Catch me if you can: Did world class cyclists -- including Bernhard Kohl and Michael Rasmussen -- engage in doping conspiracy?

It's one thing to run afoul of the press and the fans using PEDs as a drug-cheat as we saw with Manny Ramirez.  Manny lost a few million dollars, and lost some face with the fans and the Hall of Fame voters.  However, it is quite another thing to be charged in a criminal prosecution.

World class cyclists -- elite competitors  --  Bernhard Kohl and Michael Rasmussen appear to be targets of Austrian prosecutors as part of an international doping conspiracy.  To Monsters and Critics:

Vienna prosecutors said Monday that they had started criminal proceedings against cyclists Bernhard Kohl from Austria and Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, as well as Austrian Nordic skier Christian Hoffman, for allegedly running a blood doping operation.

The three are suspected of having invested in a blood centrifuge which they not only used for themselves but also made available to other athletes, Austrian news agency APA reported.

Having just watched "Catch Me if You Can", the video with Leonardo DeCaprio and Tom Hanks, we don't think we would want to see the inside of a European prison (or any prison for that matter).

The third 'co-conspirator -- Christian Hoffman -- is no slouch as a gold medalist in skiing.

Hoffmann, who won a gold medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, denied the accusations.

'That's absolute nonsense, that's a smear campaign against me,' the Austrian daily Die Presse quoted him in its Monday edition, after his name was the first to be confirmed by prosecutors on Sunday.

Kohl has publicly admitted having used blood doping and having bought the machine together with others. He has been stripped of his third place in the 2008 Tour de France for using the blood booster CERA.

The cyclist's former manager Stefan Matschiner was conditionally released on May 7 after several weeks of detention, as he was heavily implicated by Kohl. The centrifuge was found in Matschiner's apartment in Budapest.

Rasmussen is currently banned for lying about his whereabouts at the 2007 Tour in connection with doping tests.

Blood doping is mainly used in endurance sports. Athletes are injected blood that has been enriched with performance-enhancing red blood cells.

Sounds like these boys were very heavily involved in the doping process.

In the USA, doping obviously carries much more rewards than risks.  If being a drug-cheat were risky would athletes like A-Rod and Manny dope?  There are few legal consequences.  The law trouble that dopers run into tend to occur when their egos run into a grand jury, ala Barry Bonds.  If Bonds had been truthful (according to legal charges) he might have been exposed as a juicer or he might not have been embarrassed.  Embarrassed or not, Bonds would never have seen the inside of a courtroom as defendant; the USA's legal machine looks the other way for athletes. No sports fraud, no conspiracy, etc. -- although there are exceptions (Marion Jones).

However, sounds like Kohl and Rasmussen are in a bit of trouble...btw, someone tell Rasmussen (photo left) to lift some weights...

Comments

[tennis roids]

For the record, American prisons are nothing to brag about (I work in one).

[NYCBiker]

Dr. Gaffney,

I'm a KCMO native transplanted to NYC and have followed your blog carefully for some time. I've enjoyed sharing it with a number of colleagues (many of whom are medical doctors) who, like me, are keenly interested in all things PED. As it happens, many of us happen to be cyclists, as well. Therefore, I'm compelled to comment on your remark regarding the physique of Michael Rasmussen.

Regardless of how one feels about his moral/ethical practices, Rasmussen is a competent and well-conditioned specialist in the world of cycling; namely, he is a climber. He appears, by corporeal disposition (usually listed as 5'8" and 130 lbs) and act of training (body fat probably ~1%; and, sadly, most likely suffering from some form of eating disorder, etc), to present as the archetypical road bike climber.

The job of the climber in a multi-stage event, is to lead the team (a team full of specialists with different skill-sets and body types) up and through the mountain stages. On days when the race involves little or no altitude gain, the expectation for the climber is nil. In fact, those are recovery days for climbers.

A very general figure that cycling biomechanicists toss around is this: For every pound a climber can shed (from his person or equipment) he gains 1% in climbing efficiency (this is true only for climbing -- not so on flats or downhills). This number is obviously simplified, but you get the idea, and cyclists themselves are famously rabid students of biomechanics.

The problem for Rasmussen and those like him often begins when they aspire to change their role from that of a specialist to that of a team leader; that is, the star athlete whom the team supports in his bid to win the overall race.

When a scrawny rider has to compete with big boys who are jostling, shoving and pounding in a high-speed pack, or when he's trying to build and maintain inertia while riding solo in a time-trial, the same fly-weight body that so easily powered up a mountain becomes a profound liability. No strength conditioning program can turn the diminutive Rasmussen into someone who can match muscle with a 6' 4" Tom Boonen. Not naturally, anyway...

I don't want to beat this to death, but suffice it to say that Rasmussen is an informed athlete who trains (and appears to liberally cheat) with great and deliberate intention. He knows about the weight-room but eschews it in order to modify his body (to say the least) to best suit the task he performs, or once performed until he decided to thwart the rules of sport and nature.

I absolutely agree that climbers bodies appear freakish, but perhaps no more so than other niche athletes. Take, for example, the NFL left tackle, or the horse jockey, or the professional bowler.

[Methuselah]

"... No sports fraud, no conspiracy, etc. -- although there are exceptions (Marion Jones). ..."

I don't think Jones is an exception. She made a deal to spend a few months in jail b/c they had evidence of lying under oath (ala Barroid).

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