Ernie Lachuga (testicular cancer)

---------------------------------
Ernie was one of Americas top under 23 riders and a member of the same U23 team
that included Lance Armstrong,
until late in 1998 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
"Mexican-born LeChuga says that's when he started dreaming of becoming a profess
ional cyclist and eventually that dream came true.
LeChuga says, "When I was young, one night I was like, 'All I wish for is for on
e race in Europe with one European team and I don't care if I die after that.'?
There's an old saying-- be careful what you wish for.
"It's pretty funny," he says. "I did my first race in Europe with my first profe
ssional team. And the third day I was there I crashed and I got diagnosed with t
esticular cancer."
The year was 1999 and Lance Armstrong, also a testicular cancer survivor, was in
the midst of winning his first Tour De France. The two knew each other. ?He act
ually gave me a call before my first chemotherapy and he said everything was goi
ng to be all right."
After removing one cancerous testicle and six months of chemotherapy, today Erni
e is seven years cancer-free. When his wife Carrie married him, she knew there w
as a possibility they wouldn't have kids." (2008)
Greg Stock (auto immune problems)
---------------------------------
Erich Kaiter (chrohns disease)
-----------------------------
(CBS) You've heard about drugs in Olympic sports , how some athletes use illega
l, performance-enhancing drugs known as "dope."
East Germany doped a generation of swimmers, winning the gold but ruining their
health.
But as 60 Minutes II Correspondent Scott Pelley first reported this spring, dopi
ng has become an addiction within America's team as well. That's the allegation
of a former top U.S. Olympic committee official and two athletes who believe the
ir coaches injected them with dope in the hope that would lead to glory and gold
.
They are athletes who might have been American heroes, had they not met the need
le that they say punctured their Olympic dreams.
In 1990, Greg Strock was one of the greatest bicycle racers in America. At the a
ge of 17, he was flying past cycling records, blistering the road on his way out
of Indiana and into the world.
"It was kind of a blur," he told 60 Minutes II. "You know, one minute I'm riding
my bike in the cornfields, and, and the next minute, I'm on the national team,
and going to Moscow for the junior Worlds."
The national teams are where America's Olympic athletes are trained, and Strock
was on the fast track. Lance Armstrong and five future Olympians were also ridin
g for America that year. Strock never made it to the Olympics. At the top of his
game, he was struck down by a catastrophic illness.
"I was sleeping 18 hours a day, my knees were swollen," he said. "I was having t
rouble walking up stairs, walking down stairs, and had sore throats, large lymph
node swelling in my, my neck and my groin, and under my arms."
Doctors thought it was AIDS, then lymphatic cancer. It turned out to be a breakd
own in Strock's immune system that no one could explain. After failed comebacks,
Strock gave up his Olympic dream for medical school. It was there, while studyi
ng steroids, that he became suspicious about his coaches on the cycling team.
Strock believes he was given banned drugs to enhance his performance - dope that
he says ruined his health. He's now suing U.S.A. Cycling, which is in charge of
Olympic training.
Strock says the doping began in France, when he was racing poorly because of a b
ad cold. His condition improved rapidly after the U. S. team coach gave him pill
s that were supposedly vitamins and an injection which he says the coach called
extract of cortisone.
But there's no such thing as an extract of cortisone. Cortisone is a cortico-ste
roid, banned in the kind of injections that Strock describes. In large doses, co
rtisone depresses the immune system, and Strock says those injections became rou
tine.
Strock thought he was alone until he filed his lawsuit eight months ago and got
a call from someone he hadn't seen in 10 years - Erich Kaiter, his teammate at U
.S.A. Cycling.
"We were given the same injections at the same times, and we raced together pret
ty much at every race during that year," Kaiter said. "And I became very ilwith
a lot of the same symptoms that I now know Greg suffered."
They don't know what was in those syringes, and they don't recall taking a drug
test in those days. But they say the injections were given by the U.S.A. Cycling
staff, including coach Rene Wenzel, trainer Angus Fraser and, according to docu
ments, coach Chris Carmichael.
Strock and Kaiter are convinced that that was a program of doping, and there is
considerable evidence that, in U.S. Olympic sport, doping has reached much furth
er than you might imagine.
That charge comes from an insider: Dr. Wade Exum, who was in charge of doping co
ntrol at the U.S. Olympic Committee until last summer, three months before the S
ydney games.
Told there was a serious program to eliminate doping from U.S. sports, Exum now
believes "it was all a sham."
Exum says drug tests, done at random during training and competition, routinely
crossed his desk, showing athletes were doping.
"In the last year that I was at the US Olympic Committee," he said, "there were
positive tests for anabolic steroids in badminton. I had anabolic steroid positi
ves in shooting when I was at the Olympic Committee."
