Froome Vuelta salbutamol problem

gweeds

RichN95 wrote:

Apparently the Times reported that the doctor told him to have three toots after the race before going to dope control. An Italian paper has reported that four tokes can in such circumstances can give huge readings far in excess of even Froome's

Why would you toot immediately before a test. Does that increase efficacy for the following day?

redvision

Interesting comments from Pat McQuaid.

“The fact is, he has broken a rule,” said McQuaid. “The fact is his urine sample was twice the permitted limit. It’s up to him to go and prove that he could have done otherwise.

“We’re now three months down the road, and they haven’t found a solution or a resolution to it yet.”

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lates ... 8kYwyDF.99

Matthewfalle

RichN95 wrote:

Apparently the Times reported that the doctor told him to have three toots after the race before going to dope control. An Italian paper has reported that four tokes can in such circumstances can give huge readings far in excess of even Froome's

How convenient .......

gweeds

redvision wrote:

Interesting comments from Pat McQuaid.

“The fact is, he has broken a rule,” said McQuaid. “The fact is his urine sample was twice the permitted limit. It’s up to him to go and prove that he could have done otherwise.

“We’re now three months down the road, and they haven’t found a solution or a resolution to it yet.”

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lates ... 8kYwyDF.99

From the man who gave Lance a free pass.

Get in the bin McQuaid.

joe2008

Gweeds wrote:

redvision wrote:

Interesting comments from Pat McQuaid.

“The fact is, he has broken a rule,” said McQuaid. “The fact is his urine sample was twice the permitted limit. It’s up to him to go and prove that he could have done otherwise.

“We’re now three months down the road, and they haven’t found a solution or a resolution to it yet.”

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lates ... 8kYwyDF.99

From the man who gave Lance a free pass.

Get in the bin McQuaid.

Doesn't change those facts though.

redvision

Gweeds wrote:

redvision wrote:

Interesting comments from Pat McQuaid.

“The fact is, he has broken a rule,” said McQuaid. “The fact is his urine sample was twice the permitted limit. It’s up to him to go and prove that he could have done otherwise.

“We’re now three months down the road, and they haven’t found a solution or a resolution to it yet.”

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lates ... 8kYwyDF.99

From the man who gave Lance a free pass.

Get in the bin McQuaid.

Granted, but he makes a good point about sky having had 3 months to produce their defence, yet so far, as far as we know, Froome is still under investigation.

I don't think he deliberately doped but he did exceed the limit.
Personally, from a selfish point of view (being asthmatic), i actually think the bigger question is why was he allowed to continue racing if he was so unwell to need such a volume of salbutamol.

smithy21

kleinstroker wrote:

Another graph

But surely guys like Froome do not finish hard stages in GT’s in a state of tip top hydration?

If dehydration is the cause why does this not come up all the time?

RichN95.

Gweeds wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Apparently the Times reported that the doctor told him to have three toots after the race before going to dope control. An Italian paper has reported that four tokes can in such circumstances can give huge readings far in excess of even Froome's

Why would you toot immediately before a test. Does that increase efficacy for the following day?

Because it was immediately after he had finished the race.

iainf72

RichN95 wrote:

Gweeds wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Apparently the Times reported that the doctor told him to have three toots after the race before going to dope control. An Italian paper has reported that four tokes can in such circumstances can give huge readings far in excess of even Froome's

Why would you toot immediately before a test. Does that increase efficacy for the following day?

Because it was immediately after he had finished the race.

And we've quite often seen him coughing his lungs out post-stage. And if it's EIA that's likely when he'd need a toot.

mtb-idle

smithy21 wrote:

kleinstroker wrote:

If dehydration is the cause why does this not come up all the time?

Cos its a crock o' sh...., possibly, definitely, totally plausible (delete as appropriate)

DeVlaeminck

Sounds like more Sky BS. 3 toots post race as a matter of routine doesn't ring true.

A blue inhaler is normally advised to prevent an attack or during an attack. For an athlete the point is to be able to perform so if you have 8 puffs allowed you'd use them pre race and then during the race if needed. Sure if you suffered an actual attack post race you'd need the inhaler but if a race finish is routinely provoking a full on asthma attack you aren't competing at the sharp end of any bike race let alone the TdF and you'd almost certainly be needing a few puffs whenever the racing got hard.

