Crash716

I think it's funny you guys think Lemond didn't do anything…

yarb

I'm still fairly confident that Sastre was clean in '08.

If not, I think Lemond was.

As for the "clen isn't real dope, so Contador is clean" story - the point is that the very small presence of clenbuterol (as well as the reported plasticizer), along with the timing (a rest day) was strongly suggestive of blood doping. That's why people think he was doping. Nobody thinks he was just taking a tiny amount of clen.

HigherGround

I remember LeMond being an outspoken advocate of more drug testing back in the 80's, before EPO hit the scene. Since he was actually competing at the time, that was particularly unusual for a rider to make comments like that.

In the book Bicycle Road Racing, Eddie Borysewicz claimed that LeMond wouldn't even take vitamin injections while he was an amateur at the Olympic Training Center. (Of course members of Eddie B.'s 1984 Olympic team were criticized for blood doping, although it wasn't illegal at the time.)

gnome

217.

HigherGround

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. None of us will be able to prove it conclusively. However I think he's most likely to be the most recent Tour winner who wasn't doping.

Edit: With the possible exception of Sastre, as yarb noted above.

Nerull

The loudest advocates against something have an uncanny tendency to secretly do whatever they are advocating against.

HigherGround

Fair enough, that's a good point.

Racer Ex 

I don't. To the best of my reading, and including conversations with former teammates, there's never been a single shred of evidence, gossip, or innuendo that Lemond ever used any type of PED. In fact everything has been to the contrary.

And it wasn't that sophisticated an era for masking use, some of the biggest names tested positive at that time for various drugs.

Do you have any sources, credible or otherwise that are contrary to this?

Commodus

It's neither fair, nor a good point.

StanSeven

Even I could do it. A few years ago, a group of friends and I did 700 miles in a week. We rented a big van, took seats out, and took turns driving. At the end of the week, I was much stronger than when I started and could easily do another couple. It's just a matter of building up to do the distance.

baj32161

Oh I dom't know....14 years of martial arts training, 16 years of playing and coaching baseball, highschool and collegiate volleyball, I may not be, nor have been a PROFESSIONAL athlete...but, as usual......someone who knows nothing about another person sees fit to make a totally uninformed statement about that person. I suppose, after all of my years as a member here I should be used to this. Oh well

I will never be a great cyclist though and I am okay with that at 50 years old.

Cheers,

Brian J.

merlinextraligh

And the drugs weren't as effective. When amphetimines were the drug of choice, that gave some advantage, mostly in your ability to push yourself, but it was possible to compete clean.

Once EPO came along, it makes a big enough difference in what a person is capable of, it's hard to believe that anyone not using EPO could win at the highest level, against other similarly talented athletes who were using EPO.

Thus, just circumstantial evidence makes it possible to believe that people were winning without PEDS in a pre EPO era. It's difficult to believe that anyone was winning clean in the EPO era, particularly before there was an effective test.

carpediemracing 

EPO boosts natural ability.

The amphetamines and such used in the 80s basically allowed a rider to ride closer to their limit but FTP didn't change all that much.

In the big races in the 80s you always had the same riders doing about the same stuff. The good guys were good, the second best guys were always one step below.

In the 90s it started to change. Odd names would pop up as big winners. Teams would claim stuff like hypnosis helped some riders (Bugno).

If anyone spent more than 30 seconds talking with Lemond, you'll know that he simply cannot filter what he says. He speaks his mind without reservation, had an incredible memory, and can be very open with stuff that you probably wouldn't talk about with non-family members in normal life.

A friend of mine has fished with him a number of times, and the questions of PEDs came up (my friend was asking - said friend is a racer who spent a very disillusioning year in Europe trying to break into pro racing in the early 80s and finished the year gluing tires for the team). Lemond told my friend that he played within the rules, but that he did what he was allowed.

I didn't know that iron supplements were illegal in some parts of Europe unless accompanied by a prescription. So a racer who was anemic could go to a country where it's legal, get some iron pills, take them, and go back to whatever country doesn't like them. I know Lemond took a shot for anemia in the Giro and did much better afterwards, getting 2nd in the last time trial. But until then he'd been suffering greatly, apparently from low iron.

I just read a long explanation on iron and blood and how iron only helps you get to your natural level. It won't help you exceed them. As the doc told me, you can take vitamins to get healthy but you can't take more vitamins to become "extra healthy". You just pee or store the excess, and if taken to an extreme, you get poisoned by excessive vitamins/iron/etc.

mazdaspeed

You know, after all of this, I'm starting to change how I feel about lemond. Maybe he was right.

