Froome Vuelta salbutamol problem
Comments
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Germcevoy wrote:Froome saying he hopes this incident does not prevent athletes using their inhalers in emergency situations.
If you are having an asthma related emergency then perhaps it’s best not to go race a few hundred kilometres in the mountains? The dosage he had in him was equivalent to 32 puffs of his inhaler. As an athletic that seems an obscene volume. He should have been on a nebuliser under medical Caren if he needed that much.
Well, if the amount in his urine was the amount he’d inhaled. And there is some evidence this may not always be the case.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Why does it have a limit if it isn't performance enhancing?0
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Isn't WADA also looking at protecting riders? So the limit maybe in place to stop athletes from putting themselves at risk?
Pure speculation from me as I have no knowledge on the subject.
I always presumed there was other non performance enhancing drugs that were either allowed but with limited use or banned to avoid any risk.0 -
iainf72 wrote:Germcevoy wrote:Froome saying he hopes this incident does not prevent athletes using their inhalers in emergency situations.
If you are having an asthma related emergency then perhaps it’s best not to go race a few hundred kilometres in the mountains? The dosage he had in him was equivalent to 32 puffs of his inhaler. As an athletic that seems an obscene volume. He should have been on a nebuliser under medical Caren if he needed that much.
Well, if the amount in his urine was the amount he’d inhaled. And there is some evidence this may not always be the case.
There will be a lot of ifs0 -
KingstonGraham wrote:Why does it have a limit if it isn't performance enhancing?
Not sure, some people think there might be some PE effects at very high levels but there is no solid evidence or testing so, and a lot of evidence to show there isn't at normal to high levels. The limit is at roughly the threshold for when you should be using a different prescription drug rather than treating the symptoms short term0 -
Ben6899 wrote:No tA Doctor wrote:Ben6899 wrote:powerbookboy wrote:[If a team could find an asthmatic with colitis and diabetes they'd be set for the next 10 years ( salbutamol, insulin and oral low dose steroids )
I know it was a slightly tongue-in-cheek comment (right?), but I'm guessing you've never taken the 'favourite' steroid to combat IBD - prednisolone. It's no performance enhancer!
*Dumoulin*
Was he taking prednisolone during the Giro? I did not know that.
Hey, it's a bloody effective treatment, but I wouldn't recommend taking it without genuine cause.
No, it was a tongue in cheek comment on his Giro....moment....which is a perpetual hazard for those of us taking pred for the conditions you listed above ;-)
Flare-free and in remission for the last few years, thankfully.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
mamba80 wrote:
Does he use his inhaler whilst racing then?
I would expect normally he would use it pre race and after race, however, also during the race if he developed symptoms.
The amount he must have taken though would suggest he was rather unwell, and therefore it could/should be argued he should not have continued the race/stage at that time.0 -
Right then, quick thread round-up.
Salbutamol isn't thought to be performance enhancing except at high oral doses - which is what the limit is there to prevent. The limit is based on maximum recommended inhaler dose, but how this is metabolised may vary from person to person, and the amount detected in urine may also vary with e.g. dehydration.
Tony Martin doesn't know the rules - until the press got word the case was being handled by the book. More to the point, while moaning about "transparency" Martin has absolutely no idea how many other riders may have been popped for going over the limit but managed to explain it satisfactorily.
Salbutamol isn't a masking agent, so no pont in taking it for that.
Salbutamol is commonly tested, so no point in taking a PED level dose for that when you're getting ested every day.
Should precedent define what should happen here? Possibly, but not if Froome can show there's an issue with the limit (for him personally or in general). Sure, others have suffered penalties for what looks like the same offence, but it doesn't make sense to hang an innocent man just because other innocent men have been hanged before on the same reasoning.
Let's not do the performance-enhancing V performance-enabling debate again. Relieving an illness is different to getting a boost when you're already fit. All sports organisations recognise this, as do WADA. We know there can be some playing-fast-and-loose with TUES, but not for Salbutamol, as it isn't really a PED.
This doesn't damage Sky's reputation at all, except in the eyes of those who already believed it damaged.
Lastly, the Froome-dog should gave got a Kennelog TUE and this wouldn't have happened. Woof.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
Vino'sGhost wrote:kleinstroker wrote:Seems to me that everyone is forgetting that he uses Salbutamol to bring him back up to the level of the other riders, he isn't getting a boost, just trying to breathe as easily as the rest of the peloton.
