Lemond questions Armstrong approach
Eurosport - Fri, 10 Oct 21:41:00 2008
Three-time Tour de France winner Greg Lemond has played down the anti-doping efficiency of self-policing by cycling teams - and says Lance Armstrong must do more if he is to prove he is 100 per cent clean.
More StoriesArmstrong set for Aussie comeback
Fofonov gets three-month dope ban
Lemond, the first American to win the Tour de France, in 1986, was a strong critic of Armstrong throughout the 37-year-old Texan's seven-year Tour de France reign.
It started over seven years ago when Lemond criticised Armstrong for admitting to working with Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari, who famously declared that the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) was not dangerous.
Now, Lemond has criticised his fellow champion for trying to be too transparent.
When he makes his comeback at the Tour Down Under in January, 2009, Armstrong will do so alongside anti-doping expert, Don Catlin, whom he has employed in a bid to prove that his performances will be beyond reproach.
Following in the footsteps of such teams as CSC and Garmin-Chipotle, who have similar anti-doping experts working with them, Catlin will put the results of Armstrong's blood values and testosterone/epitestosterone ratio online.
But LeMond believes it is a mixed blessing.
"What they're doing is good, but really that testing has got to be done by an independent group, and not policed from inside," said Lemond.
"What good is self-policing? It's like a wolf guarding a hen house. You've got to have a group with no self-interest. It should be up to a group like WADA."
Lemond says the authorities would get a better idea of who the cheats are if they started analysing such parameters as VO2max and the power output via the hi-tech SRM systems used on bikes, and not just blood and urine samples.
"If anybody read half of what's out there about physiology and how you produce power in aerobic sports... It's very simple."
He added: "There are certain physiologists who could blow the sport apart. But they all earn their living by the sport, too, so they have something to lose, so there's this omerta (code of silence)."
Cycling's doping scandals this past decade can be blamed mainly on the popularity of banned blood booster EPO.
EPO enhances performance by raising the volume of red blood cells in the blood, otherwise known as the haematorcit, thus allowing more oxygen to be pumped to the muscles which in turn can work harder and longer.
Despite efficient anti-EPO tests, Lemond believes athletes can still easily escape being caught using either EPO or (autologous) transfusions of their own blood.
"It's all very well checking blood values. But if you're a smart doctor, you just always keep your rider's blood values high," he added. "EPO is only detectable within a few days, and that's why it's hard to detect it.
"Autologous blood transfusions, however, are not detectable at all - except through a carbon monoxide test, which is something Michael Ashenden (project co-ordinator of the Science and Industry Against Blood Doping) has proposed.
"It tests the volume of haemoglobin (which transports oxygen to the muscles) in the body, and can prove a positive for autologous blood transfusions. That's the kind of testing we must do, along with profiling athletes' natural oxygen intake and watts."
Lemond said another key to checking who is cheating is to analyse the power output, in watts, of cyclists on some of the big climbs.
"Cycling is so black and white when it comes to watts and we can have that data now - it's not a mystery. Last year there were climbers doing 450 watts but weighing 58-60kg - that's nearly 8 watts per kilo," he added.
"That's impossible - unless we've all had some kind of genetic mutation over the past 15 years."
AFP
Eurosport - Fri, 10 Oct 21:41:00 2008
Three-time Tour de France winner Greg Lemond has played down the anti-doping efficiency of self-policing by cycling teams - and says Lance Armstrong must do more if he is to prove he is 100 per cent clean.
More StoriesArmstrong set for Aussie comeback
Fofonov gets three-month dope ban
Lemond, the first American to win the Tour de France, in 1986, was a strong critic of Armstrong throughout the 37-year-old Texan's seven-year Tour de France reign.
It started over seven years ago when Lemond criticised Armstrong for admitting to working with Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari, who famously declared that the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) was not dangerous.
Now, Lemond has criticised his fellow champion for trying to be too transparent.
When he makes his comeback at the Tour Down Under in January, 2009, Armstrong will do so alongside anti-doping expert, Don Catlin, whom he has employed in a bid to prove that his performances will be beyond reproach.
Following in the footsteps of such teams as CSC and Garmin-Chipotle, who have similar anti-doping experts working with them, Catlin will put the results of Armstrong's blood values and testosterone/epitestosterone ratio online.
But LeMond believes it is a mixed blessing.
"What they're doing is good, but really that testing has got to be done by an independent group, and not policed from inside," said Lemond.
"What good is self-policing? It's like a wolf guarding a hen house. You've got to have a group with no self-interest. It should be up to a group like WADA."
Lemond says the authorities would get a better idea of who the cheats are if they started analysing such parameters as VO2max and the power output via the hi-tech SRM systems used on bikes, and not just blood and urine samples.
"If anybody read half of what's out there about physiology and how you produce power in aerobic sports... It's very simple."
He added: "There are certain physiologists who could blow the sport apart. But they all earn their living by the sport, too, so they have something to lose, so there's this omerta (code of silence)."
Cycling's doping scandals this past decade can be blamed mainly on the popularity of banned blood booster EPO.
EPO enhances performance by raising the volume of red blood cells in the blood, otherwise known as the haematorcit, thus allowing more oxygen to be pumped to the muscles which in turn can work harder and longer.
Despite efficient anti-EPO tests, Lemond believes athletes can still easily escape being caught using either EPO or (autologous) transfusions of their own blood.
"It's all very well checking blood values. But if you're a smart doctor, you just always keep your rider's blood values high," he added. "EPO is only detectable within a few days, and that's why it's hard to detect it.
"Autologous blood transfusions, however, are not detectable at all - except through a carbon monoxide test, which is something Michael Ashenden (project co-ordinator of the Science and Industry Against Blood Doping) has proposed.
"It tests the volume of haemoglobin (which transports oxygen to the muscles) in the body, and can prove a positive for autologous blood transfusions. That's the kind of testing we must do, along with profiling athletes' natural oxygen intake and watts."
Lemond said another key to checking who is cheating is to analyse the power output, in watts, of cyclists on some of the big climbs.
"Cycling is so black and white when it comes to watts and we can have that data now - it's not a mystery. Last year there were climbers doing 450 watts but weighing 58-60kg - that's nearly 8 watts per kilo," he added.
"That's impossible - unless we've all had some kind of genetic mutation over the past 15 years."
AFP
