Mayo Negative

skavanagh.bikeradar
skavanagh.bikeradar Posts: 1,097
edited October 2007 in Pro race
Iban Mayo has been cleared by the spanish federation - 'there was a mistake' with the first sample testing positive.

This seems to have taken an age to come about, have I missed things?
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Comments

  • Has this every happened before.....the "B" sample being different from tha "A" sample???
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Basically the sample was sent to be analysed in a different lab to the A sample (which is a practise I think should be normal)

    A sample was declared postive by LNDD.

    Ahh, here we go - It would've been tested in Gent and Australia.

    The B sample was then sent to the laboratory of the University of Gent (Belgium), which finished its analysis on Friday, August 24. Since then, there was no news about the results, but Saturday, Diario Vasco announced that the B sample has been sent to Australia to comply with regulations that every EPO test has to be run in two laboratories
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • vermooten
    vermooten Posts: 2,697
    edited October 2007
    got a link anyone?
    You just have to ride like you never have to breathe again.

    Manchester Wheelers
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • ut_och_cykla
    ut_och_cykla Posts: 1,594
    [quote="iainf72"

    SNIP
    the B sample has been sent to Australia to comply with regulations that every EPO test has to be run in two laboratories[/i][/quote]

    Is that right - the regulations require 2 different labs? Has it EVER happened before?
    A rider who proclaims his innocence and is proved right? Careless of the lab and authorities to say the least.
    Will this open the way for all the EPO samples tested at the French lab to be questioned?
    Rather a lot of questions?
    That's right! Catch wrong doers by all means but lets ensure fairness before removing someones livelihood from them.!
  • DaveyL
    DaveyL Posts: 5,167
    "It was a very bad experience because I didn't understand what was happening but everything has turned out as I expected," he told Spanish newspaper Marca.

    "It doesn't seem logical nor credible," he said. "I've spent many years cycling and I can't chuck it all in but sometimes you feel like it because there are so many injustices.

    "The fans who like cycling don't want to see this sort of thing. Cycling is a spectacle that involves sacrifice if not you don't get the results."

    The Beeb must've missed out the part where he proclaims that he is clean and has always ridden clean...
    Le Blaireau (1)
  • LangerDan
    LangerDan Posts: 6,132
    If he was on something, he should have asked for his money back. For some inexplicable reason, he's not half the rider he used to be.
    'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'
  • squired
    squired Posts: 1,153
    I think I recall reading a few years ago about an athelete testing positive for EPO (maybe Marion Jones - can't remember). In that situation the A test was positive and the B test negative. At the time I think it was the BBC that ran an article about how this was very much possible even if someone was cheating. The levels set to determine a positive are levels that supposedly provide a high degree of certainty. Thus it can be obvious that the person has taken something even though they test at a level determined to be negative.

    In this case we will probably never know whether he really was a definite negative, or a borderline positive who was lucky enough to be negative on the other tests. I'm hoping it was a case of an innocent man here.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    squired wrote:
    I think I recall reading a few years ago about an athelete testing positive for EPO (maybe Marion Jones - can't remember). In that situation the A test was positive and the B test negative.

    The issue here is that one of the tests was performed incorrectly or something was wrong. The A and B samples are the same urine sample split. They should yield exactly the same results.

    If one lab is finding a positive and the other isn't, then someones fluffed it.

    One of the labs involved performs less tests than the others and calls 3 times as many positives.... (allegedly)
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • LangerDan wrote:
    If he was on something, he should have asked for his money back. For some inexplicable reason, he's not half the rider he used to be.

    A very valid point. He will never be back to his 2004 form because he knows he will get caught. IMO.
  • skut
    skut Posts: 371
    Unfortunately, the testing procedures completely lack all credibility - I reckon the following measures should be taken to prevent this kind of stuff happening, although I'm happy for you guys to tell me why it won't work

    1) All riders tested following a race should be escorted from the moment they cross the line, preferably by two escorts

    2) All samples should be anonymous to the testing laboratories

    3) All samples should be tested by two independent laboratories

    4) Names should only be announced if both samples return a positive

    5) Anyone who returns 1 positive and 1 negative should have their number of out of competition tests increased (although this shouldn't be made explicit to the rider in question)
  • skut
    skut Posts: 371
    iainf72 wrote:
    squired wrote:
    I think I recall reading a few years ago about an athelete testing positive for EPO (maybe Marion Jones - can't remember). In that situation the A test was positive and the B test negative.

    The issue here is that one of the tests was performed incorrectly or something was wrong. The A and B samples are the same urine sample split. They should yield exactly the same results.

    If one lab is finding a positive and the other isn't, then someones fluffed it.

