Vandenbroucke found dead

fede40 · Vandenbroucke found dead

Gazzetta just reported that Frank Vandenbroucke has been found dead in a hotel room in Senegal

HuwB

http://www.rtbf.be/sport/cyclisme...nck-vandenbroeck-est-decede-54115
Just picked up on the news, pulmonary embollism, 34 clots in his lungs.
Pantani style. Sad and shocking, but a real insight to what the culture of doping within a closed peloton, can induce.
2 kids.
Sad

Mrs John Murphy

Sad, shocking and most sadly so inevitable.

While Rome burns Nero fiddles [/url]

bianchigirl

Sad, not really shocked, he'd tried to commit suicide a few years ago. But he was a great one to watch - I remember him nabbing all the points in the intermediate sprints on the last stage of the Vuelta to take the points jersey. Dead in a hotel room in Senegal - what a lonely end to what could have been a great career.

When will the sport stop turning some riders into scapegoats - especially the ones who are mentally fragile and can't cope? I hope Verdruggen is hanging his head in shame.

Enchantress

I'm stunned and quite saddened by this.

Wasn't this young man just being touted as a potential top 10-15 GC man for the TDF next year after his promising result in this campaign?

As bg says, what a lonely end indeed. The pressure these athletes face is unbelievable. That such demands on a fragile, and let's be fair, very young, person lead to this is a blight on the entire sport.

Mrs John Murphy

But BG you know full well that McQuaid etc will come out at his handwringing worst. That VDB was part of the 'old cycling' not the new 'clean era'.

The thing is VDB won't be the last. VDB as you say was clearly mentally frail but sadly the attitude of many was 'put him back on his bike' which only exacerbated the situation, but we had the same thing this summer with people demanding that a clearly unfit and unwell Boonen should be riding in the TDF.

Biosphere

Very sad.

Was reading just last week about his frustration that the Teams didn't want to know about him these days and his plan to put his blood values online to try to restore his reputation.

Biosphere

Bartali

Very very sad.

kathy

Sad, and inevitable - the comparisons with Pantani are there for all to see. Who will be next?

Mrs John Murphy

Me, a fan?

MAILLOT JAUNE

kathy

bianchigirl

Verdruggen and his stooges should hang their heads in shame when they blatantly sacrifice some riders - and, hey, apparently the more mentally fragile the better - and let the great doping armadas with their dirty DSes and dodgy doctors sail on. It's a fucking disgrace - time the UCI acknowledges there's a problem in cycling full stop and start putting measures in place to protect riders from the consequences of their actions. Boonen should have been supported by his sport's governing body to go to rehab not the Tour. VDB should have been supported to get help not hung out to dry as a 'dirty doper of the old school'.

Enchantress, think you're confusing VanDenBroucke with VanDerVelde (aka VDV the Garmin rider)?

VDB's palmares: 58 victories http://velopalmares.free.fr/vandenbroucke.htm

Superbagneres

SlowRower

Mrs John Murphy

You would do just as well to ask the same question of riders aged 23 and under. Ask some like Taylor Phinney his thoughts on the issue...

Kathy - sounds far too close to VDB for comfort.

BG - the sad thing is that most of the fans don't actually care about the welfare of the riders until after it is too late. For the teams the riders are a disposable commodity - use and throw away. The riders union such as it is - is a toothless organisation which does nothing to clean up the sport and instead preferring to 'protect' current riders from being banned.

The media who should be investigating these deaths are hand in glove with the dopers and are too frightened/ball-less to ask any questions.

There is really not much hope for the future I am afraid.

Ralphnorman

SlowRower

Mrs John Murphy

Context matters - social circumstances - Kohl for example was a chimney sweep, Dertie is no rocket scientist, so given the alternatives for those with low social mobility, education etc are few and far between. The interesting thing is the riders who do have brains and or the ability to follow a different career.

As I say Phinney is a classic example - he knows the score but is quite willing to sign up, become a professional rider and not ask any difficult and hang out with people who are seriously implicated in doping.

Enchantress

Ah yes, thank you for the clarification BG and others.

Still, it remains another bad mark on a sport that already has far too many.

SlowRower

MJM - So are thick, lower class dopers somehow less bad than intelligent, socially mobile dopers who have plenty of alternative career options? (I pose this as a question, rather than as my interpretation of your post.)

My view - for what it's worth (probably not much in your book Smile

) - is that whilst a lack of intelligence and alternative options makes doping more attractive to a rider, it doesn't make it any less wrong.

The concept of doping is pretty simple - it's wrong. If a rider doesn't have the brainpower to know that then they should be kept somewhere padded and locked for their own safety. It might be "unfair" that for some riders, the only alternative career to being a doping cyclist is a minimum wage job, it's more of a choice than a lot of people have.

