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Syringe62-year-old American busted for doping
A 62-year-old American has become probably the oldest cyclist ever to be caught using performance-enhancing drugs.
David LeDuc was yesterday suspended for two years by the US Anti-Drug Agency after he tested positive for a steroid of exogenous origin, recombinant human erythropoietin (“rhEPO”) and amphetamine as the result of an in-competition urine sample collected on September 6, 2013 at the Masters Road National Championshipsin Bend, Oregon.
LeDuc’s ban started December 24, the date he accepted the sanction, and he has been disqualified from all competitive results achieved on and after September 6, 2013.
LeDuc was a multiple US national champion in his age group, and 2001 masters’ world champion in the 50-53 category.
LeDuc’s positive garnered a strong reaction on Twitter from the US cycling community. Race organiser and pro rider Adam Myerson tweeted: “Dave LeDuc getting busted is worth every penny of the $800 I paid into @usacycling’s RaceClean program this year as a race organizer.”
He added: “I’ve been calling that dirty old man Dave LeDuc out to his face for doping for over a decade. I should have punched him in it instead.”
LeDuc had been suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs for some time. Adam Myerson again: “Favorite LeDuc moment was at a crit in Raleigh. He won, OTF with Soladay. I told DLD after they were calling him for random. Oh, the panic!”
In a 2006 interview with The Virginian-Pilot, LeDuc said he thought cycling was unfairly singled out for drug testing.
"I think there are probably just as many drugs in all sports, too, but cycling for some reason is under the microscope right now," he said after finishing eighth in the Pro-1/2/3 class at The Chesapeake Criterium.
"Any of the big four sports - basketball, baseball, football and hockey - if they were subjected to the amount of testing as cycling, they wouldn't stand for it."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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16 comments
Gosh. If you want to go fast that badly and don't want to put the effort in, why not just go bionic? Artificial heart, ceramic knee and hip replacement etc, etc. I mean, in early Star Trek they had transponders, and now we have mobile phones, so the 6 million dollar man upgrade should be available soon.
No, no, roll that back, how about hypnosis?
Or, perhaps eat loads of shot bloks
The caffeine ones
Or, why not have a league for dopers?
Re philtregears comments
Think people are being a little harsh on him as he has some valid points, when my grandad had kidney failure, a lot of the knowledge I gained on the treatment and understanding of the drug came from breaking the chain and other cycling related article, and as seems to be the case when we spoke to the consultant he became a lot more receptive to our questions and became a lot more attentive to his needs, he also shared some information in dropping haemocrit levels being linked to dementia and other 'old aged' ailments and was quiet critical that those medicines (epo, hgh etc) were a lot more difficult to prescribe privately in the UK rather than in counties such as the USA.
If it was possible for me to improve my future health in the same way women can with HRT, when I am older I would certainly give it some consideration
What a moron. Once a cheat, always a cheat - seems like this guys has been doping for a while. Ban them for life, I say.
EPO Would increase the quality of your life if you had cancer and were on chemo.
Dont be friggin idiot - what sort of numb nuts think injecting chemicals into a healthy body will "echance their life".
You want to do some enchancing GO VEGAN.
Check out running raw round australia - 366 marathons in 366 days, new WR and also check out how old they are and what they are on.
i do not condone doping. however, as a guy in my 50s i am interested in any above the table research that tests the efficacy and safety of drugs that may enhance the quality of my life. For example, would epo extend the longevity of my riding/ hiking etc?? would it be safe???
this guys doping brings that debate into focus. in doing so, it shows us how difficult is the job for scientists, teams, anti doping agencies etc.
i do not condone doping. however, as a guy in my 50s i am interested in any above the table research that tests the efficacy and safety of drugs that may enhance the quality of my life. For example, would epo extend the longevity of my riding/ hiking etc?? would it be safe???
this guys doping brings that debate into focus. in doing so, it shows us how difficult is the job for scientists, teams, anti doping agencies etc.
So long as you're not competing it's up to you what lengths you go to to enhance your recreational activities. Just have the sense to do it under medical supervision.
Some interesting articles:
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/dropping-in/I-Couldn-t-Be...
http://www.iaaf.org/news/news/drug-test-a-cautionary-tale
Trolling right? EPO for hiking. Gotta be trolling.
LOL, big respect to this guy, 62 years old and still so committed to his cycling.
We sterilise it first. Honest
I feel like Road.cc uses the exact same syringe picture for every doping related story
Perhaps this shit isn't that harmful after all if this guys been at the magic juice for 40 years!
Why am I not reading about Chris Horner though?!
finishing eighth in the Pro-1/2/3 class at The Chesapeake Criterium
did I read that correctly? A 60+ year old guy came 8th in a Pro/1/2/3 race - wtf
Not WTF, EPO.....
Not that surprising for an E/1/2/3 - I've seen plenty young men, have their arses handed to them by many a 50+
That probably didn't come out right.