List of Doping Cases in Cycling - 1960s - 1960

1960

• Knud Enemark Jensen of Denmark participated in the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome riding under the influence of amphetamines; he collapsed during the 100 km team time trial during the Games, fracturing his skull, and in a nearby Rome hospital shortly thereafter, he was pronounced dead. The autopsy showed he had taken amphetamine and another drug, Ronicol (Ronicol Retard) (nicotinyl alcohol tartrate), a direct-acting peripheral vasodilator that causes flushing and may decrease blood pressure. (He was also reported as swallowing 8 pills of phenylisopropylamine, 15 pills of amphetamine and coffee.) The chairman of the Dutch cycling federation, Piet van Dijk, said of Rome that "dope - whole cartloads - used in such royal quantities." Jensen's death led to pressure on the International Olympic Committee, which studied a report on doping drawn up by doctors demanding dope controls.

• Gastone Nencini of Italy, was discovered by Tour de France doctor Pierre Dumas in his bedroom with plastic tubes running from each arm to a bottle of blood; retransfusion was a legal practice at the time. In the 1930s Scandinavian runners were believed to have used retransfusion to increase the number of corpuscles that carry oxygen to the muscles. In 1972, Dr Björn Ekblom of the Sport and Gymnastics Institute in Stockholm found that retransfusing cells increased oxygen uptake by nine per cent and athletic potential by 23 per cent.

• Roger Rivière of France, admitted that his career ending crash in the 1960 Tour de France was probably attributable to using Palfium (Dextromoramide), a painkiller that affects reflexes and judgment, during the descent of the Col de Perjuret on Mont Aigoual. Palfium was used to deaden pain in leg muscles where it was directly injected, (sometimes while riding). It was suggested that it had so numbed Riviere's fingers so that he couldn't feel the brake levers. He said he had an injection of solucamphor and amphetamine before the start and swallowed several amphetamine tablets. He said he was an addict who downed thousands of pills a year.