After riding for so many years he must have known how many puffs he could take & stay within the limits, but something obviously happened that day to change this, maybe one puff too many or who knows what.
It's really sad to see so many people quickly jump to use this to taint his achievements
Yes i could take HGH and EPO to bring me up to the standards of other riders. is that ok too?
No, he takes it to bring his breathing back to normal, you would be benefitting from increased performance beyond what is normal, also salbutamol is a specified substance so no TUE even needed, HGH and EPO not in same class as I am sure you know0 -
iainf72 wrote:Germcevoy wrote:Froome saying he hopes this incident does not prevent athletes using their inhalers in emergency situations.
If you are having an asthma related emergency then perhaps it’s best not to go race a few hundred kilometres in the mountains? The dosage he had in him was equivalent to 32 puffs of his inhaler. As an athletic that seems an obscene volume. He should have been on a nebuliser under medical Caren if he needed that much.
Well, if the amount in his urine was the amount he’d inhaled. And there is some evidence this may not always be the case.
Where did the 32 puffs come from? The graph shown from INRNG shows it can be achieved with only 3 puffs over two days0 -
KingstonGraham wrote:Why does it have a limit if it isn't performance enhancing?
It can be performance enhancing if you take a sh1t ton of it. But we re taking way way more than the case hereWe're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
kleinstroker wrote:iainf72 wrote:Germcevoy wrote:Froome saying he hopes this incident does not prevent athletes using their inhalers in emergency situations.
If you are having an asthma related emergency then perhaps it’s best not to go race a few hundred kilometres in the mountains? The dosage he had in him was equivalent to 32 puffs of his inhaler. As an athletic that seems an obscene volume. He should have been on a nebuliser under medical Caren if he needed that much.
Well, if the amount in his urine was the amount he’d inhaled. And there is some evidence this may not always be the case.
Where did the 32 puffs come from? The graph shown from INRNG shows it can be achieved with only 3 puffs over two days
I suspect that it was based on been allowed 16 puffs and the limit is 1000 whatevers. Therefore this person assumed 2000 = 32 puffs."Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago0 -
No tA Doctor wrote:Ben6899 wrote:No tA Doctor wrote:Ben6899 wrote:powerbookboy wrote:[If a team could find an asthmatic with colitis and diabetes they'd be set for the next 10 years ( salbutamol, insulin and oral low dose steroids )
I know it was a slightly tongue-in-cheek comment (right?), but I'm guessing you've never taken the 'favourite' steroid to combat IBD - prednisolone. It's no performance enhancer!
*Dumoulin*
Was he taking prednisolone during the Giro? I did not know that.
Hey, it's a bloody effective treatment, but I wouldn't recommend taking it without genuine cause.
No, it was a tongue in cheek comment on his Giro....moment....which is a perpetual hazard for those of us taking pred for the conditions you listed above ;-)
Flare-free and in remission for the last few years, thankfully.
Ah yes, of course!
Good news as well. Ben
Bikes: Donhou DSS4 Custom | Condor Italia RC | Gios Megalite | Dolan Preffisio | Giant Bowery '76
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ben_h_ppcc/
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/143173475@N05/0 -
On this it's also worth noting that precedent isn't just limited to cycling cases. Cases prosecuted by WADA in other sports under the 2015 code are more relevant than Ulissi.No tA Doctor wrote:
Should precedent define what should happen here? Possibly, but not if Froome can show there's an issue with the limit (for him personally or in general). Sure, others have suffered penalties for what looks like the same offence, but it doesn't make sense to hang an innocent man just because other innocent men have been hanged before on the same reasoning.Twitter: @RichN950 -
The problem with this case is all the possible scenarios seem unlikely.
He's been found massively exceeding - by 100% - the concentration of salbutamol in his urine and so far I've not seen a credible reason how that could happen without him inhaling or ingesting a banned dose of the drug.
At the same time there appears to be no reason for him deliberately taking excessive amounts given the apparent risks vs reward...massive vs none or virtually none.
Then you look whether it could be an accident. Could the inhaler malfunction, could he have the wrong inhaler giving him a bigger dose than he thought, could Geraint Thomas really want to ride the Giro again and will stop at nothing to do so?
