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Elton Isaksson wins 1582 Tour de Valland
By Richard W. Wallace
Published: Zeychyr 24, 1582


Isaksson, in the decisive stage 19th.


Lauren, Valland - Nylander Elton Isaksson (ZMG-Nissen) became the unexpected winner of the 1582 Tour de Valland, becoming the first Nylander cyclist to win both Grand Tours, as he had previously won the Ceribian Tour in 1578.

Before the stage 19th, the decisive 52 km-long individual time-trial, Isaksson was fifth, three minutes and thirty seconds behind Sainamese Asai Satoshi (Nitenryu Cycling). Although there were not doubts that Isaksson was likely to finish in the top three podium -as no one of the four top riders of the general classification was a time-trial specialist-, it seemed complicated that Isaksson could recover such disadvantage over Satoshi who, after all, defended quite well in the last ITT of the 1582 Ceribian Tour, which helped him to win the Ceribian Tour comfortably.

However, Satoshi had an awful day, losing more than five minutes to the stage winner, Nerysian Manuel Gvidas (Lentar-Swift), and more than four minutes to Elton Isaksson. He was even overcome in the general classification by Mordvanian Joze Prezeren (Mordvelo), who after completing a great last week, ended second, only twenty-eight seconds behind Isaksson. Prezeren, who started the Tour as a domestique to Slavoj Savincek who -despite winning the first mountain stage had a disappointing performance in the last decisive week, also won the Youth classification.

Satoshi, however, was able to keep his head cold enough to keep the third position in the podium by a mere second over Vallish climber Henri Honnecourt (Groupe NDEC-Télecom). Although Honnecourt did a reasonably well ITT, recovering nearby two minutes to Satoshi, that was not enough. His third position in 1577 remains the last time a Vallish rider ended in the Tour de Valland podium.

The Mountain classification was won by Vance Jones (Motobank Team) becoming the first Florinthian climber to achieve it. The Points classification was won by a Florinthian as well, sprinter Richard Malone (Dido-Dreher), who won it for third time and second time in a row. Malone was again, for third time, the rider who won more individual stages, winning three times in the sprint. The only other rider to win a stage twice in this tour was World Champion Oslanburgan Sven-Ole Wieth (Scholden-Gulcron) who was able to defeat Malone in the last and prestigious stage in Lauren.

It was a disappointing Tour for 1581 Tour de Valland winner Stavros Michelakakis (MTS Team), however, who could be only 8th in the final general classification. Michelakakis aimed this season to become the second rider to win four times the Tour de Valland, but considering his age, 34, many are skeptical that he would be able to win the Tour de Valland again.

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The Secret History of ZMG-Nissen
By Beata Schmidt
Published: Tolven, 1582


Lasse Mogensen


Nyköping - It has been nine years since the catastrophic Tour de Valland of 1573, during which the Vallish police raided the hotels of the Nentsian Belahroprom Cycling formation. Christian Lykke, the Lanlanian climber of the team, admitted doping under police interrogation. The Lanlanian soigneur of the team, Peter Eklund, was arrested as well and the police confiscated a large amount of forbidden EPO in his posession. The team was banned, the team director, Jules Menard was banned for life and prosecuted for his role in what was considered an ''organized doping program''. All riders eventually confessed to having participated in it, and were given 2-year suspensions. The police forever kept searching for the stored blood-bags that should have existed, and should have led to the doctor who ran the program, but it was never found - leaving the case open-ended. Beata Schmidt, a sports journalist, reveals in this long-read how little has changed since then.

A New Start
When the dirty details came to light in 1573, cycling teams and the SCA became serious about fighting doping within the sport. Old teams were disbanded, doping controls were reinforced, and cycling teams adopted measures to combat the prevalent doping culture. One of the newest teams, ZMG-Nissen, became one of those teams championing a ''clean sport''. The Nylander cycling veteran Marcus Lauritsen headed the new Nylander formation, and was fully committed to the ''new start'' of cycling. The ZMG-Nissen team forced its staff and riders, through their contracts, to be open and transparent about their ''history'', report all connections with trainers and doctors outside the team, and they monitored the blood values of their own riders to detect any unnatural occurrences.

