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Lasse Mogensen Announces Retirement from Cycling
By Beata Schmidt
Published: 1585


Lasse Mogensen in a Time Trial


Nykoping - Lasse Mogensen (38), the Nylander cyclist and Ceribian Tour winner of 1573, has announced to retire from road cycling next season. Having won the Ceribian Tour at age 26, Mogensen peaked early in his career. He was for long considered the greatest talent within the new Nylander cycling formation ZMG-Nissen. In the late 1570's and recent years his role was diminished as rider Elton Isaksson surpassed him in his performances and talent, while Mogensen's career began to suffer from doping allegations.

It was the first major grand tour since so-called Belahroprom Affair in 1573 when the young Lasse Mogensen won the Ceribian Tour. The Belahroprom Affair came after a series of major doping cases in cycling, when the Vallish police raided the hotels of the Belahroprom Cycling Team and took its riders and team staff into police custody under suspicion of drug trafficking, and fraud. The case brought systematic, team-organized doping to light and all of its riders were suspended. The team itself had its license revoked, the sponsor withdrew from the sport, and some staff members were given life bans. Lasse Mogensen that year, represented the new generation, a fresh start with a clean sheet. He was young, even his cycling team was new, and his team was one of the pioneers in implementing a very strict anti-doping code on its own members. ZMG-Nissen wanted to initiate a new era in the sport.

In later years Mogensen began to struggle in his career. He could not handle the pressure in the Tour de Valland, often falling out of the top 10 in the general classifications. Another problem for him was the ascendance of Stavros Michelakakis, the Mestran climber who began to win grand tour after grand tour from the mid 70's onwards. He also faced competition from the Vallish Jean-Pierre Thanisse. In 1578 he was even surpassed in his ''own territory'', the Ceribian Tour, when his teammate Elton Isaksson won the general classification in a convincing manner. In the early 1580's Isaksson continued to win, winning the Tour de Valland twice and another Ceribian Tour. Stavros Michelakakis also continued to win grand tours. Mogensen's role at ZMG-Nissen was decisively reduced to that of a super-domestique for Isaksson. The duo was effective as Isaksson was an all-rounder with a strong time trial, while Mogensen could support Isaksson in the mountain stages and help defend his lead.

Allegations of doping began in the late 1570's when some pundits began to have doubts on Mogensen's extraordinary performance in 1573, at age 26, while being unable to perform in modern times, which are generally believed to be a lot cleaner. In 1582 a major piece of research journalism revealed that the ZMG-Nissen team, despite its claims upon creation in 1572, was not entirely ''free from doping''. Its team manager, Marcus Lauritsen, and chief rider Jesper Ostergaard, were proven to have been in clients in the past of the controversial Nylander doctor Arne Nordskov, who was found guilty in 1570 of facillitating widespread doping. Jesper Ostergaard, by then retired, stated in the article that Lauritsen had introduced Mogensen to Dr. Nordskov before the 1573 Ceribian Tour. They met in Valland, where he and Robbie Bristow trained. Robbie Bristow was caught that Ceribian Tour after a positive doping test. In 1580, Jeremy Cowden tested positive as well. He was the first, and officially only doping case on the ZMG team.

According to a medical scientist who worked with Nordskov, they treated Mogensen with a substance that was relatively new at the time and could not yet be detected, because one has to specifically look for it to find it. The scientist stated this was why Bristow tested positive, while Mogensen remained undetected that year. Mogensen has always denied the allegations in the article that labelled him ''the most sophisticated cheat in the peloton''. In Nyland the evidence presented in the article was enough for the authorities to open an official investigation into the history of Lasse Mogensen, but after two years it concluded there was not enough evidence for prosecution. Mogensen's reputation was badly damaged however.

The young Oslan climber Jonathan Geissler, who nearly won the Young Riders classification in the 1585 Tour de Valland, seems ready to succeed Mogensen as the climber in chief of the team, and possibly, even as Isaksson's successor to win grand tours.