Froome Vuelta salbutamol problem

No_Ta_Doctor

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

inseine wrote:

This is a very confusing case. There's talk of dehydration or other outside forces contributing to a higher reading, but surely he's been testing 100s of times after using his inhaler and in a variety of conditions? I can't imagine what was special about that day.

This is the strange thing. He knows what taking more would do and what his likely threshold is. I would also like to think he knows how easy it would be to go over it if he were to try and deliberately over use it. Any crap about pills, injections etc would again be too obvious. If you intend to cheat then you do it in a way that’s not so bloody obvious. I would think BECAUSE the reading is so high it wasn’t something he has done. It’s too high to cheat if that makes sense. There must be an accumulation of extreme factors that have caused this. Or as no one seems to think , foul play in the testing process. If tests can be manipulated one way they can be manipulated the other way. There must be a few people with a grudge against Sky, Froome, cycling as a whole. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it just seems a ridiculous thing for a rider and team in the biggest spotlight would even attempt with so much scrutiny in their activities already happening.

A few assumptions there.
Firstly, there's nothing to suggest that Froome would be aware of any personal difference in how much salbutamol is excreted by his kidneys. Yes, he gets tested all the time, but it's not like he gets a report of his exact values handed back to him for every negative test.
Second, even if he were aware of these values, there's nothing that suggests that input level -> output level is a pure linear response. You can't extrapolate from dose x->result y to dose 2x -> result 2y

Lastly, on foul play, Salbutamol, really? If you were going to spike someone's results that's not what you'd go for, when you can get EPO so easily.

Matthewfalle

Wheelspinner wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

cq20 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It just was speculation. I don’t think Sky said anything themselves

Thanks for that. Personally, I wish Froome well on this and hope he can prove his case. If that fails, my view is that it was an innocent rider / team mistake. I can’t see any motivation for them doing it deliberately

What, other than winning a GT?

It's not a PED. The very worst case scenario - from a perspective of Froome breaking the rules - is that he's knowingly gone over the allowed dose in an attempt to combat his asthma. In which case he should be stripped of the Vuelta and banned.

Far more likely he's either accidentally gone over the dose (and should be stripped and banned - it's his responsibility) or has gone right up to the dose but has an abnormally high level of salbutamol in his urine due to dehydration or something.

Whatever the case, I think WADA should take a long look at the limit they impose and how they detect infraction of it. There seems to be at least some scope in the literature to suggest they need a revision.

Why should WADA change a thing? They set (arbitrary perhaps) limits, for reasons they believe are valid, based on presumably expert advice. Before the start of any race, teams and riders sign up to complying with those rules. When a team or rider trips up - intentionally or otherwise - why is it suddenly WADA's fault? It isn't. It can't be. The rules are not something they make up post-race; they're available for anybody, anywhere, anytime to read. And for crissakes, everybody please stop with the "it's not a PED" line. So what? There's a load of things on the WADA list that are not a PED. That's a furphy - it's on their list of things that they test for, so whether it is a PED or a hallucinogen, riders and teams KNOW there are rules about its use.

I'm tired of the droning excuse that they wouldn't do it on purpose because they know he's gonna be tested blah blah. Again, so what? I don't think in the history of drug-scandals in cycling there has ever been one where the rider and team announced "Yeah we did that on purpose, loaded up on everything just for the fun of the circus it would start". Except perhaps Ricco.

Froome's use of Salbutamol was entirely deliberate. Sticking an inhaler in your mouth and sucking in this drug is a DELIBERATE act. How the hell is it not? Where has anybody claimed that he was just riding along and having a nice time when he mysteriously rode through a cloud of the stuff and inhaled way too much?

He didn't. He picked the inhaler out of his pocket, several times, stuck it in his mouth and pushed the spray button. Get over it. If he (medically) needed to do that to stay in the race, that was his deliberate choice to do so. If his asthma was that bad, he had a choice to pull over and climb off, but he deliberately did not.

