1 out of 4 riders at this year's Tour doped

andyp

According to this article on cycling4all.com;

http://www.cycling4all.com/index.php?content=d_news.php

It's a report on the work carried out by the anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne on behalf of the UCI.

I shouldn't be surprised but my initial response when reading this was quite simply :shock:.

iainf72

But it's better than before.

Small steps and all that.

It does show, IMO, that if they think they can't get away with it, they don't do it.

andyp

Agreed but when 80%, that's 4 out of 5 riders, are thought to have been using EPO it's still eye opening.

It just goes to show that the UCI's artificial 50% haematocrit limit was, in effect, a license to dope. You can dress it up all you like as a health check but it's main impact was to give riders free reign to dope without fear of being caught.

iainf72

In the "From Lance to Landis" book, Walsh gives a fairly interesting picture of what it was like being a pro in the mid 90's. If you were not on EPO, you could barely keep up and if you could, you ended up being so exhausted you crash or ride into a lampost etc.

It was a matter of survival rather than anything else for a lot of those guys.

The problem is where people like Riis did things that were really beyond their natural ability.

timoid.

Is that all? I'm glad its so low.

in some countries there are still many athletes with abnormal blood values.

I'd hazard a guess at Spain, Italy and Kazakhstan for starters

bigdawg

so if the lab (yes that lab again) has found 1 in 4 riders in this years tour were doped why were only about 5 thrown out???

If anyrider can be shown to be manipulating blood or whatever surely they would be reported??

John Stevenson

andyp wrote:

Agreed but when 80%, that's 4 out of 5 riders, are thought to have been using EPO it's still eye opening.

It just goes to show that the UCI's artificial 50% haematocrit limit was, in effect, a license to dope. You can dress it up all you like as a health check but it's main impact was to give riders free reign to dope without fear of being caught.

You can see it as a license to dope, or you can see it as a radically successful harm-minimisation measure. Before the 50 percent limit, riders were mysteriously dying in ways suggestive of overly-thickened blood from EPO use. That stopped.

The 50 percent limit always looked to me like a way of forcing riders who dope to do so under medical supervision. I'm increasingly of the opinion that medically-supervised harm-minimisation is the only answer. Prohibition's not working.

Stark.

I've just finished reading Mark Rendell's book, The Death of Marco Pantani in which the 50% limit comes across as a totally arbitrary figure that was introduced. The riders and teams then just focused on doing everything they could in terms of blood thinning techniques etc. to ensure that they sneaked below the limit.

His description of riders on EPO having to wake up in the middle of the night to use the rollers to ensure that their hearts and circulatory system didn't completely seize up into a thick, gloopy, life-threatening mess is chilling.

Kléber

john_stevenson wrote:

I'm increasingly of the opinion that medically-supervised harm-minimisation is the only answer. Prohibition's not working.

This is surely a bad idea?

For starters, riders live in denial today. Any notion that slapping on a testosterone patch or injecting EPO into their backside is a medical act and not cheating or even in some circumstances a criminal act, will only encourage riders to believe they're doing something normal.

Similarly, this "harm-minimisation" is bull, spun by the clan of medical doctors charged with looking after the riders but whose main interest seems to be their bank balances and creating freak robo-cyclists who can ride at an unreal tempo. Letting these guys supervise riders already has been disastrous.

Next, medical studies have shown that hormone abuse leads to increased risks of cancer and heart disease. EPO should only be prescribed to patients who need it, such as chemotherapy patients or those with chronic renal failure. If you want to protect health, administering drugs is not a great idea.

Riders will also bend the rules. What's healthy for one will mean another unscrupulous rider pushing the boundaries.

Plenty of riders are not harmed by racing and can do a three week race with no decline in blood or hormone values. Some might have declining hormone levels during a race, others don't. So let those who are naturally suited to stage racing, those with the strength after two weeks, with the recovery powers, to race. And those riders who suffer more should concentrate on what they do best, like one day races, shorter stage races from the Criterium International to the Dauphiné, or winning stages early on in the grand tours. There's plenty of races.

