Zabel admits doping
- Thread starter wicklow200
- Start date
ErikZabel said:
All we need now is the UCI to stop him.... keep Sevilla, Jacske but stop good boy Zabel....... hell let Basso ride again........
Speed could take you from a mid pack rider to a top 5 rider. I know from personal experience. The thing about Armstrong not being a good rider until EPO. ........ Did we forget he won the World's at a very early age? He was a top triathlete at a very early age. He showed tremendous athletic ability. Looking at Indurain, when we look at his cycling record it shows a rider who was less then average rider for a good part of his career. Then he won everything, where before he was unable to complete a GT. Using Fignon and Eddy as champions even if they did dope defies reality. Between the 2, there were 5 convictions. The talk of Riis returning his jersey should be the same for Eddy and Fignon. [And the rest of them] Eddy's doping conviction in Italy may be alleged set-up, but what about the other two?fscyclist said:
EPO does not make you a champion without the horsepower to begin with. It is not magic.
Now we see TM was the sports doping team. And in OP and all the recent confessions , we have yet to see Discovery's name involved in anything.
And the message is: "To the parents of youth athletes of the future - you have got to understand that if you guide them and steer them, support their dreams and let the fire become a blaze, in 10 years' time they will find out what the real rules of elite sport are; there is no Easter Bunny, there is no tooth fairy, there is no Santa Clause in elite sport. The purity is not there. That's the point."
Full article with Victor Conte
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/story/0,,2090997,00.html
Full article with Victor Conte
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/story/0,,2090997,00.html
wicklow200 said:
Good article that and I published the link on another thread...... parents should encourage their kids into **** and away from elite sport.....
That's simply nonsense. Are you saying that someone who can win multiple TdF's against competition which is itself doping is merely "a mid-botttom tier rider".fscyclist said:
If EPO doping was pervasive, then we can assume that teams focused their efforts on their best riders (i.e. the ones with the best chance to beat other top riders doping on EPO).
Cycling has been synonymous with doping for over 30 years. Different eras only mean different drugs.
Its time for a fresh start, but to say that riders prior to the mid '90's were clean, or to excuse their doping use while focusing ONLY on EPO misses the point.
EPO is terrible from a health perspective, but doping is doping.
Yes, a mid tier rider can win using new drugs. Riis is a perfect example. Prior to cancer, Armstrong was a mid tier rider. You can believe his cancer miracle, high cadence story if you wish. I don't.Serafino said:
I've been over the 'different eras different drugs' and even gave you an example of their effect. Do you think if Moser took amphetamines he would beat his former hour record 10 years removed from racing? If you don't get it, you don't get it.
I've never made excuses for drug use in cycling and don't know why you continue to insist I think drug use prior to the '90's is okay. I only state that it has had a much greater impact.
you should read HelmutRoolethesecond's perspective. Cogent and germane.Serafino said:
He posits, that the pharmaceuticals can rectify one or two physiological parameters that an athlete is lacking in, in their natural unenhanced state.
A doping doctor can take any athlete, and as long as they have unparalleled ambition, high VO2max, high power at threshold, he can transform them into a super GT racing animal.
Does anyone think Armstrong could have possible won 7 in a row without access to recovery drugs like insulin and EPO? He never bonked on one occasion. Is this not anomalous?
Armstrong put doping right square into the performance function. Previously, EPO had altered the performance function, and made it necessary, but it was far closer to a level playing field.
It is obvious, there are a few different tiers to the doping programs.
Rumsas, Gutierrez and Perez, even Beloki, have proved, that the program CAN AND DOES make the man. If everyone was clean, it would be a much different race.
I wouldn't regard Armstrong as 2nd tier. With a world road championship and several world cups on his palmares, I'd say he was top shelf. In respect to GTs, he was a threat to win stages pre-1999, but a lot of overall threats went this route. Indurain comes to mind.
I think Armstrong would have matured into a GT threat regardless of drug use. Well, I shouldn't say regardless... Maybe, regardless of which top-shelf doping regime he chose. I'd be surprised is he wasn't running EPO pre-1999. I mean, why not, right? It's not reserved for GTs.
And ref. only the top riders get EPO. Maybe early on in the evolution of EPO and cycling, but after a while it became and still is very affordable for even the lowest paid PT rider. Google buy+epo. Cutting edge doping will be available to only the top tier riders, of which Armstrong was one. He was likely on something along with EPO that was/is not detectable.
If you look at Armstrong's credentials pre-1999, it's not that shocking that he'd go on to win the Tour. All references to his dramatic weight loss, high cadence, enlarged heart, and on and on is something I don't completely reject out of hand. It is the evolution of many endurance athletes. They continue to develop into their mid-to-late 30's.
But Thunder is right. If you find a rider with a big VO2max, reasonable pedal mechanics, all else can be fixed provided they respond to the drug cocktail.
I think Armstrong would have matured into a GT threat regardless of drug use. Well, I shouldn't say regardless... Maybe, regardless of which top-shelf doping regime he chose. I'd be surprised is he wasn't running EPO pre-1999. I mean, why not, right? It's not reserved for GTs.