So freaking what if he didn't actually intend to break the limit? I'm sure he didn't, and I've not said anywhere he does. I doubt anybody has claimed that, other than The Clinic perhaps. But, he has done so - beginning, middle and end of facts so far.

He gets paid 4 million pounds a year to ride a bike and win races - that's his entire reason for being anything other than some skinny bloke with a few freckles and a lack of charisma. He's renowned for being a competitive type, and at the business end of a long tough hot hard race, with a very rare achievement in his grasp of winning TWO GT's in a row, I'd bet London to a brick he was going to push every boundary to the limit to pull it off.

He just got it wrong. And that means - ban stick.

Mate - fair dinkum to a 'roo, that's an excellent post really well worded, to the point and on track. I particularly like "I bet London to a brick". I'm now claiming that a my own.

However - waste of time I'm afraid because Froome "is" British it's just going to be ignored like the facts contained therein.

Bloody good effort though.

Pross

Wheelspinner, you seem to be missing several key points. There's no doubt he used salbutamol, he's said it himself but he's allowed to use it. That takes care of most of your rant. There is already evidence that use of the permit level can lead to the concentration in urine, the rules acknowledge this in that the 'defendant' can provide evidence to explain it. However, if this is occurring is it unreasonable that the testing procedure is reviewed to prevent athletes who have not broken the rules from being accused of doping? The alternative, and what should happen anyway, is no-one should know about the test result until the whole procedure has run its course and only then if the rider hasn't cleared their name.

trivial_poursuivant

Wheelspinner wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

cq20 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It just was speculation. I don’t think Sky said anything themselves

Thanks for that. Personally, I wish Froome well on this and hope he can prove his case. If that fails, my view is that it was an innocent rider / team mistake. I can’t see any motivation for them doing it deliberately

What, other than winning a GT?

It's not a PED. The very worst case scenario - from a perspective of Froome breaking the rules - is that he's knowingly gone over the allowed dose in an attempt to combat his asthma. In which case he should be stripped of the Vuelta and banned.

Far more likely he's either accidentally gone over the dose (and should be stripped and banned - it's his responsibility) or has gone right up to the dose but has an abnormally high level of salbutamol in his urine due to dehydration or something.

Whatever the case, I think WADA should take a long look at the limit they impose and how they detect infraction of it. There seems to be at least some scope in the literature to suggest they need a revision.

Why should WADA change a thing? They set (arbitrary perhaps) limits, for reasons they believe are valid, based on presumably expert advice. Before the start of any race, teams and riders sign up to complying with those rules

WADA do not ban people. They do the testing and recommend to the governing bodies of the various sports of a failed test. It is up to the UCI and CAS to decide a ban in cycling. If the two in this case think WADA are being overzealous in the ‘arbitrary ‘ figure they don’t have to follow the advice. They can even turn to WADA and tell them to sort themselves out cos they are not setting a reasonable threshold in this case. WADA wanted to ban caffeine not so long ago as it’s a stimulant. How stupid would that be? It’s so readily available and ingrained in society that it would create a mess. This is also why an appeal to CAS calling the testing and threshold they set as unreliable and unsafe (in a legal sense) plucking an arbitrary figure out the air based on what exactly is not good enough if it effects people careers and reputations. Especially those who are already at a possible disadvantage of suffering from asthma.

Pross

Matthewfalle wrote:

However - waste of time I'm afraid because Froome "is" .....

No, he can easily be disowned as a cheating Kenyan

No_Ta_Doctor

Wheelspinner wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

cq20 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It just was speculation. I don’t think Sky said anything themselves

Thanks for that. Personally, I wish Froome well on this and hope he can prove his case. If that fails, my view is that it was an innocent rider / team mistake. I can’t see any motivation for them doing it deliberately

What, other than winning a GT?

It's not a PED. The very worst case scenario - from a perspective of Froome breaking the rules - is that he's knowingly gone over the allowed dose in an attempt to combat his asthma. In which case he should be stripped of the Vuelta and banned.