    One of the labs involved performs less tests than the others and calls 3 times as many positives.... (allegedly)

    Sorry Iain but you're completely wrong. Margins of error etc etc...
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    And it should be done a lot quicker. Guilty or innocent, people's careers are in limbo and the mud sticks to the image of the sport: front page news when Mayo goes down, a footnote if he's cleared.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    skut wrote:
    Sorry Iain but you're completely wrong. Margins of error etc etc...

    You're right, yes. Without knowing the levels involved we can't tell.

    If the test results were radically different then it's a different story.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • bipedal
    bipedal Posts: 466
    This is exactly why the test results shouldn't be released until confirmed by the B-sample... Something has to be done about the labs / teams / uci releasing results before they are confirmed... it also shouldn't take months and months to do the second test
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    bipedal wrote:
    This is exactly why the test results shouldn't be released until confirmed by the B-sample... Something has to be done about the labs / teams / uci releasing results before they are confirmed... it also shouldn't take months and months to do the second test

    The problem is if someone suddenly doesn't race, you have to wonder why. People can whip out the "dodgy guts" excuse or whatever but someone is bound to figure it out.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • LangerDan wrote:
    If he was on something, he should have asked for his money back. For some inexplicable reason, he's not half the rider he used to be.

    I read something once from a Spanish cycling fan on this very subject which said that Mayo had been involved in a couple of car accidents in the off-season of 2003 and he's got back problems which prevent him from training at a high level for long enough to get the form for a three week race again - and the pressure he's was under from his orange team didn't help.

    However, none of his old team mates are anywhere nead as good as they were in 2003-4 - they'd be very unlucky to all have car-crash related back problems...
  • Lousy cheap chinese epo i suspect. I'm with langerdan. Under normal circumstances he should ask for his money back.
    Dan
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Lousy cheap chinese epo i suspect. I'm with langerdan. Under normal circumstances he should ask for his money back.

    That's what Dr Fuentes used allegedly. It wasn't even decent gear.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    When in doubt, send it back to the LNDD to test again - They'll get the right result.

    http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArti ... on=cycling
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • slojo
    slojo Posts: 56
    One of the issues with the Marion Jones EPO case was that there was a long delay between testing the A sample and the B sample.
    EPO is apparently not particularly stable, so when the B sample came back negative it was suggested that the EPO could have degraded during the interim.
  • cougie
    cougie Posts: 22,512
    OK so he's clean according to the tests, but I know what I'd bet on.
  • Titanium
    Titanium Posts: 2,056
    We know Brit David Millar was getting his EPO from the Basque team doctor, so to believe that the likes of Mayo and other "orange" riders have always been clean is a leap of faith too far. Maybe he's clean now?
  • bipedal
    bipedal Posts: 466
    iainf72 wrote:
    When in doubt, send it back to the LNDD to test again - They'll get the right result.

    http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArti ... on=cycling

    O dear... doing experiments until you get the results you want is not good science... the Spanish authorities do seem very quick to shelve investigations though
  • LangerDan
    LangerDan Posts: 6,132
    bipedal wrote:
    iainf72 wrote:
    When in doubt, send it back to the LNDD to test again - They'll get the right result.

    http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArti ... on=cycling

    O dear... doing experiments until you get the results you want is not good science... the Spanish authorities do seem very quick to shelve investigations though

    If all of France wasn't on holiday in August, the B would have been re-analysed in LNDD as part of the standard procedure. Given the delay in the results, it's arguable whether there was any merit whatsoever bringing Ghent into the loop as LNDD would have been able to analyse the B sample 7 weeks ago.
    'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'
  • Titanium wrote:
    Maybe he's clean now?

    That would explain how bad he was after 2004 and then how he improved during this Tour I suppose.
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    So basically he's not off the hook. Far from it.

    When I read the words "the Spanish federation today cleared..." I thought "oh yeah?"
  • This 'Mayo clean' thing looks like premature spin from the Spanish cycling authority.

    In reality the 'B' sample result was 'unreadable', so it looks like if anyone has screwed up it is far more likely to be the lab testing the 'B' sample than the French lab...

    http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves20 ... 31Dev.html
  • iainf72 wrote:
    squired wrote:
    One of the labs involved performs less tests than the others and calls 3 times as many positives.... (allegedly)
    I do know that some of the 'Floyd is innocent' cranks were circulating a claim along the lines of 'The Châtenay-Malabry lab has had 300% more false positives than other labs'.

    However, what this actually meant was the French lab had three false positives a few years ago. (Which I guess is 300% more than a lab with one false positive, even if the actual number of false positives is tiny compared to the actual number of tests done- "lies, damn lies and statistics" and all that).

    Quite apart from the fact that the actual number of false positives was tiny, it is also the case that they only came to light when they were picked by the French lab's internal checking procedures, and so it was the lab itself who made those false positives public. All in all this gives me added faith in the French lab, not less!