And ref. only the top riders get EPO. Maybe early on in the evolution of EPO and cycling, but after a while it became and still is very affordable for even the lowest paid PT rider. Google buy+epo. Cutting edge doping will be available to only the top tier riders, of which Armstrong was one. He was likely on something along with EPO that was/is not detectable.
If you look at Armstrong's credentials pre-1999, it's not that shocking that he'd go on to win the Tour. All references to his dramatic weight loss, high cadence, enlarged heart, and on and on is something I don't completely reject out of hand. It is the evolution of many endurance athletes. They continue to develop into their mid-to-late 30's.
But Thunder is right. If you find a rider with a big VO2max, reasonable pedal mechanics, all else can be fixed provided they respond to the drug cocktail.
My point is that you can argue that most legitimate GC capable GT riders were very likely on EPO. Therefore, you are comparing apples to apples. Different riders me respond differently to doping, as they do to legitimate training. Its not one bad apple vs. a bunch of pure (doping) virgins.
Of course, you need a level playing field. But to say one guy who (it is claimed) won x number of GTs while on EPO vs. all of the legitimate competition which was also on EPO, is an illegitimate winner in the context of his doped competitors is silly.
All the more remarkable LA's accomplishment, racing against all that doped up competition on Telekom/T-Mobile and CSC
HR2, I meant that if you used EPO for the teams lesser riders, you'd certainly also use it for a GC capable rider on the team. That pre-supposes a team wide doping program which has (mostly) been exposed at Telekom.
Of course, you need a level playing field. But to say one guy who (it is claimed) won x number of GTs while on EPO vs. all of the legitimate competition which was also on EPO, is an illegitimate winner in the context of his doped competitors is silly.
All the more remarkable LA's accomplishment, racing against all that doped up competition on Telekom/T-Mobile and CSC
HR2, I meant that if you used EPO for the teams lesser riders, you'd certainly also use it for a GC capable rider on the team. That pre-supposes a team wide doping program which has (mostly) been exposed at Telekom.
thunder said:
Agreed.
In this sport we used have the distinction for years between one day riders and GT riders.
They were mutually distinct groupings.
You had riders who were great stage/GT riders but who couldn't race one day races and vice versa.
The exception - and they were exceptions - were Merckx/Hinault/Anquetil.
These guys could win at both disciplines.
And they did so from the beginning of their career.
Every other GT winner and one day rider fell in to one, or other, category of rider.
I cannot recall a successful one day rider ever morphing into being a superb,
multiple winning GT rider.
Guys like Kelly managed to "only" win one GT throughout their career.
Cycling results since the turn of the 20th century show this.
I disagree. It is shocking. Armstrong couldn't climb nor could he time trial, the essentials of a successful GT racer. He was a decent one day racer and that was the extent of it. I never saw him winning a GT, nor did I see him hanging with Pantani on Alpe DHuez and beating Ullrich in TTs.helmutRoole2 said:
He wasn't even a true top tier one day racer in my book. I define top tier as the top 10-15 guys. His World Championship win was a fluke because the breakaway group let him go and prior to 1999 he had a win at Fleche Wallone and 2 tour stages. Hardly the mark of a one day champion. Admittedly he was in the mix, but never pulled out the win. He was no better and probably not as good as his teammate Hincapie. Did you predict Hincapie to be a GT winner?
fscyclist said:
I think you need to mention that the 1999 WC 3 quarters of the field fell of and DNF....
finished either 6th or 4th (without looking it up) at Atlanta 96 in the tt. So, on his day, sounds like he was a Dekker clone, who, not known for a tt, if specialising in it, more like Voigt, could become one of the better tters.fscyclist said:
If you are not a stage racer, why does one need to work on the power at threshold in aerodynamic tt bike. Better to work on anaerobic and aerobic thresholds on the drops in race like intervals, because that is the only wattage that counts, when the smack goes down in the last 50 kms of liege or flanders.
Where is Michael Rich or Uwe Peschel in the pantheon of cycling greats?
After at least a year on EPO. The whole Motorola TdF squad was using EPO in 1995. As Stephen Swart said, Armstrong was "flying" in 1996, indicating that Swart saw that Armstrong had made a big leap forward. 1996 is also the year he won Fleche Wallonne and the Tour Dupont. Take out the TdF stage win in 1995, and you are not left with many significant wins before he began using EPO.thunder said:
Bro Deal said:
Nice attempt at re-writting history there. Lets examine his pre 1996 achievments:
- Winning adult level triathlons at age 12
- 87-88 number one ranked triathlete for 19 & unders USA Triathlon
- 87 points total would have him ranked above all 5 pros for that year
- age 16 turns pro
- age 18, 1989 national sprint-course triathlon champion
- age 19, 1990 national sprint-course triathlon champion
- 91 moves to cycling winning US amateur championship
- 14th 1992 summer olympics road race
- 1993 finishes year ranked number 1 US cyclist after capturing 10 one-day events
- 1993 at the time becomes the youngest ever World Road Race Champion
- 1993 first TDF stage win
- 1993 wins USPRO championship
- 1995 TDF stage win
- 1995 wins Calssico San Sebastian
Youv'e been drinking too much Lim coolaide. Don't worry, the mother ship will be along any moment now to save you.
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