Do you think Contador is guilty?

Pokerface

RichN95 wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

I would like to see them feed meat they have certified as being contaminated to someone - THEN drug test them afterwards for a comparison result. If it was the same, I might lean towards believing this 'whopper' of a story.

Surely, you would want to feed known contaminated meat to someone and then test them, to see if that's consistent with AC's story

Isn't that pretty much exactly what I just said? :?:

TomBombadil

Regarding the Tour:

He didn't win as he failed a test - a banned substance WAS found - it WAS his responsibility. The rules have to be the rules, we can always come up with an excuse.

Levels and the science behind metabolism is highly nonlinear - scientific experts will be used and disagree (That is how science works - there is no absolute truth)- look at the Landis case.

The precedent has been set with Landis (he just had strange blood level ratios).

The rules need examining but Contador can not now claim the Tour. I remember all the previous cyclists who all said they were innocent and looked at levels and excuses only to come out later and declare they had taken drugs. We can never know. But isn't that why we have the rules. If they don't work then they need looking at. But surely we can't just change them because Contador is such a nice chappy.

As I understand the level's of this drug decay very quickly as it is metabolised. There is a lot of work on meat levels and where it used in farming it is stopped a minimum time before slaughter and it would have decayed to negligible levels. So the level in his body could have e been much higher a day before. Frequently drugs are metabolised in an exponential manner (I don't know if this is the case - but initial research shows it is pretty much gone in 24 hours). A lot of coincidences have to come together for him to have any levels at all.

I don't know what happened - but the rules are there and we can't retrospectively make them up.

The cycling world hasn't changed - nobody wants to believe that he may have cheated and that is echoed by many comments - again I don't have an opinion but as far as I am concerned by the rules he didn't win the Tour. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out -but we can see evidence of spinning and already with the 400/40 mistake as highlighted above.

Random thoughts - Tom

BikingBernie

TomBombadil wrote:

Levels and the science behind metabolism is highly nonlinear - scientific experts will be used and disagree (That is how science works - there is no absolute truth)- look at the Landis case. The precedent has been set with Landis (he just had strange blood level ratios).

One, the process of science can lead to 'absolute truth', or as close as makes no difference, or would you like to argue that when it comes to such scientific facts as the Sun and not the Earth being the centre of the Solar system, certain micro-organisms causing disease and so forth, there is still room for rational doubt?

Secondly, Landis did not just have 'strange blood level ratios'. True, his T/E ratios looked suspicious, but this led to definitive IRMS tests being done which clearly showed the presence of non-endogenous testosterone.

As to the '400 times less than can be detected' thing. This just appears to be a tactic employed by the UCI to sow doubts. In reality the levels found in Contador's blood are 40 times less than the Minimum Required Performance Level (MRPL) for a testing laboratory.

dave_1

TomBombadil wrote:

Regarding the Tour:

He didn't win as he failed a test - a banned substance WAS found - it WAS his responsibility. The rules have to be the rules, we can always come up with an excuse.

Levels and the science behind metabolism is highly nonlinear - scientific experts will be used and disagree (That is how science works - there is no absolute truth)- look at the Landis case.

The precedent has been set with Landis (he just had strange blood level ratios).

The rules need examining but Contador can not now claim the Tour. I remember all the previous cyclists who all said they were innocent and looked at levels and excuses only to come out later and declare they had taken drugs. We can never know. But isn't that why we have the rules. If they don't work then they need looking at. But surely we can't just change them because Contador is such a nice chappy.

As I understand the level's of this drug decay very quickly as it is metabolised. There is a lot of work on meat levels and where it used in farming it is stopped a minimum time before slaughter and it would have decayed to negligible levels. So the level in his body could have e been much higher a day before. Frequently drugs are metabolised in an exponential manner (I don't know if this is the case - but initial research shows it is pretty much gone in 24 hours). A lot of coincidences have to come together for him to have any levels at all.

I don't know what happened - but the rules are there and we can't retrospectively make them up.

The cycling world hasn't changed - nobody wants to believe that he may have cheated and that is echoed by many comments - again I don't have an opinion but as far as I am concerned by the rules he didn't win the Tour. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out -but we can see evidence of spinning and already with the 400/40 mistake as highlighted above.

Random thoughts - Tom

So Tom, from what you are saying, Contador could have used this product and pretty much expelled it within 24hrs? ...if that is the case then I can see why he would maybe take the gamble...but I thought it would take days and days for the levels of clenbuterol to drop away off the radar...alternative is he did a blood transfusion or it was the meat

iainf72

BikingBernie wrote:

Secondly, Landis did not just have 'strange blood level ratios'. True, his T/E ratios looked suspicious, but this led to definitive IRMS tests being done which clearly showed the presence of endogenous testosterone.

Erm.......

BikingBernie

iainf72 wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

Secondly, Landis did not just have 'strange blood level ratios'. True, his T/E ratios looked suspicious, but this led to definitive IRMS tests being done which clearly showed the presence of endogenous testosterone.

