He blood-doped, and the way he carefully uses his words, he doesn't even really deny it. It wasn't illegal at the time.
He blood-doped, and the way he carefully uses his words, he doesn't even really deny it. It wasn't illegal at the time.
afloml wrote:
finns have a weird sense of humor
Hey jerk, we finns are humans just like you, you are stupid if you think that we are that different than you. Don´t generalize so much.
No, he didn´t blood dope.
No, he never really denied it. I was racing in Finland in 1975 and got to know sveral Finns who knew him. A couple of them told me that Viren liked having his competitiors believe that he'd blood doped because he thought they'd feel like he was going to be that much harder to beat. So he never denied the rumors.
That doesn't mean that he did or that he didn't and if he was deliberately deceptive he'll have questions about his performances following him for the rest of his days. But you simply cannot take statements people make and "know" that they did or didn't do something. Let's say he did use blood doping. Do you think his tongue was going to catch fire if he said unambiguously that he didn't?
For my part I have no idea and doubt that there will ever be enough information for me or anyone else to know.
oldoldrunner wrote:
Minnewanka, I may be wrong but you maybe the person that ran 28:38.1 On July 26th 1976, 13th at the Olympic games for the USA and then ran 27:49.8 on August 9th 1976, at the Dagens Nyheter Track Meet in Stockholm , Sweden, no guessing tonight, It's directly from the 1976 September issue of T&F News (Yeah I went to my archives).
I would be very surprised if BJ were making these accusations. He's said a lot of great things about Viren.
Avocados Number wrote:
I would be very surprised if BJ were making these accusations. He's said a lot of great things about Viren.
(Also, BJ -- who was a darn good runner in his own right -- wouldn't be talking about "what several world-level distance coaches and athletes (including Olympic medallists) have told [him].")
Why would he not be talking, what gives you insight that GBj (if that's him) wouldn't open his mouth/make a statement on this message board about something he may have intimate details about? He if anyone would have an insiders view of the goings on during the Viren era, not some sycophant like HRE. The truth of the matter is that SO WHAT if Viren might have blood packed? It was not illegal at the time. Not until the 1988 games was it then considered an illegal procedure, unethical maybe, but not illegal. Please remember USA cycling used this procedure during the 1984 games with good results & some not so good results, but it was not illegal in that era.
Avocados Number wrote:
Avocados Number wrote:I would be very surprised if BJ were making these accusations. He's said a lot of great things about Viren.
(Also, BJ -- who was a darn good runner in his own right -- wouldn't be talking about "what several world-level distance coaches and athletes (including Olympic medallists) have told [him].")
This was also posted on the first page of this thread, might be a good place to start from regarding already stated opinions & factoids.
Off the Grid wrote:
We'll never know - Finns who were busted then (and other groups of doping athletes) maintain this code of omerta, and never rat anybody else out.
Interesting that you would know something like this. You've personally interrogated doped Finns, have you?
Avocados Number wrote:
oldoldrunner wrote:Minnewanka, I may be wrong but you maybe the person that ran 28:38.1 On July 26th 1976, 13th at the Olympic games for the USA and then ran 27:49.8 on August 9th 1976, at the Dagens Nyheter Track Meet in Stockholm , Sweden, no guessing tonight, It's directly from the 1976 September issue of T&F News (Yeah I went to my archives).
I would be very surprised if BJ were making these accusations. He's said a lot of great things about Viren.
He did up and evaporate from the thread though .... and would have real information to share rather than the other rumors spread here.
Firstly I have no straight evidence that he did it. But I am a finn and there is a lot of undirect evidence that he did it. I give an example. Kaarlo Maaninka admited using
blood doping. He beat Viren in Moscow. Lasse Viren has never said a word of that. Can you imagine if Ovett
admited using blood doping and Coe would not comment
a word.
Some Coach wrote:
He did up and evaporate from the thread though .... and would have real information to share rather than the other rumors spread here.
BJ certainly knows Viren a lot better than just about anyone who posts on letsrun.com. But even if he posts on letsrun.com, I very much doubt that he would say, like some anonymous track groupie, that his information about Viren is based on "what several world-level distance coaches and athletes (including Olympic medallists) have told me." And given what he's said about Viren in the past and the status that he has accorded Viren in the running world, I don't think that he would be slinging around shopworn rumors about Viren here.
