During the big races, a sodium infuser would be under the bed of the Festina riders wrapped in a towel and would allow them to get around the drug tests. They used to get the infusion for 20 minutes and it would be enough to keep the hematocrit levels down below the 50 percent and allow them to keep taking EPO without detection.
The former Festina soigneur Willy Voet has just written his book "Back from hell" and it details the doping routines in the team and the rest of the peloton. In early publicity for the book in the Belgian weekly "Knack" a new insight into the world of doping in cycling is provided. It tells about the doping practices in the his own room and also in the room of former team manager Bruno Roussel. The riders used to come in and put the infusion into their arm with a syringe.
"It was child's play. In one corner of the room was the infusion which we would put into the arm of the rider via a needle. The operation would take about 20 minutes and the hematrocrit level would drop. The whole scenario began with the first blood controls in 1997. The Festina team doctor Rijkaert had bought the apparatus in Germany and it could get the level to drop quickly.
Voet writes about how every evening he would go to the rooms of riders and give them 10 mgs of Kenacort "right in the buttock" It was to stop the drugs showing in the urine. Even in the event of a blood test finding some anomaly, the plan was to not allow the doctors to detect cortisone. The riders were also to always swear that they had not used any dope.
Voet made special bidons for the riders full with EPO covered with ice blocks. He also took stimulants himself. He used to inject himself with the "Pot Belge". It was a mixture of amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine, heroin and cortisone. The assistants of the riders used to take it during the long nights after the stages and also to remain awake on long journeys. The bidons with "Pot Belge" were used in the peloton and also sold. The evening of his arrest Voet had given himself a shot.
The French magazine, the Paris Match has excerpted the book also. They have covered the accusations against Richard Virenque. Voet tells of his first meeting with Richard Virenque at the end of February 1991 and the first involvement with doping with him which was in his first year at Festina in 1993.
The first evening was during the Criterium Internationale, a 2-day race over 3 stages. During the massage Voet says Vireneque told him "I will try anything. I told him that we had to be careful because we didn't know how his body would react. I gave him 1/2 an ampule of Synacten to see how he would react. The next stage Virenque finished outside of the time limit and we threw the product out of our doping arsenal.
Voet writes in the book that all the riders used dope. "There was an escalation of drug use in this period." He talks about the day that Bjarne Riis climbed Hautacam. He rode everyone into the ground and after that he was called Mr. 60%. The average hematocrit level of the Festina riders was around 54%.
Further, before the 1994 World Championships Voet said he gave Richard Virenque an EPO injection and he came third. "On day before the race I injected 10 mgs of Diprostene into the muscles - it is a corticoide - of 3 other Festina riders. And the morning before the start I gave them a further 20 mgs. None of the team management knew about this.
Daniel Baal - it is the criminals
French Cycling Federation president Daniel Baal, who himself is being investigated by Patrick Keil in Lille for complicitly in the Festina doping, has said he is genuinely happy that the police and judicial system are actively pursuing the doping traffickers. In an interview to be published this morning (Friday) in Le Monde, he says it is the "business of criminals."
He thinks that strong penalties would be a more effective signal to send than all the preventive work that is being done and all the "beautiful rhetoric" about the dangers of doping.
The imprisonment of the traffickers and the lengthy days in the courts for the riders will, according to Baal, "likely have very strong psychological consequences on all concerned. When we are talking about delinquent behavioury, nothing can replace the fear of the police."
Baal also hopes that the latest business in Paris in which 5 people are being charged and lawyer Bertrand Lavelot and Dr. Mabuse (Bernard Sainz) have been accused of being central characters in the drugs rin will "finally bring the message home to the top officials in the sport that it must run dope out of the sport for it to remain credible."