The Descent by Thomas Dekker

Author:Thomas Dekker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

chapter twenty

THERE’S A POOL of blood on the bathroom floor – and I am sitting in it. I stick the thick needle in my arm. Again and again and again. It won’t stay put. It won’t fucking stay put. I thought I’d be able to do it myself, empty a bag of blood into my veins, but it’s trickier than I thought. The needle is thicker than I’m used to and I can’t get the fucking thing into a vein. My arm is turning into a pincushion. It’s four in the morning and I’m so tired I can hardly see straight. I curse myself. I curse that tosser Matschiner and the clueless sidekick he sent to deliver the blood bag to my apartment in Lucca. Why couldn’t he have sent someone who actually knows how to hook up a drip?

I’m over the edge. Every line has been crossed. I’m using blood bags, injecting Dynepo, asking the team for cortisone shots. If this is poker, I’m all in. The team no longer has a hold on me. At the first training camp in Spain I meet the Rabobank team’s new director Harold Knebel. For a banker he’s a nice guy, but he knows bugger all about cycling. He has no idea what’s going on in the team, past or present. I keep my mouth shut with Knebel but I do confide in Jean-Paul van Mantgem about my latest blood doping connection. He seems happy; by using blood bags I run the least risk of getting caught. ‘But,’ he adds immediately ‘we have to make sure your haematocrit is no higher than 45 per cent, 46 tops. Otherwise your blood profile will attract attention.’ I nod but his words go in one ear and out the other.

At the start of 2008, I’m still having hip trouble and I start to fall behind with my training. The cavalry comes in the shape of Brabant-based masseur Cor van Wanroy. Under his expert care my hip improves. Ahead of the Vuelta a Castilla y León I use a few shots of Dynepo – signed, sealed and delivered to me by DHL courtesy of Michael Boogerd’s Slovenian connection. Michael pays the Slovenian and I pay Michael. On Dynepo and with my hip sorted, I sail through my races and end up third overall in Castilla y León, finishing top three in just about every stage.

For the Tour of the Basque Country I want to chuck a blood bag into the mix. Matschiner was supposed to deliver it in person, but something must have come up. Instead a pal of his brings it to my door in Lucca in the middle of the night. He doesn’t have the know-how to take care of the transfusion and besides, he’s in a hurry: he has to rush on to Rome with a car full of dope for a bunch of Italian athletes.

So here I am with my own blood all over the bathroom floor. Somewhere in the back of

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