But it went wrong from the beginning. Marcus Lauritsen, the team director who - to this day - remains one of the most vocal anti-doping crusaders in the world of cycling, broke his own rules. He himself claimed to have no history of doping, and to never having used banned substances. But he did have to admit that in the past he worked with a Nylander sports physician based in Lillehem: Dr. Arne Nordskov. Dr. Arne Nordskov's name almost always shows up where Nylander doping cases have taken place, and he is best known for the 1570 Lillehem doping scandals. In 1570 the Lillehem police raided Dr. Nordskov's clinic, confiscating 76 blood-bags in a doping-related investigation. Nordskov turned out to have supplied football club IFK Lillehem, but also Nylander cycling teams, with banned substances and doping treatments for years. One of his clients was Marcus Lauritsen when he was still an active cyclist. Former teammates of Lauritsen have, anonymously, confirmed that, like them, Lauritsen visited Nordskov for more than just injury treatments.

''Nordskov stored the blood-bags for all of us. Lauritsen too. We openly spoke about it.'' one former teammate says. He provided me with the codenames that Nordskov used to mark Lauritsen's blood-bags, and they seem to match with confiscated financial records of Nordskov from the police, that indicate that Lauritsen paid Nordskov regularly.

When Lauritsen assumed leadership over the new ZMG-Nissen team, and lied about his own doping practices in the past, he even went a step further. In 1573, Jesper Ostergaard - the big man in Lauritsen's team, suddenly missed a doping control and received a secret warning for this from the SCA. He also incorrectly reported his locations several times in the whereabouts system, that lets doping control officials know where cyclists are at any moment on every day, so they can visit them for an out-of-competition test. Again Ostergaard received a warning. When I began my research, it was in this case that I started to dig. What I quickly discovered, that Jesper Ostergaard had also been making regular payments to Dr. Nordskov until 1570. And the police had confiscated four blood-bags with the initials ''J.O.".

In 1570 the ZMG-Nissen team did not exist yet, but two of its key figures were both connected to Nordskov. But after some digging, it wasn't hard to find out that even after 1570, there were contacts between Nordskov and Ostergaard. Instead of receiving cyclists in his clinic in Lillehem, Nordskov followed the cycling circus with a camper van, like an ordinary tourist. Inside the van, not far from the hotels where the cycling teams were staying, Dr. Nordskov administered blood-doping to his clients.

Winning the Ceribian Tour

The Ceribian Tour of 1573, coming right after the disastrous Tour de Valland, launched a young but talented Nylander climber, Lasse Mogensen, to fame. Mogensen too was a rider of the ZMG-Nissen Team, and with the help of Ostergaard and Eduardo Rendon, he miraculously won that year's edition of the Ceribian Tour, at age 26. From conversations with Jesper Ostergaard, now long retired, I know that he had introduced Lasse Mogensen to Dr. Nordskov as well.

Nordskov never received direct payments from Mogensen, but someone else did. Dr. Ljungstrand received regular payments from Lasse Mogensen, and Ljungstrand made payments to Nordskov occasionally. What is interesting about Ljungstrand is that he is connected to many of Nordskov's post-1570 clients. Ljungstrand derived his expertise from the Nyland Anti-Doping Agency, where he briefly worked as a researcher. The link with Dr. Nordskov first came to light during that 1573 Ceribian Tour, when Nordskov's camper van was repeatedly spotted at walking distance from the ZMG-Nissen team hotels. Ostergaard or Mogensen could've easily slipped out of their hotel in between the stages, lie down in Nordskov's camper van for half an hour, and then return to their hotel rooms with boosted blood levels that could push their performances for another week. But even before the Ceribian Tour, journalists discovered that people had seen both Mogensen and another Nylander cyclist, Robbie Bristow, train in Valland with Dr. Nordskov. Bristow was later tested positive for doping and suspended.

But if Lasse Mogensen, like Ostergaard and Robbie Bristow, was doping, and won the Ceribian Tour of 1573 that way, why did he get undetected while Bristow did not? As a grand tour winner, he was subjected to far more doping controls than Bristow, but he got through all of them. Mogensen was spotless, as far as doping authorities were concerned. A few years ago I first openly confronted Lasse Mogensen with his connections to Dr. Nordskov at a press conference. Mogensen denied, and Marcus Lauritsen put me on a blacklist of journalists to be avoided.

I therefore visited Dr. Ljungstrand at the Lillehem Medical University, to ask whether he could explain me how it was done in 1573. Confronted with the evidence I already had by then, Ljungstrand agreed to talk to me. In the backseat of his car, he explained the whole story to me:

''The first problem with detecting EPO is that EPO occurs naturally in the human body. The trick is to separate the athlete's own EPO proteins, from those that were injected into his body. For that we have the so-called Special Detection Method for Bioidentical Substances. In case of EPO, we have been using so-called Isoelectric Focusing. A group of scientists discovered several decades ago that natural occurring, or Endogenous EPO, slightly differs from external or Recombinant Human EPO (RhuEPO).''

''When the human body produces its own EPO proteins, sugar chains attach themselves to it inside the cell. Due to the way that RhuEPO is produced, the drug, the sugar chains are different. And in a test, we are looking for that difference. Isoelectric focusing helps us to separate the EPO proteins with the varying sugar chains. We take the urine sample, and we concentrate it, and then we put it in an acid gel. On one side of the gel we have a negative charge, and on the other side, a positive charge. The EPO protein is negatively charged as well. The protein will start moving through the gel towards the positive pole. The more the EPO protein moves to the positive pole, the more acid the gel becomes. The acidity produces positively charged protons that will bind to the negatively charged EPO to neutralise it. Once the EPO protein has been entirely neutralized, it stops moving. Then we, the scientists, can measure exactly how negatively charged the EPO was. Due to the different sugars attached to RhuEPO - the drug - it is, on average, less negatively charged than Endogenous EPO. So with the Isoelectric focus, we can exactly see how negatively charged an athletes EPO is, which we call their IEF-profile.''

Ljungstrand explained that, because the doping controls were focussed on EPO proteines, they decided to inject Mogensen with a new substance called Hematide. Hematide is a so-called EPO-mimetic Peptide. It mimics EPO, but its basic structure is fundamentally different. By mimicking EPO, it promotes red blood cell production in the human body, just like EPO does. But because its structure is so different, it falls outside the scope of the test method for EPO. Nowadays they can detect it, if they really look for it. But back then, they could safely inject Mogensen with it and nothing suspicious showed up in the test samples of Lasse Mogensen.

''We didn't even have to microdose on him like other riders had to do in order to avoid detection. We could literally pump him full of Hematide, and no one would notice a thing. All we had to make sure was to keep his blood values beneath that 50% HCT threshold, in order to avoid an automatic suspension by the SCA. But that was easily done by diluting his blood with water solutions and plasma expanders. And we instructed him to drink a lot. Mogensen was simply the strongest rider that year, because he had a weapon that enabled him to dope without limits. He won because he had much, much, much more red blood cells than any other rider in the Ceribian Tour.'' said Ljungstrand.

In recent years Mogensen has not visited Dr. Nordskov anymore it seems, but one of his new trainers, Folke Steffenson, is again connected to Dr. Nordskov. Although hard evidence is lacking, Steffenson has probably been buying a mysterious new pill on the black market for cancer patients, FG-4592, which is a blood-booster similar to EPO, and also undetectable. It could be that Mogensen is one of its users at the moment in cycling, making him one of the most sophisticated dopers in the entire sport and which has helped him to evade detection for more than a decade.

Jeremy Cowden & Elton Isaksson
Elton Isaksson, another ZMG-Nissen grand tour winner, won the Ceribian Tour for the first time in 1578. In 1582 Isaksson won the Tour de Valland. But in 1880, ZMG-Nissen for the first time in its history had a rider caught for doping. Jeremy Cowden tested positive for Clenbuterol, an asthma medicine with steroid effects.

