More Astana fun

teagar

I thought administering things intravenously was stopped by the UCI? I vaguely remember reading something in procycling that the Quick-step doctor had riders taking about 20 differnet vitamin etc pills a day when racing because s/he couldn't inject anymore.

Anyone have an idea on that one?

moray_gub

Kléber wrote:

So what we're saying is doping goes on and there's evidence of it with all this gear...

...but we'll never be able to pin it on a single team or rider?

Maybe we should wait to find out exactly what they have and what it means, then the finger pointing and claims will have some credibility then.

SpaceJunk

I just find the whole thing a little humorous.

On the same day we have Christian Prudhomme saying : "The French Anti-Doping Agency has confirmed that there was no suspect case of doping in the last Tour. "This means that the fight against doping is working; there is more work, but it is obvious that cycling is changing", we have (reportedly) several teams under investigation.

shinyhelmut

While I suspect this will all come to nothing, as so many rumoured investigations have before. However I can't help thinking of the team of a certain prolific twitterer recieving advance notice that customs would be conducting a thorough search of their team bus and wondering what the panicking soigneurs would do with any incriminating sharps that might, or might not, have been stashed onboard said bus. Maybe they couldn't wait for the next motorcycle courier to turn up and dispose of the evidence.

As I said, it'll all come to nothing, just some jet-lagged speculation

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

So what we're saying is doping goes on and there's evidence of it with all this gear...

...but we'll never be able to pin it on a single team or rider?

no you are...I'm saying we don't yet. That DOES NOT mean I deny operation puerto happened or that LA used EPO in 1999-he did...it just means wait and see

cougie

I would have bet money that team buses would be searched. Lances teams have never been found with anything before - so why now when its all so high profile would they have anything dodgy on board ?

petejuk

I think what a lot of people have argued here is very plausible. The official sharps bins are indead a good way of discarding clinical waste. As argued, these are usually sealed and safety tagged to prevent re-opening and indeed re-opening is a very risky business due to potential diseases passed from both contaminated needles and germs thriving within. Why not throw it out in an official bin if there is no risk of it being opened?
Its important to note that, at present, doping at this year's tour is speculation until it can be proved. It doesn't mean we can't speculate though.

dave_1

petejuk wrote:

As argued, these are usually sealed and safety tagged to prevent re-opening and indeed re-opening is a very risky business due to potential diseases passed from both contaminated needles and germs thriving within. Why not throw it out in an official bin if there is no risk of it being opened?

BUT THEY HAVE QUITE CLEARLY BEEN OPENED IN 2009 TDF, NO? So do you think the riders hadn't thought that might happen?

IMO mandatory disposal of waste in TDF provided containers is a post Festina creation so the TDF can limit what can be done in the race in terms of doping/medicine

moray_gub

petejuk wrote:

I think what a lot of people have argued here is very plausible. The official sharps bins are indead a good way of discarding clinical waste. As argued, these are usually sealed and safety tagged to prevent re-opening and indeed re-opening is a very risky business due to potential diseases passed from both contaminated needles and germs thriving within. Why not throw it out in an official bin if there is no risk of it being opened?
Its important to note that, at present, doping at this year's tour is speculation until it can be proved. It doesn't mean we can't speculate though.

But the fact that they were opened blows the no risk theory out of the water I just dont buy the idea that the teams would think the dedicated waste bins would not be opened up and checked, they are probably checked every year and the teams would know this.

petejuk

But the fact that they were opened blows the no risk theory out of the water

I'm merely saying it was a low risk not no risk. Don't forget the dopers and persons assisting them have made some pretty calamitous errors in the past- driving around with doping products in the boot of cars and using the names of rider's dogs to identify blood bags etc, to name a couple. Just because the bins have been opened and checked, and in hindsight it seems foolish to dispose of the waste in this way, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Spiny_Norman

Dave_1 wrote:

petejuk wrote:

As argued, these are usually sealed and safety tagged to prevent re-opening and indeed re-opening is a very risky business due to potential diseases passed from both contaminated needles and germs thriving within. Why not throw it out in an official bin if there is no risk of it being opened?

BUT THEY HAVE QUITE CLEARLY BEEN OPENED IN 2009 TDF, NO? So do you think the riders hadn't thought that might happen?

So you're saying that if something happened, even if it apparently had never happened before, anyone should have been able to predict it in advance? :?

It seems risky from where I'm standing, and I'm reluctant to get too worked up about this until there's some hard evidence, but having recently read Stuart Sutherland's book Irrationality, which spends a fair bit of time looking at the way we perceive risk, I can see how it might have happened.

