Of course Landis and Lance will never admitt, they are americans.

The rest of the cycling world is admitting one by one.

Last admission is Riis - taking EPO on his own 1993-1998, also during his 1996 win.
before him it was Zabel, Aldag,...
somehow the admition era started at Telecom team., although, Ulrich is still not cracking.

In Pantonis biography there are numerous references with implications of doping admitions and at least 2 very clear implications in that book that Lance was on a take as well.

umm... exactly what does being american have to do with it?

american procyclist would take to court any european magazine accusing or hinting at him taking doping.

just an observation

Was cycling the trendsetter, the leader in performance enhancing pharmaceuticals?

There is quite a bit of factual evidence going back decades and decades about usuage of "pharmaceuticals" in cycling.

Did East Germany's confirmed drug dopers doped by medical staff draw expertise from the cyclists extended medical staff who were proven in administering illegal or / and questionable drugs?

We are hearing about health issues cyclists are having, not relevant to their fitness and age. Happens to East Germany former stars as well.

There have been calls in certain sports to wipe all records tainted with allegations of drug enhanced performances. Also the return of Olympic medals, to date both these have not happened.

I am sure that many performances have been recorded by people not conforming to the rules of the day or the spirit of the rules as they were.

What if the ICI / IAAF / FINA all stood to be counted. WADA could be given retrospective powers to confirm positive drug results for alltime. Once results are confirmed person is stripped of, for example their 1972 Olympic women's Gold medals in 100mtrs / 200mtrs track. Something Raelene Boyle has tried to do without much support.

thomo

Call for Riis to return Tour jersey
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Sport/Call-for-...9601708903.html

A number of US Cyclists have admited to doping over the years. Zabel's confession made me laugh, it reminded me of Bill Clintons admission that he smoked it, but didn't inhale. One week, come on...

Riis' admitions are certainly damning for the sport in general and you do certainly have to wonder given the close association that Riis and Ullrich had through that time.....

Also interesting is the fact that since Riis has also acted as manager for the CSC team, if he had no issues in taking himself then you can't imagine him being strict on the riders in his team re EPO and other performance enhancing substances?

For my TDF comp this year I may need a new jersey with points awarded to riders who test positive during the tour!

if cycling was the leading doping sport ?

My impression was, that the doping started with the big muscles sports, where it is about about strenght, power, bit later with speed.
I think ( I might be wrong), that the endurance came last to the doping party.

So from that point I am not convinced that the cycling started doping, and the first doping cycling would have been track sprinters.

East Germany had very good doping system, but it was around strenght and speed, and only later moved also to longer stuff.

East German cycling was quite pathetic, as far as I remeber. We used to have a race, which was sometimes called between people The Pathetic Comunistic, TdF, officialy Tour De Peace, or Berlin-Praque-Warsawe,
changing every year the order of the cities.
The stages were much more shorter than the TdF, the mountains much smaller and far less of them,
overal distance perhaps half or even less etc.
The average peloton speed was much slower than TdF, etc, and the East German team was not any better than Czechs, Polish and Russians, and it was all really only about sprint points...

I think, that endurance sports doing doping were primarily athletics - long runs all the way to marathon,
and than of course the cross country skiing, which cant clear itself at all, and there is some scandal every winter season.

It took scientist long time to come up with the right doping stuff for cyclist, I remeber the case of the ( I Thing he was english or Italian) who died on a long climb, after using some pain blockers or some kind of medications which is supposed to cheat Your brain from getting the signals that the body cant go any longer, beyond the survival barier, so he just went on till he died in the saddle. Not very sofisticated stuff.

Watch the movie "overcoming". It follows csc on the tour, Riis is the focus of the movie. A couple of times it is indicates that CSC don't tolerate drugs. Considering Ivan Basso has been embroiled in the operation Puerto and now this, it seems clear what Riis and CSC are all about.

It is hardly suprising

It was Tom Simpson who died in the 1967 Tour De France, he was english.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Simpson

The first positive test in cycling competition came in 1908 I think and has been there ever since.

All this confessiing is great for the sport maybe now we will get some cleaning up of it and the health of the athletes can again be a consideration.

Rudolf singling out the AMERICANS is a joke there are far more non American cyclists in the world and at the elite level and bar far the majority will never confess to doping even though it is widely accepted in the cycling world that nearly all the elite level athletes are on something.
Riis confesses but is unlikely to face any sctions as it was over 10 years ago...