If Froome was as bad as is implied he would be on stronger medication - even as an amateur he'd have been on a brown inhaler and remembering what Sky said about taking no chances with Wiggins' problems we are now being asked to believe they took the polar opposite approach with Froome.

tailwindhome

RichN95 wrote:

Apparently the Times reported that the doctor told him to have three toots after the race before going to dope control. An Italian paper has reported that four tokes can in such circumstances can give huge readings far in excess of even Froome's

This is more 'thinking out loud' than actually expecting an answer.
How would taking 3 puffs on an inhaler show up in a urine sample minutes after?
Surely it would take the body time to process it.

tailwindhome

DeVlaeminck wrote:

we are now being asked to believe they took the polar opposite approach with Froome.

The reasonable explanation for this is that everyone shat the bed about TUEs

RichN95.

TailWindHome wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Apparently the Times reported that the doctor told him to have three toots after the race before going to dope control. An Italian paper has reported that four tokes can in such circumstances can give huge readings far in excess of even Froome's

This is more 'thinking out loud' than actually expecting an answer.
How would taking 3 puffs on an inhaler show up in a urine sample minutes after?
Surely it would take the body time to process it.

It can take while for them to dope testing. They usually do their media duties first.

nickice

joe2008 wrote:

nickice wrote:

To be fair to the clinic, people on here were claiming it was a masking agent until earlier on today.

To be fair to the people on here, INRNG was too:

"It is considered a stimulant in small doses and can have an anabolic, muscle-building effect in larger doses (an online search will bring up stories of bodybuilders injecting it) and can be a masking agent too."

And then later corrected it.

RichN95.

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Sounds like more Sky BS. 3 toots post race as a matter of routine doesn't ring true.

A blue inhaler is normally advised to prevent an attack or during an attack. For an athlete the point is to be able to perform so if you have 8 puffs allowed you'd use them pre race and then during the race if needed. Sure if you suffered an actual attack post race you'd need the inhaler but if a race finish is routinely provoking a full on asthma attack you aren't competing at the sharp end of any bike race let alone the TdF and you'd almost certainly be needing a few puffs whenever the racing got hard.

If Froome was as bad as is implied he would be on stronger medication - even as an amateur he'd have been on a brown inhaler and remembering what Sky said about taking no chances with Wiggins' problems we are now being asked to believe they took the polar opposite approach with Froome.

It doesn't matter what he was suffering from. He's allowed to take 8 puffs in a twelve hour period. He doesn't even have to be asthmatic.

joe2008

nickice wrote:

joe2008 wrote:

nickice wrote:

To be fair to the clinic, people on here were claiming it was a masking agent until earlier on today.

To be fair to the people on here, INRNG was too:

"It is considered a stimulant in small doses and can have an anabolic, muscle-building effect in larger doses (an online search will bring up stories of bodybuilders injecting it) and can be a masking agent too."

And then later corrected it.

Well, it's still in his post, and not everybody has the inclination to read through a few hundred comments to find the correction.

Pross

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Sounds like more Sky BS. 3 toots post race as a matter of routine doesn't ring true.

Couple of points, first does anyone know Sky have said this? It sounds like newspaper speculation to me. Secondly, who said it was a matter of routine? I read that comment as the doctor suggesting it on this occasion, presumably due to a particularly bad reaction on finishing the stage.

Pross

Timoid. wrote:

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Tony. Martin. Isn't. The. Baddie. Here. Folks

I get the feeling some people are trying to deflect here

Exactly. He may have been technically incorrect, but he sounds like someone who is sick of doping and dopers. I prefer these sort of comments to the mealy mouthed carp of yesteryear.

The problem is he hasn't expressed his anger at any other doping issues even though many are more obvious attempts to cheat and he talks of double standards yet moved to a team that would have had a team ban last year had the UCI not applied discretion to their rules. It seems an odd battle to have chosen in the grand scheme of things.

iainf72

Pross wrote:

The problem is he hasn't expressed his anger at any other doping issues even though many are more obvious attempts to cheat and he talks of double standards yet moved to a team that would have had a team ban last year had the UCI not applied discretion to their rules. It seems an odd battle to have chosen in the grand scheme of things.

I'm also trying to remember, I think he's got form for posting ill-informed rants which don't help.

