are in the NFL.

    NFL is FULL of people who use drugs in order to compete. The NFL runs on painkillers and muscle relaxants.

  8. Proof of the Arnold-era vs. later bodybuilders can be seen when comparing the photos. Steroids were made illegal in ’92 (I think). Take a look a photos of the Arnold-era vs., say, Ronnie Coleman, Markus Ruhl, or Jay Cutler.

    The physiques are blocky, disproportionate and freakish. Arnold and friends had physicians prescribing and monitoring the usage. Now, these guys think that if a little is good, a lot is great. These are the guys that are going to have their heart explode around age 50.

    BTW, Arnold’s heart surgery was for a hereditary defect, seemingly unrelated to his earlier chemical usage.

    I am with Mike. A mild cycle will not negatively impact your overall life expectancy.

    As for baseball, football and the riders that are using now, it is the same as the bodybuilding community. . . underground, unspoken and unmonitored. The same thinking that is prevalent in BB is present in cycling as well. If a little is good, more is better, but don’t get caught.

    How many riders were caught up in the BALCO scandal? For every BALCO that is caught, there are 10 more labs making (or trying to make) the equivalent of the “cream” and the “clear”. Five bucks and my last beer says that Rasmussen was hitting some new chemistry.

    Maybe Barry Bonds could take up cycling. . . on a bicycle instead of a needle.