Far more likely he's either accidentally gone over the dose (and should be stripped and banned - it's his responsibility) or has gone right up to the dose but has an abnormally high level of salbutamol in his urine due to dehydration or something.

Whatever the case, I think WADA should take a long look at the limit they impose and how they detect infraction of it. There seems to be at least some scope in the literature to suggest they need a revision.

Why should WADA change a thing? They set (arbitrary perhaps) limits, for reasons they believe are valid, based on presumably expert advice. Before the start of any race, teams and riders sign up to complying with those rules. When a team or rider trips up - intentionally or otherwise - why is it suddenly WADA's fault? It isn't. It can't be. The rules are not something they make up post-race; they're available for anybody, anywhere, anytime to read. And for crissakes, everybody please stop with the "it's not a PED" line. So what? There's a load of things on the WADA list that are not a PED. That's a furphy - it's on their list of things that they test for, so whether it is a PED or a hallucinogen, riders and teams KNOW there are rules about its use.

I'm tired of the droning excuse that they wouldn't do it on purpose because they know he's gonna be tested blah blah. Again, so what? I don't think in the history of drug-scandals in cycling there has ever been one where the rider and team announced "Yeah we did that on purpose, loaded up on everything just for the fun of the circus it would start". Except perhaps Ricco.

Froome's use of Salbutamol was entirely deliberate. Sticking an inhaler in your mouth and sucking in this drug is a DELIBERATE act. How the hell is it not? Where has anybody claimed that he was just riding along and having a nice time when he mysteriously rode through a cloud of the stuff and inhaled way too much?

He didn't. He picked the inhaler out of his pocket, several times, stuck it in his mouth and pushed the spray button. Get over it. If he (medically) needed to do that to stay in the race, that was his deliberate choice to do so. If his asthma was that bad, he had a choice to pull over and climb off, but he deliberately did not.

So freaking what if he didn't actually intend to break the limit? I'm sure he didn't, and I've not said anywhere he does. I doubt anybody has claimed that, other than The Clinic perhaps. But, he has done so - beginning, middle and end of facts so far.

He gets paid 4 million pounds a year to ride a bike and win races - that's his entire reason for being anything other than some skinny bloke with a few freckles and a lack of charisma. He's renowned for being a competitive type, and at the business end of a long tough hot hard race, with a very rare achievement in his grasp of winning TWO GT's in a row, I'd bet London to a brick he was going to push every boundary to the limit to pull it off.

He just got it wrong. And that means - ban stick.

Personally, I'd like to think WADA's rules are fit for purpose, and if they aren't then they should revise them.
The point is that riders have no way of being 100% sure that taking the permitted dose (which is what WADA sets) doesn't take them over the threshold where they trigger an alarm (but not per se a doping infringement if it can be explained). That this is for a drug with entirely legitimate use and only a hazy suggestion that in some cases might be performance enhancing (high oral dose to burn fat off) suggests that they should revisit the rules. If there's a good reason for it to be on the list (athlete health, PED use) then they should use the available evidence to set both usage limits and alarm trigger levels accordingly. As I said above, there's at least some scope in the literature to suggest that they will be getting false alarms in some cases, and which athletes may not be able to challenge adequately. If there isn't a good reason then it shouldn't be on the list.

The comparison with recreational drugs is nonsensical - while I favour not banning them (except where use will be a danger to athlete health - including health of others around them or could have PE properties) there is a reason they are banned. They are also typically on the completely prohibited list.

Of course, if you just want some random riders being banned for no reason or fault of their own then fine, don't change anything.

Please also note that I'm in no way challenging strict liability. The athlete still has strict liability for what enters his or her body. The athlete cannot have liability for precisely how their body processes that, which is why WADA needs to ensure that going over a limit is a clear indicator of breaking a dosage rule.

iainf72

I always enjoy threads like this, but they do remind me of something The Hitch said, which seems appropriate

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

cq20

I'm tired of the droning excuse that they wouldn't do it on purpose because they know he's gonna be tested blah blah. Again, so what? I don't think in the history of drug-scandals in cycling there has ever been one where the rider and team announced "Yeah we did that on purpose, loaded up on everything just for the fun of the circus it would start". Except perhaps Ricco.