Now lets see them target all the other non cycling athletes that were mentioned in the Opertion Puerto, tennis players, Football players, basketballers, runners. Ifthey do this and get convictionns then this will provthey are serious about drugs in sport, if not then they are only loking at the soft target cycling.

then clarify. because you mean lance armstrong and anyone associated with him instead of 'american protocyclist.' it's very clear that landis' agressive defense is armstrong by proxy. they are 'americans' yes but that's not what has led them to take this course of action.

there are lots of american cyclists who don't dope and there are lots of american cyclist who do dope. there are lots of non-american cyclists who don't dope and there are lots of non-american cyclists that do dope. all of these react as the circumstances of the accusations against them occur.

as much as i dig australia, i really cannot stand this knee jerk bias about the united states and anyone who is a citizen of it. (this is the point where you qualify things by saying "i don't like your government/president/people in charge but you are just fine as individuals.)

I was pointing out to Lance and Landis allways have deniend and taking everybody to court... and since these 2 are the most recent winners, they are the real issue here.

As for cycling the easy target - that is good point.

Pantani clearly said in his book, that all pro sport is dirty on drugs, however the big money are in footbal (soccer in american english).
Pantani said, that the boo boo actions of occasionally choosing 1 or few cyclist for positive tests and punishments are just media hogwash, to take attention from football and the pretentions game, that only the cycling is dirty and the doping control is vigilant and effective.

Pantani had personal contacts in Italian pro footbal, and said that cycling was sacrified to keep the footbal above water, since otherwise it will bring colaps, which in Italy will mean economic and cultural chaos, and political colaps (hehe can You imagine even bigger political - footbal mess in Italy ?)

On the subjetc of Pantani book - Pantani had private secret meating with Lance in a small caffe in Portugal in a small village away from any media attention etc, lasting few hours. The meeting was requested by Lance. Pantani does not mention what the topic was, just that they made personal agreements and assurances to each other and that it lasted for few hours. However in the context of the book and all the facts my interpretation was, that the meeting had 2 topic - exchange of personal knowledge on doping - the dossage etc detail issue. Second part was promise that they would never addmitt to dopinfg and never disclose their meeting.

Pantani was pissed off with the whole doping system, he was very health consious and love cycling and it was his job. He said - I am the best cyclist, and I love winning and making money. However the reality is, that when average hard training cyclist takes drugs, I cant beat him, when all take drugs I have to take as well, otherwise I cant win. Pantani was wishing for the cycling to become clean so he can be healthy and winning. He was mentaly deteriorating and few times was nearly ready to expose the whole cycling system, to confess and end it all. That was the reason he was choosen to test positive on Giro.

Pantani also said many times - he does not trust doctors, they do not care about cyclist health, they just used them as the lab rats for testing new drugs and testing correct dossages, so Pantani studied all the drug science himself and was taking drugs himself, deciding on dossages, timings etc. was joking that when he stops cycling he can work as doctor or could be teaching in med school since he knows more then them.

From this point it is implied, that the Lance meeting was about picking each others brain about doping, since Lance would also not risk to be part of some sloppy doctors programm, for 2 reason - not to risk wrong pills and wrong dossages, and for the reason of not being traceable in case of investigfation - not having the name in doctors diary with coded messages, not having bottles with his name in docs fridge etc.

When Pantani died, the first news was - drug overdose, however it did not info what drug - so it was possible that he was back in training and was taking sport enhancing drugs and something went wrong.
On hearing the news on his death, Lance was shitting himslef and was on the phone to Itally for hours requesting details, only after it was announced there were not sport drugs, but the crime-social drugs, Lance chilled out and relaxed and stoped calling for details. To me it shows he was concerned that some of the stuff he is taking could kill.

Thats my interpretation only.

Rudi your a good man BUT your above post is the BIGGEST ASSUMPTION and load of self indulgent interpretation I have read on here for ages, sorry.

Lance in his heyday was probably the most tested athlete on the planet, and no positives, and the French press etc were after him for all love and money, so I highly doubt a cover up. So whilst i am not niave enough to think he was always clean, he at least needs more room for innocence and some respect than many others who tested positive such as Pantani.

I watched last years tour stages live each night and on "that" day I turned to my wife and said Landis is Tackled to the eyeballs as I beleive he was a few days later in the time trial as well. He tested postive and should fry for it as a pro cyclist.

