Why do people still love, respect and rave about Lasse Viren even though it is a common knowledge that he was a blood doper?!
To put it simply, the guy was a pioneer of a practice that is so heavily frowned apon these days, that it is banned and warrants hefty suspensins and shame.
I know there wasnt a test for it back then, but how is this any different to say a present day athlete going down for the same offence?
I did not know that!...he is scum
The dude didn't dope. It is widely known that "Reindeer Milk" was the secret to his success.
My coach was a competitor of Viren. He still believes Viren was clean.
He has never been caught. Why are you so certain Viren was on drugs and for instance Bob Kennedy is clean?
Possibly because it is not "common knowledge" that he was a blood doper. It's common rumor.
Hey, I heard that Frank Shorter killed Pre...
dudes, bob kennedy was not clean. I thought everyone knew that
Lenny wrote:
I know there wasnt a test for it back then, but how is this any different to say a present day athlete going down for the same offence?
There was no test for because it was not banned.
The difference between then and now is that it's banned now.
Because he won four Olympic gold medals and there is no more solid evidence that he blood doped than there is that anyone else did and because even if he did he didn't do anything illegal at the time.
May not have been illegal, but most considered it unethical and chose not to participate.
Even if Viren blood doped, it wasn't illegal at the time.
Didn't the 1984 US Olympic Cycling team blood dope? Seems like it was still legal at that point.
I dunno.
I learned something last year (it probably wasn't the only thing). The Finns were disappointed with their performances at high levels in the early 1960's (after their stellar performances with Nurmi, etc.) and so, hired the best coach they could find in the mid-1960's. That coach was none other than Arthur Lydiard. He set up a program and, being a straight shooter (thus, bad at politics) split from the Finns in the late '60's. The program he set up was maintained and expanded, and Viren was the result.
While blood doping was a known technology, there never was evidence that Viren participated. He has continually denied any involvement. Legal or not, most western athletes knew it violated the spirit of the sport and did not participate.
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