Of course he took on purpose. The point I was making, which I fear might be too subtle for you, is that the OD, if that’s what it was, was an individual or team error. There is no “excuse” here but merely an explanation. If it was an OD, then it is a ban irrespective of how it occurred. The “they ensured that they would get their rider to win the GT by getting him to certainly fail a drugs test” cunning plan that you put forward is bonkers

Matthewfalle

Pross wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

However - waste of time I'm afraid because Froome "is" .....

No, he can easily be disowned as a cheating Kenyan

RallyBiker

UCI should bring in a compulsory rule that 20mill. of testosterone be be injected twice a week for a month into each rider doing the TdF, Vuelta and Giro. Level the playing field in one hit. Granted there'll be some 'roid rage scraps during the pileups, but at least they'll have the arms for a good tustle, and the racing would be BLOODY fast and fair.

ademort

All said and done, i hope Froome can prove convincingly his case and we can carry on as normal. I feel that especially the european press are being very harsh on Froome almost as if he were Armstrong. Personally i also suffer from Asthma and use Ventolin usually 4 puffs before an event and i can ride all day. I know without Ventolin i,d be seriously struggling at any speed above 20 Mph.

Lanterne_Rogue

Matthewfalle wrote:

underlayunderlay wrote:

Your regular public service reminder that registered users can mute people by going to their profile and clicking 'add foe', just in case you're bored of boring trolls being boring.

Back to the thread...

Ah - here we go....

The "people with opposite opinion from my own so they must be trolls! Trolls! Opposite opinion trolls!" Post.

Get a grip. It's called debate, mate.

Boring trolling isn't debate though...

(apologies if you felt it was aimed at you - it wasn't, and I'm cool with contrary opinions)

davidof

RichN95 wrote:

He has said that he wa suffering much more than usual and took higher than normal dosages. His excessive coughing and breathing problems were noted by several people in Spain at the time

In Southern Europe we have some new plant varieties which have been causing a lot of issues, even for non Asthmatics. Last September was really bad, even I had a streaming nose and eyes and have never suffered before.

In France the plants were Ambroisie, Graminées and Armoise that were causing major issues.

dennisn

C'mon guys. Where's your Lance like moral outrage about this? He should be stripped of titles, booted out of England, erased from the history books, made to cry in front of Oprah, banned for life, have awful(i.e. boring) books wrote about him, booed by everyone, made to pay back all monies he got from everything. AND made to admit he's a great big bully.

cq20

underlayunderlay wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

underlayunderlay wrote:

Your regular public service reminder that registered users can mute people by going to their profile and clicking 'add foe', just in case you're bored of boring trolls being boring.

Back to the thread...

Ah - here we go....

The "people with opposite opinion from my own so they must be trolls! Trolls! Opposite opinion trolls!" Post.

Get a grip. It's called debate, mate.

Boring trolling isn't debate though...

(apologies if you felt it was aimed at you - it wasn't, and I'm cool with contrary opinions)

If it was aimed at me then you are wide of the mark. It was a genuine question that has subsequently been addressed.

Pross

dennisn wrote:

C'mon guys. Where's your Lance like moral outrage about this? He should be stripped of titles, booted out of England, erased from the history books, made to cry in front of Oprah, banned for life, have awful(i.e. boring) books wrote about him, booed by everyone, made to pay back all monies he got from everything. AND made to admit he's a great big bully.

Ah, Grandpa Simpson the Lance apologist is back. Yep, we should show equal outrage for someone overdoing the permitted amount of a legitimate treatment as we would for someone who had himself and his team partake in the systematic use of EPO and blood doping and bullied / threatened / destroyed anyone who spoke out as they are obviously the same thing.

dennisn

Pross wrote:

dennisn wrote:

C'mon guys. Where's your Lance like moral outrage about this? He should be stripped of titles, booted out of England, erased from the history books, made to cry in front of Oprah, banned for life, have awful(i.e. boring) books wrote about him, booed by everyone, made to pay back all monies he got from everything. AND made to admit he's a great big bully.

