I saw an article over at Velonews, then went to The Guardian, citing a German TV documentary that had done investigative reporting on a systematic doping program throughout the sport’s programs in Russia. They say that maybe 99% of the Russian athletes that competed at the recent Olympic Games were doping.
99%. That is a very inclusive number. Even if this number is off by a factor of 2 or 3, which I very much doubt, it just goes to show that all sports are super polluted and that the whole system is very much broken. Like catastrophically.
I know, by personal observation, and studies, how much better today’s doping products make an athlete. So when the Russians don’t sweep the podium in all the sports it shows that they aren’t the only ones using drugs.
And how many positive tests were there? It is hard to find, but here at Wiki, they show around 15 athletes were caught doping before or during London. And there were 8 caught in Sochi. Only one of those 23 were Russian, a discus thrower.
Russia led the medal count at their Olympics this past year. And not one of their athletes tested positive. And the documentary says that 99% of their athletes were doping.
I’ve said it before and now I’ll just restate it again, in complete, utter disgust. Dope testing is not a viable way to control the use of drugs in athletics. It doesn’t work and catches only the stupid and unlucky ones. Very, very few.
But, we knew this already. That is one thing that the whole Lance thing showed us is that the testing isn’t catching anyone. Not Levi, or George, Dave, Tommy, Ryder, Christian, Kevin, Lance, not one of them. So why should it be any different in all sports, including cycling, still.
Lance told me this spring, when he called me, that he “didn’t want to burst my bubble, but all great cyclists doped”. Merckx, Hinault, even Andy Hampsten. I told him that I didn’t have any personal knowledge of most of those guys, but very much doubted that Andy took anything to race bicycles. I don’t doubt that most cyclists took drugs, historically, but the drugs only got out of control since he had been competing on a Professional level. It got to the point of where you were not even close to be competitive if you didn’t participate in doping.
Now this. In cycling, all the riders are trying to convince the public that the sport is so clean. But, 99% of the Russian athletes, which I assume includes all the Russian cyclists, are on a doping program. And the Russian guys aren’t smearing all the other professionals cyclists, so it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that cycling still has big issues.
After hearing of this, former WADA president Dick Pound said. “Somebody’s got to come up with an answer. If something of this nature is being organized in any country, it’s a very serious problem for the credibility of international sport and the credibility of anti-doping efforts.” Yeah, sports have a credibility problem.
It is really all a shell game, with us, the athletic community, riders and fans holding the empty shell.
I agree with Tilly. Andy Hampsten didn’t dope. As my Mom used to say, “Just because Pantani dopes, it don’t mean you have to.”
thank you for posting, I think as long as so much money is involved, it’s permanently broken. too bad.
It’s not just the pro tour and Olympics. Hell I’ve heard that a large percent of the amateurs when I raced 10 years ago where juiced to the gills. And that was in the midwest. Dewey wasn’t the only one doing it Steve. Makes me wonder how bad it is now at the 1,2 level where there is little to no testing.
I would like to believe that Hampsten was clean, but you never can tell. It would be so easy to do some minor “things” back then, that would give you a 1-2% advantage over your competitors.
Because of the systemic doping in cycling, nobody can be assumed to be beyond reproach.
.
1985: I’d broken away solo in the Cat3’s at the Whiskey Creek Stage Race, soon into stage one from Bishop to the Mammoth Mtn. Resort. I rode up Sherman Grade all alone, but was caught and dropped by the chase group just as we got into Mammoth. I rode up the final mountainous climb to the resort alone, still drilling it pretty good. A top-ten placing in my future. The Cat 1-2-Pro event started several minutes behind us.
About a mile from the top, Hampsten passed me like I was standing still, and he was in the big ring. I was just 17 years old, and I weighed just 135 lbs. I was truly in awe. I wondered how he could ride that kind of gear on that kind of climb. I was in my 42×21 at the time (yes, we all rode 42’s not 39’s back then). But I never considered that he could have, or would have doped. I never got the vibe that any Levis-Raleigh guys were dirty. They were well resourced, drove a cool van, etc, but they didn’t have “7-11 money”.
