I saw an article over at Velonews about a guy in LA, Nicholas Brandt-Sorensen, that was charged with selling EPO through the mail.  Nick pleaded to selling ONE vial of EPO to someone in Colorado.  He was also selling Actovegin, a derivative of calf’s blood on his website.

Okay, obviously, the dude is a dick. He served a 2 year ban for testing positive at Master’s Nationals a few years ago.  But that obviously didn’t slow him down.  He decided to profit from it by becoming a drug dealer.

As usual, Seth at Cycling in the South Bay beat me to the punch yesterday.  Click here to see Seth’s always amusing take on it.  

Turns out that Nick owns a clothing company (No reason to click that link since you shouldn’t buy anything from a guy pushing drugs to athletes. I just looked, too many of you are clicking the link, don’t do it.) for custom clothing in LA.  I remember doing the Nosco ride a couple years ago and a kid that was riding in his clothing was hauling ass up the climbs.

The funny thing is the guy goes by the name Thorfinn Sassquatch on Strava.  No shit, he does. How hilarious is that.   I went to his Strava profile and it seems he cherry-picks Strava KOM’s all over LA.  Cycling and running.  Under his name is this –

www.instagram.com/thorfinnsassquatch Olympic ITP & WADA Bio Passport Program >36 months. Top most randomly no-notice bio sampled cyclist in USA 2013-14 with 24/7 whereabouts filing for >36 months. (Required UCIWT or Olympic brand events)

I have no idea what that means and if it is a promotional deal, bragging, or just fuckin’ stupid, since he already sat out 2 years for cheating a bunch of Master’s in Bend.

What a douche.  He does have 1600 followers on Strava.  If any of you are following him, maybe just unfollow him now.  He doesn’t deserve anyone’s attention in my opinion.  Nothing like doping and selling doping products, while setting Strava KOM’s.

I wonder if the deal he made is like Joe Papp and that all his customers are sweating now, worried about the Fed’s knocking on their door for buying doping products through the mail?  I surely hope so.  And I hope the guy has to spend a timeout in jail.  Maybe not a year, but enough to scare some sense into him.

Okay, enough about this guy.  I’m going to try to erase  it out of my memory.  It isn’t worth another though.

I received the following email today from the Brandt-Sorenson company –

Good Morning, I wanted to inform you that your internet blog Stevetilford.com contains damaging and false information about our trademark “brandt-sorenson”

Specifically:

“He served a 2 year ban for testing positive at Master’s Nationals a few years ago.  But that obviously didn’t slow him down.  He decided to profit from it by becoming a drug dealer.”

The accurate information is available publicly through the Federal Court filing system. The incorrect statement is damaging and negligent. Please remove any reference to our trademark “BRANDT-SORENSON” from your blog and comments section.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Brandt
Cecilia Sasso
co-owners BRANDT-SORENSON Cycling Apparel

And I also talked to Cecilia.  She seemed nice enough.

I told her I was writing about Nicolas and not about their company.  She told me the link to their clothing brand was damaging.  I asked her what was inaccurate.  She emailed what was bothering her, I guess.

I’m pretty positive that Nicolas did accept a two year ban for doping.  An article from USAC from 2013 states –

USADA announced today that Nick Brandt-Sorenson of Los Angeles, Calif., a masters athlete in the sport of cycling, has accepted a two-year suspension for an anti-doping rule violation.

Brandt-Sorenson, 32, tested positive for Efaproxiral, which artificially enhances delivery of oxygen to the tissues, as the result of a sample collected at the Masters Road Nationals in Bend, Ore. Efaproxiral is prohibited under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing and the International Cycling Union (UCI) Anti-Doping Rules, both of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code.

So, suspension was true.

Then the part about profiting by dealing drugs.  From the LA Times a couple days ago – 

In his plea agreement, Brandt-Sorenson admitted to selling a vial of erythropoietin, or EPO, to an athlete in Boulder, Colo., for $631.

So, that seems to be truthful also.  Maybe the part about obviously not slowing him down?  That was just my opinion.  If that is false, then I apologize.

I think my friend Seth received the same email from her.  I think his response will be a joy to read.

Anyway, I might need to raise money through GoFundme to defend myself.  This blog thing is getting a bit stressful.

Alert – Just received a clarification from the Brandt-Sorenson Co.  It states –

I’m sorry I do not think you are understanding what I’m arguing. You need to not use the words “But that obviously didn’t slow him down.  He decided to profit from it by becoming a drug dealer”

This implies an order in which things happened. Which is FALSE. This was not in this chronological order. This is a false statement. Please remove. 

So, I guess I got it out of order.  He must have been selling doping products before he tested positive?  I guess they are confirming the truth of the statements, but saying it is out of order chronologically?  I’m bad, sorry.