Ah, Grandpa Simpson the Lance apologist is back. Yep, we should show equal outrage for someone overdoing the permitted amount of a legitimate treatment as we would for someone who had himself and his team partake in the systematic use of EPO and blood doping and bullied / threatened / destroyed anyone who spoke out as they are obviously the same thing.

Absolutely. Glad ya see it my way. Evil demon's, all of them.

Richmond Racer 2

RallyBiker wrote:

UCI should bring in a compulsory rule that 20mill. of testosterone be be injected twice a week for a month into each rider doing the TdF, Vuelta and Giro. Level the playing field in one hit. Granted there'll be some 'roid rage scraps during the pileups, but at least they'll have the arms for a good tustle, and the racing would be BLOODY fast and fair.

None for Bouhanni or Moscon tho :shock:

r0bh

Mr Pross is speaking much sense on this thread today.

If Froome cannot provide an evidence based reason for his very high salbutamol levels then he should rightly cop some sort of ban and be stripped of the Vuelta. But comparisons to Armstrong, US Postal etc are ridiculous. I don't recall anyone calling Simon Yates a "doper" or anything last year.

There is due process to follow and until that has played out there is really not much more to say.

trivial_poursuivant

No tA Doctor wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

inseine wrote:

This is a very confusing case. There's talk of dehydration or other outside forces contributing to a higher reading, but surely he's been testing 100s of times after using his inhaler and in a variety of conditions? I can't imagine what was special about that day.

This is the strange thing. He knows what taking more would do and what his likely threshold is. I would also like to think he knows how easy it would be to go over it if he were to try and deliberately over use it. Any crap about pills, injections etc would again be too obvious. If you intend to cheat then you do it in a way that’s not so bloody obvious. I would think BECAUSE the reading is so high it wasn’t something he has done. It’s too high to cheat if that makes sense. There must be an accumulation of extreme factors that have caused this. Or as no one seems to think , foul play in the testing process. If tests can be manipulated one way they can be manipulated the other way. There must be a few people with a grudge against Sky, Froome, cycling as a whole. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it just seems a ridiculous thing for a rider and team in the biggest spotlight would even attempt with so much scrutiny in their activities already happening.

A few assumptions there.

Everything anyone says in this thread is!

Matthewfalle

No tA Doctor wrote:

This is the strange thing. He knows what taking more would do and what his likely threshold is. I would also like to think he knows how easy it would be to go over it if he were to try and deliberately over use it. Any crap about pills, injections etc would again be too obvious. If you intend to cheat then you do it in a way that’s not so bloody obvious. I would think BECAUSE the reading is so high it wasn’t something he has done. It’s too high to cheat if that makes sense. There must be an accumulation of extreme factors that have caused this. Or as no one seems to think , foul play in the testing process. If tests can be manipulated one way they can be manipulated the other way. There must be a few people with a grudge against Sky, Froome, cycling as a whole. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it just seems a ridiculous thing for a rider and team in the biggest spotlight would even attempt with so much scrutiny in their activities already happening.

Blimey - someone is bringing out air support for Froome a bit quick - worldwide conspiracy by drug testers, manipulation of results, etc.

Defend the man at all costs! He can't possibly have done wrong!

Vino'sGhost

Wheelspinner wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

cq20 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It just was speculation. I don’t think Sky said anything themselves

Thanks for that. Personally, I wish Froome well on this and hope he can prove his case. If that fails, my view is that it was an innocent rider / team mistake. I can’t see any motivation for them doing it deliberately

What, other than winning a GT?

It's not a PED. The very worst case scenario - from a perspective of Froome breaking the rules - is that he's knowingly gone over the allowed dose in an attempt to combat his asthma. In which case he should be stripped of the Vuelta and banned.