Mrs John Murphy

I made no comment on the morality of doping - you asked why riders who 'know the score' still enter the sport. The same could be asked of boxing - why take up a sport that involves you sustaining brain damage? The point I was making is that if you have few alternatives then you take what seems like the better option. Riding a bike and doping (with the knowledge of what that may entail), may well seem like a better option than being a chimney sweep (with the knowledge of all that that may entail).

As I have said before, I know two people who were very talented athletes, both of whom were at the national level of competition in their chosen fields. Now, one of them comes from a nice middle class family, the others family are agricultural workers. Now, they were both approached about taking it to the next level. The middle class kid said thanks but no thanks, too much like hard work for me, went to university, got their degree and ended up being a city lawyer making shed loads of cash. The other kid concluding that it was the sport (and all that it entailed) or working on the farm, chose to do the sport.

My point being that whether you enter a sport depends on the options available to you. I can understand why someone with low levels of social mobility/educational opportunities may take up cycling, boxing, rowing, etc etc, but where I think the interesting question lies is with those who do have 'better' (ie safer, warmer, less dopped) options available to them and decline to take them in favour of the sport.

Nolte

frank vandenbroucke r.i.p

i'm saddened by this. i heard it this morning on euronews.

bianchigirl

And irony of ironies, Landbouwkrediet-Colnago chose today of all days to print a press release stating that VDB would not be riding for them next season Sad

SlowRower

MJM - For once, we appear to be in agreement. I shall break my "no mid-week drinking" rule tonight in celebration!

It's odd you mention rowing as a sports career for the "disadvantaged" (for want of a better word) given the demographic profile of the UK national squad. (Middle-class at worst; often Oxbridge educated.)

There's no money in rowing either; you only choose to row if you like pain for the sake of it. (Remember that rowing was too tough for Rebecca Romero - she needed to find an "easy" sport... Smile

)

Having said that, though, the traditional British international rower is university educated with multiple options career-wise when they hang up their lycra, so it;s lot like they're committing themselves to the sport as a means of earning their crust long term.

Mrs John Murphy

It depends on how you look at it and the context - rowing is not an upper-class sport in every country. The rural guy went onto have a successful career in rowing and now has a career as a coach, and a very nice life in France. If he hadn't then he would be still stuck on the farm. So his social mobility was increased thanks to his participation in the sport.

SlowRower

There are exceptions to every rule, obviously. Steve Redgrave for one. Once the son of a builder, now a Knight of the Realm.

The difference with rowing vs cycling, football, track & field etc, though, is that irrespective of country, the most you can aspire to financially from the sport is comfort (via coaching or low level media work) as opposed to megabucks. James Cracknell makes a tidy living these days, but he has to row the Atlantic or cycling the TOB course 2 stages at a time to make his money.

It's not just rowing either - Tim Brabants went back to being a hospital doctor working for free after Beijing, as he couldn't get a paid post and he needed the experience in order to progress his medical career. He does pop up on kids' TV quite a lot though, bizarrely.

If you're world class at anything, it's likely to give you more options than the average man in the street.

mr shifter

kathy

It appears that VDB's death might be suspicious, to say the least. three people have been arrested in connection. One is the woman who went to the hotel with him the night before. She says he was alive when he left, but she did take some money and a mobile with her.

Story

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/br...411_trois-personnes-arretees.html

Slapshot 3

kathy

This is getting rather odd. In the original reports, the hotel owner said Frank was very drunk when he arrived at the hotel, but the autopsy has found no trace of alcohol. The three people arrested have been charged with robbery.

chardon

Mrs John Murphy

Yeah Chardon but you are missing the point. VDB was in the situation he was in - ie alone and drunk in an African hotel BECAUSE of doping.

You keep on burying your head in the sand.

kathy

Now been reported that death was by natural causes, double pulmonary enbolism, although a syringe was found in his room and he had puncture marks on his arm.

chardon

Bullshit MJM! You did not know about this before you started your speculations in your earlier posts. The information about the syringe and alcohol just came in after the revelation of the autopsy. Yeah, yeah, you know it all!

Mrs John Murphy

I think you need to up your meds Chardon. Your doping isn't to blame argument is just fucking bizarre. What are you 5? Let me guess it was the big bad wolf who lives in the wood who was responsible for VDB's career going down the drain.

VDB's career was ruined by doping. That fact can not be disputed. His decline in sporting terms, and in terms of his mental health can by attributed to his doping. Causality in this case is pretty fucking clear.

SR - this is why I think the case of people who do know the score and who do have career alternatives do choose to become riders are perhaps the more interesting to investigate. Unfortunately I don't think the UCI would ever agree to a full sociological/psychological investigation into the attitudes and choices of the pro-peloton.

bianchigirl

Nico Mattan is to organise the sale of VDBs bikes by auction to pay for the repatriation of his body to Belgium - he didn't have any insurance and the costs would fall to his family. All profits from the sale go to the VDB family. So sad.