Where do you draw the line? Pro tour riders only, or can amateurs inject EPO if they're a bit run down?

Who says their haematocrit's a bit low, it would mean people searching for compliant doctors willing to prescribe medicine instead of proposing other more healthy solutions.

If you're worried about harm, ban crashing, make suncream obligatory and think about capping the number of days per year a rider can race.

Yes, prohibition hasn't worked but that's partly because too many people have a vested interest in sweeping things under the carpet.
- The UCI should have listed to the French Federation's calls to bring in season long blood and hormonal monitoring, maybe riders could be tested on average once a week and the parameters posted online for all to see.
- The UCI "Vampires" are at best a Benny Hill sketch show, at worst their a waste of money, all riders get woken up early but have six hours to visit the team camper van and infuse themselves with blood. We need start line blood testing, to measure haematocrit levels as the rider leaves the rider village for the start line.
- We need a legally binding system of making riders pay, for example let riders have their salary each year paid into an escrow account with a reputable bank and in the meantime, they receive the equivalent each year from the UCI as a loan. If they get caught, the escrow money is handed over to the UCI and the rider is still liable for the loan.
- Riders should be forced to take out a racing licence in the country they reside in, you cannot for example have a Monaco licence if you live in Italy.
- Team officials should sign the UCI's charter and should be responsible, there's no point is sacking riders who get caught if half the backroom staff are in on the act
- Let race organisers invite who they like: a genuine free market would insure race organisers get to pick the teams they think will bring positive publicity to the race, not the current cartel of teams who feel they have an automatic right to exist. Like a nightclub, if one team is wearing the wrong clothes, they're not coming in ("sorry mate, no men in black tonight" etc)
- And the UCI could create a decent online, SMS compatible, system to track the whereabouts of riders. A few steps, I'm sure experts could propose more.

andyp

What Kleber said.

iainf72

Interesting points.

If you wanted to implement these kind of financial punishments it's going more and more into the realms of law, rather than sporting regulation. And to be perfectly honest, if you challenged many doping cases in a "real" court would they stand up?

Kléber

iainf72 wrote:

Interesting points.

If you wanted to implement these kind of financial punishments it's going more and more into the realms of law, rather than sporting regulation. And to be perfectly honest, if you challenged many doping cases in a "real" court would they stand up?

Cycling isn't sport, it's business. The Tour de France was created to revive sales of an ailing newspaper and today's teams are named after companies, products and brands.

So why not use the law? If I ran a company and put money into advertising, if the ad firm promised they'd put healthy and positive images of my product on billboards, I'd pay the going rate. If I drove past a billboard and saw a giant advert associating my product associated with negative images like cheating, lying and crime, I'd go ballistic and demand an apology, I'd ask for my money back and maybe even sue the agency.

And it's partly for the UCI and WADA to tighten up the rules then, an incentive for them to work harder if they know they'll pay for cocked-up tests. And it's for the rider to consider, to think that they can try doping and fight expensive court cases if they like but there will be costs to pay if they're guilty and that the innocent will be found right. OK, that's optimistic, miscarriages of justice happen all the time but it's the same for everyone else, if we're wrongly accused we can use the law no?

RyanBrook

You can see it as a license to dope, or you can see it as a radically successful harm-minimisation measure. Before the 50 percent limit, riders were mysteriously dying in ways suggestive of overly-thickened blood from EPO use. That stopped.

The 50 percent limit always looked to me like a way of forcing riders who dope to do so under medical supervision. I'm increasingly of the opinion that medically-supervised harm-minimisation is the only answer. Prohibition's not working.[/quote]

I can't believe you actually believe this. This would mean none-dopers can't compete, so clean riders for example Geriant Thomas and Bradley Wiggins would be forced to dope if they were to carry on in the sport. Do you think that is fair?
Do you think it's positive for sport that if your son or daughter wants to become a professional athlete they will have to get used to the idea of doping. Thankfully this will never happen.

mattybeck

Best post i've read here for a while.

