"A small percentage of pro tour riders don't dope"

MoonCircuit

Amazed at this thread on cycling forums.com. I remember a story of a tour de france rider having a heart attack from amphetamines, but is it really this bad?

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t353081.html

Bronzie

MoonCircuit wrote:

but is it really this bad?

I think so..............and just when I finally thought we'd turned the corner and riders were starting to clean up their act we get news of another batch of suspect results from this year's Tour and the likelihood that the "sport" will be dragged through the mire again.

And the most depressing thing about these latest revelations is that some of the riders are on supposedly "clean" teams with their own internal independent testing regimes.

Only a masochist would be a pro-cycling fan.

aurelio_-_banned

Bronzie wrote:

the most depressing thing about these latest revelations is that some of the riders are on supposedly "clean" teams with their own internal independent testing regimes.

But from the off anti-doping experts have argued that such internal monitoring might simply be used to ensure that doping programs can go ahead as usual, whilst at the same time ensuring that the various `parameters` of the team`s riders are maintained below the limits which might tip off the testers that something is going on.

There have even been cases exposed of doctors/labs offering teams their monitoring services to teams `to ensure that their use of performance enhancing drugs would not be detected by doping controls at the 2008 Tour de France and other pro cycling events`.

http://www.steroidreport.com/2008/07/21 ... g-scandal/

skavanagh.bikeradar

Teams doing their own testing is an obvious conflict of interest. However at the time they started doing it, it seemed like a genuine attempt by the teams to 'do something'. What that something was/is of course is a different matter. Really the UCI should have been filling the gap not the teams, but it suited them to allow it to gain credibility even though it is a pack of cards as soon as a 'clean' team with a 'rigourous internal anti-doping regieme' has a rider or three fail tests. Pro cycling seems to be in a perpetual last chance saloon and it just carries on drinking as the clock ticks..............

leguape

aurelio wrote:

Bronzie wrote:

the most depressing thing about these latest revelations is that some of the riders are on supposedly "clean" teams with their own internal independent testing regimes.

But from the off anti-doping experts have argued that such internal monitoring might simply be used to ensure that doping programs can go ahead as usual, whilst at the same time ensuring that the various `parameters` of the team`s riders are maintained below the limits which might tip off the testers that something is going on.

There have even been cases exposed of doctors/labs offering teams their monitoring services to teams `to ensure that their use of performance enhancing drugs would not be detected by doping controls at the 2008 Tour de France and other pro cycling events`.

http://www.steroidreport.com/2008/07/21 ... g-scandal/

Cases, plural, or just the one reported so far?

stagehopper

Got no problem with internal monitoring - it's done to a large scale in many professional sports. All the top football teams in Europe have extensive medical programmes monitoring various blood values in association with training and matches as well as other physical parameters.

However this can only provide a baseline record - the Dopecatcher Generals have to be the governing body and the various national ADAs.

One thing internal programmes can't do is test for doping where no test exists for the "product" used, as was the case with CERA until recently. That doesn't make their work invalid, only as complete as they can possibly be.

andy_wrx

Is 'internal monitoring' not a more sophisticated and uptodate version of the team doctor having the centrifuge and being able to monitor the heamatocrit, telling the riders how much EPO they can take before they go over the magic 50%

Monty Dog

I share the cynical view that internal programmes are just an official front for making sure riders don't go over the limit - and only riders that get caught who haven't gone through the official programme get sacked - there's barely any difference to the Ferrari approach, except only one sanctions the use of PEDs. Likewise, the programmes put in place by soccer clubs are there just to make sure stupid people don't get caught and therefore lose valuable places in the Superleague

unclemalc

There is the problem of course that this latest batch of 'bad boys' have been caught out using CERA, the 'latest' type of doping. Now the system is wise to it, everybody thus using it will have stopped because eventually they now know they will get found out.
Hurrah!
What is next on the list? We don't know 'till it comes up in a new test, or somebody who makes it (for some other purpose) says "Watch out, this new thing could be dynamite in the peleton until they find it out...".
Then we start all over again...

mididoctors

I think its great all this is happening..its such a necessary train wreck..

the thing that strikes me most is the SURPRISING number of probable clean riders that are going to emerge from this mess

if they retest everyone and 80% of the riders are declared positive and get a 2 year ban thats fine by me

skavanagh.bikeradar

Me too, but the issue is how to move the goalposts so that they don't keep on doing it. At the moment it's like wackamole everytime you get a test that works or catch a cheat they try a different product or tactic to evade the controls. We can keep on having massive scandals - FESTINA - PUERTO but if the underlying motivations to dope remain in place (and the networks that allow it) then nothing will change and we are heading to an Armstrong Vs Vino oblivion leaving cycling on a par with bloody wrestling.

mididoctors

keep turning up the pressure... if the tour ends up with a list unknown semi-pros chaperoned 24/7/365 by wada officals so be it..

the omerta can work both ways...

in the end those who don't will stop those that do from with-in.. and it doesn't have to be bout the winning.

finchy

Surely the one thing that we have learnt is that the most effective way of tackling doping is to go after the drugs networks. After all, there can only be a finite supply of doctors who are willing and expert enough to carry out a doping programme without falling foul of the tests.

unclemalc

I continue to hang in here with an optimistic outlook because over the past year the whole atmosphere in the peleton seems to have changed. To me it seems clear that it's the riders themselves who, for whatever reason ("I do not want to dope/if i dope I get caught/if I dope I am going to suffer later in life...") have decided that they WANT to be clean. It IS a stigma to be a cheat.
In the past, it seemed that the attitude as "everybody is doing it, so its pointless not doing myself" and its was the team management and doctors pushing the idea. If those people are forced out then their effects will only be seen in a dwindling number of riders who are stupid enough to stick two fingers up at the mainstream (Ricco: yes you mate...).

If this rosy outlook is true, then perhaps the 'positives' will become few and far.

If what I have suggested is bullsh_t and they're all busy providing boosted blood passports or testing beyond-CERA dope, then its all pointless.

See - you were right - Cynicism has taken over.