Steve wrote:
This was the key statement. Vayer had considered it carefully beforehand.
His training is in physiology and he claims that scientific tests can
accurately establish the capacity of the human body; that is, the capacity
of a clean athlete. "What is being achieved in professional cycling these
days is a joke. It is way beyond Man's natural capacity," he added.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><
Substitute "distance running" for professional cycling in the last sentence
and you have the ESSENCE of the reason for my anti-drug blather that has
been so unpopular for a year. An unaided male cannot ride at 33 mph ...
just as routine 2:06 and 2:07 marathons and 27:00 10k's cannot be done
without the dope.
For those of you who always say: Prove to me there is a fundamental limit
to human performance! I say: It looks like someone is here who will do
that for you. I don't know whether the current limits are 27:40 or 26:58 or
something else ... but it is not 26:22.
If you read through the whole message ... you will see what I have known for
two years: Dr. Conconi has aided a reported 140 athletes over more than the
last fifteen years. Cycling's greatest riders of the last 15 years are
included ... many track and field athletes are included also.
Systematic doping, UCI supported cover-ups, State-supported doping programs,
World Champions testing positive and admitting to systematic doping ...
If you still want to keep your head in the sand ... just keep telling
yourself it ONLY HAPPENS IN CYCLING ... and ONLY IN EUROPE. And, the
European Coaches and managers who coach and manage the runners outside of
Europe (especially the Italian ones) couldn't possibly be using the same
methods as THESE OTHER BAD, BAD Italian doctors ...
And to Drew: For the "too much time on my hands" comment ... print this
message out and fix it to your refrigerator (just like you told me) and look
at it every day ... There will be a day of reckoning for these people that
help the athletes cheat ... and for the cheating athletes.
It looks like its coming up quick for some.
-Brian (Trying to limit myself to one message a day) McEwen
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2000 7:47 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: t-and-f: [OZTRACK] When the lying had to stop
Subj: [OZTRACK] When the lying had to stop
Date: 10/29/00 10:27:31 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Laurie Cousins)
In a post to Oztrack on Wednesday I wrote that a trial had commenced in
France that would have an impact on sport everywhere. The plot thickens.
The
Sunday Times (London) has today carried a couple of significant reports on
the trial in France which is the end result of the drug discoveries which
led to the Festina team being thrown out of the 1998 Tour de France. There
is also an Italian development to the story - consider this quote:
"WHILE Judge Delegove was extracting the truth from cyclists in France, the
wheels of justice were turning against dopers in Italy. After an
investigation that has lasted more than two years, prosecutor Pierguido
Soprani delivered his report on systematic, state-funded doping. His
report,
which runs to more than 20,000 pages, recommends that Professor Francesco
Conconi and seven other be sent for trial.
Conconi, a former member of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC)
medical commission, is accused of criminal association, sporting fraud,
administration of medicines in a dangerous way and professional
malpractice.
This case will be bigger than the Lille trial, and will implicate the
Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) and the IOC in blood doping.
In his report to the Italian chief magistrate, Soprani has written about
two
past presidents of CONI, Franco Carraro and Arigo Gattai. "There is
evidence," he wrote, "of a special contract between Professor Conconi and
CONI." The prosecutor alleges that the agreement was to provide blood
doping
for Italian athletes.
Soprani also accuses Carraro and Gattai of indifference to the health of
athletes during their terms of office with CONI. "Under Italian law I
cannot
ask for Carraro and Gattai to be prosecuted, but it is clear they did some
bad things." The two officials escape prosecution because they had to be
charged within five years of committing the alleged offenses.
Carraro is now president of the Italian Football Association and is on the
IOC executive committee.
Soprani's case will deal in detail with Conconi's work at the University of
Ferrara and the blood-doping programme that he ran. Its significance lies
in
the fact that while doping athletes, Conconi was funded by CONI and the
IOC.
He and Belgium's Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of the IOC medical
commission, have long been friends, and despite the two-year long
investigation into Conconi, the IOC refuses to denounce him.
The case against Conconi will also embarrass some of Europe's top sportsmen
and women of the nineties. Many of the great cyclists worked with Conconi
or
his team of doctors, and one particular file will allegedly involve riders
such as Gianni Bugno, Claudio Chiappucci, Stephen Roche and many others.
Canoeist Beniamino Bonomi, who won an Olympic gold medal in Sydney, is
another name believed to be on the Conconi files, and Soprani's case will
seek to prove that many others availed themselves of the professor's
expertise.
If there is a bottom line from the judicial investigations in France and
Italy, it is that sport's governing bodies have been guilty of the great
doping conspiracy. In some cases they have funded the cheating and abetted
the cheater. But it is not just the athletes, organisers and
administrators;
journalists too have turned a blind eye or even worse to a problem they
know
about.
Yesterday's Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy carried a story which
claimed that Soprani knew who tipped off the cycling fraternity about a
police raid on the Giro d'Italia in 1996. According to the prosecutor, it
was the Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta della Sport. "
The complete article headed "When the lying had to stop" is available at
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html?2387908
On the French trial it reports:
After years of denial, Richard Virenque has finally admitted to doping. His
confession has lifted the veneer from a sport fuelled by drugs. Virenque
swore that he had not knowingly used drugs, and for two years he lied
shamelessly.
Virenque turned up at the trial last week determined to stick to his story.
