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I think another ex-cyclist had said that teams do still dope. He claims that in the earlier months of the season, cyclists are given EPO and go train on the altitudes to make "good" blood (in other words, hematocrite very high).
This blood is then taken away from them and is stored. Because surprise blood tests are often on the early mornings of the race, the stored blood cannot "just" be given to the riders during the big races. It is said that they wait for any surprise blood tests in the morning and then minutes before the race they replace the "bad" blood with the stored blood. Just after the race the blood is taken out again, and blood of lesser value is put in, to avoid getting caught in the blood test in the evening.
I must say that all these methods of evasion are very clever! Probably work well, too.
Anyone know how the cyclists evade the EPO and/or high hematocrit problem when they're tested immediately at the end of the race? Like, when they win the stage? It's probably also pretty clever, I'd just like to hear about it.
However, Lance Armstrong's cancer does make me wonder. The guy was about 25 I think when it was discovered he had testicular cancer, which had spread to his lungs, brain, stomach, ... well I think it was just about everywhere.
So this must have been a very strong cancer.
How much we all like to accept cancer these days, it is in fact not normal. Cancer is a disease which, I believe, is caused by the bad foods we eat these days, bad air, radiation from phones, PC and TV, the pill for women, etc. This can explain many of the cancers we see today; colon, stomach, lung, throat, brain, breast cancer...
How does one explain testicular cancer however? It must have something to do with hormones and messing about with them.
No, not necessarily. Testicular is the most common of all cancers in men of that age group (late teens - late twenties). There are about 10,000 cases per year in the US. The number of cases has been holding pretty steady for some decades now.
Armstrong's cancer wasn't "strong", it was just diagnosed way way late. Untreated testicular cancer is close to 100% fatal: Armstrong's was following a very typical course.
His cancer's response to platinum therapy was also, thankfully, very typical; testicular cancer is close to 100% curable with platinum (doesn't that make all you young guys feel relieved?
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The only thing atypical about Armstrong's case is that it had gotten to such a late stage, but he still was cured. And, that's not unusual: it's just the luck of the draw as to whether the particular kind of testicular cancer you get responds well, medium well, poorly, or fantastically, to platinum.
It seems quite obvious to me that - although I don't want to believe it - the most likely way for a young, very fit and healthy man to get a cancer as bad as this is by using performance enhancing hormones, like steroids, and growth hormones.
Again no, not at all necessary for a young man to be doping to get this kind of cancer. No matter how fit and healthy: testicular cancer patients are almost always more fit and healthy than the rest of us, just because they are usually young men.
And, if doping led to an increased likelihood of testicular cancer, surely we would have seen a big increase in the cancer in recent decades, with the explosion of new doping drugs. Among older men, too, as well as younger, and among all kinds of athletes.
This makes it ever stranger that he came back so extremely well prepared for the mountains and time-trials. Of course, his muscle structure and body changed after his cancer and chemotherapy, but I wonder if this could explain it all.
I wouldn't know at all if what Armstrong did or trained or changed after the cancer could explain his improved performance (I'm trying to say, I can't tell from that whether he was doping).
But, cancer and chemo shouldn't have necessarily affected his performance. Cancer isn't a chronic illness, whose effects are felt forever, unless you've already sustained some organ damage from it. Armstrong's only organ damage from the cancer seems to have been his testicle, which was removed. Then, once the cancer is gone, it's gone, and doesn't have any more effects on your physiology.
It's like pneumonia: once the bacteria are gone, unless you've sustained lung damage, you're back to whatever you normally were.
Chemo is much more likely to cause permanent organ damage in the short term. Kidney damage, in the case of platinum. But, a great number of people do not sustain any permanent injury from chemo. So, it's not so surprising if Armstrong didn't.
Chemo is like poisoning (it is, in fact, poison): you get sick when it's in you, but when it's gone, unless you've gotten permanent damage, you go back to being just as healthy as before.
So, it isn't necessarily true that cancer and chemo should have prevented Armstrong from getting back to, at least, his prior form.
I don't know at all about the current state of doping in cycling; seems that the circumstantial evidence might lead to the hypothesis that there's quite a bit of it.
