The Big Doping Thread!

morstar

Just a thought. With the success of having just one big LA thread (which still refuses to die), is it possible/desirable to have just one doping thread?
Just think it may help threads about racing to remain focused on the racing and those who want to talk doping to speak with like minded folk.
I enjoy both topics but think they need some segregation.

Crankbrother

Slow day in the stirs it much threads?

deejay

Di Luca banned for life by CONI December 5, 16:39

EPO positive ends Italian's career

The anti-doping tribunal of the Italian Olympic Committee has given Danilo Di Luca a lifetime ban from the sport following his positive doping test for EPO ahead of this year's Giro d'Italia, CONI announced today.

Di Luca was also fined €35,000 and must pay €850 for the costs of the proceedings, as well as the costs of the lab analysis, which is 3,150 CHF.

The 37-year-old Italian was brought into the Vini Fantini squad in February of this year. He tested positive for EPO in an out-of-competition control taken on April 29, but the news of the result did not break until the third week of the Giro d'Italia. His teammate Mauro Santambrogio also tested positive for EPO in a sample taken on stage 1 the race.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/di-luca ... fe-by-coni

Richmond Racer

Byeeee Killer, and good riddance

ddraver

It's a good idea but the Clinic Worker Bees rarely have any respect for such requests - you ll notice that whiteboytrash is denying that he's talking about doping at all...i think is this is the fourth incarnation of this idea this year unfortunately.

Richmond Racer

madasahattersley wrote:

A €35,000 euro fine? Just enough for him to still be able to live comfortably for the rest of his life without having to work again, I guess :evil:

Perhaps the law gives little room for larger fines, dont know. But he's out of sport for life now, and that'll do for me.

thomthom

We can soon have a thread that combines all the threads that combines doping related discussions..

rayjay

But he still feels the need to dope.

Is he just a leftover from the past or does he feel that nothing has changed and it's still the only way to compete?

It's interesting that his team mate got busted as well.

Suspicions aroused that it could be more widespread.

We have heard all comments about how clean cycling now is AL [after lance] but I am not so sure.

joelsim

rayjay wrote:

But he still feels the need to dope.

Is he just a leftover from the past or does he feel that nothing has changed and it's still the only way to compete?

It's interesting that his team mate got busted as well.

Suspicions aroused that it could be more widespread.

We have heard all comments about how clean cycling now is AL [after lance] but I am not so sure.

Couldn't agree more. Cleaner perhaps.

deejay

Joelsim wrote:

rayjay wrote:

We have heard all comments about how clean cycling now is but I am not so sure.

Couldn't agree more. Cleaner perhaps.

I would agree also, after seeing the Vuelta this year.

No_Ta_Doctor

ThomThom wrote:

We can soon have a thread that combines all the threads that combines doping related discussions..

I was going to post the same "can we have a thread for all posts about combining all posts about doping into one thread?"

But I wasn't sure where to post it.

Now I think we might need a thread for all posts about combining all posts about combining all posts about doping into one thread.

ddraver

News: Volta a Portugal winner Alex Marque tests positive: Alex Marque's contract with Movistar void

http://bit.ly/1dwWv9m

Danny Pate ‏@TheDPate 3m
Good work @alexmarque ! It's guys like you that make me love this sport.

Good lad Danny...

frenchfighter

Alex Marque issued a statement on his Facebook today saying that he possessed a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) for the use of betamethasone. The UCI, the anti-doping inspector and his team were aware he had taken the product.

"Betamethasone is a product which is allowed but not during races," he said. "Just before the Tour of Portugal, the most important race on the calendar in Portugal, my participation was in serious danger because of problems with my right knee. I received oral treatment with betamethasone and physiotherapy but to no avail. I had the product injected in my knee twice. My team and the UCI knew about this.

"When I was tested I also told the doping inspector of the product. There was no concealment from my part but I didn't go public with it because I didn't want to alert my rivals in the race. I consider the presence of the substance in my body sufficiently declared and have now received treatment for the knee with regards to the new season. The use of betamethasone was prescripted. I had no intent to deceive."

Sounds fine to me. And even then, the product isnt exactly performance enhancing.

Stillnox

frenchfighter wrote:

Sounds fine to me. And even then, the product isnt exactly performance enhancing.

You are right, corticosteroids are not performance enhancing products.

:idea:

rayjay

So it's only reason for being used is genuine or a masking agent.

It seems a bit harsh, from what has been said it was declared and you would have thought the UCI would have said something if it was banned at the time and told them not to use it.

blazing_saddles

Well, probably unlike anybody else here, I saw every stage.
Pretty much the same in ever edition I've watched.
Always crazy racing from some Portuguese team or other.
Usually triggers the odd positive or several.