I should mention that a few months later, at the 85′ Palomar Mountain Time Trial, a young Raul Alcala had started a few minutes behind me. He flew by me in a gear much more massive than the one I was using. This is when he was with the Mexican “Denti” team and very pre-7/11.
Okay, here’s a probably unpopular idea, but perhaps a practical one given our apparent growing inability to catch cheaters: stop all testing and allow any and all doping at the pro level in cycling. Heck, even encourage new and exciting ways to push the performance frontier. Instead of articles in cycling mags about new bikes, have articles about the latest designer genetic methods to boost strength and VO2. What would be the equilibrium outcome of this? One possibility is the sport grows in popularity, and athletes self regulate so as to not die too early from their cutting edge doping. Just imagine; the hour record would be 40 miles in a few years!
I was in that race and remember Andy going by like a freight as well.
I’ve been hearing it doesn’t take that much $ to dope. I heard a seasons worth of epo is less than $500. Is that true? Seems so messed up because I know if you really need it because you have cancer it cost thousands.
Yup, pretty much. It just depends on which country you buy your PEDs.
and athletes self regulate so as to not die too early from their cutting edge doping.
Ask Chris Carmichael about athletes “self regulating” their doping. Oh, that’s right, the coach says “Dope or leave the team.” And then the coach dopes you and the athlete has no control over their doping.
What happens in a doping free for all is already known. The UCI let EPO doping flourish under Verbruggen. People die, or are damaged for the rest of their lives because teams require a medical program. Read about Tammy Thomas’s situation, East German doping are just two examples.
But nothing lines up quite right for Hampsten to dope and transform.
The guy destroyed domestic fields before going international and then was very competitive internationally prior to the introduction of EPO. It seems to me he saw the impact EPO had on some riders, his results suffered, and it was either EPO or quit and he quit. Verbruggen at the UCI was perfectly fine with doping.
If he did a Tejay and was good-ish domestically, then did the under-23 with okay results, THEN placed 5th at a grand tour under Och and Rihs, well… That kind of wildly inconsistent performance generates some grave doubts.
Here is a sport where they have doped and non doped.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-powerlifting-tells-us-about-the-effects-of-peds/
I trust you Tilly with what you say. Having said that, if you said Lance said that about Hampsten I believe you. And I might add I will punch Lance right in his face the next time I see him. What a desperate and deplorable little putz. Taking the ‘scorched earth policy’ and just simply saying ‘everyone did it, even the Pope and maybe even Jesus himself.’
Now I’ve logged a lot of miles with old AH; I’ve known him for over 35 years. To say I know the man’s character is an understatement and to have this desperate little piece of garbage try to bring everyone down with him is unconscionable. Look, facts be told, Hampsten left the sport – a sport he loved more than anyone in the peloton (LOVED and by a pretty wide margin I might add) – because of the doping and the teams’ widespread and systematic acceptance of it.
Hey I really don’t fault Lance for jumping on the doping bandwagon, I really don’t. His job was to win races and he found a better way to do it when everyone was playing Chutes and Ladders he had to play High Stakes Poker….I get it… not my cup of tea but I do ‘get it.’ It’s his lack of character and who he is and how he tried to destroy everyone in his way that makes him so deplorable. Even after his confession. But silly me, why should he leave the good guys alone now?
I’m with Tilly,just can’t believe Andy would dope,hope not anyway and same for Greg.How to control doping,that’s a $64,000 question. On the other comment,I used to ride with Tammy Thomas and she is very nice lady,sometimes people get caught up in competing and across the line.Good story Steve keep them coming. Fergybikes
There was an Olympics several years ago that encouraged drug use. Unfortunately, the results of some of the lifts were tragic.
https://screen.yahoo.com/phil-hartman-snl-skits/weekend-drug-olympics-000000571.html
It ain’t the drug that costs. It’s the “medical advice program” of knowing when to take it, and how much, so that your blood doesn’t turn to molasses one night in your sleep. It’s not like popping amino acids.