Mrs John Murphy

chardon

VDB's last calls unfortunately unheeded...

http://www.skynet.be/actu-sports/...eux-derniers-appels-vdb?id=579662

SlowRower

Mrs John Murphy

If he hadn't been doping, he wouldn't have been busted and his life wouldn't have spiraled out of control.

Saying doping isn't responsible is a little bit like saying that guns don't kill people, its the bleeding everywhere that is the problem.

Cause and effect.

Given the number of sportsmen with mental health difficulties (I see a Rugby League international was sectioned last week) do you not think it might be time for the sporting authorities to invest as much time in the mental health of sportsmen as they do to their physical health?

SlowRower

You might just as well say that cycling or competitive sport sent VDB over the edge. My guess would be that VDB was never going to have a happy ending. Something - most likely a woman - would have done for him sooner or later.

It would be interesting to know if the incidence of mental health issues is higher in pro sportsmen than the general population. There's certainly a lot more publicity in certain sporting cases, but the general population is not without its problems either.

As to your point about asking intelligent doping cyclists why they do it, when they have other options, the most likely reason is that being young and wildly optimistic, they assume the bad outcomes will happen to someone else. A good proxy would be to ask rugby union players why they play. Most are well educated with alternative career options, but they still play a game where there is a non-trivial risk of death or serious injury.

Mrs John Murphy

That sounds to me like you are trying to absolve cycling of any responsibility which seems very deterministic - VDB, Jimenez, Pantani, Ocana... etc etc that is an awful lot of people with a death-wish jumping on bikes.

SlowRower

Ultimately, VDB took the stuff himself, so must take the majority of the responsibility. He wasn't a 21st century galley slave or a 1970s East German. Maybe, like Pantani, he just had a massive self-destructive streak. I don't know if VDB did recreational drugs or alcohol, but Pantani's enthusiasm for cocaine and crack in his latter years did not suggest a man with too much concern for his own well-being. (Either he didn't care, or thought he was immune.) He certainly had sufficient dosh to get quality help if he'd wanted it.

Cycling, indeed any pro sport, is a nasty business at the sharp end (I will certainly be discouraging my kids from a career in sport, although with my DNA on board this is a theoretical consideration, I suspect) with athletes frequently viewed as assets rather than people, so in VDB's case "cycling" also has some responsibility.

Mrs John Murphy

That contradicts what you said in your last post. If it is predetermined then there is no free will.

No person is ever an independent actor existing entirely on their own without any other agent acting upon them.

On the contrary as the likes of Duffield like to point out (always chuckling) about how much power the DS's etc have over riders. Very few riders if any control the shots - and this comes back to the earlier point about choices and power. If you have fewer choices you have less power. This is especially the case with riders just entering the sport and who are most vulnerable (emotionally and in a sporting sense).

There are numerous cases of doping being instigated by outside influences - look at the malign influence of Lefevere with Boonen and VDB.

The fact of the matter remains that while there may well be many people involved in cycling who have mental health issues, there are many in cycling whose actions, exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, those issues. There are plenty who 'enable' doping and recreational drug taking (Jaja's Pot Belge Parties), who never take any responsibility for the direct consequences of their action. That stretches from everyone who supplied him, encouraged him, ignored the problems, all bare some degree of responsibility. Trying to wash your hands of it saying 'well it would have happened anyway, or he is a free agent' is exactly why VDB is dead.

SlowRower

My guess is that VDB, like Pantani, was at the extreme end of underlying mental health issues. Plenty of people experience traumatic events either entirely of their own making or as a result of the actions of others and deal with it.

VDB and Pantani couldn't deal with their trauma, and reacted in an extreme fashion, suggesting that they should have been receiving proper care years earlier and not racing bikes.

Should the UCI introduce mental health checks along with the Hct health check, with riders compulsarily stood down if they are diagnosed with mental health issues? I doubt that would be too popular!

The responsibility for PED use is separate from all this though. I'm curious as to where you think that personal responsibilty for actions ends, though. You seem to be heading down the road of exonerating all but the biggest fish for doping, as due to their lowly position, they have no choice.

I actually agree with much of what you say about what the teams and others do to promote PED use, and that they have some responsibility for its consequences; it's the point where personal responsibility kicks in that's of interest.

Mrs John Murphy

I didn't say that rider should be stood down but I do maintain that employers have by law a duty of care to their employees and that includes aspects of physical and mental health. At the moment cycling does not provide that.

As for doping - I am merely pointing out that choice is dependent upon the level of power that an individual has. Not all riders have the same degree of personal autonomy that you prescribe them.

