Vinokourov caught Doping!!!

history buff wrote:

I raced professionaly in the mid to late 80's and your comments reinforce my belief that many I competed against were dirty. I did and still do believe in the purity of sport. A**holes like you are far too common.

Easy big fella. We didn't dope. There's a big difference in feeling like you need to vs actually doing it. Also back in the 80's there wasn't the same climate that there is today about steroids and blood doping. It also wasn't as readily available as it is today.

BTW - Rasmussen it out! Kick off the team!

Obviously I need a reality check.

I agree with you that some runners could be doping. The rise of the Spaniards in the marathon in the mid-late 90's certainly raised eyebrows. I just get annoyed that a lot of people on this site refuse to believe that great LEGITIMATE performances are possible. Yes, there are cheats, but lets take a simple example.

Ron Clarke ran 27:39 for 10,000m in the 60's. I think it is very feasible that athletes who have many natural advantages (Paul Tergat, Haile Gebrselassie, etc), combined with natural time progresions could be running over a minute faster thirty plus years on. Why is that hard to believe? Thirty years before Clarke, athletes were running about two minutes slower then him.

The key factor which I believe supports my argument best is that no (or very few) non Africans are getting caught for EPO either. Some people say that Americans for example will not dope because they are tested more often and so will not risk getting caught. This is a stupid argument (not your argument but I have read such things on other threads). Look at cycling. Are the top cyclists not doping because they are worried of getting caught? No. Cycling (grand tours) is completely different to distance running.

To dope or not to dope wrote:

history buff wrote:

I raced professionaly in the mid to late 80's and your comments reinforce my belief that many I competed against were dirty. I did and still do believe in the purity of sport. A**holes like you are far too common.

Easy big fella. We didn't dope. There's a big difference in feeling like you need to vs actually doing it. Also back in the 80's there wasn't the same climate that there is today about steroids and blood doping. It also wasn't as readily available as it is today.

BTW - Rasmussen it out! Kick off the team!

The only reason you didn't dope is because you couldn't afford it or couldn't get your hands on it. You stated quite plainly that you would have. So if you had been a little better, with a few better connections...... It was cheating then, and it's cheating now.

There are two ways for donor blood to show up. The first is blood type. We are all born with one type of blood. A,B,AB, or O. These can all be + or - types. The + or _ refers to the Rh antigen receptor present on our cells. It is true that the majority of blood donations must have a match, however there are two types that can recieve anything. O type is the universal donor meaning it can be given to anyone. AB is the universal reciever meaning that it can take any of the above mentioned blood types. When tests are run they look for certain different blood types present. If Vino has B+, and the see O+ blood in his blood samples, then wahla! They have blood doping! In the same way if he was AB+ say, if they saw any other blood type present, then once again, blood doping. The Operation Puerto scandal had to do with riders "banking blood" to avoid the above mentioned results from blood doping. They would simply remove blood several months, weeks earlier, give time for the body to re-juvenate new cells, and then on a certain stage when their hematocrit/hemoglobin was low, transfuse their own blood back, thereby avoiding any difference in blood type.

Ahh, but therein lies the rub. Now could we have scrapped up enough cash to do it? Probably. Did we want to? Definitely. Did we? No.Now to the question of whether I was faster or had better connections or put all my eggs into the tri basket would I have doped? Probably 90% confident that I would have. Rightly or wrongly we all felt that if you wanted to compete you pretty much had to back then. As you are probably well aware if you raced much in the mid to late 80's early 90's. Not sure about today's racers. If racing was your livelihood, the fact that you didn't get sucked down that rat hole is to be commended. If it wasn't your livelihood than you're about the same as me. I just whooped up on age groupers and about a third of the pro's on micro mileage, full time job, a high level of naturally produced testosterone and a phantom twin ;-)I agree that if it is cheating now then it was cheating then. Athletes must be judged in hindsight. But the rate with people discussing the pro's and con's of steroid use back then like they were vitamins vs how people talk about them today is very much different. If everyone fessed up from the 80's I would tend to be less apt to condemn them than I would be, say, if Webb stepped forward today. BTW-I don't think Webb dopes.

history buff wrote:

To dope or not to dope wrote:

Easy big fella. We didn't dope. There's a big difference in feeling like you need to vs actually doing it. Also back in the 80's there wasn't the same climate that there is today about steroids and blood doping. It also wasn't as readily available as it is today.

BTW - Rasmussen it out! Kick off the team!

The only reason you didn't dope is because you couldn't afford it or couldn't get your hands on it. You stated quite plainly that you would have. So if you had been a little better, with a few better connections...... It was cheating then, and it's cheating now.

To put things into comparison: if you get caught doping in le tour, you get a 2-year ban from cycling and you have to pay a massive financial penalty (not counting loss of salry), and you lose your contract.

Meanwhile in MLB, you get counseling on first offense, 25 games (15% of one season) on second offense, and 80 games (~50% of one season) on third offense. Only financial penalty is lost salary.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bba_tigers_perez_suspended

;_ylt=AmBT8aZSi8FVDPJKVP0rmrgEtbAF

So cycling takes a rap for catching dopers, but it's obvious that cycling is much more serious than MLB about catching and punishing dopers.

50% of an MLB players salary is close to the GDP of Lichtenstein. I'd say that's a pretty hefty fine.

cycling fan wrote:

To put things into comparison: if you get caught doping in le tour, you get a 2-year ban from cycling and you have to pay a massive financial penalty (not counting loss of salry), and you lose your contract.

Meanwhile in MLB, you get counseling on first offense, 25 games (15% of one season) on second offense, and 80 games (~50% of one season) on third offense. Only financial penalty is lost salary.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bba_tigers_perez_suspended

;_ylt=AmBT8aZSi8FVDPJKVP0rmrgEtbAF

So cycling takes a rap for catching dopers, but it's obvious that cycling is much more serious than MLB about catching and punishing dopers.

fgdfg wrote:

Positive on Blood Doping after his sensational (comeback) TT.

And now Astana won't be racing in this year's Tour because of this...

YAY!

This is a bunch of shit. Levi and Alberto sign with the team, and then BAM, they can't compete this year...Its a load.

This sucks.

The greatest race won't have 3 contenders.

I probably won't watch this year.

I'll watch, there will always be someone else come out of the woodwork...clean or not.

lizard king wrote:

I'll watch, there will always be someone else come out of the woodwork...clean or not.

Plus the crashes are sure to be great, as always.

Tony wrote:

Wow. How does one test positive for a blood transfusion? What is it they labs look for? Blood type must be the same for the person to receive an infusion...so what is the signal that the rider got some other blood?

It is not an Infusion its a transfusion Dumbass !

1000 til I die wrote:

Tony wrote:

Wow. How does one test positive for a blood transfusion? What is it they labs look for? Blood type must be the same for the person to receive an infusion...so what is the signal that the rider got some other blood?

It is not an Infusion its a transfusion Dumbass !

Could be a herbal infusionbecause he had a cold...

then it didn't work so the doctor gave him a few pints of blood to fight the germs.

Amen! New management and new riders being punished for the past sins of people no longer in the sport is totally unfair. I am happy the ASO doesn't administer track and field. If they did, the USA would not have a team in Beijing because Justin Gatlin and Marion Jones were "caught" and even though Masback has left USATF, we need to ban Hall, Ritz, Webb, and the rest of the team to teach the USATF a lesson.

What about baseball? Since we have "proof" that Roger Clemens, Andy Petitte, and Jason Giami used PEDs and can speculate that Joe Torre or George Steinbrenner may possibly have known about it, the Yankees are banned from the 2008 season.

This is chilling.

The only thing that is the same about this years and last years Astana is the sponsor...are they basing the ban on the sposor name or the people involved with the team?

They are banning Astana because of Bruyneel, not Vinokourov.

Down Mexico Way wrote:

They are banning Astana because of Bruyneel, not Vinokourov.

And what has Johan Bruyneel EVER done to warrant this. Win the Tour De France 8 times as a manager?? Yeah...He deserves this.....NOT! As others have pointed out...Astana isn't even close to the same as last years team....Basically, it's a majority of the Disco riders that had to find new teams once Discovery decided to cease cycling sponsorship.

This is absolutely retarded.

The best part is that the French team Cofidis had a ride fail a test and was kicked out last year as well. They did not even change team management and they are in again.