Lasse Viren interview

To save time and space, I'll respond to all of the open questions in this single post.

There is a difference of magnitude if one compares the evidence against Viren to the USADA-report. As I mentioned, there is no positive test, no confession from Viren and almost no accusations from former teammates (other than the half accusation from Ala-Leppilampi) and zero accusations from anyone, who had firsthand knowledge on the matter nor is there any suspicious hematological data on Viren published. In the case of Lance, there are affidavits from people who physically saw him inject EPO and receive transfusions (Hamilton, Landis) plus there are positive EPO samples from 1999.

The only evidence seems to be that he peaked during olympic years. And there seems to be some truth in this, but this is only half evidence, because he really peaked during olympic YEARS. When one has in mind that the positive effect of blood doping lasts for a week or two before the turbo starts to fade away, take a look at his series in 1972:

Viren ran 5000 meters in 13:19.0 on 25.7 and he broke the 5000 meter world record by running 13:16.4 on 15.9, over month and a half later. In a few weeks before the Olympics, he broke two-mile world record and ran 10000 meters faster than Väätäinen had a year before (27:52.4) in a solo run. There is no suspicious peak in 1976 neither.

The Moscow year 1980 is a smoking gun in this respect, as he came practically from nowhere to sub 28-min performance in 10000 meter final.

What about his doping teammates? That two of his teammates received transfusions is a smoking gun, but there might've been other motives for this then "blood doping". I don't know about Mikko Ala-Leppilampi (1972), but Kaarlo Maaninka was borderline anemic in 1980, so there was a medical reason for him to "blood dope". One of the Finnish team doctors of 1972 olympics told that even after they had monitored the blood data during training season, there were a few athletes who were anemic a week or two before the olympics. Maybe there is a hint on the treatment that Ala-Leppilampi had?

To close the debate on Viren's pre-1969 national championship exercise kilometers, I summed up the monthly mileages from August-68 to July-69. The sum is 2681 kilometers (=1666 miles).

On the 50/50 - workout (13.13 / 5000 m). When I read about it in the memoirs of his coach (2003), I did find it somewhat suspicious that the workout wasn't mentioned in any of the three previous Viren-biographies (1973, 1976, 1979), so there was the possibility that he had remembered the distance or some other detail wrong. While doing some archival research, I encountered the "Project Lasse Viren"-file, where there was data on his plan to win in Moscow 1980. There the test run is also mentioned, but after re-reading the paragraph more carefully, the file does mention that the distance was "about 5000 meters" (most logical conclusion = somewhat shorter).

The workout is mentioned on the same exact page as the 200/200-interval workouts of Viren( that are mentioned in many sources) so the 50/50-run is apparently a different workout. Curiously the heart rate (HR) that Viren reached during these 200/200 workouts was only 172, whereas it was significantly higher 190 in the 50/50 workouts.

I do have the actual date of the run, and with some more time an interest, I might research it further, if there is anything to find out.

Hey Aragon - Calm, rational, fact-based discourse has no place on this forum!

It's not physically possible for a runner of that range to run 13:13 for 5000m on 50/50. You want the ratio of time spent fast to time spent slow to be as high as possible in a fartlek or interval workout to come fairly close to race pace. In doing 50/50, the ratio would be very poor, because you are running for more time at a slow pace than a fast pace. In contrast, if you were doing, say, 20x400 (100j), you are doing 4:1 distance fast to slow, and in terms of time, a very good athlete would be doing roughly 60:45 or 4:3. Mile repeats on 200 rest get you much closer to 10k pace: 4:40 and 1:00, say, a distance ratio of 8:1 and a time ratio of almost 5:1. There I get 31:30 for 10000m. Still very slow for a Viren type. On 20-10s, I could do somewhere around 5:40 for a mile and he would have been able to do at least a minute faster, but that's on a 2:1 ratio of fast to slow. That being said, I'm sure that with his blood doping or self-iron supplementation and 1990s era competition in his peak years, he could have broken 13. He is also right that contemporary Finns don't have the stomach for the sport, the hard work, the active childhood base, or the belief that they can compete with African distance runners. Is it true, Aragon, that Finnish children don't even xc ski much in the winters anymore? Sounds like classic first world syndrome.

Satori wrote:

Hey Aragon - Calm, rational, fact-based discourse has no place on this forum!

Gotta go with the guy above. You r being way to reasonable in your responses.

I seem to recall Viren developed what later would be diagnosed as a hernia during his training for Moscow. The down time lead to a crash training program so his sub 28 at Moscow really isn't a smoking gun sign.

Viren was a talent who also had the psychological make up to peak properly others did not they needed constant reinforcement that they were ready and consequently probably overshot their peaks most notably Montreal 5K.

It is sad to see the continued demise of the distance athlete in Finland. Running there in 1981 was special because you could experience first hand the love Finns have for it. Unfortunately the English are going through the same cycle.

You seem to have missed the quotation marks in my post meaning that someone else, the poster to whom I was replying, wrote those sentences, the post from which the quote was taken, and my only original comment which was "Maybe because he didn't." I'd agree with your post if you managed to read a little more carefully and had some sense of what you actually were responding to. There have been countless threads here over the years where the subject of Viren and blood doping has come up and anytime I comment on the topic I always say that there is no evidence that he did.

