No opinion.
No opinion.
sky wrote:
Skyflake wrote:
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.
So they took away your blood & roids, and what happened? You guys sucked. You didn't have the best runners, you had the best dopers. Total fraud.
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.
Yep, much like Lopes.
Armstronglivs wrote:
consider this wrote:
Nothing unfair about it because everyone was permitted to do it.
Sounds like an argument legitimising doping. If everyone does it it's ok. (They weren't.) Moran.
The reason they gave back then was that people, especially in the poorer, 3rd world countries, ran the risk of using infected needles.
With the help of a doctor or lab blood transfusions are your own blood with no drugs in them.
Blood boosting is a better term.
Interesting stuff about Vaino's situation that I did not know. Thanks. And you're absolutely correct in saying it's been decades and there's been nothing in the line of new information, which is probably why I think I once swore not to look at threads here about Viren again. Yet here I am.
The thing about this sort of situation is that you generally can't prove a negative. If some document or death bed confession were to emerge showing that Viren did blood dope there would be proof and the topic could be put to bed. But if he did not blood dope there is simply no way to prove that and all the people insisting that he did will keep on insisting.
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Armstronglivs wrote:
There is no new information about Viren, and I wouldn't expect there to be, but this thread began in celebration of Viren, to which my response has simply been - humbug. It was widely speculated at the time of Viren's victories that he was a blood doper. I am inclined also to that view but it certainly draws an indignant response from some to say so. Even forty years later.
You're "inclined" to that view?
No kidding??
Never would have guess it, lol.
But you're still a Kiwi crybaby.
Armstronglivs wrote:
I am not saying their cases are the same. You have quite misconstrued a simple point, which is that dopers typically don't admit to their doping, so their public denials mean very little.
I haven't misconstrued anything, only pointed out that unlike Viren, Lance admitted his PED use to several people and the information found its way into books and articles before any judicial issues. If anything, I've claimed that public denials mean pretty much nothing.
On general level, an anonymous guy accusing Viren of blood doping when the guy's name is almost synonym with the method in the public mind isn't particularly a paragon of civil courage. And don't get me wrong, there is a good circumstantial case that he indeed did take an (unfair) advantage of transfusions during his career.
HRE wrote:
The thing about this sort of situation is that you generally can't prove a negative. If some document or death bed confession were to emerge showing that Viren did blood dope there would be proof and the topic could be put to bed. But if he did not blood dope there is simply no way to prove that and all the people insisting that he did will keep on insisting.
On some level I do hope that he was indeed "guilty as charged" because otherwise his reputation is tainted for nothing, but I can recall one prominent Finnish scholar commenting also that while the "Viren-blood doping gossip" is the most significant doping-related rumour in Finland, he can never prove his innocence.
If Viren indeed used the method, it is possible that he will confess when his closest collaborators and defenders have all passed away. His personal doctor Pekka Peltokallio died a year ago and his coach Rolf Haikkola had his 91th birthday not-too-long time ago. It is interesting that when the latter was confronted with the blood doping issue in 1997, he was very ambiguous about the issue: "It is my recollection that Lasse didn't undergo a blood transfusion operation. That is all I know. I followed his preparation closely. Had there been something there, it would've came into light."
And there is a small possibility that someone else also has inside knowledge about the subject matter.
There was apparently a lot of information about blood doping practices among the Finnish journalists never published. When I interviewed the journalist who published the news scoop about Kaarlo Maaninka having used blood doping in 1981, he told me that they had information about several athletes using blood doping, but the case of Maaninka was the only one where the case was so airtight that they would've won in the court had Maaninka sued them. His impression was that sports journalists were mostly PR guys of sport and almost never wrote anything negative about it even when the information was everywhere. While the case against Viren was very thin, it is interesting that some didn't outrule the possibility that he had blood doped even in 1976 in the midst of the gold fever and when blood doping was banned, there were even headlines such as "IOC BANS REINDEER MILK".
I do know that the Finnish journalist who was the interpreter at the 1976 press conference where the reindeer milk quote originated (he even came up with the reindeer milk- joke when translating what Viren told) wrote in his memoirs that many journalists were suscipious when Viren vanished for many days just before the games when his doctor told that he should be left alone and no questions asked.
When Mikko Ala-Leppilampi confessed his blood doping use in 1981, Dr. Björn Ekblom who had invented the method some decade earlier also told publicly that he knew beforehand that Ala-Leppilampi had blood doped but that he didn't want to reveal what he knew about the other Finns. One of his coresearchers from his research center later told in an interview that the Finnish runners took advantage of the method and his impression is that Lasse Viren "more or less admitted having used the method" leaving it open how much his "impression" was based on inside information.
When you add Viren's strange "he who accuses should provide the evidence"-type of statements throughout the decades, you can almost see there some fire in the midst of the smoke. But at the end of the day, it just isn't there, so he might be innocent after all.