Kléber wrote:

john_stevenson wrote:

I'm increasingly of the opinion that medically-supervised harm-minimisation is the only answer. Prohibition's not working.

This is surely a bad idea?

For starters, riders live in denial today. Any notion that slapping on a testosterone patch or injecting EPO into their backside is a medical act and not cheating or even in some circumstances a criminal act, will only encourage riders to believe they're doing something normal.

Similarly, this "harm-minimisation" is bull, spun by the clan of medical doctors charged with looking after the riders but whose main interest seems to be their bank balances and creating freak robo-cyclists who can ride at an unreal tempo. Letting these guys supervise riders already has been disastrous.

Next, medical studies have shown that hormone abuse leads to increased risks of cancer and heart disease. EPO should only be prescribed to patients who need it, such as chemotherapy patients or those with chronic renal failure. If you want to protect health, administering drugs is not a great idea.

Riders will also bend the rules. What's healthy for one will mean another unscrupulous rider pushing the boundaries.

Plenty of riders are not harmed by racing and can do a three week race with no decline in blood or hormone values. Some might have declining hormone levels during a race, others don't. So let those who are naturally suited to stage racing, those with the strength after two weeks, with the recovery powers, to race. And those riders who suffer more should concentrate on what they do best, like one day races, shorter stage races from the Criterium International to the Dauphiné, or winning stages early on in the grand tours. There's plenty of races.

Where do you draw the line? Pro tour riders only, or can amateurs inject EPO if they're a bit run down?

Who says their haematocrit's a bit low, it would mean people searching for compliant doctors willing to prescribe medicine instead of proposing other more healthy solutions.

If you're worried about harm, ban crashing, make suncream obligatory and think about capping the number of days per year a rider can race.

Yes, prohibition hasn't worked but that's partly because too many people have a vested interest in sweeping things under the carpet.
- The UCI should have listed to the French Federation's calls to bring in season long blood and hormonal monitoring, maybe riders could be tested on average once a week and the parameters posted online for all to see.
- The UCI "Vampires" are at best a Benny Hill sketch show, at worst their a waste of money, all riders get woken up early but have six hours to visit the team camper van and infuse themselves with blood. We need start line blood testing, to measure haematocrit levels as the rider leaves the rider village for the start line.
- We need a legally binding system of making riders pay, for example let riders have their salary each year paid into an escrow account with a reputable bank and in the meantime, they receive the equivalent each year from the UCI as a loan. If they get caught, the escrow money is handed over to the UCI and the rider is still liable for the loan.
- Riders should be forced to take out a racing licence in the country they reside in, you cannot for example have a Monaco licence if you live in Italy.
- Team officials should sign the UCI's charter and should be responsible, there's no point is sacking riders who get caught if half the backroom staff are in on the act
- Let race organisers invite who they like: a genuine free market would insure race organisers get to pick the teams they think will bring positive publicity to the race, not the current cartel of teams who feel they have an automatic right to exist. Like a nightclub, if one team is wearing the wrong clothes, they're not coming in ("sorry mate, no men in black tonight" etc)
- And the UCI could create a decent online, SMS compatible, system to track the whereabouts of riders. A few steps, I'm sure experts could propose more.

SteveR_100Milers

john_stevenson wrote:

andyp wrote:

Agreed but when 80%, that's 4 out of 5 riders, are thought to have been using EPO it's still eye opening.

It just goes to show that the UCI's artificial 50% haematocrit limit was, in effect, a license to dope. You can dress it up all you like as a health check but it's main impact was to give riders free reign to dope without fear of being caught.

You can see it as a license to dope, or you can see it as a radically successful harm-minimisation measure. Before the 50 percent limit, riders were mysteriously dying in ways suggestive of overly-thickened blood from EPO use. That stopped.

The 50 percent limit always looked to me like a way of forcing riders who dope to do so under medical supervision. I'm increasingly of the opinion that medically-supervised harm-minimisation is the only answer. Prohibition's not working.

Blimey!

Does this mean we can look forward to a road test of various performance enhancers in the near future in C+??? :shock: