| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 15:25 |
Drugs...a personal insight.
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During my time as a Proffesional i came to realise that the " crime" of drug use was not about using them, it was getting caught. I personaly witnesed riders inject themselves on several occasions, both banned substances and boosters such as clucose and certain vitamins. I also witnessed the collusion of race promoters in covering things up. In one international race I took part there was suspition that regards one riders sample giving (the sample was in fact provided by the teams manager). The organisers answer?...take the majority of the team out of the remainder of the race and say no more. Why?...because there was a clause in the race sponsors contract that should a rider test possitive they would withdraw there support.
Only a little searching on the net shows that the top athletes have a ready access to as yet undetectable variations of EPO and numerous admissions by the Medics in charge of doping control that there failing to catch the majority of users. Any one who cares to look back at many of the "greats" of the past will find that at one point or another many (perhaps most) have , at some point failed medical control. There is and only has ever been one answer to drug missuse. That is a media "suspnsion" of coverage of any event were a positive test occurs. No publicity removes the pay packet and removes the incentive. It wont happen of course. Incidently i know as a matter of fact of one "backroom" staff in the current top echelon of British Cycling who was a reguler abuser, as im sure other members of the staff are fully aware of.
Why no names?...I cant risk the libal charges!
| eric09 |
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| 26/08/2008 15:39 |
Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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were you a continental pro and if so was the problem only on the continent or was it everywhere i.e. Britain?
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 15:52 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Both...and please be aware I am NOT singleing out cycling, niether am I particularly standing in judgement on the athletes.
The public at large plays its part in pandering to the hype of a media that constantly asks for biger/ faster/ stronger of its sportsmen and asks them to do so on an unhealthely reguler bassis.
There is a lot of truth in the saying that healthy sport ends where compettive sport begins.
In the final anylisis top athlets are pawns...often willing, and equaly often unwiting in a charade thats primery roll is product and/or political properganda promotion.
| Troy |
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| 26/08/2008 15:56 |
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Were you at the Olympics in LA?
| El_Cid |
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| 26/08/2008 15:56 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Re-backroom druggie.
Dazzricles - English or Aussie ?!?
| eric09 |
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| 26/08/2008 15:57 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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did you dope? I understand if you don't want to answer, it is a personal question. When were you a pro?
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 15:58 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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El Cid...i think you know the answer to that one.
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 16:03 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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eric ...NO...though on two occasions i was given a tablet that promoted the realease of calories and could, in large quantities prove possitive. I also had two injections of rather large quantaties of vitamins administerd by people i now realise had no business doing so. I all cases this was while competing in Gb colours.
| El_Cid |
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| 26/08/2008 16:21 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Just a stab in the dark, Dazzricles.
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 16:24 |
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Sounded like an "educated guess" or is was it a hunch?
Like i said..you KNOW the answer!
| bfergie |
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| 26/08/2008 16:45 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Fantastic to hear what no one outside the pro side of the sport could ever say for sure, I feel we are very lucky to have your opinions and insight added to the forum..thank you.I hope you realise that any pro convictions from now on your opinion will be seeked out plus how good are you at the "spot the cheat game" which I suggest as a new aspect of the race predictions page.
| le_petit_grimpeur |
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| 26/08/2008 17:00 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Quote:
eric ...NO...though on two occasions i was given a tablet that promoted the realease of calories and could, in large quantities prove possitive. I also had two injections of rather large quantaties of vitamins administerd by people i now realise had no business doing so. I all cases this was while competing in Gb colours.
Striadyne by any chance?
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 17:16 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Yes..thats the one.
The first time was in stage race in France...approximatly 10 mile TT stage. I won by just over 1 minute from a Dutch rider who went on to a short but exstremly high standard Pro Career.
| le_petit_grimpeur |
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| 26/08/2008 17:29 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Quote:
Yes..thats the one.
The first time was in stage race in France...approximatly 10 mile TT stage. I won by just over 1 minute from a Dutch rider who went on to a short but exstremly high standard Pro Career.
...and always warm the vitamin ampoules first before breaking the seal and injecting,or it stings like hell.
| wuverley |
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| 26/08/2008 17:33 |
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Welcome back le petit grimpeur.
| scm |
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| 26/08/2008 17:52 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Quote:
Incidently i know as a matter of fact of one "backroom" staff in the current top echelon of British Cycling who was a reguler abuser, as im sure other members of the staff are fully aware of.