Hey Steve and all, you can actually find the German documentary online. There is a link to it on FasterSkier (the “VeloNews / Cyclingnews equivalent” for cross-country skiing) it’s just www dot fasterskier dot com. It really illustrates the problem in Russian sports programs with the state-supported system telling the athletes what to do, not so much the athletes themselves. It’s a serious crisis for Russian xc skiing and biathlon right now…so many of them getting caught. That article on FasterSkier really highlights the issue.
But, even worse, did you see the article about the Russian marathoner who paid out so much to keep her London and Chicago marathon doping secrets hush? Lilya Shobukhova – the article is in the Dec. 3 Washington Post. Amazing. She shelled out more than even Lance did!
I think the answer is to give long-forgotten Avery Brundage credit where credit is due. His famous quotation during the time of pure amateurism in the Olympics “amateur sports is sports, professional sports is entertainment” has never rung truer than today.
As I’ve been saying all along. Bike racing is a huge joke. Yes all sports are, but cycling seems to feed on it’s own more than any other.
At some point it HAS to become, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” It’s every sport. And YES it’s the nice guys too. Everyone makes those sound logical deductions like ST just did about the Russians being 100% doped and not coming close to dominating. It’s virtually proof, but when we apply the same sort of logic to nice guys, certain people don’t like it.
If what the general consensus here is true, that Andy Hampsten left the sport in disgust that the epo use had become widespread and winning now was never gonna be possible again. Then how exactly did Lemond win? Gasp!!! How did he actually get better as the Tour went on in 89? Just remove personal feelings and apply the logic….there’s your answer. It can’t be any other way. Lemond was awesome, Indurain too. GREAT guys, incredible racers, smart, tactical, fast time trailers, fast climbers and yes….DOPERS.
Hampsten probably was clean. Anyone who leaves the sport in the middle of being hugely successful and cites doping as the reason, has really put their money where their mouth is. I’ve never seen any anger coming from him but Lance, and Lemond….different story.
I believe that there are rumors still floating around the Twin Cities that LeMond experimented with EPO at some point in 1991 or 1992. Whatever I still like the guy if it’s true.
I read somewhere on the internet, and old interview of Lemond, where he was retelling how one of his former team-mates who had won a national tour, signed a contract with a spanish team and saw all the shit they were doing, quit, then went and told Lemond all about it. Can’t find the link to it, it was a few years before the Lance thing exploded. I guess it’s hard for some people to figure out who that rider was.
Bingo!!! And there’s the problem and also the reason the sport continues to poison itself. The good guys keep getting love, and jobs in the management side of the sport when they stop riding/doping. Vino is example #1. Och, Bjarne Riis, Mario DeClerq, Christian Van de Velde to name a few. It will never self correct.
You hear about domestic violence all the time and it’s sickening, but when we saw Ray Rice knock his wife out cold on VIDEO it was 1000 times worse for anyone to ever try to forget it or forgive it. What if we saw video of these guys with needles sticking out of their veins or saw them crawling around on the floor hiding from the vampires, or going to see Fuentes or Ferrari in disguise with their heads on a swivel looking for someone they need to see first. Do they still get these jobs, and your love? Well guess what? That’s exactly what they did in one form or another, so every bike racer needs to refuse to support them at any level in any way. NICE GUY/GIRL OR NOT. Or it will never, never stop. Lets face it, that’s the fate of it. Never gonna stop!
i wish some rich guy would come on to this site, see all the “he did ,no he didnt dope posts” and front up the $450.00 for a lie decetor test and just flat out ask andy, ST ,and lemond etc., to take the fuckin test ….10 minutes later we’ll know the answer..curious to see ho would take a LD test and who wouldnt. simple. is your name AH?
DO you live at 1234 maple street?
you ever take ped’s in your pro cycling career?
10 minutes later, you have your answer.
would you take a test like this steve?
so EVERY russian (or 99%) dope. Sounds about right to me. Cause those russians – they have no integrity. Can’t trust them. Putin is evil, so by extension, every russian must be evil too, makes sense.
