Basso In and Flanked by DC Blue

matagi

Just what are you confessing to here?

ilpirata

I am in full agreement with your thoughts here Patch. As an aside, having watched some of the Giro presentation, I found the scene almost comical:
The anticipated "Italian protagonists" were on stage as guests that would be called on from time to time to answer a question. Along with them the show moderator and several dignitaries and ex-cyclists. In the audience were a collection of more commentators, celebrities, journalists, ex-cyclists, etc..
It was as if Basso was the elephant in the room and not someone who totally destroyed the field the last giro. The majority of the comments from the gallery of guests seemed like prepared advertisements for the prince Cunego. I was thinking to myself how awkward it must be for the other cyclists to sit there and listen to all this pumpage for one cyclist, and pretend that it doesn't bother you. I would have thought with the lackluster performance for a few years now, the Cunego horns would have learned to tune down the volume a bit, but apparently not.
I did find some parts very interesting: historic footage of some of the climbs that will be featured, along with comments from people that were present or a part of that footage.

whiteboytrash

..or the Landis lab hacker !

JohnO

Actovegin is used as an anti-inflammatory - you should try some on your posts.

If it isn't illegal, it can be used, and there is nothing wrong with using it. Various over the shelf pain relievers are also used as an anti-inflammatory agent, such as aspirin or tylenol. Not illegal, therefore perfectly useable.

Arguably, food and water are performance enhancing. Should DC be run down because it is enhancing rider performance by feeding them? Oh, those scheming DC riders - they're eating while riding.

poulidor

Yes you are right ... but
I prefer this from here

Rolfrae

Disco boys have been eating and drinking? Why didn't someone post this before? Have you any evidence? I bet that they started eating and drinking back in the Motorola days. That's why Livingstone left the Postal team - he was sick of having to take food and drink orally before every race. He wanted to race clean (hungry). Then he went to Telekom and Ulle showed him how to really eat the drugs (drugs is German for cakes)!

whiteboytrash

Agreed ! and Actovegin was found in Fuentes lab and its been known to mix into plasma bags to enhance oxygen transportation in blood.... nice one !

It is illegal by WADA, UCI and IOC. ie on the banned list.

I also think some satanists drink it as its the blood from a calf..... you winslow !

poulidor

Was found in the USPS TDF rubbish !!!!!

ilpirata

Actovegin of course could not be considered doping when it was not yet banned. I fully agree with you. There is some question within the IOC still if it should remain banned, if I am understanding correctly and am current. However, it does go to show the ever increasing money requirements to be a world class athlete in today's sports world. That is to say, to compete without disadvantage against other world class athletes.
We have seen Rumsas wife caught with the stuff, Lampre caught with the stuff, Manzano claiming to have used the stuff. It certainly has more benefit than an anti-inflammatory. Here is a more recent article on how it can be used:

[Dr Hans - Germany’s secret weapon

Published on: Tuesday, 6th June, 2006

Forget the leadership and skill of captain Michael Ballack and the host nation’s seemingly in-bred mental strength. The German team’s secret weapon at this year’s World Cup will be their team doctor - the enigmatic and controversial Doctor Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt. This quietly-spoken, private man could be the biggest influence on World Cup 2006 when it gets underway on Friday because as well as being the German team doctor, he has also treated dozens of other top stars that will grace football’s biggest stage over the coming weeks.
He sorted out Iran’s Mehdi Mahdavikia when he had a dodgy back. He worked on US captain Claudio Reyna’s recent leg injury and injury-prone England striker Michael Owen has become a regular visitor to his surgery. It’s not unusual of course for the world’s top players to seek out one particular doctor that may have helped a colleague back from injury.
It is Dr Hans’ methods that are out of the ordinary. He will not reveal them specifically, but reports of players being injected with calves’ blood or Turkey brains have understandably made the headlines. Bizarre or not, his success rate is high, and not only in football.

Dr Hans has cured all sorts of injury-prone sports stars, including British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe, golfer Jose Maria Olazabal and former-England cricketer Darren Gough. And having worked with the German football team for ten years now, he describes the hosts as the fittest team going into the upcoming World Cup. He has his critics of course - if you’re injecting animal parts, you would do.

But he insists that he’s no ‘quack’, telling the UK Times newspaper this week: “I am an empirical doctor and, over 30 years, I have treated so many that nobody can tell me it doesn’t work.

“Nobody I have seen has had an adverse effect, or an allergic or other reaction. “When I started as a doctor, I wanted to go deep into the metabolism, to accelerate healing,” he explained in the Times interview. “A molecular biologist helped me understand what happens to muscle fibres when there’s a strain or a tear, and how infiltrations (injections) direct into the injury may help. At the time, colleagues thought I was crazy and at professional conferences audiences attacked me, but I went on and now other sports medicine doctors in Germany try to do the same, and there’s no discussion.” And the calves’ blood and turkey brains stories are not too far from the truth.

Dr Hans explains that for muscle injuries he usually injects highly dilute plant extracts, but he does also use animal products. An amino acid mix called Actovegin, derived from calves’ blood, is used to speed up healing time. For knee injuries, he uses Hyalart, a purified extract from the comb of a cockerel.

In Germany, where alternative remedies and conventional medicine are often practised by the same doctors, these products are openly available to anyone at pharmacies. Dr Hans qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1971, in Berlin. A keen athlete as a young boy, he became team doctor with the football club Hertha BSC in Berlin - and was then talent-spotted by Bayern Munich manager Uli Hoeness and Franz Beckenbauer and snapped up by Germany’s biggest football team in 1977, where he is still team doctor.

Since 1996 he has also been with the German national football team, though that doesn’t stop him from treating dozens of players from other countries, too. Because his methods are more than a little eccentric, and because we live in an age where doping in sport is such a well-documented problem, he keeps meticulous record of every treatment he has ever administered to any player and hands them over to world football’s governing body, FIFA.

The suspicion surrounding his techniques hasn’t been helped by the fact that his footballing patients, not renowned for their intellectual prowess, have often admitted to having no clue what they have been treated with after a visit to Dr Hans. “I had no idea what was in any of those injections,” former player, now Germany coach, Jurgen Klinsmann admitted after seeing Dr Hans in 1996. “I try to explain to them,” Müller-Wohlfahrt told the Times, “but they don’t understand.”With cockerel heads and cow’s blood involved, maybe his patients are glad they don’t.

And in the end, as long as they are able to line up with their team-mates when it all kicks off from Friday, and as long as it is legal, neither the players, nor their fans, will care.]

musette

Bottom line is that Basso and DC will win the next Tour.

Basso will have as support: Leipheimer; Popo; Hincapie; Chechu; Martinez; Padrnos; Noval; and one of Brajkovich and Danielson, I think. I'd be inclined to pick Brajkovich, if I were Bruyneel.

jhuskey

Can you tell me who win the Super Bowl? I want to get some bets down and I thought you were Bruynell.

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Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

tcklyde

Don't forget Ferrari.

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Harry

tcklyde

Probably you are right, but one of the scary things about doping in the peloton is that many times no one really knows what works and what doesn't. There guys just inject everything and hope it all works. It's not like anyone is studying how to best dope a professional cyclist or what the long term effects are.

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Harry

lwedge

They won't make it that far. I have highly unreliable sources that tell me Spanish authorities will conduct another sting operation shortly before the Giro. The original code name for this sting was called "Operation Alfa Romero" but the authorities thought Dr. Ferrari might get a little suspicious of the code name so they changed it to "Operation Aye Caramba!"

You heard it here first.

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