Why no names?...I cant risk the libal charges!
It's not libel if it's a fact, surely?
| le_petit_grimpeur |
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| 26/08/2008 17:53 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Was the Dutchmen by any chance Leo Van Vliet?
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 18:03 |
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Yes he was.
| goblin |
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| 26/08/2008 18:04 |
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Quote:
It's not libel if it's a fact, surely?
Would it be libel if it was an 'unproven fact'?; but then again, would an 'unproven fact' actually be not a fact at all?
| Cacophony |
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| 26/08/2008 18:08 |
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Very interesting thread this, we all seem to know who, what, how, where but are all afraid to name names. This is the very problem that is the millstone around cycling`s (and other sports) neck. Are we waiting for the (`in-) `famous` to die before we can really admit the problem? Is a case of `waiting for the First World War veterans to die before admitting the atrocities on both sides to save face and embarrassment?
This is such a loaded subject that there is no `easy way out`. People will be shocked by who did `it` but can we say "that was of the time ... lets wash it and move on???"
I think not! But should we?????????
| le_petit_grimpeur |
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| 26/08/2008 18:09 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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..and the race was the 'Circuit des Mines'.
A very tough early season stage race always held in the cold and rain.Now called the Tour du Lorraine and held August/September time.
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 18:10 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Just to clear up the issue: I cant prove what im saying...i didnt film anything or record anything.
You iether accept my word as truthfull or you dont.
Thats as far as it can go.
And if anyone thinks im gonna " name and shame" think again, only in a court of law where im not subject to libal would i do that. And I would.
| El_Cid |
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| 26/08/2008 18:20 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Is it true that the rider you were talking about had such trouble injecting into knackered veins that his soigneur had to use a digeridoo to stuff drugs up his arse for him?
Or was that a rumour?
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 18:22 |
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Lol....aint heard that one..could be...lol
| goblin |
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| 26/08/2008 18:29 |
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I wasn't doubting your word for one minute. I was just trying to seek clarity on what is actually a 'fact' in the eyes of the law when it comes to libel.
.... and in actual fact; that's a fact
| wuverley |
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| 26/08/2008 20:44 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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These "facts" are interesting. I have information from a family source about a prominent merseysider's possible drug use, at an early stage of their career, I know nothing about what happened later on, but have no reason to doubt my source.
I would n't bother to repeat it here because, firstly, it says nothing about what happened during their most successful cycling years, and secondly, I don't see what would be gained from it.
This is probably why most ex pros don't talk about it.
However the way to stamp out doping is to make the testing rigorous and effective, if nearly everyone gets caught and banned, then most people will stop doing it. This shouldn't be that difficult really, every rider is registered, and pros should be straightforward to trace. (This is why the drugs used to cheat change continually) It is simply a matter of having good tests and applying them.
| daveno7 |
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| 26/08/2008 21:52 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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so are we getting in the area of naming names then? i have to disagree with the stance taken at present .
cycling needs to move into a new age of being clean and knowing its clean - we get a forum member who has given us an " insight" to the drugs world that kept the cycling circus intact for years.
to me this is new information,call me silly but i want some of my heros intact so i can still dream as i get up that hill.
some have taken the sport down but do we have to go as far ? do we need a reveal all?
i am sure peleton and forum members have made mistakes and not said sorry -and as a result have gained ? we may not have wanted to -but we did.
maybe we need to look to the future -a brighter future.
daveno7
| Ranger |
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| 26/08/2008 22:48 |
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Quote:
I also witnessed the collusion of race promoters in covering things up. In one international race I took part there was suspition that regards one riders sample giving (the sample was in fact provided by the teams manager). The organisers answer?...take the majority of the team out of the remainder of the race and say no more. Why?...because there was a clause in the race sponsors contract that should a rider test possitive they would withdraw there support.
Hi Daz nice to 'speak' to you, I've seen your stage win in the '88 Nissan a few times, I watched it recently on vid, and I have to admit the bit where you were sent off course was a of a laugh!
Anyway, that incident with the team you were referring to above happen in the 1990 Nissan by any chance?
While were at it a guy I was a clubmate a few years ago told me about seeing an English world champion actually shove a caffeine tablet up his 'rusty bullet-hole' during a stage of the Irish Ras a few years ago.
After the 1st stage of the 1992 Nissan me and a few mates were at the hotel where Motorola were staying, having met all the riders (including neo-pro armstrong) we spent a while talking to the mechanics as they worked on the bikes and bought some team clothing etc that they were selling off to make a few quid for themselves.
