Vino tested positive for blood doping

bipedal

Salsiccia wrote:

Another failed test just mentioned on L'Equipe - an anonymous rider, this time for exogenous testosterone.

O dear... hope it ain't robbie hunter, i've been enjoying Barloworld's exploits

Salsiccia

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves2007/20070725_125642Dev.html

Anonymous source, as yet unnamed rider - test followed the 11th stage.

ContrelaMontre

Really hope it's not Hunter.

The rest of the top three on Etape 11 were Cancellara and Murilo Fischer. And I suppose it could have been one of the randoms.

I doubt it's Fab as he would've been tested every day for the first week so just find it incongruous that it's him.

bipedal

name to be released at 15.00 CET

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007/to ... jul25news5

John Stevenson

Autologous blood doping hasn't always been against the rules. The Americans freely admitted they did it at the 84 Olympics.

My understanding is that it's still dangerous because the blood you re-infuse is hardly fresh. To gain any benefit you need to have allowed your body to regenerate the red cells you've removed. That takes, if memory serves, about a month. Whole blood can only be refrigerated for 42 days. The window is therefore rather small and the temptation to use blood that's a couple days past its use-by date must be immense.

The 50 percent haematocrit limit was a rare piece of pragmatism in the War on Drugs. By forcing EPO users to get medical supervision it stopped the spate of deaths of apparently healthy young riders that occurred just after EPO became affordable and widely used.

You could say that the existence of an EPO test has forced athletes back to the original methods of blood doping.

Personally (that is, this is not BR editorial stance) I think the war on drugs in sport is as doomed as the war on drugs in society as a whole. If you can't stop people taking drugs for fun, you sure as hell are never going to stop them taking them for money and glory. A whole different approach is needed.

Richard Burchmore

Clearly Vino is a fool and was advised by morons. But now he's out of the tour, and that is exactly what needs to happen consistently if riders and teams are to realise that they will be screened and that there will be dire consequences. So (long term) this is a good thing to have happened - though it is quite incredible that Vino thought he could get away with it!
All race leaders and leading contenders should be tested, and booted out if positive. Unfortunately, there is still the issue of the "arms race" between new drugs or procedures and new tests. Actually, it is possible to detect homologous blood doping (because red cell characterics change with age and transfusing stored blood changes the age distribution in the red cell population). But there is not yet a routine test available.

Just a thought- in order to do homologous blood doping, you must have stored blood and therefore must have planned to cheat. Maybe Vino gave in to the temptation of an ad hoc heterologous blood transfusion on the spur of the moment, hoping that he would not be tested or that testers would not screen for such a crude approach?

calvjones

Richard Burchmore wrote:

Clearly Vino is a fool and was advised by morons. But now he's out of the tour, and that is exactly what needs to happen consistently if riders and teams are to realise that they will be screened and that there will be dire consequences. So (long term) this is a good thing to have happened - though it is quite incredible that Vino thought he could get away with it!
All race leaders and leading contenders should be tested, and booted out if positive. Unfortunately, there is still the issue of the "arms race" between new drugs or procedures and new tests. Actually, it is possible to detect homologous blood doping (because red cell characterics change with age and transfusing stored blood changes the age distribution in the red cell population). But there is not yet a routine test available.

Just a thought- in order to do homologous blood doping, you must have stored blood and therefore must have planned to cheat. Maybe Vino gave in to the temptation of an ad hoc heterologous blood transfusion on the spur of the moment, hoping that he would not be tested or that testers would not screen for such a crude approach?

I think you mean Auto and homo; not home and hetero, unless one of the Alpine cows is staggering somewhat having been robbed of a litre of the red stuff by a Kazakh vampire in teal blue!

Salsiccia

john_stevenson wrote:

Personally (that is, this is not BR editorial stance) I think the war on drugs in sport is as doomed as the war on drugs in society as a whole. If you can't stop people taking drugs for fun, you sure as hell are never going to stop them taking them for money and glory. A whole different approach is needed.

I agree. But, what is the approach to take?

Richard Burchmore

CALVJONES

You are correct.

chewa

All a bit depressing - must admit to being stunned when watching the highlights on ITV4 last night.

Having said that I did have the same nagging doubt about Vino in the TT that I did watching Basso piss off into the distance on that mountain stage in the Giro where he left Simoni for dead and Landis' recovery to win the stage last year.

But lets get this into perspective. The tests are catching cheats and cycling authorities are being very up front about it. Can many other sports say that?

When I think about many athletes who are in the wilderness for ages then suddenly change body shape, increase pb's etc , all of a sudden it does make me wonder.

