If it's not illegal, is it still cheating/doping?>>XENON BAN

LeicesterLad

frenchfighter wrote:

LeicesterLad wrote:

Aw, Ill try my hardest... Just getting up to date on this years results and trying to drum up some enthusiasm. Looking forward to the Giro quite a bit so that might help!

Your favourite team is racing which should help in that regard!

Yeah I'm hoping Colombia get some decent results on the board - they can be hit and miss at the best of times. Great kit though. 8)

frenchfighter

n my last diary post for CyclingTips I mentioned that I was about to head off to Canberra for a month-long training camp with the rest of the Jayco-AIS U23 WorldTour Academy team. We arrived to Canberra in late February and Alex Clements and I spent the first week in an altitude house there.

After that the whole team rode up to Charlottes Pass on Mt. Kosciusko and we did five or six days up there training in the hills. After that it was back to Canberra and everyone was in the altitude house for around 10 days.

The house was set up to simulate an altitude of 3,000m which was a bit hard to get used to. Initially it felt like you’d just skipped a breath and you couldn’t get enough air in. But after the first few nights your body gets used to it and it’s all fine.

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/04/caleb ... ack-at-it/

FJS

Richmond Racer wrote:

Garmin and Sky seem to be the only two teams who allow their doctors to be interviewed by journos.

I can see why other teams don't.

:?: if you only read American an British journos maybe, perhaps with limited contact books. I can recall recent interviews with Lotto and Quick Step doctors on painkillers and crashes, for instance.

Richmond Racer

FJS wrote:

Richmond Racer wrote:

Garmin and Sky seem to be the only two teams who allow their doctors to be interviewed by journos.

I can see why other teams don't.

:?: if you only read American an British journos maybe, perhaps with limited contact books. I can recall recent interviews with Lotto and Quick Step doctors on painkillers and crashes, for instance.

Now its true that I have read the recent quotes from Lotto re crashes - but not any OPQS ones. Do you have any links for that, please - I would like to read.

FJS

Richmond Racer wrote:

FJS wrote:

Richmond Racer wrote:

Garmin and Sky seem to be the only two teams who allow their doctors to be interviewed by journos.

I can see why other teams don't.

:?: if you only read American an British journos maybe, perhaps with limited contact books. I can recall recent interviews with Lotto and Quick Step doctors on painkillers and crashes, for instance.

Now its true that I have read the recent quotes from Lotto re crashes - but not any OPQS ones. Do you have any links for that, please - I would like to read.

http://m.sporza.be/cm/sporza.mobile/m_w ... /1.1928702

tailwindhome

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... roids.html

BenderRodriguez

TailWindHome wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/10918773/Team-Sky-insist-they-follow-the-rules-and-ride-clean-following-Chris-Froomes-use-of-glucocorticosteroids.html

Even if Sky do 'follow the rules', they certainly don't follow the spirit of the rules and it is clear that much of Sky's declared doping policy is just hot air and PR BS, as with the claim that they would pull a rider from a race rather than apply for a TUE...

It seems that the scales are even beginning fall from the eyes of that unapologetic Sky fan boy, David Walsh.

David Walsh has questioned Team Sky's ethics in The Sunday Times newspaper suggesting that the British team "talk the talk of high ethical standards but do not walk the walk."

..."Team Sky like to portray themselves as the most ethical team in the peloton. The evidence says otherwise." Walsh said as a conclusion to his story.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/david-w ... nday-times

iainf72

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Even if Sky do 'follow the rules', they certainly don't follow the spirit of the rules and it is clear that much of Sky's declared doping policy is just hot air and PR BS, as with the claim that they would pull a rider from a race rather than apply for a TUE...

Have they claimed that? I know Dr Steve Placebo said they do, but when Lionel Birnie was with the team during the 2011 (2nd year of the team) Dauphine they got a TUE for Uran

http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/a ... magic-bus/

Stage 6.

And that was a public article, so there's no mystery.

Macaloon

Is Walsh correct about the implications of MPCC membership, for this drug?

Does it fall under the 'cortisone 8-day withdrawal from racing' rule? If a MPCC rider had serious lung inflammation 7 days before the Tour, he couldn't take the appropriate treatment and still make the race?

BenderRodriguez

iainf72 wrote:

Have they claimed that? I know Dr Steve Placebo said they do, but when Lionel Birnie was with the team during the 2011 (2nd year of the team) Dauphine they got a TUE for Uran

http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/a ... magic-bus/

From that article:

The doc is in the hotel’s bar, laptop open, phone pressed to his ear, looking concerned.