TheBigBean

If I was cynical I would suggest that the doctor recommending three puffs immediately before a drugs test may have been something cooked up by the defence after the fact. He needs to evidence that he took less than the limit and that it produced a spike in the testing. Doctor saying lots just prior to the test ticks all the boxes.

lucan2

The way I see this it is very similar to drink/drive legislation on our roads.
Drinking alcohol and having some in your system is legal, but there is a prescribed limit. If you are caught with over the prescribed limit in your blood/breath/urine you commit an offence and you will be punished.
It's no good arguing that you were dehydrated when you drank it, hadn't eaten, or that you metabolise alcohol at a different rate to most. You are over the limit. And there's no argument that, "it didn't make me a worse driver" (performance enhancement or otherwise) because that is totally irrelevant. The offence is not 'taking a performance enhancing substance', it is having a level of (insert name of substance here) which exceeds the prescribed limit.

Anything put forward by CF/Sky is not a defence, it is mitigation.

RichN95.

TheBigBean wrote:

If I was cynical I would suggest that the doctor recommending three puffs immediately before a drugs test may have been something cooked up by the defence after the fact. He needs to evidence that he took less than the limit and that it produced a spike in the testing. Doctor saying lots just prior to the test ticks all the boxes.

He just needs to show that he can take a legal amount of puffs and reach somewhere near the levels he had. That's all. It would invalidate the threshold (for him) as proof of excess use.

RichN95.

Lucan2 wrote:

The offence is not 'taking a performance enhancing substance', it is having a level of (insert name of substance here) which exceeds the prescribed limit.

No you've got this all wrong.

For salbutamol exceeding the threshold is not an offence in itself as it is with drink driving. It is merely an indication of probable wrong doing and an invitation to provide more evidence. If sufficient evidence of extenuating circumstances, supported by test results is provided, the charge may be dropped.

Pross

Lucan2 wrote:

The way I see this it is very similar to drink/drive legislation on our roads.
Drinking alcohol and having some in your system is legal, but there is a prescribed limit. If you are caught with over the prescribed limit in your blood/breath/urine you commit an offence and you will be punished.
It's no good arguing that you were dehydrated when you drank it, hadn't eaten, or that you metabolise alcohol at a different rate to most. You are over the limit. And there's no argument that, "it didn't make me a worse driver" (performance enhancement or otherwise) because that is totally irrelevant. The offence is not 'taking a performance enhancing substance', it is having a level of (insert name of substance here) which exceeds the prescribed limit.

Anything put forward by CF/Sky is not a defence, it is mitigation.

You can see things how you chose. However, drink driving is a completely different thing and the law for that has no relevance in a sport where the rules state that you can be exonerated for being over the limit if you can demonstrate a reasonable reason why what came out didn't reflect what went in.

gweeds

Drink driving is an offence of strict liability. This is palpably very different.

darkhairedlord

Surely marginal gains while never failing a test meant they were kept topped up just below the limit on everything they could get. Just like chances driving half cut.

RichN95.

TailWindHome wrote:

Ross Tucker v All known legal principles currently on Twitter.

There's very much a rabid Brexiteer vibe to the usual suspects. it's all "We've won, I don't care about how or due process or rights or rules or anything else. All that matters is we've won. Now let's convict him before the evidence arrives"

Ross Tucker grew up under Apartheid so he'll have a distorted idea of justice.

Matthewfalle

darkhairedlord wrote:

Surely marginal gains while never failing a test meant they were kept topped up just below the limit on everything they could get. Just like chances driving half cut.

What - like microdoping?

Shurely not!

Lanterne_Rogue

Lucan2 wrote:

The way I see this it is very similar to drink/drive legislation on our roads.
Drinking alcohol and having some in your system is legal, but there is a prescribed limit. If you are caught with over the prescribed limit in your blood/breath/urine you commit an offence and you will be punished.

Here's a US case where metabolism was accepted as proof of innocence. I seem to recall a UK one in which the accused turned out to have an unusual metabolism that simply couldn't clear alcohol as quickly as expected, hence triggering a positive a couple of days after his last drink - again, this resulted in acquital.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/woman-whose-body-turns-food-into-alcohol-beats-drink-drive-charge

So actually pretty similar - it's just that with salbutamol the 'unusual' metabolism is sufficiently common to be explicitly covered within the rules.