Legspeed
04-01-2004, 06:18 AM
Saw this on the wires this morning.....
UCI REPORTS SOAPING BY PROFESSIONAL CYCLISTS
(AP) The UCI reported today that 12 Italian professional cyclists had been banned from international competition for "soaping."
"This is a new class of substance abuse crime," said Innovacione Banemale, the UCI "drug czar." "It doesn’t involve drugs like steroids that improve muscle performance, or amphetamines, or even the class of drugs that increase the red blood cell content of the blood. Instead, these new drugs make the blood slipperier so it will flow faster." The popular term for using the new class of drugs is "soaping", both because the blood is slipperier like soap, and because it rhymes with "doping."
Technical presentations by UCI personnel at the press conference after Banemali's announcement demonstrated potential performance improvement of 20%, a huge amount in professional cycling. Because the blood circulates faster, it can carry more oxygen to the muscles, even though there are not more red blood cells as there would be with erythropoetin abuse, a hormone that promotes red blood cell production. This allows the cyclists’ blood to pass the hematocrit test.
The drugs were originally developed with the intended use of lowering blood pressure in hypertensive patients. Use of the drug by professional cyclists was discovered when an Italian cyclist crashed on a downhill during a road race. The paramedics arrived almost immediately, but the cyclist had bled profusely, and when they tried to pick him up, he slipped out of their hands because the blood was "soapy." They tried this three times before pushing the stretcher underneath him. The patient almost bled out before arriving at the hospital, but once he was transfused, the "low velocity" normal blood clotted properly, and he survived. Testing of the "leaky blood" revealed the additive, and a police investigation found drugs in the team trainer’s car, traced back to the distributor, and then to the trainers of the other 11 Italian cyclists, and finally to the cyclists. All twelve cyclists have now been banned from international competition for a year.
"I believe that this is an American plot to reduce Lance Armstrong’s competition in the Tour de France," said the French Minister for Sport, "Italians would never use "soap"."
"We do too use soap," said the Italian Minister for Health, adding that only a Frenchman would think that a poodle was a dog, snails were edible, need an obelisk stolen from Egypt to inspire him to fulfill manly obligations, and have to be saved from the Germans by the Americans twice in thirty years.
Later remarks by the ministers were not suitable for publication.
UCI REPORTS SOAPING BY PROFESSIONAL CYCLISTS
(AP) The UCI reported today that 12 Italian professional cyclists had been banned from international competition for "soaping."
"This is a new class of substance abuse crime," said Innovacione Banemale, the UCI "drug czar." "It doesn’t involve drugs like steroids that improve muscle performance, or amphetamines, or even the class of drugs that increase the red blood cell content of the blood. Instead, these new drugs make the blood slipperier so it will flow faster." The popular term for using the new class of drugs is "soaping", both because the blood is slipperier like soap, and because it rhymes with "doping."
Technical presentations by UCI personnel at the press conference after Banemali's announcement demonstrated potential performance improvement of 20%, a huge amount in professional cycling. Because the blood circulates faster, it can carry more oxygen to the muscles, even though there are not more red blood cells as there would be with erythropoetin abuse, a hormone that promotes red blood cell production. This allows the cyclists’ blood to pass the hematocrit test.
The drugs were originally developed with the intended use of lowering blood pressure in hypertensive patients. Use of the drug by professional cyclists was discovered when an Italian cyclist crashed on a downhill during a road race. The paramedics arrived almost immediately, but the cyclist had bled profusely, and when they tried to pick him up, he slipped out of their hands because the blood was "soapy." They tried this three times before pushing the stretcher underneath him. The patient almost bled out before arriving at the hospital, but once he was transfused, the "low velocity" normal blood clotted properly, and he survived. Testing of the "leaky blood" revealed the additive, and a police investigation found drugs in the team trainer’s car, traced back to the distributor, and then to the trainers of the other 11 Italian cyclists, and finally to the cyclists. All twelve cyclists have now been banned from international competition for a year.
"I believe that this is an American plot to reduce Lance Armstrong’s competition in the Tour de France," said the French Minister for Sport, "Italians would never use "soap"."
"We do too use soap," said the Italian Minister for Health, adding that only a Frenchman would think that a poodle was a dog, snails were edible, need an obelisk stolen from Egypt to inspire him to fulfill manly obligations, and have to be saved from the Germans by the Americans twice in thirty years.
Later remarks by the ministers were not suitable for publication.