Richmond Racer

frenchfighter wrote:

Alex Marque issued a statement on his Facebook today saying that he possessed a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) for the use of betamethasone. The UCI, the anti-doping inspector and his team were aware he had taken the product.

"Betamethasone is a product which is allowed but not during races," he said. "Just before the Tour of Portugal, the most important race on the calendar in Portugal, my participation was in serious danger because of problems with my right knee. I received oral treatment with betamethasone and physiotherapy but to no avail. I had the product injected in my knee twice. My team and the UCI knew about this.

"When I was tested I also told the doping inspector of the product. There was no concealment from my part but I didn't go public with it because I didn't want to alert my rivals in the race. I consider the presence of the substance in my body sufficiently declared and have now received treatment for the knee with regards to the new season. The use of betamethasone was prescripted. I had no intent to deceive."

Sounds fine to me. And even then, the product isnt exactly performance enhancing.

FF, Kenny Pryde's been on the cortisone thing for a while now - written some blogs and an article for a recent CycleSport. He's just posted this blog - have a read, might change your view? At the least it explains why it's performance-enhancing - and banned by the UCI during, and now 8 days before, racing:

http://www.biscuittinmedia.com/alejandr ... ugal-2013/

Stillnox

Richmond Racer wrote:

FF, Kenny Pryde's been on the cortisone thing for a while now - written some blogs and an article for a recent CycleSport. He's just posted this blog - have a read, might change your view? At the least it explains why it's performance-enhancing - and banned by the UCI during, and now 8 days before, racing:

http://www.biscuittinmedia.com/alejandr ... ugal-2013/

Read it yesterday, that is indeed a good piece, everyone should read that one, also the side effects of synacthen and that crap, scary stuff. Good thing cyclists are allowed to use that during training :roll:

frenchfighter

Tks will give it a read later RR even if I dont like Pryde!

frenchfighter

Good article, reasonably written and does educate you on the matter. From what I can gather though its 'performance enhancing' aspect is that you can train harder than the next rider? Other than that what does it actually do? Training with one of those oxygen masks seems to be more beneficial to me yet that isnt banned. Im not quite sure how it can turn an E rider into an A rider? Which is what many legit forms of doping do.

Mad_Malx

We've discussed this before-

I can't agree with those praising this as a good article - rather lacking in evidence for performance enhancement, mainly repeating the mantra 'corticosteroids are performance enhancing'. The first reference in the article (Pigozzi) was published alongside another article with giving the contrary opinion (not performance enhancing). Pigozi doesn't cite any direct evidence (ie in elite atheletes), but extrapolates studies giving at best circumstantial evidence.
What is very clear is any potential gain needs to be very carefully titrated - too much then Cushing's syndorome develops - weight gain, fat accumulation (buffalo hump). On withdrawl things get even worse - cortical insufficiency leading to muscle weakness.

The direct benefits to performance are minimal and the risk of adverse effects high (which is maybe justification for banning). The main benefit is being able to continue during injury, likely resulting in increased joint damage.

Edit - I'll look again at the details again when the performance reducing drug is out of my system.

frenchfighter

Good to read comments above. Echos what I thought - not really performance enhancing but they want it banned more for safety of riders who are now enabled to train when they shouldnt. Unless it is a masking agent?

skylla

I am not aware of betamethasone as a PED masking agent and can't see how this would work. One could however 'mask' a medical condition that would otherwise require rest or medical attention. As an anti-inflammatory it would allow one to some extent and depending on circumstances train harder, faster, longer and higher - thus no, in a strict sense it is not a performance enhancer. Indeed, as madmalx alludes to, long-term use is a bad plan for performance athletes. Note that local injections might prevent some of the side-effects from occuring and generally would require a smaller dose.

Stillnox

I agree, being able to train harder thanks to cortisone abuse is not performance enhancing. Training is just for fun.

Mad_Malx

Encouraging riders to keep training hard while injured is not a good idea, likely counterproductive in the medium-long term, and any doctor would be on very dangerous ground administering drugs which are likely to result in increased harm (I know, I know).
However, treatment of an acute injury during racing is in my mind a very different matter. Nibali couldn't use the most effective treatment when he got a wasp sting on his face in the Vuelta, but no-one (surely?) could now* believe that hydrocortisone cream on his face was unreasonable. If a rider falls and cuts his hand, we're happy to have this bandaged or stitched so he can carry on, is there really any difference?

*although it seems Lance thought rubbing cream on his bottom was going to help.