Far more likely he's either accidentally gone over the dose (and should be stripped and banned - it's his responsibility) or has gone right up to the dose but has an abnormally high level of salbutamol in his urine due to dehydration or something.

Whatever the case, I think WADA should take a long look at the limit they impose and how they detect infraction of it. There seems to be at least some scope in the literature to suggest they need a revision.

Why should WADA change a thing? They set (arbitrary perhaps) limits, for reasons they believe are valid, based on presumably expert advice. Before the start of any race, teams and riders sign up to complying with those rules. When a team or rider trips up - intentionally or otherwise - why is it suddenly WADA's fault? It isn't. It can't be. The rules are not something they make up post-race; they're available for anybody, anywhere, anytime to read. And for crissakes, everybody please stop with the "it's not a PED" line. So what? There's a load of things on the WADA list that are not a PED. That's a furphy - it's on their list of things that they test for, so whether it is a PED or a hallucinogen, riders and teams KNOW there are rules about its use.

I'm tired of the droning excuse that they wouldn't do it on purpose because they know he's gonna be tested blah blah. Again, so what? I don't think in the history of drug-scandals in cycling there has ever been one where the rider and team announced "Yeah we did that on purpose, loaded up on everything just for the fun of the circus it would start". Except perhaps Ricco.

Froome's use of Salbutamol was entirely deliberate. Sticking an inhaler in your mouth and sucking in this drug is a DELIBERATE act. How the hell is it not? Where has anybody claimed that he was just riding along and having a nice time when he mysteriously rode through a cloud of the stuff and inhaled way too much?

He didn't. He picked the inhaler out of his pocket, several times, stuck it in his mouth and pushed the spray button. Get over it. If he (medically) needed to do that to stay in the race, that was his deliberate choice to do so. If his asthma was that bad, he had a choice to pull over and climb off, but he deliberately did not.

So freaking what if he didn't actually intend to break the limit? I'm sure he didn't, and I've not said anywhere he does. I doubt anybody has claimed that, other than The Clinic perhaps. But, he has done so - beginning, middle and end of facts so far.

He gets paid 4 million pounds a year to ride a bike and win races - that's his entire reason for being anything other than some skinny bloke with a few freckles and a lack of charisma. He's renowned for being a competitive type, and at the business end of a long tough hot hard race, with a very rare achievement in his grasp of winning TWO GT's in a row, I'd bet London to a brick he was going to push every boundary to the limit to pull it off.

He just got it wrong. And that means - ban stick.

Exactly this

powerbookboy

No tA Doctor wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

cq20 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It just was speculation. I don’t think Sky said anything themselves

Thanks for that. Personally, I wish Froome well on this and hope he can prove his case. If that fails, my view is that it was an innocent rider / team mistake. I can’t see any motivation for them doing it deliberately

What, other than winning a GT?

It's not a PED. The very worst case scenario - from a perspective of Froome breaking the rules - is that he's knowingly gone over the allowed dose in an attempt to combat his asthma. In which case he should be stripped of the Vuelta and banned.

Far more likely he's either accidentally gone over the dose (and should be stripped and banned - it's his responsibility) or has gone right up to the dose but has an abnormally high level of salbutamol in his urine due to dehydration or something.

Whatever the case, I think WADA should take a long look at the limit they impose and how they detect infraction of it. There seems to be at least some scope in the literature to suggest they need a revision.

Why do people keep insisting it's not a PED? It's not considered PE when taken in the proscribed manner at the prescribed dosage. When taken as an intravenous or intramuscular injection it has been demonstrated to behave in a similar, although less effective manner in rats to our good friend Clenbutarol, another of the β2 agonists family. It promotes increased muscle mass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta2-adr ... nd_culture

Not that it says "meta-analysis found no evidence that inhaled β₂-agonists improve performance". Inhaled is the pertinent point here. I hope that the threshold limits are set by people with significantly more knowledge of the pharmacology of these drugs and the expected excretion rates than dimwits like myself. They're probably somewhat overly generous to people taking them in the approved manner, but designed to pick up people taking the drug via routes other than inhalation. Otherwise expensive lawsuits every 10mins.

