News for November 30, 1997


Dutch Drugs Scandal - Part 5

Drug scandal is tip of iceberg

The daily paper De Limburger, located in Maastricht, published more about this affair on Saturday. The Belgian chemist Willy Jeandarme has confessed to the allegations that he gave products and advised not only to the former PDM-team, but to other teams in the Netherlands, Belgium (including the soigneurs of Lotto) and Italy too.

State Secretary Erica Terpstra (former Olympic swimming winner) began the investigation into the Dutch doctor, Wim Sanders from Geleen. It was discovered that he obtained a lot of his products from Willy Jeandarme's chemist shop in Sint Truiden (Belgium). Sint Truiden is in the east of belgium about 40 kms from Geleen, which is in the South of the Netherlands close to the Belgium border.

Jeandarme has said that Sanders was doing business with him for years and this continued after Sanders was discharged from PDM in 1991 after the Tour de France debacle. Jeandarme has also said that the successor to Sanders, Reykaert, bought products from him, an allegation that Reykaert denied.

Jeandarme has said that he advised the soigneurs of team leader Jan Raas, the Team Doctor of the Belgian semi-professional team ASLK/Eddy Merckx and soigneurs of several Belgian amateur teams. He said: "I gave them everything they wanted. But only on prescription. Completely legal. Because of our code we not even can ask about the aim (motives) of the treatment. And as a chemist I have nothing to do what the sports docter is doing with my products."

Investigations by De Limburger discovered that Willy Jeandarme's name became public in a Belgian drugs-affair during the eighties. He was suspected for being involved in a drugs swindle with racehorses. And in 1989, he was mentioned in a story about a team specialized in producing chemical drugs as XTC and smuggling hash. The leader of this gang, the Belgian-Limburg doctor Danny Leclere, was arrested and after his release he was murdered in Amsterdam. Investigations learned that Leclere had a lot of chemical formulas for XTC-preparation in his car. In his house there was evidence found about payments by the Jeandarme's chemical laboratory for delivery products to Leclere.

Danny Leclere worked in the cycling business too.

Willy Jeandarme (60) calls himself a clinical biologist. He not only delivered medicines, but did blood analyses for cycling teams in the Netherlands, Belgian and Italy. Eddy Merckx is one of his good friend's. In the 1970's it is known that Jacques Anquetil and Felice Gimondi came to Jeandarme's house for help and advice.

Further evidence has revealed that PDM had the smell of drugs since the start in 1986. The three letters PDM - (Philips Dupont Magnetics) had different translations depending on your native language:

  1. Prestaties Door Manipulaties in Dutch (Performances through manipulation)
  2. Pills, Drugs and Medicine in English
  3. Plein de Manipulations de Dopage in France.

More to come. It gets into sex and drugs next.

Some Good News from the Netherlands

Leon van Bon received the Gerrit-Trofee-trophy from ex-Prime Minister (and cycling-fan) Dries van Agt after being chosen to "Cyclist of the Year" The female "Cyclist of the Year" went to Mirella van Melis, the junior-worldchampion on the road. She received the Keetie van Oosten-Hage Goblet.

The Club'48 Bowl in the category cycle-cross/mountainbike went to Adrie van der Poel. He won the World Cup and the Super Prestige last season. The Tobego-Cup for "Rider of the Future" went to Johan Bruinsma, the Dutch champion with the neo-amateurs. He will join the Rabobank team next season.

The Jens Veggerby WWW Site

If you want to visit the official Jens Veggerby WWW site it is currently in Danish only. An English version is coming.