The Magnificent Ones: Lasse Viren

sandunes- what do you do when you're not on letsrun?

Armstronglivs wrote:

Aragon wrote:

The point wasn't whether absense of confessions means anything, because the incentives of champions to confess are nonexistent. No argument there. The point was whether there exists confessions from Lance vs. Viren and in the case of Lance, there are confessions that were publicly known before the USADA case and in the case of Viren this type of material just doesn't exist.

I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make. Viren's public denials mean nothing. Indeed, his dismissal of questions with a facetious "reindeer milk" is more an evasive response than a sincere rebuttal to a genuine inquiry. It smacks of the Chinese coach's "caterpillar juice" response to doping questions about his athletes in the '90's.

I don't think Aragon is going to buy it.

What is the point of this thread? It's titled The Magnificent Ones, but instead it's just another mindnumbing discussion about doping. Does anyone want to discuss his gold medal races, his training or his time at BYU? Yeah, there were rumors about blood doping and he sucked between Olympics, but its been beaten to death for over 40 years.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

What is the point of this thread? It's titled The Magnificent Ones, but instead it's just another mindnumbing discussion about doping. Does anyone want to discuss his gold medal races, his training or his time at BYU? Yeah, there were rumors about blood doping and he sucked between Olympics, but its been beaten to death for over 40 years.

So what do you suggest we do Mac? Put our heads in the sand and blow a fart on the issue?

Will We Ever Know? wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make. Viren's public denials mean nothing. Indeed, his dismissal of questions with a facetious "reindeer milk" is more an evasive response than a sincere rebuttal to a genuine inquiry. It smacks of the Chinese coach's "caterpillar juice" response to doping questions about his athletes in the '90's.

I don't think Aragon is going to buy it.

Wasn't it Ayana who said that the only drug she is on was JC? ♱

Subway Surfers wrote:

Will We Ever Know? wrote:

I don't think Aragon is going to buy it.

Wasn't it Ayana who said that the only drug she is on was JC? ♱

The Finns were to the 70s what the Spaniards and North Africans were to the 90s, and the Eastern bloc women were to the 70s-2000s. You have to believe in miracles!

YMMV wrote:

The Finns were to the 70s what the Spaniards and North Africans were to the 90s, and the Eastern bloc women were to the 70s-2000s. You have to believe in miracles!

Or what the Kiwis were to the 60s and 70s, the Hungarians to the 50s, or the earlier generation of Finns were to the 20s. Why do you have to believe in miracles.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

No actually you can now, they've put in a clause like "if you use a steroid, androgen, Sarm, peptide or insulin growth factor that we don't know about at present, it doesn't make them legal and we'll retrospectively test your samples and take action." The classic example is meldonium with East European athletes or some of the gases.

I recall that Sharapova got busted for meldonium, but that was because it was placed on the banned list and she continued to use it. I don't think she could have been retrospectively penalised for using it before it was banned. It would go against principles of natural justice. You can't be retrospectively made an offender by back-dating the law.

Perhaps someone else can weigh in with more detail, but Yohan Blake was suspended for a substance that was synthetic but not previously on any WADA list of banned substances. Here's an excerpt from the current Wikipedia article for Blake:

___________________

Drug ban

Prior to the 2009 World Championships, Blake (along with Marvin Anderson and Sheri-Ann Brooks) tested positive for the stimulant 4-methyl-2-hexanamine.[20][21] A disciplinary panel organised by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) cleared him of a doping infraction on the grounds that the drug was not on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list. However, JADCO appealed their own panel's ruling, stating that the athlete should be disciplined as the drug was similar in structure to the banned substance tuaminoheptane.[22] As the panel would resolve the issue after the World Championships, the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association took the precaution of withdrawing Blake from the relay race.[23] The appeals tribunal decided that a ban would be appropriate, and Blake and the three other sprinters each received a three-month ban from competition.[24]

___________________

The only thing I am not "buying" is the claim that the accumulated (46 years) case against Viren is even remotely close to the case against Lance before the USADA case.

Armstronglivs wrote:

physics defiant wrote:

Viren was injured in many of those years. Plus Coghlan? What a chump., 3;49 miler and future World Champ.

