http://www.macleans.ca/canada/features/article.jsp?content=20070727_150415_8508
the naive will not believe an award winning journalist, numerous times… the probably won’t even believe team directors… that are saying the GC (top overall riders) performances are suspect…
The Macleans.ca Interview: David Walsh
The author of From Lance to Landis on doping, doctors and the tarnished reputation of the Tour de France
Marco Ursi | Jul 27, 2007 | 3:04 pm EST
In what’s becoming a tradition, this year’s Tour de France has been tarnished by doping. Earlier this week, Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov, a pre-race favourite, was removed testing positive for blood doping*. A day later, Italian rider Cristian Moreni* tested positive for testosterone. Then Danish rider and overall leader Michael Rasmussen was dumped by his Rabbobank team and ejected from the race for failing to attend out-of-competition drug tests.
For anyone paying attention to the sport, this isn’t surprising. Floyd Landis*,* Jans Ullrich*,* Ivan Basso*,* Tyler Hamilton*,* Bjarne Riis*,* Francisco Mancebo*,* Richard Virenque*, and* David Millar are just some of the racers tied to doping allegations over the last ten years.
Continued Below 
David Walsh, chief sportswriter for The Sunday Times*, suggests more names be added to the list. In his most recent book,* From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France*, Walsh explores the culture of doping that has always pervaded the sport, from* amphetamines*,* testosterone and corticosteroids in the 80s to today’s EPO and blood doping. Walsh paints a picture of a world dominated by syringes and silence, where those who speak out against doping, such as three-time Tour winner Greg Lemond*, are met with* harassment and accused of “spitting in the soup.”
Walsh spoke to us from Hamilton, Bermuda.
Macleans.ca: Have you been following this year’s tour?
David Walsh: Oh yeah. I do find it compelling in its way, but it’s a kind of a sick world. I watch it and then I don’t feel good having watched. I wish I had the discipline to completely switch off.
M: It’s sad to see Vinokourov and Ramussen win races and get taken down the next day.
DW: Why is it sad? They’re cheating. It’s sad that they cheat, but it’s good news when they get caught. What is sad is that the guy who’s wearing the yellow jersey now, Alberto Contador, is definitely cheating.
M: How can you tell he’s cheating?
DW: Michael Rasmussen went up the Gourette-Col d’Aubisque faster than Lance Armstrong ever went up it. Alberto Contador was alongside him the whole way. I’ve been at that race since the early 80s and I know what speeds they go up that mountain. The speeds the leaders go up at today are just illogical.
M: Cycling has always had a doping problem. How has it changed with EPO and blood doping?
DW: The situation today was summarized by Willy Voet, who was the driver of the Festina car that got busted in 1998. He said that the old drugs allowed a man to achieve the best of himself, the new drugs created a new man. In the old days, if you didn’t have the physiological potential to win the Tour de France, you couldn’t win… Then EPO came along and suddenly the big guys could climb. It eliminated all the lightweight climbers. In the 80s, the best climbers were Colombians, who were eight and a half stones, nine stones (119 - 126 lbs.) at the most - wee, small, light, skinny guys. EPO came along and allowed the big guys to outsource their oxygen supply, and that changed everything.
M: What kind of edge does an EPO user have over a clean rider?
DW: EPO generates the production of red cells, which carry oxygen to your muscles. They’re the transporter of your energy supply. The more red cells you’ve got, the more endurance you’ve got. The old idea of the rider going up and breathing uncontrollably ended with EPO, particularly if the rider got onto a sophisticated program and their doctors knew what they were doing. On one day in the mountains, a guy who is clean and well prepared and very fit could compete with some of these guys. But he’d burn up so much energy trying to stay with guys who were doped, that when the next day came, he couldn’t compete. That was the big advantage that the blood dopers had - they’d just turn up pressure the next morning. And if they blood doped, they were also using recovery products like testosterone.
M: What’s happening to teams that are trying to go clean?
DW: They’re getting screwed, as they have been for the last 15 years. Since 1998, the French police and French anti-doping people have become very serious about the problem. They started the longitudinal testing program, where they test riders four times a year. Nine years later, there was a protest at the Tour de France, where about 50 riders sat on the rode, complaining that the authorities were still not doing enough to catch the cheats. Why didn’t the other 110 riders who were in the race sit down and protest? You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
M: Why aren’t more of these guys getting caught in testing?
DW: Human growth hormone, blood transfusions and testosterone, used cleverly and sparingly, are very difficult to detect. Look at the drug regime Fuentes and the doctors in Madrid had Tyler Hamilton on when he was at Operation Puerto in 2003. This is four years ago,and it’s even more sophisticated now. It would start in December, which is eight months before the Tour. And it would start with drugs like EPO, when he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be tested. And through the season, as he got closer to the Tour and the testing protocol changed, he would switch to blood transfusions and human growth hormone. He was paying over US$100,000 to Fuentes. We know Fuentes had about 60 riders, minimum, on his books.
M: If it’s costing the riders so much money, why aren’t more people speaking out?
DW: Who do you expect to speak?
M: Well, look at someone like Vinokourov who just got busted. It’s an opportunity for him to speak out. Instead, he’s gone into denial.
DW: That’s what they all do. Their identity depends upon them being perceived as clean. Alexandre Vinokourov is Kazakhstan’s most famous person. The Kazakhstan people have looked up to him as the guy who presents the picture of Kazakhstan to the world. They can’t countenance the fact that their icon is a cheat. But neither can the U.S. Vinokourov gets caught and people in Kazakhstan say it’s a plot, it’s a conspiracy. You say, that’s how a country that isn’t that developed is going to react. But the U.S., to quite a degree, has reacted in the same way in its protection of Armstrong.
M: You’ve said you believe in the anti-doping movement. Why not just let these guys go all out with EPO and blood doping, and may the best man win?
DW: Say you become a father. You’ve got a kid who’s a great baseball player and at the age of 14, he’s the best baseball player in America. Not only does he have fantastic talent, he wants to devote the rest of his life to it. He comes to you at the age of 17 and says, “Dad, I’ve seen what it’s like on the inside now, and part of this game is that I’ve got to take steroids. Dad, what do I do? Do I quit or do I take the drugs?” And you say, “No. Don’t take drugs. Don’t destroy your body. Don’t do something that’s essentially cheating.” When your son agrees with you, you’re much happier.
If you would do that as a father, why would you apply a gutter-like morality to professional sports, when that’s utterly at odds with the morality you would apply to your own family? If you love sport, you don’t impose a gutter morality upon it.
If you do allow doping, you end up with a situation where Michele Ferrari - who is Lance Armstrong’s doctor and Vinokourov’s doctor - becomes the most important person in the sport. In the peloton in cycling, they talk about 1996 as Cecchini’s year. He’s not a rider. He’s the doctor whose riders won all the major races that year. He got an edge on all the other doctors - he found a way to make the drugs work better. One of his pupils was Bjarne Riis, who won the Tour de France using Cecchini’s guidance and his drugs. Bjarne Riis has since been struck off the list of Tour de France winners.
M: So it becomes a competition between the doctors and not the riders.
DW: Absolutely. And if you take any kind of medication, the doctor will check to see how you react to it. Everybody reacts differently to serious drugs. In cycling, the guy whose body best reacts to the doping is the guy most likely to win. It becomes a physiological lottery.