Erm.......

Ha! Well spotted, I of course mean non-endogenous.

TomBombadil

Secondly, Landis did not just have 'strange blood level ratios'. True, his T/E ratios looked suspicious, but this led to definitive IRMS tests being done which clearly showed the presence of endogenous testosterone.

'Definitive IRMS tests' in physiology?

I haven't been through the acres of files on the Landis case and they may be 'definitive' - but as in any scientific measurement there is always 'uncertainty' including Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry. However, where in physics this has to be given in an absolute sense. In medicine and physiology scientists never give this. No medical paper gives the uncertainty in the measurements! They just give statistics of the result measured and assume there is no uncertainty in the measurement.itself.

In 'real science' experiments have to be repeated. In medicine and physiology experiments are just accepted once they are published. Repeats are seldom if ever really done. and I don't mean an A or B test at the same lab. Take cold fusion - as soon as it was published almost every major lab in the world went out and tried to do this - only to find the uncertainty in the measurements overlapped with the results. Despite this - there exists a field of study in cold fusion covering a few tomes of paper.

The non linear nature of physiology is seldom understood especially when it comes to time series data - that is why the use of extreme limits to define boundaries in sport is strange - it's as if nobody has understood the nature of the normal or Gaussian curve of measurement which shows outliers happen. And isn't this what sport is about?

This is always a bugbear of mine because the statistics of the studies and uncertainty within the measurements can overlap with the values measured. Yet the uncertainty values values are never given. Physiologists believe that the measurement is the measurement in an absolute sense. This is not true.

I think this is why they have advised that the labs look for the lowest possible detectable values. However, I think your single sentence underlines my point that there will be volumes of documents on this measurement and why the rules are the rules - when they have experts in the field of sport they tend to be medics or physiologists and not measurement specialists (physics/engineering/chemists). If the 'meat excuse' stands then now no athlete in a team should ever be tested alone! As the fellow team mates could act as measurement controls - otherwise the ' it was in the meat' excuse will always be a way out.

Anyway - there's going to be a lot of flimflam and we will never know.

I don't support Landis and don't know the details, without giving up a life. But you are right it's all in the details ......and the Rules. And according to the 'tests' a banned substance was found and Contador broke the Rules.

Tom

BikingBernie

TomBombadil wrote:

In 'real science' experiments have to be repeated. In medicine and physiology experiments are just accepted once they are published.

For one the tests used to detect drugs are repeated many times and their accuracy is validated before they are accepted for use. Secondly, the tests done on Landis' samples were repeated in that multiple samples of his were found to contain exogenous testosterone. As to medical experiments 'just being accepted once they are published', this is total nonsense. One example is the way the claim that there is a link between the MMR inoculation and autism was debunked.

TomBombadil wrote:

Take cold fusion - as soon as it was published almost every major lab in the world went out and tried to do this - only to find the uncertainty in the measurements overlapped with the results. Despite this - there exists a field of study in cold fusion covering a few tomes of paper.

Yes, all showing that the original researchers were in error...That is how science progresses, establishing hypotheses, testing them and if the results are not found to be robust rejecting or modifying the original hypothesis.

TomBombadil wrote:

The non linear nature of physiology is seldom understood especially when it comes to time series data - that is why the use of extreme limits to define boundaries in sport is strange - it's as if nobody has understood the nature of the normal or Gaussian curve of measurement which shows outliers happen. And isn't this what sport is about?

You appear to be mixing up a lot of independent concepts here. Yes, predicting the behaviour of nonlinear systems with a large number of degrees of freedom is a real problem. However, the issue of non-linearity has little bearing on estimates of probability based on the sampling of a normally distributed population. As to the relevance of 'outliers' in a normal distribution curve, it still remains the case that even the most exceptional athlete is still a part of a normally distributed population and as such the probability that their performance is authentic can be estimated.

oscarbudgie

Guilty. As sin. Clenbuterol, plasticizers from blood bags - the only contamination was in the stored blood he used as a rest day pick me up. I hope the cheating fecker swings.

DB100

oscarbudgie wrote:

Guilty. As sin. Clenbuterol, plasticizers from blood bags - the only contamination was in the stored blood he used as a rest day pick me up. I hope the cheating fecker swings.

Bravo my good man, let's just stop all this shi#e, he is a guilty cheating git, he should be banned for an amount of time to render his career over. Spesh should drop him like a stone. The UCI need to increase the sanction before all the commercial interests just say, "that's it" We no longer wish to be associated with the race or sport at the pro level.

psittacosis

I *want* to believe in "food contamination" like I want to believe in the tooth fairy and father christmas.

pb21

At the moment yes.

I don’t believe his story, it could be true but I doubt it and I would need some kind of proof to believe it. Added on to this his murky past and associations, the apparent plasticizers in his blood, his shifty stance in the past on the issue of doping and the fact that he appears to good to be true (winning 50Km TTs against Cancellara and 4km pan flat TTs whilst ripping it up in the mountains), it’s hard to see otherwise.

dougzz

psittacosis wrote:

I *want* to believe in "food contamination" like I want to believe in the tooth fairy and father christmas.