Nothing in this makes sense, we'll see what Sky can come up with but any evidence which suggests Froome could have exceeded the limit by 100% legally will beg the question why we haven't had many other cyclists exceeding the limit by lower amounts. If it's possible to hit 2000 then at face value exceeding 1000 shouldn't be unusual.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
^ didn't you see the inrng graph?0
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Just want to post my two cents worth on this. Ive got a good knowledge of asthma and the use of salbutamol based on the fact my 5yr old boy had several asthma attacks between the ages of 2 and 3 and ended up being rushed to hospital a few times. I'll answer some of the points people are raising and in a lot of case, wrongly I must say.
"Its an enhancer because it allows more oxygen into the body!!"
Salbutamol ISN'T a performance enhancer. All it does is simply open up closed airways you already have. It doesn't create new ones. It doesn't enhance existing airways to perform better than they can. It simply opens up the airways you already have to get a basic, brain needing, level of oxygen. If it didn't, you would die of brain failure first due to lack of oxygen supply. So people saying it would have enhanced Froomes ability are just wrong. I specifically asked the doctors this when my son was ill as I didn't want to be putting masses amounts of steroids or a substance into him that might send him haywire.
"Froomes reading of 2000 is way too high!"
To put this into perspective, when I read people saying he was way, way over and obviously doing it deliberately for it to be that high I laughed my socks off. Every puff of an inhaler administers a dose of 100. When my son had his first asthma attack he was immediately put on a constant drip feed of salbutamol in the form of a mask, for 2 days and nights. When we finally got him home we were given a asthma plan by the paediatrician. In it, he had (as well as a brown inhaler) the salbutamol inhaler with the advice that should he/we think he's having an attack of any kind, even in the early stages or a cold coming on, give him the inhaler straight away. Don't wait. The dose? 4 (minimum) to 10 puffs (maximum) every 4 hours. Read that again...4 to ten puffs EVERY 4 HOURS. Now you do the maths.
In the space of 24 hours, even with the minimum 4 puffs every 4 hours, my 2 year old boy was getting 2400 as a dose. Minimum. And he was only 2 at the time. More often than not, my wife would give him 8 puffs, so even in a 24hr period he was getting a constant 4800. In a 2yr old. If we had given him 10 puffs every 4 hours he would have received a dose of 6000.
And some people think 2000 is a lot? its laughable. My son would have died on that amount, and this was just to keep him alive and keep oxygen flowing through his blood, just walking around. To think that elite athletes, pushing themselves are limited to 1600 is, quite frankly, and absolute joke! Froome isn't the problem, its the WADA/UCI ruling that 1600 is the upper limit. Even now, with my boy being 5yrs old and slightly bigger lungs, he will have 3 puffs every 4 hours for a couple of days if we feel a cold is coming on, so even on a basic level during winter he's getting 1800. Basic. A 5yr old.
"To get to 2000 he would need to be having 32 puffs over 24 hours, no one can do that!"
As Ive already said, its actually very easy. My sons minimum was 4 puffs every 4 hours. In 24hrs thats 24 puffs. Again, thats minimum. If he had been on the max (10 puffs) he would have taken 60 puffs in 24hrs. As it was, he was on 8 puffs every 24hrs which is 48 puffs.
With 100 per puff, Froome would have taken 20 puffs in a 24hr period. He would have done this during the night too if he had waken up. 20 puffs is less that 1 puff per hour. Do people think thats a lot or thats hard to to? 1 puff an hour?
Now we all know he wouldn't have taken 1 puff an hour for 24hrs. So lets assume he's also taking a dose every 4 hours. From waking up at 7am, to going to bed at 10pm (as an average during a GT) thats 15 hours. It roughly equates to him taking 5 puffs every 4 hours.
Again, compare that to what me and my wife were told to take, 4-10 puffs, every 4 hours. For a 2yr old. Just to run around. Just to make sure he doesn't have an attack.
You think Froomes gone over the top? During a Grand Tour, pushing it to the limit? Have a proper think about it.
Some other points worth noting, is that Doctors don't f*ck about when it comes to taking salbutamol. If you are an asthma sufferer, you are simply told 'take it', don't muck about. The consequences are your lungs sealing up and you die. Thats it. So if Froome was going to his doctor and saying his asthma was particularly bad on a given day, it makes perfect sense for a doctor to just say 'take it', levels or not. I say again, the level of 1600 for an elite athlete is simply just laughable.
Or sons doctor said just don't think about it, especially during humid weather where dust, pollen (and there are hundreds of different types of pollen in the world) or during winter where colds and flu are rife. Just take it. In fact if Nike were doing a salbutamol promo thats the phrase they should use..'JUST TAKE IT'.
