ACE go under

iainf72

See, I know LangerDan would know.

So it would appear it's not possible to turn a profit doing this? Or they undercharged?

Damsgaard charges similar money but isn't trying to run a commercial operation AFAIK.

Kléber

Looks to me like a classic "public service". Economists like to talk about the example of a lighthouse, where the island that funds the lighthouse bears the costs (building it, manning it, paying the electricity bill) but the benefits (safe passage) go to passing sailors who don't pay for it. So in theory there is no point building the lighthouse since no one will stump up the money to build it, even though it's good for everyone.

This is similar to the problem of doping. There's no point in having a couple of teams using a scheme, the whole sport needs to be doing it. The sport benefits from testing and the reputation of being clean. Teams function with less suspicion, there is more money in the sport so riders careers are longer and better paid, not to mention healthier.

So every rider and every member of staff on a pro team, plus every sponsor, broadcaster and more has a direct interest in a clean sport. If - a dream now - everyone could get together and agree a scheme to fund this sort of testing regime, then everyone would benefit. Because even the likes of Garmin are suffering because of Ricco and Kohl, their efforts are tarnished by the dopers.

Of course, given the fractious nature of the sport and that the sport is run by someone keen to annoy and pick fights instead of lead, we won't get there.

DavMartinR

With the UCI biological passports slowly coming out I think teams would be looking at this and thinking hang on we are paying somebody to test our riders when the UCI are doing the same thing. So ACE's life was only going to be a short one.

Wether the UCI passport will give the teams the same credibility is to be seen.

Kléber

The UCI scheme is miles from the ACE scheme. ACE test frequently, the UCI scheme will only test a few times a year. The passport scheme will be easier for cheats to escape, the ACE scheme was bordering harassment. Once Garmin rider said it was a real hassle to deal with, having to get tested so often but he did say it was a price worth paying.

DavMartinR

Kléber wrote:

The UCI scheme is miles from the ACE scheme. ACE test frequently, the UCI scheme will only test a few times a year. The passport scheme will be easier for cheats to escape, the ACE scheme was bordering harassment. Once Garmin rider said it was a real hassle to deal with, having to get tested so often but he did say it was a price worth paying.

how many times a year should a rider be tested?
With the build-up of test results wouldn't 2 or 3 tests a year be enough? Or would riders still be able to fly under the radar?

DaveyL

Kléber wrote:

The UCI scheme is miles from the ACE scheme. ACE test frequently, the UCI scheme will only test a few times a year. The passport scheme will be easier for cheats to escape, the ACE scheme was bordering harassment. Once Garmin rider said it was a real hassle to deal with, having to get tested so often but he did say it was a price worth paying.

According to Gripper:

"Establishing which teams would be involved, organising a system to track riders' whereabouts for testing, and collecting all the samples was the first hurdle to overcome. "We have collected a lot of samples this year. As of the end of September it was 6500 samples," she said. "

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id= ... /oct25news

I would say this does not equate to "a few times a year" for each rider.

Kléber

I think that includes the post race samples, it does not include a lot of out of competition samples when the riders are up to no good. ACE was all about testing the riders very often at home, it was far more frequent, no?

iainf72

No, a lot out of competetion

http://www.uci.ch/Modules/BUILTIN/getOb ... d=NDE1MDE&

DavMartinR

Has ACE published any data for the teams it was testing?

I did google it but just came up with news storys.

iainf72

DavMartinR wrote:

Has ACE published any data for the teams it was testing?

I did google it but just came up with news storys.

No. They allowed access to data on request to people who know what they're talking about. Hence VDV and Millar's data being analysed during the Tour.

DavMartinR

Could you ask them then Iain?

I see Damsgaard is only testing until the UCI pasports kick in. ( Fourm so don't know how reliable the info is?)

http://forum.teamcsc-saxobank.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5309&whichpage=5

iainf72

DavMartinR wrote:

Could you ask them then Iain?

I see Damsgaard is only testing until the UCI pasports kick in. ( Fourm so don't know how reliable the info is?)

http://forum.teamcsc-saxobank.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5309&whichpage=5

Ha! No I mean someone who really knows. ACE are completely gone now though. And there's precious little information.

Yes, that's always been my understanding of Damsgaard. He believes this kind of testing should be the norm and that's what the UCI are bringing in.

mercsport

DaveyL wrote:

I think their big problem was their name. If they had used Agency for Cycling Management Ethics then they'd have been OK. From extensive viewings of the Road Runner cartoons, I know that ACME have been around for years and have their fingers in many pies - especially dynamite and jet-pack production.

Well , I laughed . " beep-beep "

LangerDan

Kléber wrote:

Economists like to talk about the example of a lighthouse, where the island that funds the lighthouse bears the costs (building it, manning it, paying the electricity bill) but the benefits (safe passage) go to passing sailors who don't pay for it. So in theory there is no point building the lighthouse since no one will stump up the money to build it, even though it's good for everyone.

.