Do we need evidence? No, just some german journalist says so, sounds about right. Now we americans – we would never have a systematic doping program. Nooooo…. Cause we are good guys.
And therefore, there is just no way Andy Hampsten, or for that matter Merckx or Hinault, would ever ever dope. They are honest and hard working, sincere human beings. AKA “good guys you would want to have beer with”.
Steve, do you understand that your witch-hunting of probably innocent athletes and excuse making on behalf of probably dopers is precisely what is so poisonous about doping issues? You cannot randomly accuse entire nation of athletes of doping and then simultaneously excuse some old dudes based on some random bias that you have towards russians and former pros.
Just like it annoys me to no end that you think Lance and Levi and Hincapie are evil, and Vandevelde or Millar or Zabriskie are somehow good decent guys who got confused for a year or ten.
Let’s stick to the facts. You have no reason to believe that Hinault or Merckx or Hampsten were clean. Based on performances, they are certainly in “Lance Armstrong stratosphere” of their time, if not way higher. So why not use some basic logic and assume they must have been doping too?
You also have no real evidence to suggest that 99% of russian athletes are doping. You would perhaps LIKE to think so – I agree and think they probably did dope, but is this the standard now?
The Russians DO have higher rate of doping incidences, especially if you include Kasakhs as russians (do you think they are all the same by the way – just curious? Do you think Vino is russian?) . But if we stick to the facts, you or nobody else has any evidence of 99% number, which doesn’t pass the stink test and is clearly made up to get some attention.
Saying, “let’s assume it’s 2 or 3 times lower” is very generous of you, but it’s sort of like saying “I heard some people say that Steve Tilford beats his wife every day. Ok, this is obviously bullshit allegation and the number is totally made up, I know for a fact Steve is a great guy, so let’s assume Steve beats his wife only twice a week. See, I am not totally crazy, I am a reasonable guy now.”
I am sorry for being so blunt, Steve, but you know as much about Hampsten, Hinault, Merckx and 99% of russians as me or any other guy with internet connection.
Please elaborate your thought process by which you decide athlete A is not doping, a great guy and a pillar of community and athlete B is totally guilty and morally corrupt and will burn in hell when A and B are performing at basically the same level and there is no other supporting evidence to tell A from B?
That would be a solution, if lie detector tests couldn’t be fooled. But they can be, with coaching: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/22/lie-detector-fallibility-criminal-psychology That’s why they’re generally inadmissible in evidence in court.
“But the German documentary collates a number of testimonies by whistleblowers, leaked documents and covert recordings which raise serious questions about the conduct of high-ranking officials with the Russian athletics set-up.
The Russian Athletics Association did not respond when MDR put the allegations to it. Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of Moscow’s doping control lab, told filmmaker Seppelt: “You should be very careful about putting too much faith into these athletes’ claims. These people are experiencing the biggest catastrophe of their lives.” He denied having ever received bribes to cover up doping scandals.
One of the Russian athletes whose positive doping tests may have been covered up, the documentary suggests, is the runner Mariya Savinova, who won gold in the women’s 800m at London 2012. A video clip recorded on a mobile phone in autumn 2014 shows Savinova saying: “How else are we meant to do it? That’s our system, and in Russia it only works with pharma.
“Luckily, my coach works with [one of the head coaches of the Russian athletics federation, Alexey] Melnikov, and he helps to cover up the tests. They let him swap the dates for the controls. And Oxandrolone leaves my body again very quickly. It takes less than 20 days.”
Asked how many members of the Russian Olympic team used doping, the former discus thrower Evgenia Pecherina told Seppelt: “Most of them, the majority, 99%. And you can get absolutely everything. Everything the athlete wants.” http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/dec/03/russia-accused-athletics-doping-cover-up-olympics
I remember that in one of your other comments, you stated that you were in fact Levi Leipheimer. Is that true or not?
David,
Nothing personal against Ms. Thomas. The federation should have pulled her out of competition well before she was shaving her beard. They are still okay with dopers winning.
Andy Hampsten left the sport in disgust that the epo use had become widespread and winning now was never gonna be possible again.