During this, a 'big' Motorola rider came out to speak to the mechanics, he asked where 'it' was the mechanics told him 'it' was in the front of the truck. After he removed the bag I asked him for a photo, which I still have of me holding a 7-eleven aero helmet standing with him holding a bag almost behind his right leg.
It was my 18th birthday and as a cycling mad teenager, it was a day I remembered vividly.
It was only when I read Stephen Swarts' account of his time in Motorola in LA Confidential and how the team's dope would always be transported in the mechanics truck that it suddenly dawned on me what 'it' was and perhaps why the rider whom I'd read alot about seemed odd and a lot different to any interviews I'd read.
He know works as a DS for a team with a dodgy reputation.
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 23:07 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Hi ranger...i cant be more specific in responce to your question but your thinking along the right lines.
To daveno7...if you read my first posting on this topic and do some research youl find it aint a mater of testing when the drugs in use cant be traced or isnt even known to testers. I gather it doesnt take much to alter a genetic "marker" on EPO to make it undetectable. Firstly, you need to know what your loking for, secondly much of doping`s use is to improve training recovery and capacity to try hard in training, and finaly theres to much vested interest by promotors, team sponsors, the wider political implications etc to mount a genuine and concerted war on the problem. Much easier to pillory the relativly few caught than see the big picture aint it?
| wuverley |
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| 26/08/2008 23:32 |
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I am sure all drugs are undetectable, until you look for them. Some are nature identical, but they are still different to chemicals that have been produced in the body.
It is only a matter of will to make tests effective. If we want a fairly drug free sport, then the people who can invent the tests need funding and the people who are to do them need the logistical support. Then the tests need applying rigorously and fairly.
I'm sure its the only way to stop people taking performance enhancing drugs: when there is a good chance of them being caught. (Even the cleverest dodgy doctor hasn't got the resources to fool the chemists at the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical giants who invented most of these drugs, for legitimate reasons)
As you say, some race organisers don't want to find them, but if ASO can do it, anyone can. The UCI should make all big pro races follow best practice, why else are they involved in drug testing?
The past is past, as far as I'm concerned, but the future's orange, sorry, I meant in the hands of the governing bodies. Let's hope they step up to the mark.
| Ranger |
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| 26/08/2008 23:47 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Quote:
Hi ranger...i cant be more specific in responce to your question but your thinking along the right lines.
Thanks Daz, I was think along the lines of a single letter team.
And fair play for taking the time to answer the posts and for making your original one!
Without asking you to libel anyone(!) what did you think of the president of the French cycling federation expressing his concerns to the UCI about 'team GB's' performance on the track?
| Dazzricles |
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| 26/08/2008 23:47 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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To the best of my knowledge there is NO test for human growth hormones. Raised Hemocratic levals( currently having a limit set way to high)only indicate the possibility of there having been used, hence a rider is suspended not banned.
Drugs in sports will NOT go away because of testing but might with a differant attitude by all concerned, public, media, compettitors, team managers and staff, race promoters and team sponsers.
Above all, before we condemn...ask yourselves are we ready to accept that first across the line is enuff and STOP exspecting " superhuman" efforts of mere mortals?
| wuverley |
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| 27/08/2008 00:00 |
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Sorry to disagree, but there are differences, genetically, between HGH administered artificially and naturally occuring HGH, the problem has been that no-one in sport has been willing to get the scientists who can do the do the tests, on board. It is coming, I think, but the UCI etc have to stop arguing with the teams, WADA, ASO etc about this.
As to changing drug culture, everyone I know, including my mum has smoked cannabis (don't tell her I said that), and everyone in the world has had an alcoholic drink, so that's a lost battle, if you want to fight it.
Again, I don't care what happened in the past, but if we want to stop doping in sport, its getting easier, scientifically at least, now.
| Dazzricles |
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| 27/08/2008 00:02 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Hi again ranger. In Peter Keen, if my "intuition" of a "good" man is correct british cycling gained the man that has made the british track squad what it is today.. the teams performances were incremental in improvement over a long period of time and i believe are honest.
The huge funding ( another subject well worth debating) that they recieve and the aquipment support is without doupt the best money can buy.
