Cover Up?

[the count]

I cannot believe that performance enhancing drugs aren't widely used in football, especially when you consider the vast quantities of monies involved.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22353145


A Spanish doctor accused of running one of the world's largest sports doping rings has received a one-year suspended sentence for endangering public health.
Eufemiano Fuentes was convicted over his role in supplying blood transfusions to professional cyclists.
He was charged under public health laws because doping was not illegal in Spain at the time.
A former cycle team official was sentenced to four months in jail, while three other defendants were cleared.
Police found some 200 bags of frozen blood and plasma when they raided Fuentes' offices in 2006.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and Spain's domestic authorities had wanted access to the blood, to test whether athletes from other sports were involved in the doping ring.
But Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria on Tuesday declined to grant them access and ordered that the bags be destroyed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/22363860
Andy Murray questions a 'cover-up' over Fuentes cycling case
British tennis player Andy Murray has criticised Spanish officials for their handling of the Operation Puerto trial, asking if they could be guilty of the "biggest cover-up in sports history".
Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes was convicted on Tuesday for his role in supplying blood transfusions to cyclists.
But hope of identifying other athletes treated by Fuentes could be dashed by a court's decision to destroy evidence.
"Case is beyond a joke," tweeted world number three Murray.
"Why would court order blood bags to be destroyed? #coverup."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/22409004
Spain's Rafael Nadal has criticised the decision to destroy evidence in his country's doping scandal.
Earlier this week Dr Eufemiano Fuentes was convicted for his role in supplying blood transfusions to cyclists.
But a Spanish court ordered 211 blood bags to be destroyed without analysis.
"The ruling wasn't positive for anyone," said Nadal. "The only ones that benefited were those who cheated. The ones that are hurt are Spanish athletes and sports in general."
Fuentes, who received a one-year suspended sentence for endangering public health, has worked with tennis players as well as runners, footballers and boxers, although he has not said whether he helped them dope.



from Wikipedia..........

Biography

Fuentes was once an athlete. He then became the team doctor of Team ONCE, Amaya and the Kelme. The former Kelme rider Jesús Manzanoaccused Fuentes of being involved with doping. Fuentes retired as the team doctor of the Kelme team in 2005. At that time he had been the doctor of the Kelme team for 16 months. He announced that he was retiring from involvement with professional cycling, citing health and family reasons as well as a desire to investigate retinoblastoma cancer in the Instituto del Cáncer de Canarias.[1]
Fuentes was arrested by the Guardia Civil on May 22, 2006 together with four others: the manager of the Liberty Seguros team Manolo Saiz, José Luis Merino a haematologist at an analytical laboratory in Madrid, Alberto León, a professional mountain biker, and José Ignacio Labarta, who was at that time the assistant sports director of Comunidad Valenciana.[2]
In Fuentes' clinic in Madrid, 186 blood bags were found belonging to professional athletes and marked with coded names, besides EPO, steroids, and growth hormone.[3] The scandal that grew from the arrests implicated well-known road racing cyclists and include former Tour de France favourites Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Francisco Mancebo, Michele Scarponi, José Enrique Gutierrez Cataluña, Roberto Heras, Dario Pieri and large parts of the Comunitat Valenciana and former Liberty Seguros cycling squads. Alberto Contador was also a suspect, but was later cleared of any involvement by the Spanish courts and world cycling's governing body, the UCI. Fuentes continually denied having performed illegal operations and also said that he did not work exclusively with cyclists but had other athletes as clients such as footballers.[4] However in December 2010, he is quoted saying: "If I would talk, the Spanish football team would be stripped of the 2010 World Cup".[5]
In a further doping scandal, in 2010, Fuentes was arrested by Spanish police as part of Operación Galgo (Operation Greyhound). In a series of simultaneous raids across five provinces on 9 December, Spanish police seized a large quantity of anabolic steroids, hormones and EPO, as well as laboratory equipment for blood transfusions. According to Público newspaper, Eufemiano Fuentes and his sister Yolanda were the leaders of the alleged plot. Also arrested were the athlete Marta Dominguez, who was released on bail after having been charged with the trafficking and distribution of doping substances, and Alberto Leon, in whose fridge anti-doping police found several bags of blood. Leon was found dead shortly after, the result of an apparent suicide.[6]
In January 2013, the Operacion Puerto trial went underway, and Fuentes offered to reveal the names of all the athletes he helped doping. The judge, Julia Santamaria, told him that he was not under obligations to name any other athletes others than the cyclists implicated. Fuentes stated that he supplied athletes in other sports with drugs and said: “I could identify all the samples [of blood]. If you give me a list I could tell you who corresponds to each code on the [blood] packs.”[7]
Spain lacking anti-doping laws, Fuentes was charged with "endangering public health".[8] His main defense consisted in saying that the blood transfusions were conducted safely and were healthy for the athletes.[9] This point of view was highly contested, notably by former clients and cyclists Jesus Manzano and Jorg Jaksche, who claimed that the blood transfusions were performed in dangerous conditions and put their health at risk.[10]