As for your view that Pantani said that he can't win against doping riders so he most dope too. This is the weakest excuse in the book, and has been used by heaps of athletes to try justify their drug taking. The better course would have been to stay clean and expose the cheats, instead of becoming one of the cheats.

and this is the only point i am making. the problem i have with this assumption is that it implies that they dope and sue because they are americans. and that's simply absurd.

lance and landis are litigatious and indignant as the bejeesus on this issue because they are assholes, not because they are americans. it is lamentable that, because of his domination of the tour de france, armstrong has become synonymous with american cycling.

i'm not a fan of either of these cyclists. i remember back in the 1980s when i was into the sport and my heros were greg lemond and andy hampsten. notice how they have been treated at the hands of 'america's greatest cyclists.'

B+, couldnt agree more with you in regards to when are we ever going to hear about all the opther athletes involved in the Peurto case?? its an absolute joke that its cycling thats copped it all! Sure, its not right that basically all pro cyclists are on it, the fact that there must have been some sort of HUGE cover up to protect all these otehr sports??? I just hope one day it will finally be announced??

Rudolph.....dude, you seem to have done a bit of reading about Pantani.....however you seem to fail to mention the story about Pantani's body basically being addicted to EPO? His body couldnt not or would not produce enough white? blood cells for it to operate coreectly, basically becuse he had been on it for so long!!! Do you remember the time he had that really bad crash, and he was in hospital for quite a period of time?? Well they had to smuggle team doctors into the hospital to keep injecting the EPO into him, casue his hemocrit had dropped so low....cause his body relied on the EPO injections to keep it up!

I think, that we have different view of how deep the doping is in cycling and in athletics and other sport general.

It is long time since I become to conclusion, that it is much deeper than generaly acknowleged.

It is very generous assumption, that soem cyclist can survive the whole Tour and be clean, and the assumption that somebody can be clean and winn it is bordering on wishfull thinking.

The fact that somebody is tested every day and the test always negative means absolutely nothing.

It was always that way and is even more these day, the gap between doping research and the antidoping research is increasing each year.

I was very close to some of the national team athletes back in my country and they were talking openly about whats going on, and the testing procedures was always good joking point.

I just wish that every pro cyclist from the Tour of last 20 years would come clean and admitt, and that will make look Lance and Landis as 2 last complete idiots.

does anyone know what lance armstrongs haematocrit was,i knew that bjarne riis's was about 60% during the tour that he won,they used to call him mr 60%,is anyone under the illusion that you can ride the tour without drugs?

Well now a days if its over 50% you are suspended and told to have a little 2 week rest....so one would guess that Lance's was never over 50% during a race. During training, who knows??
yes, you can ride the tour without tackle. Can you win it?? Probably not, well not until most of the others stop taking it! Could you blow your self to pieces one day then come back the next day and blow the entire peleton away (a la Floyd Landis last year). NO CHANCE!!

that is very true, if You lok at it as an exuse, and it is truth, that alwways this happen it gets the label - lame excuse.

But it is also very accurate detailed description of the reality, how the system is set up. You either play with rules and conditions and than You are a chance for success etc, or You out, either the system kicks You or simply You cant cope with the pace and performance.

On the moral level, nothing justifies the money, and there is lots of athlets in various sports who decided - not for this prize and under this conditions and they quit the system, they either found bit betters sport in this regards or just become recreational amateur athlets etc.

So as human being, yes it is a lame excuse.
But as a pro cyclist that is a system, and to be in it, thats the only way.

Pantani at the end in an indirect way did expose the sytem little bit, You have to remember, Pantani knew very well, that everybody is on it, so to expose the cheats is quite meaningless, who are the cheats - all of them, so start pulling the names is just hurting the cyclist who are in the sma e shit like he was. It is the system, which needs to be exposed, the drug manufacturers, their money, the top officials on a take etc, It is basically big mafia. Have You tried expose the mafia?

Your body would not be found, Your jacket would be send home with rotting fish in it, which means You have been fed to sharks.

Panatani was Italian so he was much less naive in regards what can be done and what not.

And just not singling out the cycling, part of the mafia of doping is in my personal view sitting in olympic commitee.

yopu don't have to look to far to see doping,i go to swimming races in the summer and you see guys having a red bull and at least two cups of coffee if you pay attention,you also see them go off at sprinting speed for about 150mtrs them they go lactate,ventilin is everywhere,sure they have asthma,i don't know but it looks suss,thats my grump for today

new admision :
the belgian guy working as a masseur for team Telecom in 92-96 in today germans papers said, that in one low grade race in France ( he strassed it was not on German territory - perhaps different law application ?) he personaly injected EPO
to Ullrich into his shoulder.