Rigoberto Uran has been suffering with breathing difficulties for the past couple of days and Dr Freeman is trying to get a Therapeutic Use Exemption for a drug to treat him.

“It can be very tricky, especially at the weekends,” he says. Yesterday, Dr Freeman contacted the race’s anti-doping doctor and put the case for a TUE. The drug is a steroid that can mimic a corticosteroid in the urine and can be misused.

Does this refer to the same incident? If so the above was supposedly a 'one off' that ran against team policy.

Peters insists that Leinders was scrupulously ethical in his time with Sky. ‘We agreed as a team that if a rider, suffering from asthma, got into trouble with pollen we would pull him out of the race rather than apply for a therapeutic use exemption on his behalf.

‘Once, one of our riders was in this situation and the doctor got in touch with me and asked if we could get an exemption because the guy was in a bad way but was very keen to finish the race.

‘Using my discretion, I said “Okay.”

‘It was Geert who rang me afterwards to tell me I was wrong.

‘“We’ve got to have consistency,” he said.

Inside Team Sky, page 72

Good old 'ethical' Geert Leinders, 'No TUE's for Sky riders', Tramadol, Froome's comedy 'motor bike' show on the Ventoux. 'If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...'

RichN95.

Macaloon wrote:

Is Walsh correct about the implications of MPCC membership, for this drug?

Does it fall under the 'cortisone 8-day withdrawal from racing' rule? If a MPCC rider had serious lung inflammation 7 days before the Tour, he couldn't take the appropriate treatment and still make the race?

The two rules according to the MPCC website are:

Intra-articular corticosteroid injections have to be validated by the team doctor, who will prescribe eight days off-race. (This is also a UCI rule and applies to all teams)

In the event of collapsing cortisol levels, eight rest days are to be prescribed (waiting for normal blood tests results).

So nothing actually prohibits the taking of oral cortosteroids with a TUE.

MPCC rules seem to be fairly fluid at the best of times though.

axlightness

No matter what rules are followed it does feel like smoke and mirrors. Maybe I am just cynical but looking at the Dauphine I find it difficult to believe that cycling is clean especially among the main tour contenders.

inseine

axlightness wrote:

No matter what rules are followed it does feel like smoke and mirrors. Maybe I am just cynical but looking at the Dauphine I find it difficult to believe that cycling is clean especially among the main tour contenders.

You may be right, you may be wrong, I'm just not sure how or why people continue to watch if they really believe the sport is dirty.

BenderRodriguez

axlightness wrote:

No matter what rules are followed it does feel like smoke and mirrors. Maybe I am just cynical but looking at the Dauphine I find it difficult to believe that cycling is clean especially among the main tour contenders.

My take is that doping has been such an integral part of pro cycling for the last 110 years or so, and those who compete at those levels tend to be total obsessives who will do just about anything to win / get the best out of themselves, that it would take an event of cataclysmic proportions to change attitudes to doping, perhaps including 'burning down and rebuilding' the whole sport.

What on Earth has really changed over the last couple of years since Armstrong was uncovered? The 'blood passport scheme'? Brits winning the Tour? Brian Cookson becoming UCI president?

BenderRodriguez

inseine wrote:

You may be right, you may be wrong, I'm just not sure how or why people continue to watch if they really believe the sport is dirty.

Plenty of people watch other sports which are even less 'authentic', such as WWF wrestling.

I think that for some the doping angle is regarded as just being a part of the 'warrior' image of pro cyclists. I recall that Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride noted that many riders look at the issue in a similar way, with them viewing taking performance- enhancing drugs as being no more than equipping themselves with the best possible weapons prior to entering battle.

inseine

BenderRodriguez wrote:

inseine wrote:

You may be right, you may be wrong, I'm just not sure how or why people continue to watch if they really believe the sport is dirty.

Plenty of people watch other sports which are even less 'authentic', such as WWF wrestling.

I think that for some the doping angle is regarded as just being a part of the 'warrior' image of pro cyclists. I recall that Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride noted that many riders look at the issue in a similar way, with them viewing taking performance- enhancing drugs as being no more than equipping themselves with the best possible weapons prior to entering battle.