 

[FoxForceFive]

There's been tonnes of articles that barca & real players as well as some Premiership players have seen this fella, but a the clubs either didn't directly employ him or had valid reasons to say they did on occasion it's all speculation.

Those blood samples orders destroyed are the key, but the judge has obviously had a persuasive & valuable argument put to him in a brown paper bag so we'll never know for sure.

It's beyond niave to think it's not widespread though.

 

[keniget]

It's hard to say because I don't know enough about it.

Would anyone care that much if they found out footballers had used performance enhancing drugs?

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

That's Spain's World and Euro Champions titles safe then.

 

[The Slugmonster]

Fuck the world cup title, if Barca lost their Champions Leagues the scum gain two more European Cups 😱

 

[Rosco]

I'd be amazed if it's not widespread. Drug testing is so lazily done that it's easy for athletes in every sport to get away with it.

it's easy to taper off these things before you get tested, and if you get surprised by a tester showing up at the training ground all you need to do is jump over the wall

On that topic - Victor Conte (of BALCO infamy) did a great podcast with Joe Rogan a while back. He discussed how easy it is to get away with drug taking in sports, and explained the various methods he used. He talked about governing bodies covering up tests as well, how easy it was to get someone on the inside of the testing facilities to play ball with you etc. Frightening really.

He had ana interesting story about Usain Bolt too

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Or go shopping

 

[FoxForceFive]

I'd be amazed if it's not widespread. Drug testing is so lazily done that it's easy for athletes in every sport to get away with it.

it's easy to taper off these things before you get tested, and if you get surprised by a tester showing up at the training ground all you need to do is jump over the wall

On that topic - Victor Conte (of BALCO infamy) did a great podcast with Joe Rogan a while back. He discussed how easy it is to get away with drug taking in sports, and explained the various methods he used. He talked about governing bodies covering up tests as well, how easy it was to get someone on the inside of the testing facilities to play ball with you etc. Frightening really.

He had ana interesting story about Usain Bolt too

What did he say about bolt?

 

[Rosco]

What did he say about bolt?

I'll have to re listen to get it correct but he's under no doubt that he is on PED's. Partly because of who one of his coaches is, but also because somehow one tiny island took 5 of the 6 100m medals at the last Olympics .

Found an article on it: http://deadspin.com/5857439/what-do...-train-with-the-same-admitted-steroids-dealer

What Do Usain Bolt And Juan Manuel Marquez Have In Common? They Train With The Same Admitted Steroids Dealer

S​

EXPAND
On Saturday, Juan Manuel Marquez will step into the ring for a third time against Manny Pacquiao. This time around, Marquez—who's moving up in weight for the fight—has a new physique. He has retained the services of Angel Hernandez, the strength and conditioning coach who has been working with Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. Hernandez has been an omnipresent figure on 24/7, and Marquez's new bulk has been noted by viewers.
Then, last week, a bombshell came from BALCO founder Victor Conte. Angel Hernandez is the person formerly known as Angel "Memo" Heredia. Heredia, with a BALCO connection of his own, has been training both Marquez and Bolt under an assumed name.
In the US government's 2008 case against track coach Trevor Graham, stemming from the BALCO scandal, Memo Heredia was labeled "Source A." He didn't get that designation because he came first alphabetically. Heredia was the prosecution's star witness, and he gave up comprehensive documentation showing PED use by stars like Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Justin Gatlin and C.J. Hunter. But Heredia wasn't just a random eyewitness; he was caught dead to rights as a steroid dealer and user, and testified to save his own skin.
In 2005 federal investigators confronted Heredia with evidence of money laundering and drug trafficking, and offered him a deal: Tell what you know or we'll go after you. He gave up everyone he worked with in US Track and Field, and despite claims he wasn't offered immunity, he has escaped prosecution himself. Graham was convicted of perjury and banned from the sport for life.
From a New York Times profile during the trial:

