BMC's Frei Positive for EPO

Dave_1 wrote:

Frei has evaded for 2 years so it works, not as if he got caught first time he did it...2 years of racing on epo and it must be working very well for many riders judging by this case. They don't do blood tests in the morning? Only urine?

2000 years ago Frei's ancestors would have made offerings to the gods to ensure that the crops succeeded and most of the time they did, therefore showing that the offerings were working. On the odd occasion when they didn't Farmer Frei would have reasoned that his offerings weren't enough for the gods, not that it was all nonsense. After all, it had worked all those other times and the guy selling him those carved idols certainly knows a lot more about the gods than he does.

The truth is Frei probably didn't get tested that much and probably didn't do a huge amount of dope, so, with the testing being a bit of a hit and miss affair, he managed to dodge the bullets for a short while.

iainf72 wrote:

stagehopper wrote:

Utter rubbish from Frei.

I think he's probably basing it on his experience. Whoever taught him his protocol told him to drink water, he usually did, no positive. Didn't drink extra water, returns a positive.

What it probably means is the test just doesn't work that well.

The water thing just comes across as a bit of a fairy story to me (given the quantity of water involved) which Frei naively believed.

If you accept that people are getting away with micro-doping and slipping under threshold levels that the questions for Frei are: how many times did he take EPO in those two years? how many times was he tested in that time the morning after micro-doping with EPO? why was this his first dose in 3 months when the idea of micro doping which is repeated doses over a sustained period?

His palmares suggests he was hardly likely to undego many extra tests beyond the bare minimum. He's not going to be able to claim he's one of the most tested athletes in the world ...

Interesting story, and the commentary here was informative.

Where's Gripper when you need her?

Water...you would think that there would be more to it.

Does this put any pressure on the Hog?

Why is everyone so surprised? There have been 12 positive tests for EPO or variants thereof in the past 15 months in pro cycling, which strongly suggests that EPO abuse is still fairly widespread.

The Frei case would suggest that your average jobbing pro is still fuelled by EPO.

andyp wrote:

Why is everyone so surprised? There have been 12 positive tests for EPO or variants thereof in the past 15 months in pro cycling, which strongly suggests that EPO abuse is still fairly widespread.

The Frei case would suggest that your average jobbing pro is still fuelled by EPO.

The water thing seems strange...something my eight year old would argue.

BikingBernie wrote:

dennisn wrote:

. A little guilt by association, huh??? You guys are getting pretty radical in your thinking. Therefore, if I am an apple in a barrel and there is a rotten apple in that barrel, I am also rotten? This sounds like a post for Biking Bernie to comment on. BB are you there?

I must say, there is a certain irony in an American lecturing people on the evils of 'guilt by association'...

---

Brian A Smith didn't know the two women who were shoplifting. They were caught on security cameras stealing sheets at the Los Cerritos mall in Los Angeles and received a two-year sentence.

But Smith was seen standing near the shoplifters as they committed their crime. Despite having no stolen goods, he was convicted of aiding and abetting them.

Under California's three strikes law, which marked its 10th anniversary on Sunday, the 30 year old received a 25-year-to-life sentence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/ma ... anglaister

Oh h*ll BB, there is a certain irony in me lecturing anyone on anything. :oops:

someone pointed out to me both Astana and BMC have internal doping programmes . Frei also says his inner circle knew what was going on so who is included in that inner circle ?

You wonder why he just didn't answer the door then when they come back the next day he might have got away with it

Thomas Frei earns 120,000 Swiss francs a year? £72,000? For a guy with virtually zero results to his name I'm quite surprised at that.

afx237vi wrote:

Thomas Frei earns 120,000 Swiss francs a year? £72,000? For a guy with virtually zero results to his name I'm quite surprised at that.

Thats a fairly low salary considering the cost of living in Switzerland, and especially the canton where Frei is from (Zug). Here the average supermarket worker will earn in the region of 50-60,000 CHF a year. A good secretary or PA in an international company earns in the region of 80-100,000CHF here

afx237vi wrote:

Thomas Frei earns 120,000 Swiss francs a year? £72,000? For a guy with virtually zero results to his name I'm quite surprised at that.

I know eh? A lot of city types I know who work for gov't owned banks and even some of the more solvent ones aren's near that kind of money (as a basic anyway). They are older than 25 for sure. If I was him I'd have shut up and ridden to a level required to hold that - But he went and killed the golden egg laying goose.
Notice all these guys are busted by race doping controls and not by their own teams. I liken that to a bank's internal compliance department missing all transgressions and the external FSA catching instances of insider trading.
But like Manzano and the austrian polka-dot guy, they are caught and maybe they tell all and name names, but the doping rings revolve always. Long ago (maybe it was '98) I resigned myself to the fact that this is the sport I love and practice but it'll never be clean so just enjoy the spectacle for what it is.

Tyler\'sTwin wrote:

The MAIIA EPO-test is going to completely kill off micro-dosing as a "safe" (it's obviously not totally risk-free as quite a few have slipped up) way of EPO-doping when it finally gets introduced.

Do you have a link explaining this? I'm not doubting you, I'm hoping you're right. It's just the first I've heard of it.

DaveyL wrote:

http://www.maiiadiagnostics.com/research/epo_doping_test.htm

This is very interesting. I wonder if this test is being used, given the large number of epo positives that seem to be cropping up at the moment. Or perhaps the passport is starting to flag up lots of suspicious riders.

Probably both - passport used to target a smaller group of riders for more detailed testing. At €400 per test, no-ones going to pony up for multiple rhEPO tests to screen the entire UCI bio-passport pool.