Doping Thread

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Orange Agent said:
The problem as always is testing cannot determine what method an athlete has used to get an abnormal test result. Just like clebuterol use there is an argument to get away with it until they start getting serious about why so many pro cyclists are apparently suffering from asthma yet can perform to the level they do.
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There's been a number of past champion Australian swimmers that said they took up swimming because of asthma.
 
https://cyclingtips.com/2017/12/certainly-doesnt-look-good

Same effect as clebuterol when taken at Froomes dosage. And the key point is it can still be inhaled at that dosage when used with a nebuliser, which Sky have admitted to using in the past with Wiggins. They should never have removed TUE's for this stuff and UCI needs to hire their own doctors to give them out, rather than team doctors.
 

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Orange Agent said:
Same effect as clebuterol (sic) when taken at Froomes dosage.
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Neither you nor anyone else here knows what Froome's dosage was. All we know is the residual amount in his urine, which isn't the same thing.

Re Clenbuterol, the anabolic effects of salbutamol only occur when it's taken orally, and even then, in high doses. And if you did want that effect, you don't take a one-off hit on a mountain stage in a tour when you know for certain you'll be tested, you take it over a longer period weeks or months out as part of your build-up during training (though even there, the chances of not being busted are close to zero).

As your article says: "Using the level of salbutamol that seems to have been used here was either a very severe attack after the stage before the doping control, or just using unhealthy doses to try to push things to the limit."

Some good articles re this on that CyclingTips site, the Secret Pro one is worth a read as well.
 
bing181 said:
Neither you nor anyone else here knows what Froome's dosage was. All we know is the residual amount in his urine, which isn't the same thing.

Re Clenbuterol, the anabolic effects of salbutamol only occur when it's taken orally, and even then, in high doses. And if you did want that effect, you don't take a one-off hit on a mountain stage in a tour when you know for certain you'll be tested, you take it over a longer period weeks or months out as part of your build-up during training (though even there, the chances of not being busted are close to zero).

As your article says: "Using the level of salbutamol that seems to have been used here was either a very severe attack after the stage before the doping control, or just using unhealthy doses to try to push things to the limit."

Some good articles re this on that CyclingTips site, the Secret Pro one is worth a read as well.
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Or he blood doped.

On the evidence available to date do you think he should be banned or not?
 
I like Ross Tucker from The Sport Scientist take on Froome. He wrote a "brief thoughts" article when it broke and concluded with

http://sportsscientists.com/2017/12/brief-thoughts-froomes-salbutamol-result/
You’ll also have to overlook that the most detailed and professional team in the sport, with the best of everything, could mess up in one of the biggest races in the fifth year of their best (and the sport’s best) ever cyclist? Not a new doctor with a new patient, learning the limits, but a very crucial doctor-athlete relationship about a very crucial “risk” to their shared goal. Bizarre.

Finally, the whole thing is bizarre. If you take that dose of salbutamol in any form other than inhaled, it’s going to trip the threshold. You know you’re going to be tested. Unless you think that you can take a pill for some small benefit and still stay beneath the allowed limit? Or you’ve done something else, you’re masking something else.

It’s hard to know what to make of it, other than to say it’s more of the same grey area, murky stuff, except this time it outright crosses the threshold. No more “up to the line, but not beyond”.

Sky are so far beyond any ethical line that we may as well not waste time even weighing up legal vs ethical. Ethical is clear-cut. Legal, now, maybe heading that way too. In the wrong direction.

Final thoughts
And finally, brief thoughts:

Chris Froome and disease sure are good for one another. The story is that his asthma flared up at the Vuelta, hence the change in dosage. There was also the chest infection for which he took prednisone a few years back – most people don’t dominate the most challenging endurance events in the world when they are in optimal health, but Froome does it when at his worst. Wiggins, recall, was so stricken that he needed emergency meds flown in via Jiffy Bag, and he went on to win the Tour de France?

Being ill is a tremendous benefit for an elite Grand Tour cyclist. Quintana and Nibali should try it. Either that, or pharmaceutical companies are getting great testimonials for how well they work.

The apparent downturn in Froome’s condition also happened at a very important time in this year’s Vuelta:

http://sportsscientists.com/2017/12/brief-thoughts-froomes-salbutamol-result/
 
Orange Agent said:
Or he blood doped. On the evidence available to date do you think he should be banned or not?
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We have access to very little of the available information/evidence, but hard to see how he won't be banned. It's technically possible for him to have got to these levels while staying within permitted dosage, but a) unlikely and b) very difficult to duplicate in lab conditions, i.e, prove.

Which is one reason I think his second big mistake here is not having taken a provisional suspension after Tour of Spain.

Blood doping makes no sense in this context, and as the article you posted pointed out: "That would be within the grounds of science fiction, rather than a real scenario."
 
bing181 said:
They aren't "suffering from asthma". They have an asthma-like reaction to strenuous exercise (wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, coughing ) due to narrowing of the airways in the lungs. When the exercise stops, they no longer have the symptoms, and when they retire, they won't be asthmatic. Technically, it's not even asthma but exercise-induced bronchoconstriction or exercise-induced bronchospasm (EIB).

It's common amongst (elite) athletes in endurance sports (cycling, long-distance running), and in particular amongst sports played in the cold, most notably cross-country skiing where it's fairly rife (figures running up to 50%).
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What you say is correct - Though it does raise questions about how the medical profession define EIA - My understanding is that a 10% narrowing of the airways into the lungs is medically accepted as EIA - Would it be better if this figure was raised to 20 or 25% to meet the criteria for EIA - Could it mean that if you suffer from EAI then elite sport is not for you ? After all many people are unable to compete in elite sport for a variety of reasons such as genetic factors etc, etc etc.
 