The guy is as quiet as a grave regarding doping. He hung it up at the end of 1995(??) with a steep decline in results starting in 1994 with about 10 years as an elite pro. We know for sure EPO was going full swing by then. Maybe he tried it and opted out? Maybe 10 years was enough? Lots of maybes.
What we do know is he dominated domestic racing and transitioned quickly and wildly successfully to Europe. That’s not really the profile of a doper.
Levi isn’t that verbose.
Regarding lie detectors and dopers, the most well known is probably Marion Jones. Doping allegations followed her around (shocker) and she denied, denied, denied!!! She was so clean she volunteered for a lie detector test to prove she was not doping.
She was doping with BALCO.
Just like it annoys me to no end that you think Lance and Levi and Hincapie are evil, and Vandevelde or Millar or Zabriskie are somehow good decent guys who got confused for a year or ten.
Until you spend a little time with those characters you are just going to have to take Steve’s word for it. As for Hampsten, Tilford rode with him on Levis. So, yeah, he’d have a good read of the guy.
You might find this handy, or not.
https://stevetilford.com/2013/04/27/letter-from-andy-hampsten-nearly-9-years-ago/
OGS-I don’t have enough time to address all you silly questions and statements because I have to go to sleep. But, I do know quite abit more about Merckx, Hinault and Hampsten than you.
But, like I said in the post, I don’t know much about Merckx and Hinault, although I did do a few stage races with Hinault, racing on La Vie Claire, but also against him and ate dinner with Eddy a couple times.
I do know quite a bit about Andy Hampsten. I was his teammate for 7 years, and he is my friend. I raced and travelled with him extensively, here domestically and internationally.. So, I do have a reason to “believe” that Andy didn’t take any drugs to race bikes because I know, without a doubt, he didn’t take any when I was racing with him and he didn’t get much better once he went to Europe full time. He was already really good. He finished 4th in his first Tour de France, when he was racing domestically for our team Levis. That is natural talent. Plus, there weren’t the drugs around that this idiots are taking nowadays. They didn’t appear seriously until the early to mid 90’s.
And I do have a real evidence that maybe 99% of the Russians were doping. It’s the German documentary I cited in my post. I didn’t make that up and they didn’t either.
An easy solution to end doping…you get caught, you are banned for life. The penalty needs to outweigh the benefits of doping.
steve , you ever ask your girlfriend on bmc about the bmc riders doping.. what she say?
Sure Mike.
@Eric – Easy solution??? Lance, Levi, Hincappie and many more doped their entire careers without getting caught…I get the impression that most riders racing on the world tour level don’t want to race clean. Open up the flood gates as far as I’m concerned.
Just did, she said, “No.”
It’s comical to read some of the older comments from people who supported LA. What was so patently obvious to so many was lost on his supporters.
And before making mention of rumors of Lemond or Hampsten having participated in doping, have proof or don’t even bother going there.
QUOTE : ” Now this. In cycling, all the riders are trying to convince the public that the sport is so clean. But, 99% of the Russian athletes, which I assume includes all the Russian cyclists, are on a doping program. And the Russian guys aren’t smearing all the other professionals cyclists, so it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that cycling still has big issues.” QUOTE………….Steve Tilford
QUOTE : ” Lance told me this spring, when he called me, that he “didn’t want to burst my bubble, but all great cyclists doped”. Merckx, Hinault, even Andy Hampsten. I told him that I didn’t have any personal knowledge of most of those guys, but very much doubted that Andy took anything to race bicycles. I don’t doubt that most cyclists took drugs, historically, but the drugs only got out of control since he had been competing on a Professional level. It got to the point of where you were not even close to be competitive if you didn’t participate in doping.” QUOTE……….Steve Tilford
If one takes a look at Andy Hamstens Palarmes…….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Hampsten……it is quite an impressive haul of victories.