Mr. Heredia, a former Mexican national discus champion, is a secretive figure on the track circuit who describes himself as a chemist, scientist and nutritionist. The son of a chemist, Mr. Heredia received an undergraduate degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M in Kingsville, records show.
He said he used family connections to pharmacies and labs in Mexico to help his business. For years, Mr. Heredia said, he helped his clients flout the rules and easily avoided detection. Substances like human growth hormone and the blood booster erythropoietin, or EPO, are still virtually impossible to detect, and "it is still easy to use testosterone" with fast-acting creams, he said.
"You combine all these things - boom! - you get amazing results," Mr. Heredia said.​

He would know. A 2009 German documentary shows Heredia purchasing banned drugs from pharmacies in Mexico City, and injecting himself in the stomach with PEDs. By then, the Trevor Graham trial was over, the government had no further need for him, and Heredia was free to get on with his life. It wouldn't be long before he signed on with Bolt and then Marquez.
No one knows why Conte, who's worked with Zab Judah in recent years, decided to get involved. But he's set the narrative for the final run-up to the fight. Hernandez/Heredia has gone on the defensive, explaining away his name change on 24/7.

"My name is this. My name is very long. My first name is Angel. I have a middle name, which is Guillermo. But in Mexico, they use 'Memo,' which is my nickname. Heredia, for some people, it's very difficult for them to catch up. You can ask anybody here in the media sometimes they call me Heredia. Dr. Heredia. For some reason, I told you guys Hernandez, and it was easier for you guys to write it down."​

​

The whole thing is a mess. Conte is feuding with Pacquiao coach Alex Ariza, due to leftover bad blood from Judah's fight against Amir Khan (another Ariza guy) in July.Ariza is insinuating things about Marquez's association with Hernandez. ("I don't know how they're training him, and I don't know why Marquez got so big so fast.") Hernandez is threatening a defamation lawsuit against Ariza, but not against Conte.
Marquez's reputation is unlikely to take a hit, because steroid use in boxing sadly isn't a big issue unless it's holding up a Mayweather fight. Boxing ostensibly has some of the toughest testing procedures, so if someone's doping, the presumption is that it will come out after the bout.

"I've always been in favor of a clean sport," Hernandez said. "Let's submit to blood, urine, or fecal tests. Alex, I think the only person here who has doubts are you and Manny, because in the past people have solicited proof a thousand times to give blood and urine tests, and you have never wanted to do them."​

Of course Hernandez knows better than most that the drugs are always a step ahead of the testing. So Marquez, or Pacquiao, or both could be dirty, and most likely we'd be none the wiser. In the sports where athletes' physiques stand the most to gain from steroids' benefits, it's easier to ignore the problem altogether than to get into messy rows like this one.
The more lasting drama will be in the world of sprinting. Usain Bolt, by dint of what we know about doping in track and his otherwordly performance in 2008, has already come under scrutiny. Carl Lewis questioned whether Bolt's times could be achieved naturally, as did a German sprinter who couldn't keep up with the Jamaican. So now he finds himself a year from the London Games, and he's training with a known steroid dealer and snitch who changed his name to avoid the spotlight. The Marquez-Pacquiao beef will be over this weekend, but Bolt's got eight months of answering questions about Angel Hernandez, né Heredia.

 

[the count]

I would assume that there are substances that will help recover from and avoid certain types of injuries.
It's just we have has two players who normally spend more time in the medical unit than out of it that have pretty much went the whole season uninjured.
But then I am a cynical sort of chap.
Pity we didn't have the current medical set for Harry Kewell.
He may have averaged more than two games a season with us.

 

[Rosco]

There's a testosterone cream available that you can rub on every night, and it helps you recover more quickly. And by the next morning your testosterone levels will be back to normal. Virtually undetectable. - and highly popular in cycling

 

[peterhague]

Is it fair to say that with all the money in football it'd be easy enough to eliminate pretty much all drug taking, by paying for drug tests after every game and say, twice a week after training? And that they coukd do but don't means it goes on and it's not in anyone's interests to stop it?

 

[FoxForceFive]

Is it fair to say that with all the money in football it'd be easy enough to eliminate pretty much all drug taking, by paying for drug tests after every game and say, twice a week after training? And that they coukd do but don't means it goes on and it's not in anyone's interests to stop it?

Yep.

There's no point killing (or even maiming) the golden goose.