Risk perception is about availability, i.e. how easily we can imagine the events, how vividly, and how often we're exposed to similar events. The alternative course of action being proposed for dopers is to smuggle the gear out via the team bus and/or a third party. We know that teams have been caught out using these methods in the past, which makes that risk more available. The risk of the bins being searched, however, is less available, both because it hadn't happened before, and because the risk is displaced, i.e. if the bins were to be searched, it wouldn't happen for a while, whereas someone smuggling the gear out could potentially be caught in the act as he left the hotel.

I wouldn't like to say whether doping products were really being thrown into the sharps bins, but it would be no more stupid than some of the ways dopers have been caught out in the past.

moray_gub

Spiny_Norman wrote:

The risk of the bins being searched, however, is less available, both because it hadn't happened before,

How do you know it had'nt happened before ? Id imagine after 1998 it would be a given that they would be searched.

dave_1

Re trash cans at TDF, that's why it was such a scandal when USPS were away dumping shit away from the race in 2001...it was because it was against the new rules of TDF at the time.


Teams getting raided, bags searched...that is the threat over the TDF in the past 10 years so god know's why people might think Lance dumps blood bags in TDF/Lequipe trash cans? Not a chance IMO...but you can live in hope eh. He keeps is food under lock and key , so one assumes he's a little paranoid...as are many of them I guess...

petejuk

so god know's why people might think Lance dumps blood bags in TDF/Lequipe trash cans?

I wasn't aware Lance Armstrong has been even talked about as an individual involved in this. I think someone may be getting slighty over defensive unnecessarily.

RichN95.

If you're a dirty DS what are you going to do with your incriminating evidence?

a) Put it in the official Tour bins so that people have access to them, even though they almost certainly just dispose of them

b) Put it in a bin bag with a few bricks and get someone to throw it in a river.


If there's anything incriminating in the those containers, then I'm a Dutchman.

dave_1

petejuk wrote:

so god know's why people might think Lance dumps blood bags in TDF/Lequipe trash cans?

I wasn't aware Lance Armstrong has been even talked about as an individual involved in this. I think someone may be getting slighty over defensive unnecessarily.

See title of thread. Defensive...I think I said prev page LA used EPO before.

finchy

RichN95 wrote:

If you're a dirty DS what are you going to do with your incriminating evidence?

a) Put it in the official Tour bins so that people have access to them, even though they almost certainly just dispose of them

b) Put it in a bin bag with a few bricks and get someone to throw it in a river.


If there's anything incriminating in the those containers, then I'm a Dutchman.

Maybe Johann Bruyneel's an eco-warrior.

Cumulonimbus

As far as blood-bags go, i seem to remember a recent quote from Kohl saying they would cut up the blood bags and flush them down the toilet?

Jez mon

RichN95 wrote:

If you're a dirty DS what are you going to do with your incriminating evidence?

a) Put it in the official Tour bins so that people have access to them, even though they almost certainly just dispose of them

b) Put it in a bin bag with a few bricks and get someone to throw it in a river.


If there's anything incriminating in the those containers, then I'm a Dutchman.

Can you imagine the press reaction if an Astana mechanic/doctor/ds was caught throwing medical waste in a river. Sure throwing stuff away in an official medical bag sounds stupid but ultimately I don't think it's as ridiculous as some are making out

iainf72

Good article from the Times of India on this

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 141841.cms?

disgruntledgoat

""We never hear of police going through the bins at Roland Garros or after a football match," notes Gerard Guillaume, a doctor for French team Francaise des Jeux."

Funny that eh?

moray_gub

"Doctors from other teams say Cosmolys' waste containers aren't sealed so anyone could conceivably stuff them with needles to tarnish Astana. There also are legitimate reasons why a team might need syringes - for vitamin injections, for instance"

So one of the main reasons for disposing doping products in this manner i.e sealed containers is now shown to be not the case at all.

TommyEss

All sharps - e.g. needles etc. must be disposed of in sealed containers - there's a full-on UN code number for medical waste - they need to be signed off when they're locked closed and incinerated.

I'm amazed anyone would even think to get into a sharps bin - madness!

moray_gub

TommyEss wrote:

All sharps - e.g. needles etc. must be disposed of in sealed containers - there's a full-on UN code number for medical waste - they need to be signed off when they're locked closed and incinerated.

I'm amazed anyone would even think to get into a sharps bin - madness!

The point is though when the teams hand them over each day or whatever timescale it is it looks like they are not locked or closed and somebody else does the locking closing and incinerating or maybe the other teams Doctors are wrong.

TommyEss

Ah right - well yes - unless each team is locking off it's own sharps bins then there's always the chance of someone dropping in a rogue needle to show whatever they want.

Handy get-out-jail-free card perhaps?!