Look at how a certain powerful rider told his team that everyone was doping, when one of the junior riders left that team for another he was amazed to find that he had been lied to by said powerful rider.

Senior riders, DS's, etc lie to the weaker riders to compel them to dope.

There is a difference between a neo-pro being told by his DS 'here inject this' and a rider making the choice to seek out Ferrari etc and sign an exclusive deal.

kathy

When I read about things like this, I always remember the story of Christophe Bassons and the pressure placed upon him by the Festina management to dope. When he refused, he was 'relegated' to Festina's 'B' team, and the consequences of his speaking out on his future career were catastrophic.

SlowRower

Mrs John Murphy

No, you treat all dopers the same but the point is that you extend the chain of responsibility for a dope test upwards. You make those responsible for facilitating doping - DS's, doctors, managers and agents responsible. Something which I have long argued for.

I think it is generally accepted that 'only obeying orders' is not an acceptable defence for something which you should know to be wrong.

The issue is not so much about assigning blame but understanding why people choose to take the course of action that they do.

Slapshot 3

SlowRower

Mrs John Murphy

Why not apply the rules retrospectively?

Not necessarily to win - having a job which doesn't involve sticking your head up a chimney is probably enough in some cases.

SlowRower

Mrs John Murphy

Not really, there are lots of cases where laws have been acted on retrospectively. For example what about the class actions against the Tobacco Industry etc.

I fail to see how you can be so sure that it would just be the small fry being punished.

The cynical might suggest that your resistance to retrospective punishment might be because it would almost certainly focus upon your hero, rather than anything else.

Regarding your comments about the responsibility of teams. What about the responsibility of message board users to fanboys? For example, most fanboys are mentally unstable fantasists living their lives through their heroes. They tend to be drawn to message boards. They tend to take any attack on their hero as a personal affront to themselves. They tend to be drawn into arguments about their heroes. Generally, the insanity progresses and in the end they go insane but not before engaging in a sock-puppetry etc etc. By your reckoning I have no responsibility for any nervous breakdown anyone suffers from using this board because we can safely say that it would have happened anyway.

cardinal guzman

There is a famous instance of laws being implemented retroactively - to the people who said they were just following orders in fact.

SlowRower

Blimey. Where to start?

Firstly, whilst you may well drive some messageboard regulars over the edge, such regulars have the option to put you on "ignore" but choose to keep reading, so I would absolve you of most, if not all of the responsibility, should they end up insane, or even in extreme cases, possessed of multiple login IDs.

The cigarette industry thing is not entirely comparable, as the key element in the "retrospective" claims was the cigarette companies suppressing information that they knew proved that smoking was dangerous. A law wasn't simply introduced making the companies liable retrospectively. Had they disclosed the information they had in a timely fashion they would have been punished in "real time".

In general though, irrespective of what has happened, I'm not in favour people being judged for their actions against criteria that weren't in place at the time of the action. Certainly not for something as trivial (on the grand scale of things) as doping in sport.

How can anyone sensibly plan their actions knowing that any action they take might subsequently be declared illegal? How would you feel if referring to someone as a "fucktard" on a messageboard was made a capital offence, to be applied retrospectively?

I can definitely see an argument in having no statute of limitations on doping offences, though.

The "small fry" thinking is just an extension of what currently happens. There's plenty of methods currently available by which Armstrong and other high profile suspected dopers could be targeted, tested and potentially busted out of the sport.

The ICU chooses not to go down this route for its own reasons. It's not a lack of means that allows the high profile guys to escape, it's a lack of will to pursue them. Introducing retrospective punishments wouldn't address this in itself.

SlowRower

cardinal guzman

Mrs John Murphy

That doesn't wash though does it. With doping and retrospection, we are dealing with cases where the practice was illegal at the time but that the practice could not be detected.

It's nothing more than a cold case - you might find the bones 30 years after the event, but you can still prosecute.

The Tobacco industry point is relevant - DS's know full well what EPO, cocaine, blood doping etc do to people - and yet they carry on regardless, much like the Tobacco industry.

It is all well and good for a rider to say that he doesn't know what he is being injected with, but it is a bit harder for a DS or a doctor to say that he doesn't know what he is injecting the rider with.

SlowRower

Cardinal - Churchill was on the winning side, so was unlikely to ever face charges. If the Nazis had won then he'd doubtless have had a few issues explaining the decision to carpet bomb major German cities.

MJM - I have no problems with people being busted many years after offences were committed, so long as they were offences at the time the action took place. It's determining new offences and then identifying breaches of them in the past when at the time the action that took place it wasn't an offence that I have a problem with, in general.

The Lemondheads

mr shifter

Hey-Ho......RIP, VDB

last km

Another tragic waste....he was a class act on the bike, about the only other guy as stylish as Frank was Fondriest......RIP VDP....wonder if he and Marco are sharing there thoughts now ?