tucktri wrote:
Dave Latourette wrote:
"He only cheated out other cyclists
" Hey Dev ... the training benefits he gained in his doped up years of training are life long. As well ... saying he dos not do it for money any longer I would question. He has sponsors AND he has a business centered around coaching (HA), and a triathlon team called something like "Toni Coloms World" (its on his race kit)Just read this. Apparently the jury is still out on this.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/02/training-center/an-analysis-of-the-long-term-effects-of-performance-enhancing-drugs_317590
And maybe he is beating your athletes and others because he was pretty friggin awesome to begin with? And the doping allowed him to win against other dopers. Interesting excerpt from the article:
Vaughters said he has seen riders drop well below their pre-EPO baseline abilities, and claims the effect last years in some cases.
The effect is called erythropoietin hyporesponsiveness. It’s well documented in cancer patients who take large quantities of EPO to stay alive. EPO receptors become desensitized and there can even be damage to bone marrow where red blood cells are produced.
More concerning still is a condition called pure red cell aplasia. When medical patients are maintained at high doses of EPO, the body can develop antibodies against EPO itself; these antibodies are unable to distinguish between natural and synthetic forms. The result is a permanent and sometimes dangerous reduction in red blood cells.
Personally I don't buy that the physiological gains from a period of doping are positive once the athlete stops, so I am not averse to letting them back into sport, once appropriate suspensions have been served. I don't debate that former dopers had better access to training, infrastructure, doctors, physiologists etc, but then again, at the age group level there are plenty of guys who do well at Wall Street, or in the tech world, or law or accounting that have enough money to buy any access to the best doctors, coaches and trainers, so that's not really a point worth even discussing.
The main point for discussion is once ex dopers serve their sentence, if they are going to come and play in triathlon, let's at least force them to make an effort to be open book and show they are doing it clean now. Sam Gyde laid down a firm message to Colom at Frankfurt on the podium. Colom can respond and be transparent about how he supports clean sport moving forward and does not want to bring his cycling past practices to triathlon. That would be some kind of a start. Right now, it seems like he has the same mindset as Vino or Contador...He doped, he sat in the penalty box and now he is racing again, so don't bother him. Except he is not racing cycling where he did the equivalent of Robben's or Messi holding an opponent and getting a penalty. In triathlon terms what he did was more like match fixing in FIFA football, and before fans would allow him back in he'd have some explaining to do.