People on here saying this and that, coming from a cycling point of view, really need to stop and read up on the subject. I was amazed just how much the doctors filled my son full of salbutamol, just to keep him on an even level. When he was on a monitor you could see the oxygen readings going up and down, depending on how much was in his system. Now if you are Froome, going up and down mountains for 3 weeks, you're going to need it. No mistake. Not even a second thought.
The consequences, if he didn't, is that we would all be mourning another Simpson. He would die.0 -
Good summary further up.
DeVlaeminck, I agree. It's a rubbish thing to get caught for anyway, I don't think his concentrations are enough to get any real PE effects if they exist, and even then you'd likely need to take it like that for a while but I have no idea, but if he took it by mistake (easily done if he was struggling with it) then he must surely have taken enough to have noticed he would be over the limit. As they have suggested, the only other answer is that in certain conditions more is found in urine than normal and he misjudged it.0 -
No it should still be. A rider would normally take one, at most two puffs during a race. But the rules allow him to take 8 in a 12 hour period - that's a lot more. Maybe Froome, in an emergency situation took as many as seven. The problem is that Froome doesn't know what his testing readings were when taking just one.DeVlaeminck wrote:If it's possible to hit 2000 then at face value exceeding 1000 shouldn't be unusual.
Also as has been noted, we would know nothing of this if it hadn't been leaked to the papers. This may have happened before with the rider being cleared and staying anonymous.Twitter: @RichN950 -
RichN95 wrote:
No it should still be. A rider would normally take one, at most two puffs during a race. But the rules allow him to take 8 in a 12 hour period - that's a lot more. Maybe Froome, in an emergency situation took as many as seven. The problem is that Froome doesn't know what his testing readings were when taking just one.DeVlaeminck wrote:If it's possible to hit 2000 then at face value exceeding 1000 shouldn't be unusual.
Also as has been noted, we would know nothing of this if it hadn't been leaked to the papers. This may have happened before with the rider being cleared and staying anonymous.
8 puffs in a 12 hour period is nothing. Im sorry you are wrong. Read my post above.0 -
I know, but that's what the WADA rules allow. I didn't make them up myself. I'm fully aware of what you wrote is correct - I read about it myself elsewhere.Cyclesniper wrote:RichN95 wrote:
No it should still be. A rider would normally take one, at most two puffs during a race. But the rules allow him to take 8 in a 12 hour period - that's a lot more. Maybe Froome, in an emergency situation took as many as seven. The problem is that Froome doesn't know what his testing readings were when taking just one.DeVlaeminck wrote:If it's possible to hit 2000 then at face value exceeding 1000 shouldn't be unusual.
Also as has been noted, we would know nothing of this if it hadn't been leaked to the papers. This may have happened before with the rider being cleared and staying anonymous.
8 puffs in a 12 hours period is nothing. Im sorry you are wrong. read my post above.Twitter: @RichN950 -
Is there not a chance he took the pill form (which requires a TUE) instead which may have upped the readings?0
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kleinstroker wrote:^ didn't you see the inrng graph?
The problem with the inrng graph is it's one piece of research on one athlete and it needs to be explained why the limit would be set so low if it were that easy to exceed it. Presumably wada or whoever set the limit didn't just pick a figure out of thin air. I think the limit assumes the stuff is inhaled with a normal inhaler - there was some fuss about a xc skier called Sunby who used a nebuliser which gets far more of the salbutamol into the body. Have Sky confirmed how Froome inhaled his salbutamol?
Secondly why haven't we seen more athletes exceed the 1000 limit if Chris Froome could exceed 2000 without taking a banned dose ?[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
ddraver wrote:KingstonGraham wrote:Why does it have a limit if it isn't performance enhancing?
It can be performance enhancing if you take a sh1t ton of it. But we re taking way way more than the case here
Presumably, if the airways are dilated, then they're, dilated. It's hard to see how taking a lot more of a medication will cause a significant further change. Could be wrong though...0 -
Cyclesniper wrote:Just want to post my two cents worth on this. Ive got a good knowledge of asthma and the use of salbutamol based on the fact my 5yr old boy had several asthma attacks between the ages of 2 and 3 and ended up being rushed to hospital a few times. I'll answer some of the points people are raising and in a lot of case, wrongly I must say.
"Froomes reading of 2000 is way too high!"