Just because a drug and the condition it's used to treat is familiar to many of us, doesn't mean it can't be abused. History teaches us that the vast majority of drug test failures are accurate analyses. In a few circumstances they are as a result of innocent supplement contamination (but the drug flagged is present therefore still a fail) and in very rare cases because of poor sample handling. But those seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule.

The logical thing to assume is that Froome has exceeded at best, or abused at worst a restricted substance for gain. The onus is on Froome to prove he followed the prescribed treatment. If he does, he'll be one of a very few people that gets the goalposts moved, and more power to him. But historically that seems unlikely.

If it was a non-British person who had been busted, I think some people that are defending Froome might have a different unconscious bias. Maybe we need to wake up to the idea that it's not just Johnie Foreigner who doesn't play by the rules?

P.S. I believe if you take a diuretic at the same time as Salbutamol you need a TUE for both. The implication is that you're trying to "flush" non-inhaled salbutamol. Add with the short 1/2 life of salbutamol there's already a narrow "glow-time" window, the 2 in combination look very dodgy (also the reason behind my misunderstanding that Salbutamol is a masking compound).

Vino'sGhost

I think i may be the boring troll for having an alternative opinion. Or more specifically healthy cynicism honed by years of listening to bullshit excuses and reasons.

No_Ta_Doctor

Matthewfalle wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

This is the strange thing. He knows what taking more would do and what his likely threshold is. I would also like to think he knows how easy it would be to go over it if he were to try and deliberately over use it. Any crap about pills, injections etc would again be too obvious. If you intend to cheat then you do it in a way that’s not so bloody obvious. I would think BECAUSE the reading is so high it wasn’t something he has done. It’s too high to cheat if that makes sense. There must be an accumulation of extreme factors that have caused this. Or as no one seems to think , foul play in the testing process. If tests can be manipulated one way they can be manipulated the other way. There must be a few people with a grudge against Sky, Froome, cycling as a whole. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it just seems a ridiculous thing for a rider and team in the biggest spotlight would even attempt with so much scrutiny in their activities already happening.

Blimey - someone is bringing out air support for Froome a bit quick - worldwide conspiracy by drug testers, manipulation of results, etc.

Defend the man at all costs! He can't possibly have done wrong!

If you want to quote people, please at least make sure you quote the right person. That's not my work, and it looks like you've copied this out from a reply where I specifically dismissed this scenario as highly unrealistic.

RichN95.

powerbookboy wrote:

If it was a non-British person who had been busted, I think some people that are defending Froome might have a different unconscious bias. Maybe we need to wake up to the idea that it's not just Johnie Foreigner who doesn't play by the rules?

We had basically the same conversation when Ulissi got in trouble for the exact same thing. The only difference is there's a bit more information about false readings available now.

Matthewfalle

No tA Doctor wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

This is the strange thing. He knows what taking more would do and what his likely threshold is. I would also like to think he knows how easy it would be to go over it if he were to try and deliberately over use it. Any crap about pills, injections etc would again be too obvious. If you intend to cheat then you do it in a way that’s not so bloody obvious. I would think BECAUSE the reading is so high it wasn’t something he has done. It’s too high to cheat if that makes sense. There must be an accumulation of extreme factors that have caused this. Or as no one seems to think , foul play in the testing process. If tests can be manipulated one way they can be manipulated the other way. There must be a few people with a grudge against Sky, Froome, cycling as a whole. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it just seems a ridiculous thing for a rider and team in the biggest spotlight would even attempt with so much scrutiny in their activities already happening.

Blimey - someone is bringing out air support for Froome a bit quick - worldwide conspiracy by drug testers, manipulation of results, etc.

Defend the man at all costs! He can't possibly have done wrong!

If you want to quote people, please at least make sure you quote the right person. That's not my work, and it looks like you've copied this out from a reply where I specifically dismissed this scenario as highly unrealistic.

apols. my badmin.

blazing_saddles

Umm, Tony Martin has an update......