Having said that, I will say that you'd have to be an "moron" with an "idiotic belief" (note the quotation marks and their significance) to think that because an athlete and his or her coach denies using some form of doping it means the athlete didn't, or that s/he did.

In Viren's case, he actually is somewhat responsible for the persistence of the rumors, whether they're true or not. I spent a month in 1975 racing in Finland. Viren was in all but one of the races I ran. I didn't get to know him but did talk for a while with a good friend and sometimes training partner of his who told me that Viren did not blood dope but loved the stories that he did because he thought it made his competitors think he had an advantage over them. So he did nothing to discourage them until his career was over.

Aragon wrote:

I'll conclude with a visual notion. Everyone can see what the "winner" Viren of 1972 and 1976 Viren looks like: cool, calm, emotionless, calculating and almost buddha-like with deadpan face nowhere near his limits. Compare this man with the 1980 Viren of Moscow Olympics, who has this suffering expression in his face and who can not push himself any further.

That was because of he hadn´t the anaerobic abilities anymore in his armour, he was basicly training for a marathon, and didn´t have the gears to battle with Yifter. He couldn´t do the long kick anymore that he could do years before. Lasse had some injuries just between both olympics, Montreal and Moscow, that made him to be practically forgotten. But he came back.

A very, very intelligent runner he was. He ran less distance than his competitors did, and he was first in the finishing line, that´s all what matters. It´s not his fault that other runners were not that intelligent.

Les wrote:

Other Finnish runners have admitted blood doping and also implicated Viren.

This is sheer BS. It´s based on rumours. Lasse didn´t need the blood "doping". Actually, he was slower than some of his rivals, but still he was first at the end. Think about it. In the olympics the fitness is maybe 90%, the mind is what separates the winner and the loosers.

Harry, I would retweet this, if possible.

U.N.O. wrote:

In the olympics the fitness is maybe 90%, the mind is what separates the winner and the loosers.

Sheer BS, yes.

48+9 wrote:

Viren was a talent who also had the psychological make up to peak properly others did not they needed constant reinforcement that they were ready and consequently probably overshot their peaks most notably Montreal 5K.

Exactly.

Aragon wrote:

On the 50/50 - workout (13.13 / 5000 m).

the file does mention that the distance was "about 5000 meters" (most logical conclusion = somewhat shorter).

The workout is mentioned on the same exact page as the 200/200-interval workouts of Viren( that are mentioned in many sources) so the 50/50-run is apparently a different workout. Curiously the heart rate (HR) that Viren reached during these 200/200 workouts was only 172, whereas it was significantly higher 190 in the 50/50 workouts.

I agree with your summary, and add the following, from Viren's book written by his coach and translated to English, of which I apparently have one of very few copies.

The 50/50 workout was on grass, thus the distance was estimated and not accurate. More likely they did like Elliott and simply ran the same time of a race.

Viren called the intervals floats, but they were about 1/2 the speed of the runs. For example the floats after 27s 200s on the track were in 55s. Viren's heart rate was only 172 for the 1st session of 200s, but reached 198-200 by the 3rd one, and his coach commented that the action of his ankles was much faster. I'm not looking at the book at the moment but this information is from there, and other articles about Viren by his coach.

Retweet? I have no idea what that means or how I'd do it.

You were not the above stated moron to which I was referring but if you wish to take the mantle so be it. Please look closer at the posting.

You can believe what ever you want,all I know is it is impossible to disprove a mistruth in American society , repeated often enough it starts to take on it's on "truth" no matter how many ways a denial is made. Viren could have easily cashed in several years later with an admission with a rich reward a German sports magazine offered him for an admission, he turned it down at a time when he really could have used the money.

Yes Viren enjoyed and would use to his advantage anything that might give him a psychlogical advantage over his competitors. However THAT is NOT an admission of use. (please note the emphasis and their significance.).;)

Flo'da boy wrote:

Time wise he doesn't actually drop off as much as people seem to assume. His edge seemed to maybe not quite be there but he far from dropped off the face of the earth between Games

That implies that Finns are genetically different than other humans, which is not the case."All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup."*hint: the 0.1% does no refer to Nordic skiing.http://www.genome.gov/19016904

The obvious explanation wrote:

It's genetics. Finns are built to ski, not run.

If you weren't referring to me why did you reply to my post and quote me? I looked at your posting several times. Again, I have never accused Viren of anything.

HRE wrote:

Retweet? I have no idea what that means or how I'd do it.

He would have spread your word to a wider audience if possible.

"At the beginning of 1970, all the Finnish athletes used the blood transfusion, and, at that time, ALL THE WORLD looked at the Finnish Scientists as the best example for supporting athletes and performances.

This procedure was put outlaw in 1985, but from the beginning of 80 somebody started to fight against it (for example, Sandro Donati in Italy). We had Italian runners using it (as Alberto Cova, Scartezzini, Antibo), and somebody that refused (as Panetta, Mei, Bordin). When this procedure was put outlaw, everybody ended to do it, and Antibo started to improve a lot....

Everybody knew about the Finnish system, so Viren never denied to use. He told that "never he did something wrong" for the laws and the mentality of that period."

-- Renato Canova (from Letsrun, "Regarding Viren and Blood Doping"{

Again, I have no idea how that would work.