IMHO the Tour will survive this because it is still the greatest sporting spectacle in the world. Sooner or later we will have a clean champ (maybe Contador this year?)

calvjones

This comment by Marc Biver:

"I was called at 1400 (local time) this afternoon by the president of thejury. He told me that Vino had tested positive for a blood transfusion," added Biver.

"Apparently there is an imbalance in the old and young red blood cells in the blood sample. We have suspended him and sent him home. He is positive, and that is not a good thing."

....is interesting - does it not imply a test for Autologous blood transfusion?

floatman

calvjones wrote:

This comment by Marc Biver:

"I was called at 1400 (local time) this afternoon by the president of thejury. He told me that Vino had tested positive for a blood transfusion," added Biver.

"Apparently there is an imbalance in the old and young red blood cells in the blood sample. We have suspended him and sent him home. He is positive, and that is not a good thing."

....is interesting - does it not imply a test for Autologous blood transfusion?

yes it would seem to indicate a test for autologous - but all news reports clearly stated homologous .... all v confusing

aba2005

Thank you!!! Even if he doped I knew he couldn't be that stupid!!! And doesn't this mean that his injury could be the cause. Doesn't your body produce more new red blood cells when you are healing or is it after losing some blood?

calvjones

aba2005 wrote:

Thank you!!! Even if he doped I knew he couldn't be that stupid!!! And doesn't this mean that his injury could be the cause. Doesn't your body produce more new red blood cells when you are healing or is it after losing some blood?

Unfortunately if this was true cyclists would be testing postitive in their droves after crashes.

SeamusD

I'd already given up watching, but I must just have to take a peek again. Surely all of the big name sponsors are now going to pull out and any chance of the tour returning to London must be slim indeed.
It strikes me that there are still just too many drugs apologists in the sport - saying stuff like it's just not possible to race at this level without stimulants (and therefore by implication that cheating is acceptable) is just bs in my opinion. It is possible and that's why the clean riders don't win. I have every reason to believe that watching genuinely clean riders winning stages will be more exciting and more uplifting than watching doped ones - that's if it even gets televised any more.
David Millar's words really struck home. In saying that the only way young riders can realistically expect success is when they cross the line and are prepared to dope is truly depressing.
IMHO zero tolerance is the only way forward and no one deserves a second chance any more - bans should be for life. And whilst we're about it any directeur sportifs, soigneurs or doctors implicated in this should be locked up. There must be some kind of criminal offence that they are committing.

aba2005

Well I don't know and i'm no medical expert. But wasn't Vino's injuries pretty serious and would have caused most riders to pull out. I mean they ain't gonna test you in hospital! Didn't they say something about the T-mobile rider trying to avoid doping controls by pulling out?

aba2005

Also isn't that how this type of doping works? You deliberately injury yourself by 'losing blood' that your body will rapidly regenerate as part of its healing process (= imbalance in young/old red blood cells). You then add the blood you took out in the first place which = more total red blood cells.

andyp

SeamusD wrote:

IMHO zero tolerance is the only way forward and no one deserves a second chance any more - bans should be for life. And whilst we're about it any directeur sportifs, soigneurs or doctors implicated in this should be locked up. There must be some kind of criminal offence that they are committing.

The trouble with zero tolerance is that it doesn't work. It might work in the short term but over the longer term it fails.

Locking people up for cheating at sport is impractical. No laws have been broken.

Let's face it, cheating is, in varying degrees, part of every day life. You're living in cloud cuckoo land if you think you're going to ever remove doping from sport. What cycling needs to do is make doping the exception rather than the norm. Some steps have been taken towards this goal but more needs to be done. Personally I can't see the UCI ever having either the will or the capability to do anything effective so it's time for someone else to progress this.

Salsiccia

andyp wrote:

SeamusD wrote:

IMHO zero tolerance is the only way forward and no one deserves a second chance any more - bans should be for life. And whilst we're about it any directeur sportifs, soigneurs or doctors implicated in this should be locked up. There must be some kind of criminal offence that they are committing.

The trouble with zero tolerance is that it doesn't work. It might work in the short term but over the longer term it fails.

Locking people up for cheating at sport is impractical. No laws have been broken.

Let's face it, cheating is, in varying degrees, part of every day life. You're living in cloud cuckoo land if you think you're going to ever remove doping from sport. What cycling needs to do is make doping the exception rather than the norm. Some steps have been taken towards this goal but more needs to be done. Personally I can't see the UCI ever having either the will or the capability to do anything effective so it's time for someone else to progress this.

Absolutely correct. On every point.