No_Ta_Doctor

OK, having read the article and now browsed wikipedia in search of very confusingly named members of the corticosteroid family.....

At least some of these corticosteroids seem to have quite a large role in quite a lot of stuff that isn't just "reducing an inflammation". Stuff in the metabolic pathways for instance. Pryde doesn't go into this, and I can understand why. Perhaps someone with a background in pharma, medicine or even just chemistry could give us a breakdown?

Mad_Malx

Steroids are any of a wide number of naturally produced or synthetic molecules with diverse biological activity, with a conserved molecular structure, with variation depending on variations and additions on the conserved structure. Includes corticosteroids like cortisol and cortisone, as well as the sex hormones - progesterone, testosterone; plus cholesterol and others.

Corticosterioids are steroids produced by the adrenal cortex, and their synthetic analogues.
These can be divided into glucocorticoids - anti-inflammatory, work mainly by suppressing inflammatory gene transcription; and mineralocorticoids - which increase sodium and water reabsorption .
Almost all corticosteroid molecules exhibit both activities, but with different selectivities, so cortisol (=hydroxycortisone) is mainly glucocorticoid, whereas aldesterone is overwhelmingly minerolocorticoid.

Now what I disagree with Pryde about are his assertion
' So, you have a series of performance enhancing products (the glucocorticoid family, widely called ‘cortico’), which you can take, in massive doses, during training, without fear'.
and
'..it can also help you train hard and feel like million Euros, day in day out'

Chronic high dose use will not increase performance - look up Cushing's syndrome and decide if you think this is a superathelete.

The performance enhancement (which suggests more to me than training through injury) is minimal, and massive doses really won't help. Glucocorticoids are not anabolic. After a fairly short course natural cortisol production can be suppressed for weeks afterwards, leading to adverse (low) blood readings and almost certainly IMPAIRED performance.

With regards the possibility of acting as a masking agent (not mentioned by Pryde), then I don't see this - the (lesser but partial) mineralocorticoid action of cortisol will likely lead to decreased clearance of any other drug, so longer glow time.

This is from memory, I'll discuss the possible ergogenic effects later when I can access the source literature, which is mostly in journals behind a paywall.

Macaloon

Deleted.

Thanks Mad.

No_Ta_Doctor

Cheers MM.

I've read about the mid to long term affects, so I'm in no doubt it's a bit of a daft strategy in the long run. But increased blood sugar and increased blood pressure are both interesting from a PED perspective. Weren't there reports of paralympic athletes "boosting" - breaking their toes to increase blood pressure?

I seem to remember that riders were also taking insulin as a PED. I wonder if corticosteroids were perhaps more useful if taken in conjunction with other stuff, e.g. HGH, testosterone.

Mad_Malx

Ergogenic effects of glucocorticoids have been investigated and reviewed in several articles by the Sports Medicine Scientist Martine Duclos, although most of the publications I can see are behind paywalls. She has given balanced reviews I think, and generally concludes that there are potential benefits (and high risks).
She attributes POTENTIAL performance enhancement primarily to:
Increased supply of energy sources to muscles - enhanced glycogen production after exercise so promotion of recovery
Stimulation of brain 'reward' pathways - increased motivation
Decreased perception of muscle pain
She goes on to say few studies have actually demonstrated demonstrated enhance performance in humans:
acute administration - no effect on short repeated submax exercise or prolonged endurance to exhaustion
short term admin - (60mg prednisone for 7 days) - significant improvement in endurance compared with placebo when combined with a LOW training load (2h/day), but effects on real-life training not known.
Studies in rats also suggest increased running in wheels, although it's a bit difficult to know whether these are 'elite' atheletes. There is indeed evidence of enhancement of insulin action.

Other respected sports scientist, take different views, and point out that
' four double-blind, placebo-controlled studies have shown that there is no performance enhancing effect of corticosteroids in healthy, elite athletes' (Pluim; Br J Sports Med 2008;42:549-550). This reference should be publically available (http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/ijlink?linkType ... d=42/7/549)

In summary (mine), there are benefits in non-elite atheletes, benefits dubious in elite. None of this takes into account the placebo benefit to the cheat though - if Doctor Death says it will help, it'll help.

No tA Doctor - it rather depends how the blood pressure is elevated. I read the paralympic story too (which was pretty grim), and yes, this was attributed to stimulating the 'fight or flight' response, which includes adrenaline and corticosteroid release. The corticosteroid effect on blood pressure is mainly due to water and sodium retention, rather than increased cardiac function (stimulated by adrenaline).

No_Ta_Doctor

Thanks again MM, excellent summary.