In fairness to Kimmage, he is referring to the sport 25 years ago, when it could be said, like WWF, it was a level playing field.
Nowadays at least there are people willing to stand up and say they are clean, there are efforts being made.
Call me naive but I have to believe that I am watching a sporting not a chemical performance. If you don't care, there's no need to go on forums and moan about it (not talking about you specifiaclly ).

kleinstroker

So if someone discovers a species of Yam that increases red blood cell count, would it be ethical or legal for cyclists to eat them?
I think the spectrum of what is or isn' t doping is arbitrary. EPO does the same thing as my special yams as does training at altitude. In fact being born from parents who over generations have lived at high altitudes is nothing less than genetic "doping". Just waiting for the first Tibetan cyclists to show up and prove my point.

r0bh

In sports signed up to the WADA code doping is what WADA say is doping. If various groups think TUEs or Tramadol or Cortisone or whatever-it-is-next-week are bad then they should lobby for them to be banned in the next revision of the WADA code, not use them as sticks to beat people with under the nebulous heading of "ethics".

axlightness

kleinstroker makes a very good point. Beetroot juice can give improved performance and I am sure that it works better for some than others. How does that stand among the ethos of fair play? We do not know how someone will benefit from any given substance and the banned list will just keep growing. A link concerning the effects of beetroot juice.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 101744.htm

thegreatdivide

I had a nasty chest infection that caused my asthma to give me grief and ended up on a week's worth of heavy duty pred plus anti biotics. After 5 days I felt ridiculously 'strong' so went out on the bike. The effects of the steroid are very noticeable!

iainf72

kleinstroker wrote:

I think the spectrum of what is or isn' t doping is arbitrary. EPO does the same thing as my special yams as does training at altitude. In fact being born from parents who over generations have lived at high altitudes is nothing less than genetic "doping". Just waiting for the first Tibetan cyclists to show up and prove my point.

It won't prove your point. The Tibetans have evolved to deal with altitude a different way. There's a bit about it in The Sports Gene, and if I remember they have low hemoglobin.

You're generally right, but Tibetans aren't a good example.

frenchfighter

His Romandie win is definitely suspect...no way he would have been able to sustain the pain without the TUE granted juice.

axlightness

It does stink of manipulating the rules. Don't forgot the teams who abide by The MPCC’s ethical code who would have pulled any of their riders from the race with the same issue.

RichN95.

axlightness wrote:

It does stink of manipulating the rules. Don't forgot the teams who abide by The MPCC’s ethical code who would have pulled any of their riders from the race with the same issue.

Would they have pulled them? Or would they have kept them riding with lesser medication? And would the rider have even told the team if he had a problem? He may have preferred to keep his illness hidden to prevent being pulled.

And even then none of MPCC's rules seem to explicitly state that is the case. And even then would the teams have complied - plenty of WT team members have broken, tried to break or fallen foul of the rules.

Turfle

Just to be sure, this story still isn't about Froome and Sky, right? We still just want the procedure clarified!

Amazing to think that to be accepted as clean all you need to do is sign up as an MPCC member. Astana, Katusha, Garmin, Europcar, Lampre, OGE, RUSVELO (!!!) all above reproach.

argyllflyer

Turfle wrote:

Just to be sure, this story still isn't about Froome and Sky, right? We still just want the procedure clarified!

Amazing to think that to be accepted as clean all you need to do is sign up as an MPCC member. Astana, Katusha, Garmin, Europcar, Lampre, OGE, RUSVELO (!!!) all above reproach.

If Sky were in the MPCC you'd have the trolls decrying the worth of doing so for that very reason.

tailwindhome

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... tions.html

Jez mon

So to summarise...

Sky haven't played by the ethical guidelines of a group which they aren't affiliated to, but have broken no rules according to the governing body...

(Unfortunately?) ethical or not, what Team Sky did was seemingly within the rules that were in place at the time, and in top level sport, winning often requires going right up to the edge of the rules.

tailwindhome

Jez mon wrote:

So to summarise...

Sky haven't played by the ethical guidelines of a group which they aren't affiliated to, but have broken no rules according to the governing body...

(Unfortunately?) ethical or not, what Team Sky did was seemingly within the rules that were in place at the time, and in top level sport, winning often requires going right up to the edge of the rules.

Yes. However it's now the UCI who have questions to answer.

kleinstroker

iainf72 wrote:

kleinstroker wrote:

I think the spectrum of what is or isn' t doping is arbitrary. EPO does the same thing as my special yams as does training at altitude. In fact being born from parents who over generations have lived at high altitudes is nothing less than genetic "doping". Just waiting for the first Tibetan cyclists to show up and prove my point.

It won't prove your point. The Tibetans have evolved to deal with altitude a different way. There's a bit about it in The Sports Gene, and if I remember they have low hemoglobin.

You're generally right, but Tibetans aren't a good example.

I was being lazy and didnt check my facts. You're right Iain..

Tibetans have better oxygenation at birth, enlarged lung volumes throughout life, and a higher capacity for exercise. They show a sustained increase in cerebral blood flow, lower haemoglobin concentration, and less susceptibility to chronic mountain sickness than other populations, obviously due their longer history of high-altitude habitation