Re French "concerns"...hardly suprising given the current leval of domination,,,and lets not forget the Brit/ French relationship....Trafalger etc!...lol.
| Dazzricles |
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| 27/08/2008 00:16 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Hi wuverly..if a HGh test is on the cards great, but it aint being used yet. My point wasnt about attitude to drugs but attitude to "sport" and insatiable exspectations by all concerned, not merely the compettitors.
The past informs the present and it would appear litle has changed. Its just become far, far more sophisticated.
| wuverley |
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| 27/08/2008 00:36 |
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I'm not arguing for the sake of it, but,
The UK team won nearly eveything on the track at the Olympics, I'm fairly sure there are no illegal performance enhancing drugs involved.
As to the attitude to sport, it seems to me cycling fans are becoming increasingly intolerant of doping, I am often amazed at the vehemance expressed when a, formerly popular, rider tests positive, on this website. You weren't around but Ricco and Sella are good examples. I never liked them but some forum members were very disappointed when they were tested positive. (Using the latest tests, which they didn't realise existed)
I'm old enough to be more sanguine, but if testing don't work then we may as well stop bothering.
| Dazzricles |
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| 27/08/2008 00:49 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Hi wuvverly...i dont see an arguement, i see a debate.
As fot the Uk teams results...see above. I to am confident they were clean and salute there results. There we agree.
The messege im trying to get across is that it isnt just about commpetitors and sport fans...its about many other forces that together create a "paradigm" in which sport becomes unhealthy.
| shimanoshaun |
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| 28/08/2008 08:20 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Brilliant thread by the way, i got a question... do you think it possible that pro cyclicts are being injected illegal substances by team orders, when they believe that they are being only injected vitamins? hence so many cyclists seemingly obsesive in clearing their names, Hamilton Landis et al. sounds like i'm maybe a little naive concerning these guys, but i've never been able to wrap my head round the fact that IF you win a stage or in a leaders jersey your gaurenteed one thing... a visit to dope controlee, so why when Landis made up that 8 mins on that infamous day did he think dope control had the day off?
| mamba80 |
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| 28/08/2008 20:25 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Maybe im being a cycnic, but anyone can sign up here and say they are this that and the other! or did this saw that etc?
i personally beat Kelly several times to the green jersy and danced with g rogers.
| CrazyIvan |
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| 28/08/2008 20:41 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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Quote:
Maybe im being a cycnic, but anyone can sign up here and say they are this that and the other! or did this saw that etc?
i personally beat Kelly several times to the green jersy and danced with g rogers.
I think there are people on here who could smell the manure a mile off, if there was any.
| coco |
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| 28/08/2008 22:32 |
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Manure on the ball.
| bfergie |
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| 28/08/2008 22:46 |
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Not enough manure on this thread to feed a starving cherry tomato!
| Troy |
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| 28/08/2008 22:49 |
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And to be fair, this guy knows his onions.
If he's the dude I think he is, he placed top 10 in the LA Olympic TT.
| Dazzricles |
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| 28/08/2008 22:54 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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8th in the Team Time Trial in La, with Pete Sanders, Keith Reynolds and Stevan Poulter.Oh and i did have the pleasure of beeting Sean Kelly ( a true gent by the way) once..stage 3 Nissan Tour Of Ireland....But i havnt danced with Ginger Rogers!..bugger...lol
| mamba80 |
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| 28/08/2008 22:59 |
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...... sean kelly? who said nowt bout him? i meant Gene! we used to go shooting together and i got his green jersy or was it a jacket?
| Dazzricles |
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| 29/08/2008 00:21 |
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Re: Drugs...a personal insight.
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A Story, for those that like parables.
Once upon a time a little team of riders went to a land were lepricorns are alleged to live. There they got involved a jauant on there bikes for 5 days.
On the 3rd day one known as "couldnt give a four xxxx"had bin a very naughty boy and had to tell the boss. The boss came from a place famous for its moores and was known for "telling it straight" (sic).
By eck...he said...pass me that empty drinks can.
Well somone smelt a rat but they stood to loose out on their share of the bacon, what could they do?
Tell ya what said the man with the hair over his top lip.
Seeing as youve bin so naughty you can go home. "but, said the man from the moores, these two have bin naughty boys to".. "oh , said the man with the caterpiler over his lip...well they better go to. "what about him?" said the the man from the moores about the remaing rider..."Oh, he can stay, hes only had Guiness, Mars Bars and cold tea with lemon and suger in his bottle"
He was a bit lonely the nest two days but he did have a service car all to him self!