Levi Effect Movie Tonight

October 23rd, 2012

As part of the investigation into Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer testified about the doping in Pro cycling. Last week he was fired from the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team because of his doping. Or maybe because he talked about it not that he doped. Tonight the Levi Effect is showing at theaters nationwide for one night only at 7:30 PM.

Levi has stood atop the podium of cycling’s most celebrated contests: The Tour de France. The Olympics. The Amgen Tour of California. The Vuelta a Espana. The Tour de Suisse and the USA Pro Challenge here in Colorado. But beyond the race coverage lies a man whose impact on those around him is even more notable. From the millions in charity work to the reshaping of his hometown.

I’ve been wondering how the doping would be handled in the movie. Neil Browne got to preview the Levi Effect and has a great review of it. He says there’s a segment that talks about the doping but Neil says, “There’s no gory details or tearful apology.”

The Levi Effect website lists 3 local theaters showing the Levi Effect tonight. They are Tinseltown, Cinemark Carefree Circle and Hollywood Theaters 14. If you’re looking for someone to go with, a group is meeting a Cafe Velo before going over to the movie at Hollywood Theaters. I plan to be there.

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Disappointed with Floyd Landis

May 20th, 2010

Floyd Landis and Dave Wiens at Leadville 100

In an interview with ESPN, Floyd Landis confirmed that emails the WSJ obtained to cycling officials and sponsors admitting to doping during his cycling career were his. He was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone. He still says that he didn’t take synthetic testosterone in the 2006 Tour de France. There was sloppy lab work but after spending $2 million he still lost his doping case.

Not only did Landis, admit to doping but accuses Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Dave Zabriskie and other top American cyclists of also doping. I’ve long believed that most if not all top Pro cyclist are doping to some extent so I don’t find his accusations surprising. The thing is he says he doesn’t have any evidence to prove they did.

It’s one thing if he wants to clear his conscience of what he did. It seems like he’s trying to get back at others with his accusations.

UltraRob

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Michael Rasmussen Kicked Out by Rabobank

July 25th, 2007

Michael Rasmussen has been sacked by Rabobank and kicked out of the Tour. Rabobank sacked him when they found out that he was in Italy during June when he claimed he was in Mexico training. His wife is from Mexico.

I can understand not letting the UCI know every day where you’re going to be. It does seem it would be a pain but lying about where you are that’s just wrong. I could look past him not keeping his whereabouts up to date and I think it’s not uncommon. It doesn’t look good but doesn’t mean it’s intentional. Lying where he was says to me he was up to no good.

Looks like the current Top 5 in the Tour is:

  1. Alberto Contador (Spa) Discovery 76 hours 18 mins 25 secs
  2. Cadel Evans (Aus) Predictor-Lotto @ 1 min 57 secs
  3. Levi Leipheimer (US) Discovery @ 2 mins 49 secs
  4. Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC @ 6 mins 2 secs
  5. Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel @ 6 mins 29 secs

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Yet Another Doping Incident at the Tour de France

July 24th, 2007

VeloNews Photo

I’ve liked Alexandre Vinokourov riding style for a few years. He’s does a lot of attacking. Some of his attacks didn’t make sense when he was riding for Ulrich on T-Mobile but at least it made for interesting racing.

He was the favorite to win the Tour de France this year. A crash during Stage 5 left him banged up and he needed a lot of stitches. He limped through the Alps but came back to win the time trial on Saturday. Then yesterday on a brutal stage in the Pyrenees he won another stage.

It’s just been announced that he tested positive for homologous blood doping after his time trial win on Saturday. Of course he can ask to have his B sample tested. So what is homologous blood doping? It’s using someone else’s blood. Riders don’t like using their own blood for doping because they can’t train as hard for a few weeks after blood is drawn. What was he thinking? At least when Tyler Hamilton got caught he didn’t know a test had been developed to detect homologous blood doping and was the first to be caught. The report is that the whole Astana team has withdrawn from the Tour de France.

In other doping news, Pat McQuaid, UCI president has said he doesn’t want Michael Rasmussen to win the Tour. Rasmussen has failed a drug test but has missed 2 random out of competition tests. It doesn’t look good but it takes 3 missed tests to be considered a positive test.

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Is the UCI Trying to Ruin the Tour de France?