On Monday he testified under oath that he had never knowingly used banned
substances. Some time between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning Judge
Daniel Delegove convinced him the lying could not go on. And on Tuesday
morning Virenque agreed. As soon as he did, a dam broke and the truth
poured
through.
His friend Pascal Herv� also admitted being part of Festina's systematic
doping programme and said he would have admitted it earlier if it had not
been for the fact that "just us nine idiots were caught". Other testimonies
were similarly revealing. Laurent Brochard told how he had become cycling
world champion in 1997 but had subsequently tested positive. According to
Brochard, an official with the sport's world governing body, the Union
Cycliste Internationale, told his team manager that a forged medical
certificate would get him off.
Frenchman Thomas Davy, who rode in the same team as five-time Tour de
France
winner Miguel Indurain in the mid-nineties, testified about his experiences
in the sport.
"At Banesto there was systematic doping, under medical supervision," he
said. "Did everyone in the team use drugs?" asked the judge, curious about
Indurain's stance. "I don't know. I didn't go round all the rooms, but I
think so," said Davy.
On Tuesday Vayer testified for the first time. He made sure the trial would
not pass without a consideration of the Tour's latest champion, American
Lance Armstrong. "Armstrong rides at 54kmh (33mph)," Vayer said. "I find it
scandalous. It's nonsense. Indirectly it proves he is doping."
This was the key statement. Vayer had considered it carefully beforehand.
His training is in physiology and he claims that scientific tests can
accurately establish the capacity of the human body; that is, the capacity
of a clean athlete. "What is being achieved in professional cycling these
days is a joke. It is way beyond Man's natural capacity," he added. Paul
Kimmage, who rode in the peloton from 1986-89 and wrote a definitive book
on
doping in professional cycling, shares Vayer's view: "The cycling that I
watch now in the Tour de France bears no relation to the sport I competed
in. The speed at which they now race up mountains makes a joke of the
sport."
On Friday Vayer returned to the witness stand and to the same theme. He
spoke of a rider tackling the steep 13km climb to the Pyrenean ski station
at Hautacam in this year's Tour: "He's goes quick at the beginning, then
faster, and faster again all the way to the top. It is just not possible to
do it like that." It was Armstrong who dominated the Hautacam ascent this
year, and his power amazed seasoned Tour observers.
Judge Delegove asked a medical expert if Vayer's analysis made sense. The
doctor said it made complete sense. Then Vayer detailed the health risks
involved in the abuse of banned substances making the point that many of
today's riders would suffer in the future.bike now, I just want to go home
and see my family. Most of all I want to see them grow up." .......
Richard Virenque, the incomparable mountain climber and untouchable drug
cheat, was no more. Torn from his pedestal, he was more to be pitied than
laughed at. This was Virenque diminished . . . and yet somehow redeemed.
"Even though I doped, I did not have an advantage over my rivals," said
Virenque in a deliberate reference to the ways of the peloton.
****************************************************************************
**
And a related story:
The pretense is over. Evidence paraded in the Lille doping trial has damned
the Tour de France and its riders. By Rob Hughes
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html?2387908
Finally, mask of deceit torn from laboratory on wheels
..... On Tuesday, the rider dropped his pretense that he thought the
injections were vitamins. Doping was for "preparation," and it would be
cheating only if somebody failed a test during racing.
Patiently, the judge probed. "What substances," he asked, were
administered.
"Amphetamines?" "Oui, Oui, Oui?
"Erythropoietine [the hormone, EPO, that boosts oxygen-rich red blood
cells]?" "Oui, Oui, Oui?"
So it went on, the judge and the cycling fraternity, evidently in
conversation rather than cross-examination - a chilling confirmation that
the Tour de France is contaminated to the pores. Thomas Davy, a former
rider, testified that other teams - Castorama, Banesto, Telekom, La
Fran�aise des Jeux - all "did the job". Doping, he said, was natural in
cycling: "In my whole career I only came across a couple of riders who were
not taking anything."
Here, on oath, was affirmation that Le Tour, boosted by a drug culture, has
become an obscene laboratory beyond human capacity. As the layers peel away
in Lille, the presumption grows that men lied until they were caught, then
lied about how their blood came to be so alarmingly enriched in red cells.
Former Festina trainer Antoine Vayer said it was scandalous that Lance
Armstrong, the Tour winner, rode at an average 54kph. "Indirectly it
proves," he opined, "that Armstrong is on dope." No matter that he had no
evidence. Nor that Armstrong is an inspiration to others fighting the
cancer
he once had. This trainer who oversaw cheating concluded that Armstrong
must
also be corrupt. The trial will last three weeks and more. In the back of
the courtroom, one feels rising nausea, not just because of what man has
done to the pleasure of cycling, but to sport as a whole. I work in this
milieu. I believe, still, in the values of sport that can make our world a
better place for children. But how to protect their innocence?
Delegove and his three silent fellow arbiters appear almost mesmerized, by
the strange breed of men before them. The judge, like a doctor persuading
his patients to describe their symptoms, clearly does not view cyclists or
their scientific collaborators as monsters. .....
Even Delegove complimented the Moroccan-born 30-year-old. When Virenque
changed his plea, the judge told him: "You have grown in stature. You have
dropped a defense that was bound to fail. You can look at yourself in the
mirror." Virenque's lawyer praised his client's courage in coming clean -
two years and hundreds of thousand of pounds after fellow Festina riders
served their suspensions. .....
Laurie Cousins,
Sydney >>
