A Sad Legacy

(Originally published in the May 13 to 19, 2012 issue of the Baguio Chronicle ---

a weekly newspaper based in Baguio City, Philippines ---

by Sly L. Quintos, Associate Editor.)

ON July 13 nearly 45 years ago, the 22-stage 4,780-kilometer 1967 edition of Tour de France took a tragic twist when Englishman Tommy Simpson died climbing Mt. Ventoux --- the 6,000-foot “Giant Provence”.

An autopsy found in his fit but dead body large amounts of amphetamine and alcohol --- a diuretic combination which proved fatal when combined in the heat. The combination is also known to cause severe stomach complaints.

“Ventoux is an exceptionally steep climb,” Tour de France journalist Owen Mulholland recalled.

“On the day of Simpson’s death, southern France was locked in a heat wave. Simpson was in the lead group and seemed to be going well. Then, suddenly, he drifted backwards. He began weaving an erratic line between the walls of spectators and collapsed. Friendly hands picked him up and he uttered his last ever words: ‘Put me back on my bike’. In a kilometer, he again toppled from his bike, never to recover consciousness,” Mulholland wrote in chilling details and clinical accuracy.

In the Tour de France the previous year, five-time Tour de France champion Jacques Anquetil led a riders strike against attempts to impose mandatory drug testing. “The Tour is too difficult,” he argued. “You can’t win on mineral water (alone)”.

In such an atmosphere, “there can be little wonder that Simpson, too indulged in substances which, as a result of his death, are banned today,” Mulholland wrote further. “Bicycle racing is inherently risky. Death and permanent injury lurk around every bend. Still, it’s hard to fathom what drives a person to take a chance on using life-threatening drugs for the sake of something as fleeting as athletic performance. Is it, as Anquetil (who died of cancer in his 50s) says, a necessary part of the game? Simpson must have thought so.”

Born on November 30, 1937, Simpson is considered the most successful English road racing cyclist of the post-War years.

Turning professional in 1959, Simpson left England to test his talents in the more fertile fields of France and started winning races --- including the “big ones” such as the 1961 Tour de Flanders in Belgium (a one-day race established in 1913), the one-day 300-kilometer 1964 Spring Classic Milan-San Remo (established in 1907) and the 1965 edition of the Tour of Lombardy (also a one-day race established in 1905).

Simpson is also the first Englishman to win the mass-start Union Cycliste Iternationale (UCI) Road World Championships, often referred to as the World Cycling Championships, held in September 1965 in Lasarte-Oria in Spain (a feat matched only by Mark Cavendish last year). For winning the UCI Road World Championships Road Race, Simpson is considered as the World Cycling Champion (or World Road Cycling Champion) and earned the right to wear the Rainbow Jersey for a full year in road race or stage events he may join.

In addition, Simpson also won the 1967 Paris-Nice “The Race to the Sun” (established in 1933) classic and two stage wins at the three-week Vuelta a España (established in 1935).

“For most of us, it can be difficult to see Simpson’s demise as anything other than the unfortunate death of an overly zealous bike nut. But in those days professional cyclists, with the exception of Tour de France winners, were not well-paid,” Mulholland wrote. “Winners and losers suffered the same, but only the winners made enough to retire on. Simpson’s choice was to win the Tour de France or retire to some ignominious jab back home.”

According to Mulholland, “Simpson’s death was enough to cause the official banning of dangerous drugs and to institute the ongoing testing that disqualified Abdoujaparov in this year’s Tour (de France). Other pros suspected of using EPO (erythropoietin) were disqualified earlier this year in the Tour of Italy and elsewhere.”

Erythropoietin, or its alternatives erythropoetin or erthropoyetin is a glycoprotein hormone that controls erythropoiesis or red blood cell production. It is a cytokine (protein signaling molecule) for erythrocyte (red blood cell) precursors in the bone marrow. Also called hematopoietin or hemopoietin, it is produced by interstitial fibroblasts in the kidney in close association with peritubular capillary and tubular epithelial cells. It is also produced in perisinusoidal cells in the liver. While liver production predominates in the fetal and perinatal period, renal production is predominant during adulthood. Erythropoietin is the hormone that regulates red blood cell production. It also has other known biological functions. For example, erythropoietin plays an important role in the brain's response to neuronal injury. EPO is also involved in the wound healing process.

When exogenous EPO is used as a performance-enhancing drug, it is classified as an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA). Exogenous EPO can often be detected in blood, due to slight difference from the endogenous protein, for example in features of post-translational modification.

“But as long as pro cyclists suffer for success and the monetary gap between the winners and losers is large, the temptation to use performance-enhancing drugs will quite likely remain,” Mulholland said. “The ultimate irony is, had Simpson not died racing under the influence of drugs, he’d hardly be remembered today.”

What a sad legacy.*