Fleabiscuit

Clen is an illegal PED. Attached is a description of what it does. Sounds like it gives a cyclist a pretty good competitive advantage. I also read an article that stated no clen has been detected in any Spanish beef since it was banned over three years ago. Maybe Alberto had a 4 year old piece of beef?

For a guy so willing to believe any piece of negative info you hear about Armstrong (hey, I'm not saying this guy is innocent), even stories recounted by admitted liars, you seem pretty "open minded" when it comes to Contador's lame excuse for his doping. Let me help you with this one. Clen is illegal. Alberto Contador tested positive. He said it came from "tainted beef". To date, they have not been able to identify the source of the beef or find any additional beef from the same lot with similar clen contamination. Hmmmmm.

Clenbuterol is often used in the off-season by dopers to stay lean and there is speculation that Contador may have withdrawn blood in the off-season with clen traces, assuming the earlier use would not be detectable. This may also explain the plasticizers found in his blood.

Perhaps Alberto did not count on the the samples being tested by a German lab that was really good at identifying trace amounts of banned substances. Either that or he scarfed down a sandwich made with 3 year old beef (before the substance was banned) that was tainted with Clen and plasticizers (you know the kind found in bags for blood transfusions). Heck, maybe the "especial" beef was wrapped in a tainted plastic baggie? Just sayin...

https://www.teamradioshack.us/clenbut...d-cycling-112/

baj32161

I think LeMond is more right than anyone was/is willing to give him credit for and there are some, rather strongly opinionated, members in here who may have to decide just how they like their crow prepared.

Cheers,

Brian J.

fa63

Carlos Sastre in 2008.

Crash716

I look at Lemond like a hero too, but i have friends that raced over there at the same time that said no one was completely clean, and even if his ex teammates saw something, more than likely they were doing it too, and would like to attest to the fact that he was not also.

either way, I don't really think many grand tour winners are clean, I think the sprinters are, cause that's a either you have it or you don't thing..

who really knows except for the individual themselves, even if, and I doubt it at this point that Lance was clean, he's still a hero to many and there's not really much to gain by outing him.

Shimagnolo

My theory: Lemond was still depending on uppers when others when discovering EPO, and got PO'd that he was behind in the doping-arms-race.

caloso

Rocket-Sauce 

Yep.

I'll be Lemond wouldn't be so adamant if they could test for plasticizers back in his day....

sygyzy

The solution to doping is to have the public change their perception about what is expected or normal. Let's say right now the average time to complete a 100 mile stage is 4 hours (I am just making this up). I assume the same stage ridden in the 1930's didn't hav e 4 hour finishes. It might have taken 4:30 or 5. Or in baseball, nobody in the 1940's expected 73 homeruns from any player. They were content with 40 because that's the reality of it. That's what you expected to be the pinnacle of the sport. So if everyone stopped doping, maybe it'd take them 25% longer to finish a stage. Who cares. I already fast forward on my DVR anyway. The top athletes would still be on top.

As for anyone who believed Lance didn't dope, this about this - if EVERYONE else doped and Lance was clean, he is a superhuman. Everyone else had to dope just to lose to him.

bbattle

I think Lemond's gunshot sickness was affecting him in his later years. That, and everyone on the new wonder drug epo, which wasn't illegal at the time, made winning a longshot for Lemond.


Saturday's stage of the Giro showed one of the tifosi waving a steak attached to a stick with some string in front of Contador.

Racer Ex 

So that's what you have on Lemond that leads you to ridicule people who think he probably raced clean? A couple of guys that raced over there who said no one was clean. That's some weak schnitzel.

Oh, you mean like Petachi? Or Hondo? The list of sprinters busted for doping is pretty long. So yeah, the guys that have actually been busted are clean and the guy who hasn't had so much as a whiff of suspicion around him is dirty.

Got it.

crhilton

How sure are we that pre-EPO doping was helping them much? Serious question. I could drink a ridiculous amount of coffee and claim it's doping, but I'm confident my performance wouldn't go up. Heck, my doctor prescribes me medication that's banned. I'm sure that if I took it when not needed I'd get some tiny boost, but nothing that would really matter.

I have the feeling that EPO and blood doping are more significant than amphetamines.