Some thoughts on biological passports

vermooten

CFA points to a thread on the grizzly cuttingedgemuscle forum about how riders might overcome the restrictions brought about by the introduction of biological passports.

A few thoughts spring to mind.

1. It's the hunt rather than the kill
Just as some computer hackers enjoy the challenge of cracking some new security feature to the extent that it's the challenge itself that gives them the buzz rather than what the cracking achieves, so we must assume that there are some sports doctors out there that will enjoy getting one up on the authorities.

2. Cat & mouse
The biological passport is just one part of the authorities' armorie against cheating, like a wire tap used by the police and others. Once crims learn that their phones are being tapped, they take measures to communicate differently. Similarly, the cheaters will adapt and modify their behaviour and the biological passport will lose credibility.

3. Malice towards the UCI
I expect that there are some people in the world with a grudge against the UCI who would like nothing more than to see the biological passport scheme fail. It is easy to imagine someone would rather see cycling as a whole suffer if it dents the UCI's already-battered image - it sure looked like the UCI themselves took this kind of childish approach against the ASO when they announces Sinkewitz's positive and Rassmussen's missed tests during the Tour last year.

4. Unknown unknowns
If the biological passport scheme is successful, presumably there will be fewer positive tests. So how do we know that it's been successul - the same result could be achieved by there being no testing at all.

None of this isn't to say that it shouldn't go ahead. (Is it going ahead?) But as a hurried response to the problem, expectations are high. As we saw in The Wire, when the street corner drug dealers screw up, they get killed; when the police screw up, people get reassigned to desk jobs.

As one of the cuttingedgemuscle people writes, "as long as millions of dollars/euro's are to be made in pro sport doping will never stop."

iainf72

vermooten wrote:

3. Malice towards the UCI
I expect that there are some people in the world with a grudge against the UCI who would like nothing more than to see the biological passport scheme fail. It is easy to imagine someone would rather see cycling as a whole suffer if it dents the UCI's already-battered image - it sure looked like the UCI themselves took this kind of childish approach against the ASO when they announces Sinkewitz's positive and Rassmussen's missed tests during the Tour last year.

Neither of those are quite accurate. The German fed announced the Sinkewitz positive during the Tour (god knows why it took so long) and the Danish federation brought the Rasmussen thing to light - It wasn't the UCI per say.

Cycling is being used as a test case by WADA for the passport concept so there is a desire for it to succeed. I think that they shouldn't have done it this year - Next year would've given time to sort out the funding properly and get the logistics in place. There are many unanswered questions about this (imo) doomed concept.
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vermooten

Yes you're right about the Sinkewitz / Rassmussen point - it wasn't the UCI. Nonetheless, this correction is consistent with the main point, that not all of the authorities are on the same page - and might well not wish to be.

Kléber

Here's a question: what's stopped the majority of French riders from doping?

Whereas many were at it, with Festina and Cofidis in the 90s, now its widely acknowledged that the French riders are almost completely clean. Vaughters and Andreu discussed their surprise how clean Moreau and his CA team were in their infamous MSN chat.

Was it the passports brought in by the French in 98? Did the team managers just say "enough, we're guaranteed exposure in the Tour anyway" or what?

vermooten

Did the French teams introduce biological passports? (Scuse my ignorance.) If so then that's a sign that the idea might have legs.

LangerDan

vermooten wrote:

Did the French teams introduce biological passports? (Scuse my ignorance.) If so then that's a sign that the idea might have legs.

To quote from the thread on CuttingEdge that you highlighted on another thread:-

"By the way I have a client in France that is my UCI contact bro, and he is in the medical field, and he uses epo by the way...and long before I started coaching him."

IF the original poster (RealGains) is for real (and there is an emormous amount of pharmaceutical willy-waving on CuttingEdge) either this bozo's client is not French and therefore not subject to the conditions of a Frech licence OR as RealGains has posted there, it is very possible to circumvent the biological passport.