Viren cheating?

Michael Aish used to tell a story about his early training days in a group with Paul Ballinger. He said there used to be some old guy who'd turn up and talk with the group about their training. He had no idea at first who the guy was but later found it was Lydiard.

Clerk wrote:

You acknowledged your sources, but do you have a link or title/year/author for some of them? That story about the pre-1972 dinner is incredible from the modern perspective, that the conversation of doping was so candid.

That idea is a big thing I want the forum to understand: the ubiquity of doping. Everyone imagines dark alleys and trench coats, and imagines their heroes as not being part of that world. But doping is just an athlete and a coach or doctor. It's easy to get into, easy to facilitate, and easy to continue. Which is why I start to look at why "clean" athletes are an exception to that rule.

I try to link to the sources whenever it is possibly, unfortunately my research file is almost exclusively Finnish/Swedish - language material from microfilms, so it is in any case unaccessible/unreadable for most of the population.

That particular 1972 dinner story came from the first-ever confession of blood doping, an interview which Mikko Ala-Leppilampi granted to the sensational gossip magazine Hymy (12/1981 issue). In the same interview, Ala-Leppilampi revealed that he had "the impression" that Juha Väätäinen, Lasse Viren and another national level runner had used blood doping. Dr. Peltokallio admitted that at least the transfusion of Ala-Leppilampi did take place whereas the information regarding others was "total nonsense".

Ala-Leppilampi clarified in the next issue that a Finnish endurance athlete who wasn't blood doped in early 1970s was an exception to the rule. Shortly later he apologized publicly for the whole episode from his former competitors and Dr. Peltokallio while technically not retracting any of his statements and accusations.

I have a recollection that in 2001 he gave an interview where it is clear that he hadn't much changed his original story about the prevalence of transfusions. When in early 1980s he was ethically against the method, now he considered that the method had been necessary.

I agree with the premise that it wasn't illegal, because nobody had ever heard of it (particularly to the old stuffy bureaucrats), however if Viren ever came out and admitted to blood doping, considering it is now cheating and he derived an advantage from doing it; I could see a push to strip him of his medals (whether they would be successful is doubtful). That is why he will always deny everything.

Well Geb, Komen, Bekele and most of the other top E. Africans were obvious dopers, especially with the information that's finally starting to come out, yet no one seems eager to go after them. Do they have some type of protective coloring, like lizards or insects or something?

But you're forgetting that black lives matter, if anybody tried to take a world record or gold medal off them Lorretta Lynch will waterboard you and then blame everything on Trump.

Leaving aside the fact that he may deny everything because he never did anything, it took until 1985 for blood doping to be outlawed. If you take 1970-71 as the first time word of blood doping made it to the public domain and consider all the rumors about Viren following Munich, I don't see how you can say nobody ever heard of it. And no, there would be no official push to strip him of his medals. was there one to strip East Germans of theirs?

Just noticed that the news telegram by UPI describing the confession of Mikko Ala-Leppilampi is available through Internet if anyone is interested:

http://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/12/03/A-former-champion-hurdler-has-disclosed-he-used-blood/8895376203600/

CHEIKHA wrote:

Yes Viren was blood doping. But since blood doping was legal then it technically was not cheating. Pekka Vassala likely blood doped as well.

Viren was in poor form for four years (1972 to 1976), then suddenly in 1976 he won two gold medals. That is the definition of an abnormal progression.

Actually in those days there was no DL.

We all just dug into our jobs to make money, and resurfaced later. Viren had a career, likely he was preparing himself for post Olympics.

Plus, blood doping (which was not illegal- not the same as legal) was like russian roulette

Mope Dealer wrote:

But you're forgetting that black lives matter, if anybody tried to take a world record or gold medal off them Lorretta Lynch will waterboard you and then blame everything on Trump.

What you are insinuating is not really true. The IAAF trotted out a series of excuses and looked to be doing everything they could to cover up for Paula Radcliffe's off scores. They also covered op dodgy blood test results for Russian distance runners for some time.

In case that anyone is interested, the link below has an English translation of my essay on the Finnish steeplechaser Mikko Ala-Leppilampi and about the first public confession of blood doping use in the Finnish sports.

It is a truncated version and roughly half of the length of the original 3000-4000 word essay, so some people and paragraphs are omitted completely thus some lines of thought may seem quite unfinished. And there are no references because only a handful of readers have any access to Swedish and Finnish sources. All the references can be found from my blog mentioned in the introduction if anyone is truly interested (I can't recommend the blog for English readers because the GoogleTranslated content is gibberish even when the algorithm is updated now).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz2uJgdLxwkbeVZwRHVrVEpVREE/view

(Google-Drive PDF-link)

The original one wasn't of H.L. Mencken quality, but this one is even more dull and clumsy in many parts, but it more-or-less gives the basic facts.

Ancient thread, but I must acknowledge that you were in the end right about Jouko Kuha having been reported confessing his "blood doping" use in 1968. The origin (or one of the origins) of the claim is Chris Brasher, who wrote the following in a column in August 1, 1976 for "The Observer" relating to Viren's blood doping allegation at the Montreal Olympics:

"Jouko Kuha, a Finn, received a transfusion just before a 3,000 steeplechase in 1968 in which he wet a world record of 8 min. 24 sec. That race remains his sole contribution to athletic history... Kuha did, by his own confession, have a transfusion before his world record; but that was because he was anaemic at the time."

My impression is that many other outlets reprinted occasionally Chris Brasher's columns. Interestingly Jouko Kuha actually denied the 1968 transfusion, when he encountered the claim in 1971, and hasn't admitted it even later, of course it is possible that it never actually took place. Just a week ago (after the death of Kenny Moore), I discussed about Kuha with one Finnish journalist, who knows him. He told that Kuha didn't want to talk anything about transfusions, when he was interviewed a few years ago.

Pretty sure Chris Christie can break 20”, as in run for longer than 20 seconds.

I re-read this whole thread and wondered if you still posted here anymore. Good seeing you. It's good to know I wasn't imagining reading about Kuha. In a somewhat related note Paavarinta turned 73 a few days ago and someone wrote that as good as he was he was never as successful internationally as his competitors because unlike them he refused to use illegal PEDs. It was such a great era for Finland that we're still talking about it a half century later.

Haha who? - Linford or Carl Lewis - both of them are absolute gong shows when it comes to doping. I actually couldn't care less about guys who doped back in the day and then disappeared but guys like Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson etc who have this self-righteous spiel of lambasting dopers as part of their "corrective guilt" are just nauseating.

As for Viren? Yeah most probably. But as someone pointed out it wasn't illegal back then so it's tough to call him a doper no? They could ban creatine in the next 2-3 years and does that make everyone who supplemented their diet with this a "retrospective" doper?

Good seeing you too!

While he was of course XC World Champion (1973), one interesting semi-shortcoming with Päivärinta was that he was consistently international high caliber in practically every distance, but not super-elite in any one, e.g. 3:37 at 1500m in 1973 and 2:13.09 Marathon a year later. Whereas Finns liked to travel to Kenya, Canary Islands, Mexico and Brazil during the cold months, he also rarely trained outside Finland, and it must also be psychogically demanding when he also had some years with close to zero days with no training.

Seppo Nikkari, a less-known runner, who held the 25,000m World record (1:14:55.6) before Päivärinta broke it in 1975, also claimed to have been the best of the clean athlete in Finland of the era. His only Olympic run was at the 1972 Olympics (Marathon), and it tells something about the level of the Finnish long-distance running that Olavi Suomalainen, the fresh winner of the 1972 Boston Marathon, didn't fit into the team.

THANK YOU!

I believe Lasse Viren way more than the But, but, buts in these boards. He has said it was the reindeer milk. So any other opinions do not matter. Hahaha

In that same comment about Paavarinta being clean it also said he did very badly in hot weather and that impaired his success. If he chose to stay in Finland for the winter rather than the Canaries, Brazil, etc., it seems he may not have handled heat well.

I do remember Nikkari. I think he had 2:14 something for a marathon best. Don't recall how he did in Munich.

How is Lasse Viren doing nowadays? Is Rolf Haikkola, his coach, still around?

Anybody know?

(this is an interesting thread, glad someone brought it up)