During the eighties Cortisone, Amphetamines, Testosterone and Steroids were the main drugs of choice in the Peloton. There is evidence of blood doping, in particular PDM in 1988. No one is positive as to when EPO first arrived in the Peloton. EPO was approved by the FDA on the first of June 1989. Now all of these drugs are very potent, especially in three week Tours. They help athletes greatly in terms of recovery and performance. If we follow your logic that if all the Russian Cyclists are doping ect, ect….99%?, which would not come as a surprise, then if the majority of Professional Cyclists during the career of Andy Hampten were doping and he was beating them then “it does not take a brain surgeon to realize that Andy Hampsten was doping also”. And by the way Eddy Merckx did test positive three times I believe. Even if Lance Armstrong had credibilty issues before his confession, in fairness he was not going to come
out and hold up his hand and state to the public that he had taken performance enhancing drugs. In the end he was left with little chioce to publicly admit the truth. Those who are and were professional cyclists know better than individuals on the outside what it going on inside the Peloton. So I definitely would not take what Lance says with a pinch of salt.
Really! Throwing Tejay under the Bus! Come on….TJV was great as a Junior…U 23 was 2nd at Tour de’Avenir!! Before he came along Greg Lemond was the only American to ever podium there. Tejay is clean…if he doped with the likes of some of these guys…like the one on Astana who won the last TDF who smells a bit fishy….he would not have the ”bad” days he has been plagued with at all his TDF’s…….
LOL…you like to think of yourself and in the “inner Dark Circle”….like you were a Pro and a Doper..bullshit!
You don’t know Shit dude. I think you sit around all day with a crooked smirk and throw shit at your dog. Lemond had a VO2 of 92! You got any idea of what that means?!!! It means everyone else in ’89 (before EPO era) was beginning to run on fumes dude! He was a genetic marvel…no matter he could descend at 65mph with his eye closed! Sprint with Kelly and win…etc, etc…some got it some don’t…the reason Doping got so out of control is because the Italians could not compete with Lemond…so they started doping HARD…Like they meant it. This is why A. Hampsten quit…he would look around in ’92 on a 7% 20K climb and be surround by Italian sprinters! For Christ…just shut the F**Kup! and don’t throw shit at people from
a place of bitterness and your own sick mind. Peace Out dude…ps…BTW I raced hard in the 80’s…VO2 Max of 76.(Frank Shorter’s was 72 to give you an idea of something you nothing about) ….could hold my own but when I matched with Greg….done deal…he would blow our doors off….So get a life and speak of what you know.
You have to remember, most people on here are just way too young to appreciate how much better Greg was than most of his competition. If you’re under 40, you’d have virtually no concept at all.
I remember in the 80’s how the race program for a certain local event would often contain a list of prior winners. So many times, the Senior 1-2 listed Lemond’s name (even though he was a junior at the time). He won almost everything he touched, hilly or flat. He truly, honestly, did not need to dope. Kiddos: You just don’t understand. There has not been a US talent like Greg since Greg himself. Next stop? Major Taylor. Seriously.
steve
lol…
wanna bet?
i’ll bet you my monthly wages from my part time working around the farm, to your montly trust fund check that your girl isnt telling you WHAT WE ALL KOW ALREADY. THE BMC TEAM, LIKE ALL THE OTHERTEAMS DOPE..
LeMond and Hampsten did not use EPO- the so-called, according to LA -high octane doping. They, as did most then and now, used SOMETHING. Everyone who is competitive does – maybe not illegal, but still performance enhancing. Low octane. I imagine Mr. Tilford did/does to. The new moral/ethical debate is this: If it is not illegal -if it is a “grey area” drug, is it wrong? Caffeine was illegal for awhile, cocaine not illegal at one time -the line between right and wrong is always moving. The sad truth is that everyone cheats, even the good guys. The problem is, where do you draw the line? There is the rub, USADA draws a line, but nearly no-one in cycling buys in, and the teams/riders/managers obey only what they can get away with… Sad but true, there is no end in sight.
Steve, you do realize that it was Eddy who introduced Lance to Ferrari? Axel was already working with him. But you already knew that because Lance called you, you have had dinner with Eddy and Trudy was working for Motorola.
Since you have the ability to determine the dopers from non-dopers by your good guy/bad guy test we should stop testing and let you determine them.
