Doping - Asthma, Actovegin, Acqua & Sapone

Boy does cycling irritate my asthma! I think I'll go use an illegal substance proven to boost performance to fix it. I just have to ask my doctor for a "doctor's note" to get off any positives in the doping tests. Kind of like Perreiro in the Tour.

It's a ridiculous rule, especially when someone like Vaughters, when he got stung by a bee, really did need medication - and he couldn't get it because the cortisone necessary was banned under racing rules. What happened to that "TUE list" - the Therapeutic Use Exemption list, i.e. the list of things for which a rider could test positive but because it's for Therapeutic Use, it's allowed?. You know, like Perreiro's asthma medicine.

Don't tell me they couldn't bend a rule or two. The Tour organizers regularly extend the cutoff time to allow racers outside the limit to stay in the race - 2006 would have been a joke after Rasmussen's solo win as only 60-odd racers made the cutoff. So with the only bee-sting in the last 20 or so years, it would seem reasonable to let the guy get a shot to allow him to continue.

Whatever. After Vaughters withdrew and got the cortisone shot, the swelling went down instantly. And it's not like he went looking for the bee to sting him to cover up some cortisone use, right?

Now you take someone like Perreiro - a perfectly healthy young man who has "mild asthma", takes a performance enhancing drug to "relieve" it, and that's okay? There's something wrong with this picture.

Actually even WADA agrees. For 2007 they are doing away with some of these doping loopholes.

In the bootlegged LA Confidential I got off the net, there is a mention of the USPS's TUE list.

In 2000, USPS listed, on their TUE medication list, 684 boxes of product containing 7,422 capsules, pills, injectables, vials, and tubes. In 2001, it was 8,334 units. If everyone on the team (directors, soigneurs, mechanics, etc.) partook equally, they'd have been taking about 12 medications per day in 2000; over 13 per day in 2001. If it was just the 9 cyclists, the number would jump to 39 medications per day in 2000, and an incredible 44 medications per day in 2001. Although you might expect this to be normal, USPS listed about twice as many medicines as the next highest team, and about four times most of the other teams.

One of the drugs not listed was Actovegin.

However, a team doctor in 2000 listed Actovegin (at that time not specifically banned) on an import/customs type form dated May 8, 2000. He was bringing in 40 doses of it as well as 125 other products. Armstrong stated that neither he nor his doctors had ever heard of "activo-whatever-it's-called" on December, 13, 2000, about 7 months after the doctor submitted the forms. The calf blood extract used to decrease hematocrit, increase the amount of glucose, and is typically used in conjunction with EPO to boost the oxygen carrying capacity of a rider's blood without drastically increasing the hematocrit level. It is normally used instead of aspirin to thin out blood and prevent potentially fatal blood clots.

It was banned shortly thereafter.

In 2001, the French government turned down the USPS team's request to import Actovegin.

Eventually, USPS admitted that, yes, they did bring in Actovegin. The reason USPS carried it? Their mechanic Julien De Vriese's "diabetes". He was present only for the three time trials. This means he took 40 doses in 3 to 6 day. Does this make sense?

Curiously enough Actovegin is not used to treat diabetes.

In other news, Acqua & Sapone is vying for the honor of being the team signing the most well-known dopers next to Tinkov. A&S has the distinction of signing a disgrace to racing, Freddy Maertens, who undid years of incredible riding by taking money and staging a waste of a "comeback" in the 80's. It was a total joke - he rode poorly and climbed off the bike about as quickly as Cipo in the mountains - but Maertens did it every time he raced. The journalists made fun of his synthetic tan - and it appeared he did indeed spend more time tanning than cycling. His fall from grace was reminiscent of the one by Nigel Mansell, also a spectacular star (in Formula 1) that didn't know when to stop - the fact he no longer fit inside the 1995 McLarens should have been a big hint.

Anyway, A&S have racer Stephan Garzelli, the guy who got booted from the Giro for testing positive for masking agents.

They also signed the first guy ever to help his dog dope, the guy with a pitiful capacity for life's hardships, the shotgun waving Tom Boonen impersonator. I mean, what the heck was he thinking? Oh, I forgot, he doesn't think. The one and only Frank Vandenbrouke.

Let's see how many races he doesn't show up for before he has some crisis. If I ever saw a guy who needed to join the military to toughen up a bit, this is the one. A stint in the dark green uniforms (sorry the English version isn't up) and he'd think nothing of actually getting out of bed and driving to a race with his bike and gear.

Big Tex

So on cyclingforums.com, there was a link to a pdf of a translation of LA Confidential. Interesting link as it was a site that basically exists to promote doping and gives doping information - what to take, how much, and testing issues (i.e. whether you'd test positive). It's main function is to sell Chinese EPO, or so it seems.

Anyway, I downloaded the section you can download without being a member. After I started reading it I joined the site and downloaded the other three sections. The pdf was like a Willy Voet book on steroids. Voet's book addresses some of the author's personal issues, but the pdf has no such baggage. The book appears to be about 195 English pages long and it's broken into 4 sections of 50 pages (the last section is 45 pages). As a service to those of us curious about racing and doping, I've summarized some of the book below. I, of course, fall under the category of "curious about racing and doping".

Some of its premises:
1. Armstrong's cancer could have been caught much earlier as one symptom of testicular cancer is an elevated level of a hormone, beta-hCG. That hormone is used by athletes to illicitly stimulate testosterone production. Normal levels are 1-2 nanograms per milliliter. Armstrong was at 52,000, 92,380, and 109,000 (according to Armstrong). Such high levels of beta-hCG should have been caught in anti-doping controls since it is a banned product. Either he worked around the tests (using a masking agent) or the tests were ineffective - after all, he was at over 100,000 times the legal limit. The hormone was specifically prohibited in 1988 so it was prohibited long before Armstrong didn't test positive for it.

2. The book interviews the USPS doctor, Dr Prentice Steffan, that was allegedly asked about doping by Hamilton and Jemison. His story seems particularly depressing because he just wanted to look after the racers, and his statement about doping at USPS, then hasty retraction, just leads me to believe that he used to believe the system worked but he no longer does.

3. The book points out that the 1995 ONCE team, with its doctor Aramendi, was known for its doping practices. Journalists even discovered 28 used syringes, used EPO vials, and a few other things in a room used by the good doctor. An infamous member of the team was its long time director, Manolo Saiz, known for his ability to carry both doping agents and cash at the same time. Another member of that team - Johan Bruyneel. Later, that same Bruyneel would direct USPS. The doctor he hired for USPS? Aramendi. Zulle, who would be caught up in the Festina incident, had recently transferred to the ill-fated team from ONCE. At ONCE, he took EPO under the supervision of the team doctor (Terrados) and "Jose". The only doctor at ONCE named Jose? Aramendi. Nothing explicit there but it just doesn't smell right.

3. The book points out that Armstrong's VO2 max increased substantially from pre-cancer to post-cancer. With a nominal weight drop (9-13 lbs, not 20 or more as some, including me, thought), it would be virtually impossible to increase one's VO2 max as much.

4. It includes a comment on how a trainer presents the original "Armstrong is stronger because he spins more" theory. Afterwards, in private, he is challenged by Lemond on the possibility of this being true. Lemond himself tested out this theory in search of more performance during his heyday. As Lemond (or anyone else) points out, it is logically not true. When you are climbing, when you want to go faster, you cannot just spin faster. If you do, what happens? You blow up! Although you may be demanding less oxygen per revolution, you have more revolutions demanding oxygen. There is no magic "lever" or multiplier. If you are burning through 90 milliliters of oxygen per kilo of body weight and you are a relatively efficient pro, there is nothing you can do to significantly increase power without increasing the amount of oxygen you burn. There is no free power! Yet this "rpms instead of power" is what USPS passed as the reason for Armstrong's spectacular climbing prowess. The only way this works is if the rider can carry more oxygen in his blood.

5. There is some detail on the Cofidis side of the whole "they abandoned Armstrong" story. I don't know who to believe here. But having seen Armstrong lie while looking straight at the camera (about him and Simeoni, after Armstrong chased him down during the Tour, allegedly to punish him for testifying against Michele Ferrari), I'd give Cofidis's side a chance of being partially or mostly true.

There is more to the book. The bullet points above represent to me some of the more interesting foundations of the book's allegations.

More on teammates, Actovegin, Lance's positive...