I received a lot of feedback about my comment of yesterday. I even got a phone call from a UCI’s representative who took the time to clarify how the process had been handled. I now understand that the UCI is managing this case in accordance with the rules and that Chris Froome did not get any special treatment. According to the rules, in a case involving a specified substance, every athlete shall have the chance to explain whether the numbers can be due to natural causes.

That said, I am always very angry when another case in relation to antidoping happened in our sport. I will, as I always did, continue to take a strong position regarding the fight against doping and I will always remain an outspoken advocate for a 100% clean sport.

gsk82

Vino'sGhost wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

cq20 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It just was speculation. I don’t think Sky said anything themselves

Thanks for that. Personally, I wish Froome well on this and hope he can prove his case. If that fails, my view is that it was an innocent rider / team mistake. I can’t see any motivation for them doing it deliberately

What, other than winning a GTI ?

It's not a PED. The very worst case scenario - from a perspective of Froome breaking the rules - is that he's knowingly gone over the allowed dose in an attempt to combat his asthma. In which case he should be stripped of the Vuelta and banned.

Far more likely he's either accidentally gone over the dose (and should be stripped and banned - it's his responsibility) or has gone right up to the dose but has an abnormally high level of salbutamol in his urine due to dehydration or something.

Whatever the case, I think WADA should take a long look at the limit they impose and how they detect infraction of it. There seems to be at least some scope in the literature to suggest they need a revision.

Why should WADA change a thing? They set (arbitrary perhaps) limits, for reasons they believe are valid, based on presumably expert advice. Before the start of any race, teams and riders sign up to complying with those rules. When a team or rider trips up - intentionally or otherwise - why is it suddenly WADA's fault? It isn't. It can't be. The rules are not something they make up post-race; they're available for anybody, anywhere, anytime to read. And for crissakes, everybody please stop with the "it's not a PED" line. So what? There's a load of things on the WADA list that are not a PED. That's a furphy - it's on their list of things that they test for, so whether it is a PED or a hallucinogen, riders and teams KNOW there are rules about its use.

I'm tired of the droning excuse that they wouldn't do it on purpose because they know he's gonna be tested blah blah. Again, so what? I don't think in the history of drug-scandals in cycling there has ever been one where the rider and team announced "Yeah we did that on purpose, loaded up on everything just for the fun of the circus it would start". Except perhaps Ricco.

Froome's use of Salbutamol was entirely deliberate. Sticking an inhaler in your mouth and sucking in this drug is a DELIBERATE act. How the hell is it not? Where has anybody claimed that he was just riding along and having a nice time when he mysteriously rode through a cloud of the stuff and inhaled way too much?

He didn't. He picked the inhaler out of his pocket, several times, stuck it in his mouth and pushed the spray button. Get over it. If he (medically) needed to do that to stay in the race, that was his deliberate choice to do so. If his asthma was that bad, he had a choice to pull over and climb off, but he deliberately did not.

So freaking what if he didn't actually intend to break the limit? I'm sure he didn't, and I've not said anywhere he does. I doubt anybody has claimed that, other than The Clinic perhaps. But, he has done so - beginning, middle and end of facts so far.

He gets paid 4 million pounds a year to ride a bike and win races - that's his entire reason for being anything other than some skinny bloke with a few freckles and a lack of charisma. He's renowned for being a competitive type, and at the business end of a long tough hot hard race, with a very rare achievement in his grasp of winning TWO GT's in a row, I'd bet London to a brick he was going to push every boundary to the limit to pull it off.

He just got it wrong. And that means - ban stick.

Exactly this

As you know the above is like getting a new speed camera that isn't accurate, but still banning anyone who it says is speeding.

mfin

If the intelligence police were called in here there would be stacks of cautions dealt out and a few arrests too.

Come on, this thread might as well have been paused after about 3 pages. Ironically, it's about as interesting as Froome himself!

There's no more news to go on yet, nothing. No further information.