To put this into perspective, when I read people saying he was way, way over and obviously doing it deliberately for it to be that high I laughed my socks off. Every puff of an inhaler administers a dose of 100. When my son had his first asthma attack he was immediately put on a constant drip feed of salbutamol in the form of a mask, for 2 days and nights. When we finally got him home we were given a asthma plan by the paediatrician. In it, he had (as well as a brown inhaler) the salbutamol inhaler with the advice that should he/we think he's having an attack of any kind, even in the early stages or a cold coming on, give him the inhaler straight away. Don't wait. The dose? 4 (minimum) to 10 puffs (maximum) every 4 hours. Read that again...4 to ten puffs EVERY 4 HOURS. Now you do the maths.
In the space of 24 hours, even with the minimum 4 puffs every 4 hours, my 2 year old boy was getting 2400 as a dose. Minimum. And he was only 2 at the time. More often than not, my wife would give him 8 puffs, so even in a 24hr period he was getting a constant 4800. In a 2yr old. If we had given him 10 puffs every 4 hours he would have received a dose of 6000.
And some people think 2000 is a lot? its laughable. My son would have died on that amount, and this was just to keep him alive and keep oxygen flowing through his blood, just walking around. To think that elite athletes, pushing themselves are limited to 1600 is, quite frankly, and absolute joke! Froome isn't the problem, its the WADA/UCI ruling that 1600 is the upper limit. Even now, with my boy being 5yrs old and slightly bigger lungs, he will have 3 puffs every 4 hours for a couple of days if we feel a cold is coming on, so even on a basic level during winter he's getting 1800. Basic. A 5yr old.
The consequences, if he didn't, is that we would all be mourning another Simpson. He would die.
i think the point you are really trying to make is that your son or anyone else suffer acute asthmatic symptoms requiring life saving drug interventions should nt be competing in world class sport.
Simpson? was taking alcohol and speed , not sure of the relevance? plenty of cyclists have died with epo usage thickening the blood.
as i said earlier, Froome looked and sounded good in all the post race interviews so one can assume he was nt dying.
the dose inhaled isnt linked to the amount detected in the blood, hence why he was nt banned immediately, this has been said many times on here.
Look i dont like the SKY/Froome tactics, it makes for boring racing (imho) however, this incident has already tarnished the sport and if he is stripped of his Vuelta win and gets a ban, then it ll damage pro cycling more than even LArmstrong managed, the general public wont see the difference between EPO and Salbutamol.
so, i sincerely hope there is an innocent explanation for the levels found.0 -
Alex99 wrote:ddraver wrote:KingstonGraham wrote:Why does it have a limit if it isn't performance enhancing?
It can be performance enhancing if you take a sh1t ton of it. But we re taking way way more than the case here
Presumably, if the airways are dilated, then they're, dilated. It's hard to see how taking a lot more of a medication will cause a significant further change. Could be wrong though...
I'm not the expert you re looking for but apparently at super high doses it can help with weight loss. Body Builders in the free for all competitions use it for that. But again we re talking levels way way higher.
Hutch pointed out on twitter that we re potentially in a situation where Froome did an illegal but non performance enhancing thing whereas Wiggo was entirely legal but likely performance enhancingWe're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
As a salbutamol taker myself I can say that after taking two puffs of an inhaler I sound pretty good. It works fast and I recover almost to the level I was before I started getting symptoms. Most of the time.
If I read your comment right
then I would assume that the salbutamol had worked. I've never taken it and not had a noticeable positive reaction myself and would expect if Froome is able to race then salbutamol would have had an equally positive impact.Froome looked and sounded good in all the post race interviews so one can assume he was nt dying.
I've been bad once or twice where I needed 4 dosed puffs on the inhaler in one short period then later on a repeat. I think the most I've taken in any single 24 hour period is 12 doses. IIRC they still didn't get me back to my normal levels. It was usually a bad cold that was causing me issues along with allergic reaction I had to stop riding my bike for a week it was so bad.
I do wonder about asthma in top level sport. I don't doubt they have it just why they would continue suffering in a GT when they're having bad periods of asthma? Perhaps they need better advice / treatment. Is there any better drug regime they could take to prevent rather than treat asthma? Is there a safety issue with all this? Are they medically fit to race a GT? Just curious.0 -
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/1 ... n_dollars/
So does Team Sky become Team Mickey Mouse? And is that apt?0