Cowden was signed for that season by the ZMG-Nissen team to provide extra support for Elton Isaksson, who surpassed Mogensen in the team hierarchy. As common in cycling, Cowden and Isaksson shared hotel rooms as they formed a partnership on the road. Cowden's sudden positive test for Clenbuterol could've been avoided if the ZMG-Nissen team had actually seriously tested its own riders as they claim to do, but they failed to notice one of their riders was about to get busted. When Cowden was tested positive, his team hoped for the B-sample to return a negative, so that a formal conviction could not take place. Clenbuterol is one of the most tricky substances to detect in a doping sample, disappearing quickly, and because it frequently occurs in our daily food, a small amount would not prove doping. When Cowden was suspended however, ZMG-Nissen quickly cut all ties with Cowden and distanced itself from him.

Isaksson however, is currently one of the most talented cyclists of today, but he now too has the stench of doping surrounding him. Former teammates like Jesper Ostergaard and Jeremy Cowden, team director Marcus Lauritsen, and his current teammate Lasse Mogensen, have all been named or involved in doping cases, they have lied about it, and they continue to pose as the moral crusaders in modern cycling. Whether Isaksson is an innocent victim of the dark history of cycling, or whether he is, like other ZMG-Nissen figures to his elbows into doping, only time will tell. ZMG-Nissen's history does not promise much good however, despite their own claims.

[Hadash]

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Elton Isaksson wins his second Ceribian Tour
By Richard W. Wallace
Published: Nueva 26, 1582


Isaksson became the first Nylander rider to win three Grand Tours.


Etova, Ceribia - Nyland Elton Isaksson won his second Ceribian Tour and becomes the sixth reader to win both Tour de Valland and Ceribian Tour in the same season. The last stage, which ended in the capital city Etova after four years, was won by Saratovian Bohdan Staryk, winning his third stage this Ceribian Tour.

Isaksson, who had an apparently comfortably lead of nearby three minutes after stage 16, a 22-km individual time trial, suffered in the last two high mountain stages in Western Ceribia, and ended keeping the general classification jersey by merely 11 seconds over Stavros Michelakakis (MTS Team), in an agonic final km. 1581 Ceribian Tour winner, Sainamese Asai Satoshi (Nitenryu Cycling) climbed comfortably to the third place in the same stage, his third podium in a Grand Tour in a row.

It was a complicated Tour for Isaksson, as his team ZMG-Nissen is facing serious accusations of doping following his victory in the Tour de Valland early this year. Isaksson, 32, has claimed that such accusations are baseless. The Nylander all-rounder, who also won the Mountain classification, has not confirmed if he will participate in the Ceribian Tour the next season. No rider has ever won both Grand Tours twice.

Florinthian sprinter Richard Malone (Dido-Dreher) won the Points classification easily and for third time in a row, after winning six individual stages, a record which was only achieved once before this season. He has also become the third rider with most individual stage wins, 22, in the history of the Ceribian Tour.

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Taguchi Yuyika wins 1583 Sainamese Open
By Linda Westland
Published: Alvan 24, 1583


Taguchi Yuyika


Isume, Sainam - Sainamese Taguchi Yuyika won her second Sainamese Open, after defeating Kyrzbekistani Tansilu Zophakuz in two sets.

Yuyia, who already won the Sainamese Open in 1578. Last season, she reached the final but she was defeated by Regiina Muisznieks. The Videjszeme champion was defeated in quarterfinals by Gehennan Margarete Klammer, whom Yuyika defeated in the next round.

Sainamese Sakamoto Keitaro was not able to repeat Yuyika's success, and he was defeated by Gehennan Hermann Manninger in five sets. Manninger, 22, was not expected a main contender, but already gave the surprise in the Round of 16, after defeating 1582 runner-up Mordvanian Goran Musek in four sets.

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Felice Lamb wins 1583 Hylis Open
By Linda Westland
Published: Fein, 1583


Felice Lamb won her first Grand Slam


Rasswitt, Hylis Federation - Felice Lamb won her first Grand Slam, winning the Hylis Open after defeating East Kaljuran Eliisabet Mägi in two sets (6-3 and 6-4). While Mägi offered resistance, she proved unable to break Lamb's service. The 29-year old Florinthian, who had not played a Grand Slam final before, became the first Florinthian to win the Hylis Open in thirteen years.