Sound like the team doctors did not travel to low key race, so maseaur was playing the white coat crime.

while the european teams are being exposed and comming out of doping closet, the team US postal and team Discoverry Channel are not present on this planet at this stage of the development.

yes, swimming, Brizza I do not want to irritate the australian public at this stage...

have no fear,it's never stopped you before,or is that you being reserved?i reckon that they should have two tour de frances,one for declared drug users and the other for "natural" trained cyclists,the average speed in the tour has gone up nearly every year for about15 years and think its due to improvements in pharmaceuticals,the UCI did something interesting a few years ago they wound back the hour record to "pretech" and excluded indurain,moser(i think)boardman,rominger anda few others and called the "athletes hour" and the great british time triallist chris boardman managed to scrape a few meters onto eddy merxcks time of decades ago and had to be lifted off his bike,persnoally i think it was preEPO not pretech without pointing any fingers,my next door neighbour is a heavy smoker and is on the verge of losing her foot through gangrene and she heard about EPO as a blood booster,she went down to the shops and got some-evening primrose oil-briz

C'mon Rudolph!!! i want to hear it!!
I have allways tried to work out why Ian Thorpe's head and feet are so big?
Tell us some stories! I could say what I THINK, but I dont know, where as cycling I know a lot more fact!

I do not have any wimming info, I am not close to the sport anymore ( since I moved to australia), do not know anybody personaly and do not have any insiders gossips etc.

However I like this stuff, which I do not remeber where I heard it or red it :

while everybody was sure all east German women swimmers were on doping, and still people say, that only with doping they could swimm those fast times, the fact is that currently none of the old east germans records stand, and all aussie female team is swimmingg faster, so what is the logic of it now ?

The answer is - it is not doping it is the kangaroo milk every morning with kellogs crunchy nuts.

i find myself strangely comfortable with drugs in cycling,if you stand back and look at the glamour,the spectacle,the drama,even the deaths from drugs and accidents its an incredible sport,maybe the drugs are now part of the culture that delivers all the above.Fausto coppi died after multiple fractures and a dramatic life off the bike,jaques anquetils hour record not recorded becaus he refused a drug test,eddy "the cannibal"merckx,tommy simpson on the ventaux,it goes on and on,would we watch cycling or even be aware of cycling if it wasn't for this stuff?

there is a condition where little lumps grow on the tendons on the back of your hands and feet,the treatment is to whack them with the family bible,maybe thorpie got a bit to much whacking

me personaly - definite yes, as it stands now, I am not watching it, last year watched perhaps 2 mountain stages and 1 ITT

years ago I was recording all the mountain stages .

This year I am not going to bother at all, as i was not watching the swimming world champ in Melbourne at all.

I am intersting to see what humans can do, not the white coat lab scientists with their gunea pigs and lab rats.

the big news last 3 days - no new addmissions, something got stuck in addmision show.

Zabel won stage of the rcae in Germany and moved to the race leading position.
Amazing, he was not kicked out of team, is allowed to race.
Public was celebrating his victory, big ovations and all riders were congratulating him.

The saying was - Yeah those were the bad days of cycling in 19996 and around, we used to take doping.

The cycling has changed so much since mid 90's, we are all clean now



So this was the scenario - lets take the attention back 10 years, admitt few big names, and lets pretend this is different era

get different status for comming TdF, from public and media reaction it looks like that the public wants to be fooled again

Yeah we certainly living fake values, doped cyclist, silicon boobies, manufactured food, only the politicians are honest deal

Denmark - Riis wiped out from The Hall of Fame.

riis is still my hero,he just had the best pharmaceuticals on the day

Mr 60%, The Eagle from Herning confirms taking drugs during Tour De Dope.

So shouldn't he be the first to be stripped of his title. before Ned Flandis.

Why didn't he take the drug that reduces male pattern baldness.

Oh thats right back when he was cycling, helmets weren't compulsory. Teams would just get fined. He was more aerodynamic than the others with hair.



thomo

Brizza so it really Riss's doctor who is Your hero ?

Baldness is said to be caused by excess testosteron, synthetic or not.

the olympic comitee is considering to strip some cyclists of the olympics medals.
However there ius an emerging pattern :

Telecom riders are addmitting so Telecom is and was basicaly the only guilty team, so lets take medals from Telecom riders

The olympics in question is 2000 Sydney, and the cyclist who at the time of games were members of Telecom team, or were in Telecom team in years before the games could loose their medals :

Ullrich, Kloden, Vinokourov.

Ullrich has gold from road race and silver from ITT.

the hypocrisy continues, lets pretend it was not wide spread and lets pretend it is all in the past, ist all clean now