More injured and for longer than anyone else, it seems. Years at a time. And while Coghlan beat him, so did a bunch of nobodies. Repeatedly. What a chump.

"What a chump."

Yeah, right.

A "chump" with FOUR Olympic Gold medals. :-)

I suspect you are one of those crybaby Kiwis.

sky wrote:

"What a chump."

Yeah, right.

A "chump" with FOUR Olympic Gold medals. :-)

I suspect you are one of those crybaby Kiwis.

It doesn't make Viren's cheating anything moralistic you fool.

Skyflake wrote:

sky wrote:

"What a chump."

Yeah, right.

A "chump" with FOUR Olympic Gold medals. :-)

I suspect you are one of those crybaby Kiwis.

It doesn't make Viren's cheating anything moralistic you fool.

He didn't cheat.

Which is something people considerably more astute and informed than you are all agree upon.

But you're still a crybaby.

I don't claim that the Kuha story is inaccurate but only that it is nice part of the folklore that the Finnish doctors might've invented the method when treating anemia, particularly when he made the greatest Finnish achievement after lousy decades.

It is much like the story of Martti Vainio injecting himself with steroids in April 1984 and donating blood, taking care that his system was cleared from the Primobolan by the '84 games and then reinfusing the blood not realising that the donated blood was contaminated. A very nice story that doesn't make that much sense and that dismissed by the Finnish anti-doping authorities very early on mainly for these reasons:

If you donate blood after a subcutaneous steroid injection, you get into the bag something like 5-15 % of the steroids that are in your blood at any given moment whereas none of the steroids in your muscle depot end up in the blood bag. On top of that, if Vainio stored his blood in April, the blood had to be frozen and plasma (where almost all the steroids are reside) is thrown away. And when he later infused, his body would've got rid of the steroids quickly because there is no depot where extra steroids are released into the bloodstream.

In this light, it is telling that the amount of steroids in the 1984 sample was significant, and his urine tested positive even weeks later, and based on the half-life of the steroid, the specialists concluded that it was subcutaneous injection releasing the steroid slowly.

About Viren, there has been no new information for decades, but repetition has caused that his blood doping is now "common knowledge", "everyone knows", "it is widely acknowledged" type of information whatever the truth is.

Aragon wrote:

The only thing I am not "buying" is the claim that the accumulated (46 years) case against Viren is even remotely close to the case against Lance before the USADA case.

Okay Aragon...I get it. But that's not what I want to know. I'm wondering what your opinion is about your native country's sports hero Viren? Do you think he used blood transfusions or not?

You've researched blood transfusions in that era as much as anyone I know, if not more (I've seen your website). So, in the context of answering this specific question, you, IMO, would have an honest answer.

On your above post, you mention about Viren: "there has been no new information for decades, but repetition has caused that his blood doping is now "common knowledge." But what is your opinion despite no new info for decades (wasn't there enough info direct & circumstantial evidence to draw a logical conclusion?

You can be very ambiguous and truly a man of mystery. ?

Aragon wrote:

About Viren, there has been no new information for decades, but repetition has caused that his blood doping is now "common knowledge", "everyone knows", "it is widely acknowledged" type of information whatever the truth is.

Exactly. And it has to be remembered that Viren actually wanted to succeed in European championships also (1974 and 1978) and trained very hard for them. He injured his thigh in 1974 but managed anyway to get a bronze medal in 5000 metres. His thigh had to be operated later but he recovered quite well for the 1975 season.

After 1976 Olympics Viren injured his ankle quite badly (when he was hunting elk) and it had to be operated. For that reason his 1977 season was not very good, but later he was able to start hard training again for 1978 European championships. He was in a very good shape in spring 1978 and won easily e.g. Vainio and Ari Paunonen in Finnish cross country championships. However, later he injured his knee which had to be operated that summer. Of course that affected badly his later season and he wasn't able to take part in European championships.

In 1979 Viren was in a relatively good shape again and ran e.g. 28.04 in 10k. His Moscow training was hampered with muscle strain in June 1980 but as we know he was able to run a good race in the 10k.