What the feck. How can you not put spoiler on this, are you saying there's no Father Christmas?

psittacosis

What the feck. How can you not put spoiler on this, are you saying there's no Father Christmas?

Sorry dougzz but we all have to grow up sometime

oscarbudgie

psittacosis wrote:

What the feck. How can you not put spoiler on this, are you saying there's no Father Christmas?

Sorry dougzz but we all have to grow up sometime

You'll be saying there's no Easter Bunny next......

DB100

Where do my Christmas presents come from?
Do the farmers send those?

psittacosis

You'll be saying there's no Easter Bunny next.....

Brace yourself...

OffTheBackAdam

ShinyHelmut wrote:

Did Contador dope? Yes

Did Contador deliberately ingest clenbuterol? Not sure

+1
Whatever the reason, the result will be the same, scratch one TdF victory off the palmares and a year or two's holiday.

andyxm

psittacosis wrote:

You'll be saying there's no Easter Bunny next.....

Brace yourself...

Will people please put spoiler in the thread subject if there's going to be stuff about Santa and the easter bunny. Idiots.

No_Ta_Doctor

andyxm wrote:

psittacosis wrote:

You'll be saying there's no Easter Bunny next.....

Brace yourself...

Will people please put spoiler in the thread subject if there's going to be stuff about Santa and the easter bunny. Idiots.

+1

Some bastards just have no respect for other posters. One of my little ones was looking over my shoulder when I read this thread and he was most distraught.















He couldn't stand to see me so upset. He had to break it to me that for the last few years he'd been deliberately naughty in the months up to Xmas, so I wouldn't wonder why Santa hadn't brought him any presents again. How bad do I feel now? He could have just told me earlier and I'd have bought him something.

TomBombadil

Re Biking Bernies comments - I was focussing on uncertainties not being estimated in the measurements in medical literature. They are not - try reviewing a few papers.Yes, some medical research is repeated but in reality it is very, very low. The MMR controversy you gave may be an example- I haven't time to review the papers and real work to debate this. Uncertainty values for measurements are seldom if ever given in medical and physiological work- I can't remember a single case and I have read hundreds of medical papers and have been looking at this for many years.

Few medical and physiological researchers even understand the concept of uncertainties in the measurements and how they impact on their work.

As for the nature of non-linearity in physiological measurements - this is widely studied and has been for a long time. However, many researchers take samples (assume the measurement and measurement process are perfect), do a simple test of normality and then simply assume they are from Gaussian distributions - when they are ALSO from an underlying non linear time series. .

However, it is virtually impossible to estimate non-linear time series like many non-linear physiological measurements - try being a weather forecaster or a banker!

You mention estimation - the idea of estimation assuming Gaussian is just that - Estimation! and does not consider any underlying problems of non linearity in the underlying time series. It can not predict the outlier - or for a weather metaphor, where the lightening is actually going to strike.


Tom

carl_p

DB100 wrote:

Guilty as sin, please, how can you guys swallow this bullsh*t

+1

Let's hope he get what he deserves.

Either way, everyone will suspect he is a cheat from here on in.

SunWuKong

Is there an official comment on the finding of plasticizers? I have only seen it as 'media reports' and i am not sure I trust media reporting what each other say as factual news.

Mccaria

Nothing official - but looks reasonably well informed/detailed

www.cyclingnews.com/news/lequipe-raises ... r-contador

Pokerface

I guess if you want to believe that a cyclist can be laying on the beach, soaking up the sun and sipping margaritas one day, then go off and win the Giro a week later with very little 'preparation', then you will also believe that the same cyclist can be the victim of a set of circumstances so unlikely that it sounds like it was concocted by a teenager trying to explain why he was late home after curfew and didn't finish his homework.



He's either the greatest talent cycling has ever seen, or the unluckiest man the peleton has ever had.

LangerDan

Mccaria wrote:

Nothing official - but looks reasonably well informed/detailed

www.cyclingnews.com/news/lequipe-raises ... r-contador

The plasticiser issue should be easy to kick to touch - bidons, bottled water, gel sachets..

Far more credible than having eaten a chunk out of the only contaminated cow in the village.

Pokerface

LangerDan wrote:

Mccaria wrote:

Nothing official - but looks reasonably well informed/detailed

www.cyclingnews.com/news/lequipe-raises ... r-contador

The plasticiser issue should be easy to kick to touch - bidons, bottled water, gel sachets..

Far more credible than having eaten a chunk out of the only contaminated cow in the village.

Plasticizers wouldn't get into your system from the sources you mentioned. Not as easy to dismiss as you might think.

Jay dubbleU

Since the amount found in his system would have had no effect on his performance the whole question is surely hypetherical ?

beatsystem

Why are people so cynical about this? Its very sad...

psittacosis

It is not in the least bit sad, it's annoying.
I hate cheats.