The sh%t is going to fall on nearly all involved in pro cycling . If the mainstream press start looking at who is running teams and the ex dopers who are still riding they will ask "how is cycling cleaning it's act up?"
"Why should we believe you now when it's been this way for a 100 years". What If the press jump onto Leinders and Sky and start asking questions about Wiggo. This USADA case has been a disaster for cycling and it could be facing dire consequences . The UCI losing all credibility .Cycling pulled from the Olympics.
Major sponsors walking away . This could yet happen . Getting Armstrong has dragged cycling back into the shit again and this time it may not get out.

Riis worked with Luigi Cecchini and Michele Ferrari (Ariostea) then with Ferrari and Conconi (Gewiss) and confessed to using EPO from 1993 to 1998. Not sure what you mean by "better rider".

For a better picture:

Clients of Conconi, Casoni, and Grazzi

Guido Bontempi
Maurizio Fondriest, 1988 World Champion

Clients of Conconi and Casoni

Marco Albarello
Eugeni Berzin, winner 1994 Giro d'Italia
Vladislav Bobrik
Bruno Cenghialta
Maurilio De Zolt
Manuela Di Centa
Silvio Fauner
Francesco Frattini
Giorgio Furlan, winner of 1994 Milan – San Remo
Ivan Gotti, winner of 1997 Giro d'Italia
Nicola Minali
Gianfranco Polvara
Antonio Santaromita
Piotr Ugrumov
Giorgio Vanzetta
Alberto Volpi

Clients of Conconi and Grazzi

Stefano Checchin
Claudio Chiappucci
Mario Chiesa
Massimo Ghirotto
Marco Pantani, winner of 1998 Tour de France
Wladimir Poulnikov
Stephen Roche, winner of 1987 Tour de France
Fabio Roscioli
Marcello Siboni
Rolf Sørensen
Enrico Zaina

Clients of Conconi

Gianni Bugno, former World Champion & winner Giro d'Italia
Maurizio Damilano
Luigi Della Bianc
Emma Scaunich
Mario Cipollini, former world champion
Laurent Fignon, Tour de France winner
Miguel Indurain, Tour de France winner
Francesco Moser
Denis Zanette

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Conconi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Clients of Ferrari include

Lance Armstrong
Alessandro Bertolini
Gianluca Bortolami
Gianni Bugno
Mario Cipollini
Claudio Chiappucci
Armand de Las Cuevas
Fernando Escartín
Gianni Faresin
Giorgio Furlan
Ivan Gotti
Andreas Kappes
Kevin Livingston
Eddy Mazzoleni
Axel Merckx
Abraham Olano
Daniele Pontoni
Tony Rominger
Paolo Savoldelli
Filippo Simeoni
Pavel Tonkov
Enrico Zaina
Beat Zberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Ferrari

_________________
And if I ever meet an aardvark, I'm going to step on its damn protruding nasal implement until it couldn't suck up an insect if its life depended on it.

Timo,
What I meant is that Indurain got beaten heavily in 95. And not because he was bad. And he was a natural talent with a huge engine.

I think I read it in Hincapie's afidavit, that it was in 95, when he found it hard to "keep up".

Ave - it was 96 when Indurain was beaten by Riis. I had an email exchange with someone some years ago who raced in the peloton late 80's early 90's. He said that Banesto had about the most sophisticated doping programme. Draw from that what you will.

If you look at the W/Kg on the Tour climbs Indurain was in the era when it suddenly shot up 6+W/kg, that era began 91-ish. Same time when the likes of Fignon and Lemond start noticing the change.

Watching now, the sight of 80+kg Indurain charging up the climb after Pantani is ludicrous. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SESSSpBUz1o

Donno if this is the correct topic but Fondriest will be back to (male) pro peloton by sponsoring Caja Rural.

_________________
ciclismo-espresso.com

I think that sums it up quite well. I've seen articles with riders from way back. Dave Lloyd who was a top amateur in the early 70's and rode for Peter Post's Raleigh team always said that those taking amphetamines never got any real advantage from it. In fact it worked the other way with some because of the payback the following day. And many riders took speed to get through the post Tour criteriums because it was the way they earned the most money: salaries were paltry compared to today. Even some of the most vehement anti Lance people in the UK that I know and who raced to a very high standard draw a line by saying whoever won before the 90's were deserved winners: thereafter unlikely.

The average speed of the Tour is going down, so maybe there's hope for the future.

Well, I think it is about time the press finally does just that. For way to long the hypocracy of riders being punished when caught but the team managers and doctors allways getting off scott free stayed in tact. I've mentionted it before, if cycling realy wants to leave the doping past behind and wants to make that new start with a clean image, they'll have to get rid of all the doctors and team managers who are still around despite their ties with that same doping past. Everytime a doped rider is caught he is sacked by his team but the team doctors can stay or quickly find a job with another team, despite the fact that these doctors must know about the use of doping (in modern cycling the team doctors are too involved with the riders to make it possible to do anything behind their backs). How can a man like doctor Ibarguren - who has been linked with doping as early as 1998 - still be around and go from team to team leaving a trail of clear doping cases and highly suspicious successes? In 1998 he was linked to the Festina affair (Willy Voet stated that he bought the EPO for Team Festina from Ibarguren). He then worked for:

1998-1999 Lotto- Mobistar (Tchmil)
2000 Banesto (o.a. Mancebo, Zülle, Osa, Piepoli, E.Jimenez)
2002-2004 Lampre-Daikin (the Rumsas-affair, Dierkxsens, Tonkov, Barbero, Ballan, Bortolami, under investigation in Italy at this moment)
2005-2006 Euskaltel (Landaluze, Heras, Pena)
2007 -2008 Saunier Duval (Mayo, Piepoli, Ricco, the CERA-affair)
2009 Fuiji Servetto (Serrano, Nardello)
2010-2011 Omega Pharma Lotto (Gilbert)
2012: QuickStep Omega Pharma (Boonen)

And once again, he's not the only one. What will happen to doctor Pedro Celaya, who worked for Motorola, ONCE, Discovery Channel, US Postal, Astana and now RadioShack? Doctor Emilio Magni, who doped the Mercatone Uno team (Pantani, Garzelli), then the Fasa Bortolo team (Frigo, Rumsas, Casagrande, Aitor González, Vandenbroucke, Pozzato, Basso, Ivanov and Petacchi) and who now works with Team Liquigas? Doctor Mikhailov - who was caught in the 1998 Tour de France with 104 ampouls containing EPO - is now on the Team Katusha medical staff. Doctor Klimaschka is also with team Katusha (in 2006 he was the doctor of Guidi, Botero, Hamilton and Landis at Team Phonak). Doctor Daniele Tarsi worked for Casino (Massi, Järmann, Hamburger, Vinokurov), Seaco, Lampre, Phonak (Guidi, Botero, Hamilton, Camenzind), Acqua & Sapone and now Farnese Vini (Sinkewitz). Yvan van Mol worked for Mapei, GB MG, and is now also employed by Omega Pharma Quick-Step. You mention Leinders but what about Yates and his ties to the US Postal case? The list is endless and this way cycling will never be believable.

_________________
And if I ever meet an aardvark, I'm going to step on its damn protruding nasal implement until it couldn't suck up an insect if its life depended on it.

I agree, but what will happen to pro cycling? The damage could be enormous. Its very disconcerting . It could lead to very dark days in pro cycling.

Timo :

Im in 100% agreement with your post. Unless these doctors are disbarred from practicing just like Ferrari doping is going to continue in the sport. Lemond spoke about this issue in his radio interview. If riders give up the sources and testing is seperate from the UCI the sport will start to make a come back. Riders are going to play by the rules that are outlined. The punishment falls on the shoulders of the riders and not on the medical staff or team directors. Its also a joke to think that these riders all stopped doping in 2006 really ???? If the drugs have been so accessable why all of a sudden did they stop ? Was the peer pressure that high ? We need to see a financial team penalty and doctors also serving some sort of punishment for doped riders that are caught. The problem at the end of the day is that the UCI is a business and they want to see riders compete at the highest level doped or not. Its good revenue.

Sure, dope pushing/enabling team managers and doctors should go. And you know how else, any and all corrupt officials, past or present, in the UCI - they are the top of the totem pole, and any corrupt officials there are most in need of going. That Verbruggen guy - I don't have good vibes about him. And I'm not too crazy about McQuaid either.

True that. The cleanout needs to start at the top .

First of all, does anyone actually have VAM data for Indurain? I have NEVER seen it anywhere, but I have seen his test data. Indurain did not ride at 80kg, ever. Cyclist's weights are often higher than they are- people do the same thing in boxing, MMA, and lots of other sports where weight plays a role. From what I read Indurain was at 78-79kg at the Tour.

I've yet to see any unrealistic VAM data from Indurain and people hit 6.0 before him. Most physios believe that you can still hit 6.5 naturally so if that's all he got then he really must have sucked at doping. Riis was climbing above 6.5 and made Indurain look like a tortoise on the climbs so again, if Indurain was on EPO then he was seriously lacking in his ability to use it.

The real funny/sad part about this is that cyclists think that this is all sophisticated stuff. Cycling's use of PEDs is probably a decade behind many other sports. Andriol is an incredibly weak steroid, EPO is fairly old news in oxygen vector doping, and cyclists seem unable to figure out how to properly use HGH and IGF-1. Shit, they still think cortisone is cutting edge. It really surprises me that cyclists stuck to such a narrow ring of doctors that really were using outdated products for a long period of time.

With that said I firmly believe that there still is doping, but with much smarter use of current products. Andriol is metabolized pretty fast, but there are far more powerful testosterone derivatives than that weak shit in the patches. The Germans knew this for a long time as did the Russians. IMO there is almost more to be gained from using quality anabolics and various growth factor derivatives then there is from oxygen vector products. I would even wager that proper use of diuretics could have a more profound effect than microdosing EPO by removing excess plasma and thus naturally increasing hematocrit without altering the parameters that the UCI measures for.

The stuff that we're reading about in the headlines is really old news. IGF-1, insulin, HGH, corticosteroids, diuretics, and short chain anabolics and probably still in heavy use and about 100 steps ahead of the UCI because it takes them so long to catch up because they are focused on parameters that are no long disturbed with current methods. I would guess transfusions are still heavily used, however, and people still take EPO, but probably a lot less often.

I would have to say that the rider I now have my biggest doubts about is Boardman. His "athletes hour" record is so ludicrously further than anyone else.

Pozzato signed with Lampre for next 3 years

_________________
"Smart may have the answers, but stupid have all the interesting questions."