July 21st, 2007

This year’s Tour de France may be the cleanest Tour in recent history but that still hasn’t kept doping from being in the headlines. During the early stages, Versus had to adjust their programming schedule because the stages were taking longer than expected. There was talk that maybe the riders didn’t feel right without their drugs.

First it was that T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz had failed a doping test while during a training camp before the Tour. Just like Floyd Landis, he had elevated testosterone. Only the A sample has been tested and Sinkewitz has asked for the B sample to be tested. Before the positive had been announced he had crashed and was out of the Tour from hitting a spectator.

This week the doping news was that yellow jersey wearer, Michael Rasmussen, had failed to keep anti-doping officials informed of his whereabouts and they couldn’t find him for 2 random drug tests. He hasn’t failed any tests but missing 3 tests is considered a positive.

Also on Friday he was accused of trying to get Whitney Richards, a former mountain bike racer from Boulder, to take a Biopure to Italy for him. Whitney had been told it was a box of shoes but he opened it because he was having trouble getting everything to fit in his suitcase. Cyclelicious posted an article with more about Biopure including a link that says it isn’t performance enhancing.

I’ve long believed that the top pro cyclists were doping. I also think doping is a problem in other sports. How about Barry Bonds and the giant football players? It doesn’t seem people care so much about them though. Maybe it’s because in the US cycling isn’t as well understood.

I’m all for cleaning up cycling and other sports but there seems to be an attempt to attack the Tour de France. With Floyd Landis there were leaks to the press and mistakes by the lab. Throughout his whole case it has seemed that anti-doping authorities and the UCI have wanted to take him down no matter what.

Now with Rasmussen, the timing seems to an attempt to make the Tour de France look bad. The random tests that Rasmussen missed were on May 8th and June 28th (I’ve also seen a couple other dates close to those). Rasmussen was warned on June 29th by the UCI. Why was it not announced until July 19th while he was wearing the yellow jersey? It’s not like they had to wait for tests results. They just couldn’t find him. The Danish Cycling Federation says it announced that he was off the national team because he incorrectly stated he had only missed one drug test. He has been given blood tests on June 30, July 5th and 17th and he has given urine samples on July 15th, 17th, 18th and 19th. The UCI hasn’t released the results of those tests.

The UCI should be promoting cycling but instead it seems intent on destroying a part of it. Tennis and soccer players were also involved with Operation Puerto but the governing bodies haven’t allowed names to be released. The UCI and ASO that puts on the Tour de France have been involved in a power struggle the last couple of years. The UCI wants their ProTour to have the prestige and power instead of the Tour de France. Let’s clean cycling up but let’s not destroy riders because of a power struggle.

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More on Landis

July 28th, 2006

Yesterday I posted that I thought pretty much everybody in pro cycling is doping in some form. This doesn’t mean I think they’re all using EPO, steroids, or blood doping. There’s a wide range of ways to dope from the hard core stuff to some pretty innocent ways. It might be more accurate to say they take banned substances instead of calling it doping. Things like caffeine and Sudafed have only recently been removed from the banned list.

I really have a hard time believing that Floyd Landis took anything before stage 17 of the Tour de France to increase his testosterone. He would have known he would be tested if he won the stage. Unlike some other forms of doping, testosterone is easily detected and fairly well understood. Also testosterone is something that needs to be taken over time in order to gain a performance boost. Getting an injection the night before stage 17 wouldn’t have allowed him to have the incredible comeback that he did.

I think that Floyd is telling the truth when he says he didn’t dope. I think Floyd is one of the least likely in the peloton to dope and even if he did it wouldn’t have been this way. He’s too smart and has too good of doctors. There are natural ways this could have happened. A Fox News article does the best job I’ve been able to find of explaining reasons for testing positive. I’d like to know how high his testosterone/epitestosterone ratio was. Was it 4.1:1 or was it off the charts.

Unfortunately Floyd’s career and cycling in general have been damaged no matter what the result is for his B sample. If his B sample is also positive, then the final outcome will likely take months as he undergoes endocrine tests to prove that he naturally has high testosterone levels.

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Landis Denies Doping

July 27th, 2006

By now pretty much everyone whether or not they’re a cyclist has heard that Floyd Landis has tested positive for too high a level of testosterone. They actually test for the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. Normally it is about 1 to 1. Recently the ratio for a positive test was lowered from 6:1 to 4:1.

