Frank Vandenbroucke --VDB -- Belgian superstar on the rocks; The supermodel wife sounds off too

Sportigo carries a piece on the once flamboyant cyclist, Frank Vandenbroucke -- VDB.  A cycling superstar in Belgium, as big as say Payton Manning here in the USA, VDB has had it all.

Of even greater concern, at least on the human level, is the continuing self-destruction of the former wunderkind of Belgian cycling Frank Vandenbroucke. VDB, as he’s universally known, has had a career every bit as undisciplined and unfulfilled as that of Jan Ullrich, and he has repeatedly hit the headlines for many of the same reasons. Whether it’s drugs, wild partying or troubles in his personal relationships, VDB has done it all with at least 50 times the colour.

Of late, his fortunes seem to spiraling to alarming depths. Succumbing to depression, socially isolated, struggling with knee injuries, waning motivation, and prone increasingly to public bouts of what most onlookers could only describe as madness, VDB cuts a sorry figure...domestic disputes involving the firing of weapons, torrid relationship breakdowns, a series of bans (in more lenient times) for doping offenses – in short he’s become more of a cycling legend for his tawdry exploits off the bike than anything he’s added to a pretty threadbare palmarés.

The latest chapter came on Wednesday of last week, with an alleged suicide attempt. Reports first spoke of his opening of a vein in his arm, but were later changed to an attempted overdose with anti-depressants and insulin. The rider, in the middle of a not so successful comeback with Aqua e Sapone, denied any form of attempt on his own life.

“What they said about me is completely untrue. I am very depressed, yes, but I did not try to commit suicide,” VDB explained on Friday. He went on to reveal that he'd admitted himself to hospital, but didn’t elaborate on the reasons.

Given his superstar status in Belgium, it is not surprising VDB married a supermodel -- Sarah Pinacci.  However, that relation became troubled too.  He soon-to-be-ex-wife needed to deny she was the cause of VDB's suicide attempt

The wife of Belgian cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke, who attempted suicide on Wednesday, has hit back at claims she was to blame for her husband's decline into depression.

But Sarah Vandenbroucke, whose request for a divorce from Frank is believed to have triggered the 32-year-old's suicide attempt, has insisted living with him was hell for her and their five-year-old daughter Margaux.

"Everyone is talking about Frank's depression and that he was abandoned. But nobody could believe what Margaux and I have been through.

"Margaux has seen things that a five-year-old should not have to see. I had a nervous breakdown, from which I am just coming out of now. These seven years with Frank have been hell...

 Sarah said Frank, whom she married in 2000 and took to see a psychiatrist for the first time two years later, frequently took drugs and beat her up.

"In the last few years, he took drugs regularly: amphetamines, cocaine, and sleeping pills in large quantities, some of them with hallucinogenic effects," she said.

"Then he became violent, nasty, aggressive. He started hitting me more. I left the house and went to stay with my parents. He didn't accept that and threatened me. He even threatened to kill me and my family."...

In 2002, Vandenbroucke was twice stopped by police and discovered to be under the influence of alcohol at the wheel of a motor vehicle. In another incident that year on the eve of the Het Volk one-day classic, a police search at his home uncovered a large quantity of doping substances. 

One wonders about two issues:

1. The influence of certain illegal PEDs on mood and behavior
2. The association of PED abuse with other street drugs of abuse

Comments

[Softie]

As far as the combination of PEDs with other street drugs, cyclists are famous for using 'pot belge' as a PED. Supposedly a cocktail of cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin, it is/was commonly injected in Belgium during one-day races. As far as I remember, VDB was more associated with pot belge than with EPO/steroids.

From the Nation: thanks for the comment!