Another East Kaljuran, Peeter Jänes reached the final, but as his countrywoman Mägi, he was defeated, in his case by Hylian Nehemiah Aicken, to the joy of the local fans.

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Elton Isaksson wins his second Tour de Valland
By Richard W. Wallace
Published: Zechyr 24, 1583


Elton Isaksson during stage 18th.


Lauren, Valland - Nylander Elton Isaksson (ZMG-Nissen) won the 1583 Tour de Valland again, ratifying his excellent 1582 season with a clear victory in Valland. He found in Strathaen climber Kelly R. McCullain his main rival, but he was able to clinch his victory on the 18th and 19th stages, the last high mountain stage and the 44-km final time trial stage, in which Isaksson had the tenth best time. Isaksson also won the Mountain classification for first time.

No rider had won the Tour de Valland in two consecutive seasons since 1570, when Alstarian Han Weltsch won his thrid Tour de Valland (a feat that Isaksson surely will try to repeat in 1584). This Tour is also his fourth Grand Tour win, as he also won the Ceribian Tour in 1578 and 1582. This autumn, Isaksson will probably try something that no other rider has achieved before, winning his fifth grand tour in Ceribia and becoming the first rider to win both Tour de Valland and Ceribian Tour in two seasons in a row.

Sainamese Asai Satoshi (Nitenryu Cycling) ended second, five minutes and thirty-five seconds behind Isaksson. Satoshi, however, failed to be a real threat for Isaksson, either for lack of ambition or lack of stregnth. Kelly R. McCullain (United Strathae) was third, seven minutes behind Isaksson. Cullain, although collapsed in the last high mountain stages, losing more than four minutes to Isaksson, was able to save the third place by merely thirty-nine seconds over 1582 runner-up, Mordvanian Joze Prezeren (Mordvelo).

Prezeren teammate Rajko Kryzanek (Mordvelo) was fifth, winning the Youth classification as well, the third victory in this classification for the Mordvanian team, as Prezeren had won it previously in 1580 and 1582.

Richard Malone (Dido-Dreher) proved to be the faster sprinter of the peloton, at least in Grand Tour. He won five stages and won the Point classification for fourth time, his third time in a row. Only other two riders were able to win two stages this year, Lomarren Francesco Gassendi (NDM Cycling) and Ceribian Aka Gamkrelidze (Bagdati-Team).  

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Yousef Madani wins 1583 Florinthian Open
By Linda Westland
Published: Ochtyr 4, 1583


Yosuef Madani


Lordsport, Florinthian Federation - A'Sirian Yosuef Madani won the Florinthian Open, becoming the second A'Sirian player to win a Grand Slam tournament.

25-year old Madani defeated Nylander Kristian Simonsson in the men's singles final, who failed to offer much resistance to the Near East player. It was the second Grand Slam final for the veteran Nylander player, but his experience was not enough to defeat the A'Sirian player, who won unopposed in the last two sets (6-4, 6-2, 6-1).

Meanwhile, in the Women's Singles, Gehennan Bertha Habsburg defeated Keszarian Enikö Törös in two seats (6-2 and 6-3) winning her first Grand Slam.

[Hadash]

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Stavros Michelakakis wins 1583 Ceribian Tour
By Richard W. Wallace
Published: Nueva 25, 1583


Stavros Michelakakis during stage 19th.


Etora, Ceribia - Stavros Michelakakis (MTS Team) won the 1583 Ceribian Tour, his fourth grand tour, becoming the 20th rider since 1528 to win both cycling grand tours.

Michelakakis won the general classification by merely eighteen seconds over Vallish Dominique Ruyssen (Groupe NDEC-Télecom). However, the last high mountain stage was relatively controlled by the Mestran climber, as he simply kept resisting the attacks of climbers like Sainamese Asai Satoshi and Mordvanian Slavoj Savincek, while he could increase his lead over Ruyssen in ten seconds in the last km. Michelakakis, who had ended close to only eleven seconds to win the Ceribian Tour last season, may find with his victory this month an extra motivation for trying to win his 4th Tour de Valland in 1584, despite his age, as he will be 36 years when the Vallish grand tour starts.

