More from the dopers from the Papp investigation

Last week I blogged about two individuals who were caught purchasing performance enhancing drugs after officials apparently obtained leads from Joe Papp's records. As in the past, the reaction we typically hear is some story about why they are innocent. We've heard it from numerous top American pro cyclists including Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and even Lance Armstrong with the 2005 tests of his 1999 specimens showing EPO in his urine. More recently, Alberto Contador is claiming innocence too.

Now, since these guys were not caught with drug tests they can't use some conspiracy theory about the French labs having some reason to frame them or some Spanish farmer who put the drugs in their beef. Neither can they claim they took a supplement that had the drug and they weren't aware of it. Instead, they need a new story. Here it is:

Domestic Cyclists Caught Doping

So I've been waiting for some news from the Joe Papp investigation and yesterday we heard about two riders who were sanctioned for EPO use: domestic pro, Charles "Chuck" Coyle, and masters rider, Neal Schubel. As for Coyle, he not only used EPO but he also purchased insulin growth factor, whatever that is. Coyle raced for several pro teams. A VeloNation article discussing Coyle said that his team's website listed some of his career highlights as:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Remember the Actovegin Incident?

Last year, Actovegin (an extract of calf blood) received some press as Tiger Woods was, allegedly, using it along with HGH. Actovegin has been in the news again as NY Daily News is reporting that a Russian cross country skier was found with the substance.

Interestingly, Actovegin has been around for some time. In fact, Lance Armstrong's U.S. Postal team was caught throwing away Actovegin wrappers in 2000 and, the team's manager, later admitted that the team used Actovegin. Of course, he stated that none of the Tour de France riders were using it, even though the team was caught discarding the wrappers in France during the tour. Supposedly, one of the team mechanics was using it for diabetes. After they were accused of this, it took the team a year to come up with this story...Hmmmm...Anyone want to buy some beach front property in Nevada?

One interesting thing about the latest news about Actovegin is what Mr. PED dealer himself, Joe Papp said about it. Papp is the guy who had 184 customers including pro and amateur masters cyclists buying EPO and other PEDs from him (see this prior post for more information). Here are a few quotes from the NY Daily News article that I found of interest: