I saw a couple articles already this morning about a soigneur that supposedly worked for BMC being arrested with 200 doses of EPO. The first I heard of it was through this link to a Belgium article that I couldn’t read. Now Cyclingnews.com has an article.
I’ve meet nearly everyone that works for the BMC cycling team and have no recollection of any guy named Sven. So, I emailed Trudi and she told me that she hardly knew the guy, but he did part time work for the team. By part time, 3 races in 2 years. That is pretty much not working for the team. But, it is whatever you make of it I guess. Then I saw this on the Innering that shows he has worked for BMC much more.
I have no idea how much 200 doses of EPO is and how many riders it would supply for how long, but it seems like a lot to me. Nothing like the Johan Meseeuw and his 8000 of Aranesp. I’m have no idea of the shelve life of EPO, but that would have supplied a lot of riders for a long time I’d guess.
Anyway, I think it is so wrong that these leeches of the sport can make this extra money supplying PED’s to riders. It seems even more wrong it is ex-Pro riders making extra money by supplying the drugs to the current riders. Screw them all.
Finally the authorities in these countries are finding methods to stop it, through customs. From my experiences at the Brussels airport recently, it is pretty depressing thinking that they are probably catching close to .1% of anything going through that facility. I spent the better part of a week at the airport, in January, and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to bypass customs at that place. I was pretty much walking in and out of the controlled baggage claim whenever I wanted.
This one hit closer to home since it is related to BMC. Will it ever stop?
how interesting that it is another Horse drug that is found. Clenbuterol is also used in race horses as a bronchodilator. and before someone mentions how little there was in AC’s urine u need to wrap your head around this simple fact
drugs used in combination with other substances can have their characteristics drastically altered.
My mother for instance takes a potassium supplement, she also takes a drug for blood pressure. This drug also has the effect of keeping the potassium in the system longer so less is excreted and more is used by the body.
Think of grapefruit juice, why does it make drugs “more powerful” it changes the levels at which other drugs are absorbed. Much more is used, less is excreted.
If Contador was taking a drug/substance that would allow the clenbuterol to be fully used the amount excreted could be the residue of a performance enhancing dose.
very simply the amount found bears no relation to the amount that was taken
Interesting that the dopers are connected to equine drugs, people cheating in horse racing would know about masking agents as well as making the drug undetecable
they found quite a bit of clenbuterol in connection with horse racing in Spain around the time of AC’s positive
also forgot to mention about the EPO, that is a huge amount of dosage from personal experience. When my father was going through his chemo, he would do 3 weeks on 1 week off and would get a dose of Pro Crit or EPO about once every two months or so to boost his numbers back up.
If a rider/s was micro dosing 200 doses would be huge probably enough for a team for a season
The report on Velonation cites that the product was caught at the Bierset airport in Netherlands and was to be delivered to a woman Zonnebeke.
According to Het Nieuwblad, the actual recipient was to be Sven S.
So either the team and/or the woman sent Sven, an alleged part time employee to pick up the packet and if he got caught then the team would deny all wrong doings (sounds like a spy movie to me) or he was working for himself and supplying riders on BMC and/or other teams with products and used the woman as a cover.
I suspect the first scenario.
It will never stop completely.
Thug!! LOL! You are like the cat whisperer! Good luck this weekend…GO!
I remember in the 90’s I took care of Michael’s dog Gaylen for a few weeks. I was giving him a vial of EPO everyday. I wonder how many doses that would have equated to for a rider.
I had worked with lots of dog’s in the past and Gaylen was about the only dog which scared me. He would rub up against me demanding to be petted and then 10 seconds later he would try to bite me. In the end I think he ended up liking me. I knew we had reached an understanding when I removed a Subway sandwich wrapper from his mouth without getting bit.
This guy worked for the BMC Racing Team for a total of 15 days in 2010 and 2011.
Franz-That dog scared the shit out of me. I had to go out through the fire escape on the 2nd floor at the old shop more than once because he had me trapped in the back room.
I remember one time at Michael’s house, I was on the couch and he was on top of me on his back and I was petting him. The next thing I knew, his eyes started spinning and he turned into a monster.
I like most any dog and I didn’t like that dog much at all.
At least you had the fire escape to get out! I remember once being trapped in the basement in Michael’s old shop by Gaylen on the stairs.
Jeff Osweiler and I were probably freshmen in high school, first year working at Michael’s, building bikes in the basement and Gaylen comes about halfway down the stairs and plops down to take a nap. Anytime Jeff or I tried to go up the stairs he’d start growling at us and was NOT going to let us get by.
After an hour or two I think Ronn or Chaz wondered why we hadn’t come up with any bikes in a while and realized Gaylen had us trapped. I think Michael had to come down from his office to get Gaylen off the stairs. Good times!
@Sean: “But I can reveal Sven Schoutteten has been working for the team as a soigneur at numerous races and as recently as two weeks ago. He didn’t just pop for an race or two as emergency cover, he has been an integral part of the team’s spring classics squad.” from the Innering article, which goes on to cite refs from BMC’s own website showing Schoutteten as soigneur:
Giro Della Toscana 17 June 2011 “Soigneurs: Raniero Gradi (ITA). Sven Schoutteten (BEL).”
Skoda Velothon Berlin 19 May 2011 “Soigneurs: Sven Schoutteten (BEL), Filip Sercu (BEL).”
He’s in jail now, so I don’t see him being employed anytime soon….