Dominique Ruyssen, who best place in a grand tour so far was his 20th place in the 1578 Ceribian Tour, surprised with consistent performance in high mountain. While Ruyssen was expected to serve as domestique for Henri Honnecourt, the Vallish climber soon lost all his options in the first week, leaving Ruyssen with freedom for the rest of the Tour. Honnecourt, however, was able to win the last high mountain stage, following a 63-km breakaway. Mordvanian climber Slavoj Savincek (Mordvelo) was third, becoming the first Mordvanian to achieve the podium in the Ceribian Tour.

The great surprise of this Ceribian Tour was certainly the young Vallish climber Benoît Montfleury (NDM Cycling) who was fourth, winning the Youth classification, in his first grand tour. Sainamese Asai Satoshi (Nitenryu Cycling) was unable to reach the position for a fourth year in a row, ending 6th, but he could consolate with a high mountain stage and the Mountain classification, becoming the first Sainamese rider to achieve the latter.

Although it was a calm stage and without relevance for the general classification, the final stage was expected to be decided in a decisive mass sprint, as Yves Mirabeau (NDM Cycling) only was one point ahead of Richard Malone (Dido-Dreher) in the Points classification. The Florinthian sprinter won the last stage easily, however, the third this year, and became the first rider to win the Points classification of the Ceribian Tour four times. With 25 stages, he also became the rider with more stage wins in the history of the Ceribian Tour.

It was a highly disappointing year for Ceribian fans, who could only celebrate Aka Gamkrelidze's win on stage 4th. Besides Malone, only two riders, Batavian sprinter Immanuel Botha and Kyrzbekistani Kazbek Noorhamatur -another of the surprises of the Ceribian Tour after winning two high mountain stages- were able to win two stages this Ceribian Tour.

[Hadash]

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Gena Alden wins 1583 Nylander Open
By Linda Westland
Published: Elva, 1583


Gena Alden won her first Grand Slam.


New Fenridge, Nyland - Gena Alden won her first Grand Slam, after defeating Jandrean Katherine Snowdon 6-3 and 6-4.

The 21-year Nylander tennis player had not played a Grand Slam final before, but showed a cold temperament, avoiding many unnecessary mistakes, while supported by thousands of local fans. After a superb 1583 season culminated with her victory in New Fenridge, Alden ends in the third position of the IAT Ranking.

In Men's Singles, the title went for Alfons Alfons Skrastinjsz from Videjszeme, who was able to defeat Jandrean Steven Claydon in five sets. While the Jandrean won the support of the Nylander fans with high competitive style, it was Skrastinjsz powerful services what decided the title in the last games.

[Hadash]

Hermann Manninger wins 1584 Sainam Open
By Linda Westland
Published: Alvan 1584


Hermann Manninger


Isume, Sainam - Hermann Manninger, number one of the IAT Men's Tennis Ranking, won the 1584 Sainamese Open.

The 23-year old Gehennan tennis champion, who had won the Sainamese Open the last season as well, defeated Viktor Roziitis in three sets (6-4, 6-3, 6-4). Although Roziitis kept fighting every ball, there was no surprise and Manninger won his second Grand Slam.

Manninger will even increase his lead in the IAT Ranking, as his main rivals Nehemiah Aicken and Yousef Madani had a rather disappointing result in the Ostaran Grand Slam, losing an important amount of points. Manninger will hope to increase further such lead, as he was not able in 1583 to reach the quarterfinals in the Hylis Open. Considering the superiority he showed in this tournament, only losing two sets in all these two weeks, Manninger will be one of the main contenders for the title in the Kvaennan Grand Slam.

On Women's Singles, Jandrean Katherine Snowdon defeated Oslanburgan Mia Bentsend in the final, winning her first Grand Slam. After this title, Snowdon reaches the top position in the IAT Women's Tennis Ranking for first time, replacing Gehennan Bertha Habsburg who fell to the third position, after being defeated by the Oslanburgan runner-up in the Round of 16. Nylander Gena Alden, who was also defeated by Bentsend in the semifinals, has reached the number two in the IAT Tennis Ranking for first time as well.

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