Nevertheless a truly great athlete. And a nice guy and a good father, entrepreneur and an emeritus member-of-parliament.
Aragon wrote:
And there is a small possibility that someone else also has inside knowledge about the subject matter.
There was apparently a lot of information about blood doping practices among the Finnish journalists never published. When I interviewed the journalist who published the news scoop about Kaarlo Maaninka having used blood doping in 1981, he told me that they had information about several athletes using blood doping, but the case of Maaninka was the only one where the case was so airtight that they would've won in the court had Maaninka sued them. His impression was that sports journalists were mostly PR guys of sport and almost never wrote anything negative about it even when the information was everywhere. While the case against Viren was very thin, it is interesting that some didn't outrule the possibility that he had blood doped even in 1976 in the midst of the gold fever and when blood doping was banned, there were even headlines such as "IOC BANS REINDEER MILK".
I do know that the Finnish journalist who was the interpreter at the 1976 press conference where the reindeer milk quote originated (he even came up with the reindeer milk- joke when translating what Viren told) wrote in his memoirs that many journalists were suscipious when Viren vanished for many days just before the games when his doctor told that he should be left alone and no questions asked.
When Mikko Ala-Leppilampi confessed his blood doping use in 1981, Dr. Björn Ekblom who had invented the method some decade earlier also told publicly that he knew beforehand that Ala-Leppilampi had blood doped but that he didn't want to reveal what he knew about the other Finns. One of his coresearchers from his research center later told in an interview that the Finnish runners took advantage of the method and his impression is that Lasse Viren "more or less admitted having used the method" leaving it open how much his "impression" was based on inside information.
When you add Viren's strange "he who accuses should provide the evidence"-type of statements throughout the decades, you can almost see there some fire in the midst of the smoke. But at the end of the day, it just isn't there, so he might be innocent after all.
.
I always thought that the way that he monitored his heart rate while doing 200m reps throughout June-July 1972 was his way of monitoring the effects of the transfusion(s) on his fitness, however this might have just been advanced physiology for that point in time. I still would bet money that he doped.
I like your comment about nice guy and good father. I have a real soft spot for him. When I was there in 1975 I misread the schedule for a 5,000 he and I were in and was on the toilet when I should have been on the starting line. Another guy in the race came dashing to get me yelling that Viren wasn't allowing the race to start because I wasn't there. I certainly was not anything to him but was so impressed that he had that kind of respect for all of us in the race.
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Aragon wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
I am not saying their cases are the same. You have quite misconstrued a simple point, which is that dopers typically don't admit to their doping, so their public denials mean very little.
I haven't misconstrued anything, only pointed out that unlike Viren, Lance admitted his PED use to several people and the information found its way into books and articles before any judicial issues. If anything, I've claimed that public denials mean pretty much nothing.
On general level, an anonymous guy accusing Viren of blood doping when the guy's name is almost synonym with the method in the public mind isn't particularly a paragon of civil courage. And don't get me wrong, there is a good circumstantial case that he indeed did take an (unfair) advantage of transfusions during his career.
Would it be similar to Paula's leaked off scores? What if an elite all of a sudden became an unbeatable super-elite with a previously unseen kick- all after previously training as a pro and at an advanced age?
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Armstronglivs wrote:
sky wrote:
You're "inclined" to that view?
No kidding??
Never would have guess it, lol.
But you're still a Kiwi crybaby.
As I said, simply to express an opinion about the subject produces an indignant -yet vacuous - response.
Your opinion was also indignant and vacuous.
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Blood doping was not banned back then. He denies it, but he would be in the right if he did it. That is the difference between him and Lance.
Armstronglivs wrote:
You are wrong about Lance... But your seeking to distinguish his position from that of Viren - which has nothing to do with the point I made originally - looks awfully like a rather mealy-mouthed way of defending Viren from the suspicions he blood-doped.
Everyone can read for themselves how right/wrong I was about Lance in my approach. That sounds like a defense of Viren against a specific argument about him because it is.
Another misunderstanding circulating widely is the claim that Viren peaked at the olympics, but he ran actually fast throughout the triumphant olympic years, whereas the effect of tranfusion is gone in a couple of weeks:
- 1972 (5000m: June 13:19, September 13:16)
- 1976 (10000m: June 27:42, July 27:40). He also ran a 25 km road race (1:14.21) only a few seconds short of the 25000m world record.
If one argues that he blood doped multiple times during the olympic years, the argument that he didn't bother to use the method in 1973, 74, 75, 77, 78 or 79 looks very strange.
Aragon wrote:
If one argues that he blood doped multiple times during the olympic years, the argument that he didn't bother to use the method in 1973, 74, 75, 77, 78 or 79 looks very strange.
Maybe he was superstitious? ?