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bing181 said:
We have access to very little of the available information/evidence, but hard to see how he won't be banned. It's technically possible for him to have got to these levels while staying within permitted dosage, but a) unlikely and b) very difficult to duplicate in lab conditions, i.e, prove.

Which is one reason I think his second big mistake here is not having taken a provisional suspension after Tour of Spain.

Blood doping makes no sense in this context, and as the article you posted pointed out: "That would be within the grounds of science fiction, rather than a real scenario."
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Actually Sky should have provisionally banned Froome themselves - They did the same to Sergio Henao when he was being investigated by the UCI for blood passport irregularities.

My take is this has been leaked by the UCI because they failed to come to an agreement with Froome regarding punishment - My guess is the UCI ( based on the available evidence) may have looked at something like disqualifying Froome's results from the Vuelta along with a short ban, while Froome wants to fight tooth and nail .
 
All TUEs should be banned (at the top professional level). If you can't compete without them - the Paralympics are that way.

However, does that mean some sportspeople should not be allowed to compete professionally at the top level if they use vision enhancers (spectacles, contact lenses etc) - well, yes, it probably does. Glasses probably don't matter at the TDF (and so aren't banned), but they sure do in sports like golf. Check out the discussions about pro golfers getting laser correction surgery - at what point does 'correction' become 'enhancement'?
 

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blackcat said:
They know it occurs, Sean Kelly, Greg Lemond, Tom Boonen, and Patrick Lefevre have either e explicitly or obliquely pointed it out.
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Add Matt White to that list - Still it has to be proven and the way a cyclists thinks is medical doping may or may not work, while mechanical doping is a certainty.
 
yaco55 said:
Add Matt White to that list - Still it has to be proven and the way a cyclists thinks is medical doping may or may not work, while mechanical doping is a certainty.
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I wouldn't have though mech doping would be that difficult to prove? Increased cadence revs etc.


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chargers 09 said:
I wouldn't have though mech doping would be that difficult to prove? Increased cadence revs etc.


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The UCI will be testing a new device in 2018 to test for motors so we'll see how successful it is - Can say that the small time 'busts' have all been achieved through tip offs.
 
yaco55 said:
The UCI will be testing a new device in 2018 to test for motors so we'll see how successful it is - Can say that the small time 'busts' have all been achieved through tip offs.
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Can't be any worse than the stupid tablet system they've been using for the last few years. That system seems designed specifically not to find anything, and frequently gives false positives when there's nothing there to find. With such a high rate of both false positives and false negatives, there really isn't any other explanation other than the UCI deliberately wanting to find nothing.
 
Vader said:
Can't be any worse than the stupid tablet system they've been using for the last few years. That system seems designed specifically not to find anything, and frequently gives false positives when there's nothing there to find. With such a high rate of both false positives and false negatives, there really isn't any other explanation other than the UCI deliberately wanting to find nothing.
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The question is whether there is YET a suitable device to detect motors - It's like drug testing when it can take years to find a suitable test.
 
yaco55 said:
The question is whether there is YET a suitable device to detect motors - It's like drug testing when it can take years to find a suitable test.
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The thermal imaging cameras are definitely an improvement on the tablet system the UCI have been using. It's not perfect, and it probably doesn't detect all forms of motors, but it's a lot better than a system specifically designed to have a 10% false positive rate, and a 100% false negative rate.
 
Do people who say stuff about there being no way elite athletes could have asthma and still perform at a high level understand that most of the time asthma sits in the background and doesn't affect your breathing at all? Often it just doesn't affect your day to day life, but if you are ill, or pollens irritate your airways or some sort of trigger occurs, it significantly impacts your ability to excercise etc. It is true though that if you're needing massive amounts of ventolin, it's likely to be affecting your performance anyway. I'd be interested to see if Froome got caught after a rubbish stage (where I could see taking a lot of Ventolin in order to try to help difficulty breathing which was making him fall behind as a reasonable explanation), or if it was business as usual in terms of his performance but he had this massive reading.
 
yaco55 said:
What you say is correct - Though it does raise questions about how the medical profession define EIA - My understanding is that a 10% narrowing of the airways into the lungs is medically accepted as EIA - Would it be better if this figure was raised to 20 or 25% to meet the criteria for EIA - Could it mean that if you suffer from EAI then elite sport is not for you ? After all many people are unable to compete in elite sport for a variety of reasons such as genetic factors etc, etc etc.
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Why ban it though? But ventolin doesn't improve performance unless you have asthma as those studies have showed. THe system as it currently stands which leaves you with with no other way of taking salbutamol other than inhaler seems to be working fine? Anyone who takes it in a form which will enhance performance will most likely be above the threshold and be banned.
 
Mateyman said:
Do people who say stuff about there being no way elite athletes could have asthma and still perform at a high level understand that most of the time asthma sits in the background and doesn't affect your breathing at all? Often it just doesn't affect your day to day life, but if you are ill, or pollens irritate your airways or some sort of trigger occurs, it significantly impacts your ability to excercise etc. It is true though that if you're needing massive amounts of ventolin, it's likely to be affecting your performance anyway. I'd be interested to see if Froome got caught after a rubbish stage (where I could see taking a lot of Ventolin in order to try to help difficulty breathing which was making him fall behind as a reasonable explanation), or if it was business as usual in terms of his performance but he had this massive reading.
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it was after a rubbish stage - Hence the cynicism
 
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