And the fact that no one is doping on BMC, well no who’s being naive.
This is an ill-informed post. LeMond didn’t necessarily “get better” as the Tour went along in ’89. He was dropped on Alpe D’Huez, remember, and the following shorter mountain stage won by Fignon, both in the last week. LeMond, like many great stage racers never “got stronger” as the race went along–that’s not physically possible. What happened was they tired less than most of the other riders, which is what makes a great stage racer. Nothing about LeMond’s career says he doped–he never won a Classic, for God’s sake. My guess is that if had doped he would have won 10 Classics and 5 Tours and 2 Giros, etc. He is arguably the most physically gifted cyclist since Coppi, and yet he didn’t chalk up wins left and right. So, if he was doping, he was on a terrible program.
If you watched his Tour wins and his Worlds wins, there was nothing that looked unnatural about them. He had incredible class as a rider, great tactical sense, great bike-handling skills, and a monster natural engine–and he peaked for the Tour and the Worlds using all of that. I would bet my left nut that LeMond and Hampsten were always clean. Now, if they had raced in the 90’s and 00’s and won those same races, I would say they were dirty, because things changed after LeMond’s last Tour win in ’90, as we all know.
If what the general consensus here is true, that Andy Hampsten left the sport in disgust that the epo use had become widespread and winning now was never gonna be possible again. Then how exactly did Lemond win? Gasp!!! How did he actually get better as the Tour went on in 89? Just remove personal feelings and apply the logic….there’s your answer. It can’t be any other way. Lemond was awesome, Indurain too. GREAT guys, incredible racers, smart, tactical, fast time trailers, fast climbers and yes….DOPERS.
LOL! WTF are you talking about? Do you not think that leMond would’ve been outed by now had he doped some 20+ years ago?
Besides, do you have any credible/factual proof, that LeMond and Hampsten doped? Said proof MUST contain: times/dates/who administered said drugs, what they were, what Dr’s and so forth, so do you have that proof or not? Please post it here, so we can all see it.
Hampsten probably was clean. Anyone who leaves the sport in the middle of being hugely successful and cites doping as the reason, has really put their money where their mouth is. I’ve never seen any anger coming from him but Lance, and Lemond….different story.
Not “probably” WAS/IS clean(see my response for LeMond). Don’t take more credible people such as: LeMond/Hampsten himself/Bauer/Tilford/ and a few others who never saw him dope as the truth, they should just listen to you, and your delusional rantings. Oh right, you believe Wonderboy(That explains it all really).
chris – the Lemond mention was during a sit-down interview I also saw on the web. So it’s not in print. I was there in the era and all this conjecture is pretty silly. Lemond was a freak of nature. Look at his test results when he was a kid at the OTC for VO2 max. The testing staff saw Greg’s numbers going into super-human levels / top 20 in the world territory and they fell out of their chairs, laughed their asses off, went out into the hallway and came back into the testing room and he was still going – I was there. So when I see these riders that were absolute donkeys in their youth winning major races I laugh.
For all you doping experts you need to glean a bit from the Tyler Hamilton book when they interview Hampsten and he explains what was being used in the peloton and what the effects were on the riders. Some drugs made you faster than hell but you gained weight and you couldn’t climb, others had other bad effects that killed you in different ways. He was just right in his spot – maybe not so much for grand tours (Giro & 4th in the Tour aside) but like he says – any one climb in the world and he was the fastest man alive.
I will say this, too many riders from the era have now experienced some crazy / rare/ unheard of health related issues as they age and outside of getting shot and having lead pellets in his heart both Greg & AH are living better than 95% of the pros that competed in that era. As for AH quitting, the final straw was rumored to be the making his team’s TdF team. . . he had ‘the choice’ to ride the tour or ‘the choice’ not to ride the tour and bravo for him having the balls to leave on his own terms.
Did anyone notice if there was ANY testing at recent 2015 CX Nationals? Anyone see USADA reps/chaperones?
Anyone see post race random selection listed or announced pre race?
Anything?