Unless Viren says, "I doped", it doesn't matter. Everything else is speculation and supposition. It's been 35 years and he hasn't said anything yet, so, why do we play this game about once a month on here?
Uskomatonta spekulointia ja suomalaiselta vielä. Epäsuoraa todistusaineistoa? En näe yhtään sellaista postissasi. Lasse varmaankin olisi sanonut jotain tapaus Maaningasta, jos joku olisi kysynyt häneltä!
Mitä sillä on väliä olenko suomalainen. Ei kai se muuta näitä tosiasioita miksikään. Lisää epäsuoraa viitettä.
Kuka oli Virenin lääkäri? Mikä on hänen maineensa dopingasioissa? Mitä herra Ala-Leppilammelle tehtiin
ennen Muncheniä ja kuka teki. Yhtäkkiset kunnonnousut
ja laskut jne. Lisäksi suomalaisten maine hiihdossa.
Pieni maa, samat tohtorit. Onnea sinulle valitsemallasi
naivilla linjalla. Usko sinä vaikka Joulupukkiin!
FINN wrote:
Uskomatonta spekulointia ja suomalaiselta vielä. Epäsuoraa todistusaineistoa? En näe yhtään sellaista postissasi. Lasse varmaankin olisi sanonut jotain tapaus Maaningasta, jos joku olisi kysynyt häneltä!
Unbelievable speculation and suomalaiselta yet. Indirect evidence? I do not see any such postissasi. Lasse probably would have said something Maaninka case, if someone had asked him!
Tampere wrote:
Mitä sillä on väliä olenko suomalainen. Ei kai se muuta näitä tosiasioita miksikään. Lisää epäsuoraa viitettä.
Kuka oli Virenin lääkäri? Mikä on hänen maineensa dopingasioissa? Mitä herra Ala-Leppilammelle tehtiin
ennen Muncheniä ja kuka teki. Yhtäkkiset kunnonnousut
ja laskut jne. Lisäksi suomalaisten maine hiihdossa.
Pieni maa, samat tohtorit. Onnea sinulle valitsemallasi
naivilla linjalla. Usko sinä vaikka Joulupukkiin!
What does it matter I am a Finn. Surely it change these facts, why not. More indirect references.
Who was the doctor Viren? What is his reputation in the doping cases? What Mr Lower was Leppilammelle
before Munich, and who did. Sudden rises in good condition
and bills, etc. In addition, the reputation of Finnish ski.
A small country, the same doctors. Good luck to you with your
naivilla line. Faith in you even Santa!
Off the Grid wrote:
We'll never know - Finns who were busted then (and other groups of doping athletes) maintain this code of omerta, and never rat anybody else out.
Even in cycling, very few if any riders ever say a word. But it is pervasive.
In the PBS documentary, "Doping for Gold", about the GDR doping program, the athletes who have been spilling the beans NOW, 30yrs after the fact, have been ostracized, kicked out of their athletic clubs etc.
Nobody will know for sure but him and a few others. In the US sense of "fairness", we can only say, "We don't know for certain".
If Martin Lel (5th in Olympic Marathon) could have run 8:21 the next weekend, I would have been very surprised. Doing it after 30k of racing 2 weeks before that is beyond belief.....and should be seriously questioned. But thats all we can do.
You saying Martin Lel is clean??
Viren did explicity deny blood doping.
> It was a misunderstanding, a language problem, he says, that inflamed the blood-doping aspersions at Montreal. In the interview after winning the 5,000 meters, he had been faced with argumentative questioners and had seemed to gloat in the furor, asking in seeming mock innocence if such a thing as blood-doping really was possible, never flatly denying his use of it. Now he says he thinks the translation was faulty. "I did deny it in Montreal," he says. "I meant to. I don't remember much of that interview. I was tired and the marathon was the next day. But no, I have never blood-doped. I have never experimented with it. They have never done that to me. Why are journalists always talking like that? No one does it." He asserts that if he had, he would say so, because the practice is not forbidden by Olympic rules.
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092549/index.htm
Yes he did...it was 30+ years ago and Pre is dead, too.
Ain't gonna change anything.
Blood packing wasn't illegal, specifically, back then.