Doubtless someone will be along shortly to extend the analogy, pointing out how Pat McQuaid steals the lamps, a black pirate ship (with yellow trim) forces the innocents onto the rocks and Verbruggen plunders the wrecks and bayonets the wounded.

stagehopper

iainf72 wrote:

I've been musing on this problem (as you do) for a while now and how I'd do it. My engineering brain tells me that for complex things off the shelf products never do exactly what you want them to. It looks very much like ACE were trying to provide a turnkey anti-doping solution and perhaps this is not a workable business model as well as not delivering the required service.

In my experience plenty of these small scientific firms fail financially - they overstretch their budgets which are often propped up with venture capital and unless bailed out by a another venture sugardaddy/a larger firm etc go bust suddenly. The cost of staff, lab space and equipment is huge and it is this which proves to be a large part of the cost price charged per sample run. Not running samples doesn't really save much money at all which is why you see the sudden end of business and why I don't buy the theory that they may have been providing a less than usual service to save money over the season.

iainf72 wrote:

I'd also like to see the inclusion of dodgy "control" samples to make sure the testing is working and showing anomolies. This way would cost more for sure and I'm not sure if you could turn a profit.

I've done a huge amount of analysis over the years, including blood, urine etc and every quantitative test will include a matrix of controls. For instance if I was looking for testosterone in blood I'd include various doped blood samples of different concentrations, various testosterone samples diluted in a non-biological medium (to ensure your samples sit on the linear portion standard detection curve), and various analagous chemicals as necessary (such as similar structural compounds, known masking agents etc). Oh and the samples themselves! You cannot run a quantitative testing regime any other way.

The difference comes with the blood profile tests. These are qualitative tests and as such don't need dodgy control samples to be run every time. As Damsgaard pointed out when criticising WADA over the suspicious cross-country skiiing samples he sent them which came back negative, he could tell the difference in the profiles straight away from the presence of unnatural bands. There were clear signs of EPO (or one of the derivatives) use. However that's not enough evidence (yet) for WADA to suspend an athlete as it won't hold up legally - it's not proof that something has been taken. Effectively they're non-negatives which WADA reports as negatives.

However the blood passport programme Anne Gripper is putting in place for the UCI gets around that problem by having a blood baseline in place for each cyclist you can compare to legally. Non-negative is no longer a position you can hide behind. The dopers get caught.

These tests are more akin to medical MRI scans - a doctor doesn't need to run control scans each time - he knows what a normal scan looks like and is looking for anomalies from that normality.

(you probably know all this already ian so apologies in advance! Just thought it was worth reiterating as part of the general discussion)

DavMartinR

That's a very informative post Stagehopper.

So the UCI are going down the right road, its just a long road.
With the riders baseline blood data how often would they need to test a rider over a year? Is the 2 or 3 times a year enough to complete a full profile?
Would there be a big changes in the blood values from competition to out of competition?

mercsport

Kléber wrote:

Looks to me like a classic "public service". Economists like to talk about the example of a lighthouse, where the island that funds the lighthouse bears the costs (building it, manning it, paying the electricity bill) but the benefits (safe passage) go to passing sailors who don't pay for it. So in theory there is no point building the lighthouse since no one will stump up the money to build it, even though it's good for everyone.
quote]

I can' t quite grasp where 'economists' get the lighthouses for free idea from but , so far as I' m aware , every ship that enters a port have to stump up a fee that includes ' light duties ' for the upkeep of navigation lights .

Or am I taking this too literally ?

Kléber

You're taking it too literally. What if you sailed past these dangerous rocks and boat intact, kept going on to another port or even country. You get the benefit but don't pay anything for it. For another version, think of the TV licence, people can watch TV and if the licence fee was optional, no one would pay. It only works when almost everyone coughs up.

iainf72

stagehopper wrote:

These tests are more akin to medical MRI scans - a doctor doesn't need to run control scans each time - he knows what a normal scan looks like and is looking for anomalies from that normality.

Yep, however there is no evidence this kind of screening works in anti-doping. Even the WADA presentation about it indicated they weren't quite sure how well it would work.

if you kept the samples anonymous but consistantly added 5 extra samples and the manipulated one of them it would be a real PR coup if the testing agency could spot the planted sample and draw attention to it.

To a layman like me it does sound like it should work (mind you, 5 surgeons and about 8 radiologists failed to spot my dislocated shoulder in many x-rays so "should" doesn't count for much to me) but demonstrating the screening works would go a long way to increase faith in the testing.

iainf72

They've got a replacement.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/Gar ... 71798.html

JV and Bob, if you're reading this, I have 2 words for you.

Due Diligence.

DavMartinR

I don't get it?
Is the UCI testing not good enough?
Or is it them trying to say we are whiter that all the other teams?
With not data coming forward is it just a PR spin job?
Or on the dark side?? Here is our data Mr UCI guy so you don't need to test our riders their all find because we've been testing them and its all independent and we will be publishing the data one day?