Only the A sample has been tested and Landis has said he will ask for the B sample to also be tested. He says he “can’t be hopeful” about the B test. In the Tour de France they automatically test the stage winner and the yellow jersey wearer after each stage so he would have been tested a couple days before. I wonder if he was close to the limit then. Several riders who have returned test results with high testosterone have been able to prove they have naturally high levels of testosterone.

In an article on BBC Sport, Landis says that maybe the injections of cortisone he’s been getting for his hip may have had an effect. Normally cortisone is banned but he has an exemption because of his bad hip. He also revealed that he’s been on thyroid medication for about a year.

Reached by the AP, his mother Arlene Landis said she wouldn’t blame her son for taking medication to ease the pain of his hip.

“If it’s something worse than that, then he doesn’t deserve to win. I didn’t talk to him since that hit the fan, but I’m keeping things even keel until I know what the facts are. I know that this is a temptation to every rider but I’m not going to jump to conclusions… It disappoints me.”

I certainly hope he can be cleared but that will take time. I do have a problem with the fact that it was released yesterday that a rider had tested positive during the Tour. That caused speculation that it was Landis because he didn’t show up to 2 criteriums he was scheduled to be at. I don’t think anything should be released until after the B sample has been tested if the rider asks for it.

If Landis isn’t able to prove he didn’t dope, that will only add to my belief for the last 10 years that at that level of cycling they’re all doping. It’s partly based on a conversation several years ago with a rider that had raced in Europe as a pro. A lot of races in Colorado were sponsored by a company that sold a supplement called Sports Pep. It had some pretty powerful stimulants that at too high of levels were banned. If I took 2 of them before a race, I’d sit on the start line with my heart rate at 140 and I’d race very aggressive. I had a friend that didn’t weigh much and he took one before a race and was so shaky that he could hardly control his bike on the downhills. This former pro rider told me he had taken 6 of them before a race we had just done. When I said that was a lot the replied that “it was nothing compared to what they took in Europe”.

Yes, I even think Lance doped. He just had good enough doctors to keep him from testing positive. I don’t have anything to back that so it’s just my opinion. However, I think that cycling is probably cleaner than baseball and football but they don’t seem to get as much attention. Maybe it’s because they require more strength and less endurance so they don’t use drugs that seem so exotic.

Some people have suggested that no testing be done and just let athletes do whatever it takes. I really don’t think that is a good idea. Sports would then be dominated by 20 year olds that care more about winning than living to be 30. Testing limits the doping to what can be done without detection. This keeps the playing field somewhat level although those with more money or the right connections can gain a bit of an advantage.

In an interview posted on cyclingnews.com on July 7th German doctor Kurt Moosburger says drug use in cycling is common. Below is how he says some of the doping is done to avoid detection.

German doctor Kurt Moosburger, who has looked after Jorg Jaksche (among others) for the past two years, has told dpa that he believes that performance enhancing drugs are “indispensable” for high level cycling

In a frank interview, Moosburger pointed to the average speeds of modern professional races, especially hard tours. “The average in last year’s Tour was 41 kilometres per hour – that is incredible. You can do a hard Alpine stage without doping. But after that, the muscles are exhausted. You need – depending on your training conditions – up to three days in order to regenerate.”

To help recover, testosterone and human growth hormone can be used. “Both are made by the body and are therefore natural substances,” he said. “They help to build muscle as well as in muscle recovery.”

Dr Moosburger explained how it was done. “You put a standard testosterone patch that is used for male hormone replacement therapy on your scrotum and leave it there for about six hours. The small dose is not sufficient to produce a positive urine result in the doping test, but the body actually recovers faster.”

Dr Moosburger went onto explain that, “The supply of oxygen to the blood decides what the body is capable of in terms of fat- and carbohydrate metabolism. This capacity is mostly genetically determined.The muscles of athletes who are able to reach the top level of sport can carry about 60 millilitres per kilo per minute in an untrained condition. That of an average person is only about 40 millilitres per kilo. In order to be able to keep up with the world’s best, it must be 85 to 90 millilitres.

EPO helps oxygen carrying capacity, and has long been the performance enhancing drug of choice in endurance sports. “It enables you to hold the haematocrit of the blood in the upper level of what’s allowed for the whole season. Before the EPO test, for example, athletes injected 4000 units three times per week. Now they inject a small dose almost daily.”

Finally, in the opinion of Dr Moosburger, blood doping via transfusion would give an athlete a five percent boost for two to three weeks. “And therefore can last for a grand tour.”

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