SeamusD

But if you accept that doping is a way of life and that it's never going to change then what's the point in following professional cycling at all? I'd rather go and ride my bike in the rain - which funnily enough it's doing right now!
Either drug free cycle racing is a realistic and achievable goal or there's no sport. I'm clinging to a belief that the former is possible. (But then I believed Armstrong too).

SeamusD

In terms of offences warranting a custodial sentance btw how about ABH, fraud (large sums of money are bet on the tour and other races), perjury, conspiring to pervert the cause of justice, smuggling - there must be something? It's no good just banning the riders and then letting the same group of people work with the next batch of athletes. Of course a simpler option would be for the UCI to ban any directeur sportif who has a positive doping result within their team - or ban the whole team and get a bit of collective responsibility going?
Still raining.

timoid.

From cyclingnews:

Vino: "It's a shame to leave the Tour this way, but I don't want to waste time in proving my innocence."

If I was innocent I'd bloody well waste my time proving it.

aba2005

Timoid. wrote:

From cyclingnews:

Vino: "It's a shame to leave the Tour this way, but I don't want to waste time in proving my innocence."

If I was innocent I'd bloody well waste my time proving it.

Damn you people are cynical!!! I think he means he wants to prove he is innocent as quickly as possible, therefore not wasting any time!!!

timoid.

aba2005 wrote:

Timoid. wrote:

From cyclingnews:

Vino: "It's a shame to leave the Tour this way, but I don't want to waste time in proving my innocence."

If I was innocent I'd bloody well waste my time proving it.

Damn you people are cynical!!! I think he means he wants to prove he is innocent as quickly as possible, therefore not wasting any time!!!

Not cynical, just stupid. I read it wrong. My apologies to Mr V.

knedlicky

Timoid. wrote:

There's a French website (sorry, url escapes me now) that has details of riders implicated in doping affairs over the years. They have a list of Tour de France podium finishers and it doesn't look pretty. If you go back to 1967, when drug testing was first introduced, you can only find two winners who weren't implicated in some sort of doping affair (tested positive or other) during their careers, ie they might not have tested positive during the Tour, but they did some other time.

The two: Greg LeMond and Lucien Van Impe.

Can you provide a reference about Hinault's and Fignon's supposed involvement? Theirs would be new to me. The rest is no surprise.

I know Merckx got into trouble early on in his career but I suspect he got his fingers burnt then, and thereafter kept away from anything.

knedlicky

bigdawg wrote:

as I understand it reinjecting 'fresh' blood would be apparent because of the fact it is fresh and not tatty old two week tour blood and would stand out a mile.. .

I think this is what a t-mobile rider was caught out with prior to the tour..

No, he was caught using testosterone.

knedlicky

shazzz wrote:

brad68 wrote:

andyp wrote:

I bet Rasmussen is delighted - that takes the heat off him for a few days.
Timoid - you forget to include a certain American who dominated the Tour for a bit. He was a client of Dr Ferrari's too, no? Just like Vino.

Did Lance ever have a test come back positive?

No, he didn't.
Neither did Ullrich or Basso.
:? :? :? :?

I don't think Pantani ever tested positive either, just once in the Giro the blood count was suspiciously high so by the rules he was taken out of the race.

knedlicky

iainf72 wrote:

Vino denies.
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/ar ... 9458695201
He's the victim here.

''I heard that I made a transfusion with my father's blood,'' Vinokourov said. ''That's absurd, I can tell you that with his blood, I would have tested positive for vodka.''
Vino needs to brush up on his doping knowledge, no cyclist can be ruled positive on vodka or any other alcohol. Alcohol is only prohibited for a few sports - motor racing and games where you use what can be construed as weapons, like biathlons (they use rifles), archery, javelin-throwing, fencing, even boule (those steel balls could be pretty vicious).

RichN95.

knedlicky wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Vino denies.
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/ar ... 9458695201
He's the victim here.

''I heard that I made a transfusion with my father's blood,'' Vinokourov said. ''That's absurd, I can tell you that with his blood, I would have tested positive for vodka.''
Vino needs to brush up on his doping knowledge, no cyclist can be ruled positive on vodka or any other alcohol. Alcohol is only prohibited for a few sports - motor racing and games where you use what can be construed as weapons, like biathlons (they use rifles), archery, javelin-throwing, fencing, even boule (those steel balls could be pretty vicious).

I think he was cracking a joke. It's the way forward for him - Kazakh comedy is big buisness after Borat.

bigdawg

Ive worked it our, its the bikes... :shock: :shock:

Maybe when they get the bikes out of the boxes there are 'extras' in with them, like pumps, tubes testosterone patches, blood plasma etc... I know BMC fitted bikes to your specific demands but that could be taking it a bit too far.... :?