Exum is suing the USOC, saying it undermined his effort to protect athletes. He
is offering his records in court. But the committee is asking the judge to keep
the records confidential because "public disclosure of these documents would cau
se annoyance and possible embarrassment for many individual athletes..."
Exum estimated that fewer than one in seven American athletes who tested positiv
e for banned substances, was ever sanctioned.
Last fall, Joseph Califano, the head of the National Center on Addiction and Sub
stance Abuse, finished a two-year study of Olympic doping. He says there is a mi
ndset that you can't compete successfully in the Olympics today if you're not us
ing dope.
Califano says it was tough to get hard information because he had great difficul
ty, just as 60 Minutes II had, in getting cooperation from U. S. Olympic officia
ls.
"I think you get silent treatment from people when they have something to hide,"
Califano said.
For several months, the U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S.A. Cycling have declined
to be interviewed. In a letter, the USOC said Exum's allegations "are patently f
alse" and Strock's legal actions are "without merit."
Carmichael, who is currently Lance Armstrong's coach, said "the Strock issue is
in litigation, so I am not going to comment on it."
Angus Fraser declined an interview; Wenzel says he never gave any injections. He
left the team in 1992 in what he called a downsizing. The USOC says he was fire
d for doping.
"I believe we were being doped, we were being groomed," Strock said.
Exum said not all Olympic athletes were doping: "I think that there are a lot of
athletes who end up in fourth place because they're not using substances."
The United States Olympic Committee is no longer in charge of doping control. It
has et up a new organization called the U.S. Anti -Doping Agency. The USADA say
s it is independent, but its critics point out that the agency is headed by a fo
rmer USOC executive and receives millions of dollars USOC funds. The new doping
agency told CBS it is dedicated to eliminating doping in U.S sports
Stock and Kaiter eventually settled out of court. The lawsuit was paid for by Gr
eg Lemond.
David Francis (healthy)
-----------------------
3rd member of the US U-23 cycling team. Whilst remaining healthy he submitted te
stimony at the lawsuits of Stock and Kaiter that Wenzel (René Wenzel - former coac
h of USA Cycling's national junior team), submitted them to "doses of vitamins a
nd 'extract of cortisone.'"
Gerrick Latta (healthy)
-----------------------
A former member of the US junior national cycling team has filed a lawsuit claim
ing that he was tricked into using banned, performance enhancing substances by h
is coach and trainer.
Gerrik Latta of Oregon alleges in a negligence lawsuit filed Monday in federal c
ourt in Denver that he was given illegal drugs under the guise that he was recei
ving safe and legal vitamins.
He is suing USA Cycling, the United States Cycling Federation and his former coa
ch and trainer for unspecified damages.
Latta, who began bicycle racing in 1988 when he was 16, claims that former coach
Rene Wenzel instructed trainer Angus Fraser to give him several injections in E
ngland in 1990 before the World Championships.
He said Wenzel and Fraser assured him the injections were safe and legal vitamin
s.
In total, of four riders who attended the 2000 world championships for the US ,
all four have testified that they were doped, and two ended up with long term il
lnesses.
And finally, or course
Lance Armstrong (Testicular Cancer)
-----------------------------------
Another rider under the coaching of Chris Carmichael and Wenzil. Lance was found
to have testicular cancer in 1996.
The 3rd rider from the American team to end up with immune system problems or ca
ncer.
Other riders:
Stive Vermaut (Deceased)
------------------------
Rode on the US postal team in 2000, and in 2001 was diagnosed with heart disease
that was later claimed to be "congenintal" (ie. he was born with it, but it was
nt detected till he was 27)
He died aged 28 after suffering a heart attack on a training ride.
Michael Zanoli (deceased)
-------------------------
Michel Zanoli was a relative unknown to many, until the 1992 Tour Du Pont. In th
at race, Zanoli punched a motorcycle driver for causing his teammate to crash. O
nly days later, Zanoli punched Davis Phinney during a sprint, drawing blood and
making Phinney look like he had a Hitler mustache. He was kicked out of the race
(due to throwing a punch, not for making Phinney look like he had a Hitler must
ache).
Motorola cut him from the Giro squad later that year, but not the team. His seas
on ended shortly after he got the news about the Giro however, when he somehow c
ut six wrist tendons.
"It didn't happen during a race; it happened at night," he explained a year late
r. "Party," he said. "Somehow."
Zanoli died in 2003 at the age of 35 of a heart attack.
Edmund Burke (deceased)
-----------------------
Burke was one of the first sports scientists who worked closely with the US Cycl
ing team.
"Burke helped the U.S. cycling team prepare for the 1984 Olympic Games as direct
or of the USCF's Center for Science, Medicine and Technology. During the 1984 Ga
mes in Los Angeles, Burke's scientific guidance assisted American cyclists to cl
aim three gold, three silver and two bronze medals--the first U.S. cycling medal
s in 72 years.
He died whilst suffering a heart attack during a group ride in 2002. He was 53.