Chris Froome salbutamol/Tour merged threads

Tangled Metal wrote:

Facts are sky are a dodgy team. Anyone in that team is guilty of being part of that regime of cheating. Plus they have too much money and are ruining the sport.

Facts are non-existent. You can't be certain evidence presented to the relevant authorities are true or not.

Facts are pieces of evidence presented to the relevant authorities and are weighed up by the relevant authorities experts on the matters as most probably true, before a decision is made.

Three alternative views. The view of the irrational who will never accept sky, Froome and anyone associated with that setup (first option). The third option is, IMHO, the most sensible approach. We are never going to see conclusive proof of guilt or innocent so for the good of the sport and our enjoyment of it we have to go by the decisions of the relevant authorities on any suspected case of cheating.

The second option is the difficult one to address. People who follow this option wants the impossible to provide absolutes or they will assume sky are cheating. It is the same story in the fight to address tobacco as a substance that is not healthy but harms life. The tobacco industry, AFAIK, used similar kinds of arguments as people following the second option. That is "I want complete certainty in the proof or it's not true'. Those who take the view mmr vaccine causes autism despite the majority of studies made since the original dodgy study by the ne England doctor are further examples.

As far as I am concerned this thread is the realm of those with the same view as the second option above and their enablers who try to debate the topic with them. Co-dependency is I think the right word for it. And as with cases of drug addiction and alcoholism where this occurs it's not healthy to continue.

My treatment is to no longer feed the addiction. Let this thread die out with only the addicts who don't want to accept the decisions of the relevant authorities posting.

My main interest in this thread is to observe how most of us form an opinion and then actively seek out evidence to support it whilst at the same time finding fault in the evidence that goes against our view.

My other interest is as a former professional team doctor (football). The pressure on players to perform is immense, athletes will do or take anything to ensure they are performing at their best. This includes all manner of placebos, vitamins, plant extracts etc. They also apply pressure to medics for prescription drugs which may not be medically justified eg antibiotics for a tickly cough, triamcinalone injections for hay fever (not just athletes this one!), sleeping pills. Short of systematic EPO use along with anabolic steroids, placebo is far and away the most powerful performance enhancing "drug". No one is more susceptible to placebo than elite athletes. There is also a notion that in professional sport standards of clinical/medical governance will be very high with meticulous record keeping. Haha!! Nothing could be further from the truth! A typical scenario is player collars doc in corridor before a big game wanting pill x, under pressure doc agrees to leave a script in office, then does a load of player insurance reports and forgets to make any entry in records about drug x. The club/team believe the doc is responsible for his/her own work and doesn't need the level of supervision and support given to other staff. The doc is left to self govern. If anything has been learnt from the commons select committee report and Sky's hapless doctor it is around governance of clinical areas. Most right minded people will be amazed (or sceptical) at the chaotic medical systems in place in one of the world's most professional sports teams. To me it came as no surprise whatsoever and, of itself, isn't good evidence of any sort of cover up.

With triamcinalone, salbutamol we are dealing with products which you would have to be seriously stupid to use for performance enhancement (which doesn't mean some people won't try!).

bobmcstuff wrote:

Very interesting, thank you!

Mab2444 wrote:

The club/team believe the doc is responsible for his/her own work and doesn't need the level of supervision and support given to other staff. The doc is left to self govern. If anything has been learnt from the commons select committee report and Sky's hapless doctor it is around governance of clinical areas.

Does medical confidentiality have anything to do with this?

Not usually. You are employed by the team/club and in many respects act like an occupational health doctor. In my time players might wish to discuss personal matters as if I were their GP and I had a responsibility to explain that there were limits to confidentiality, basically that I might have to inform employers on a strict "need to know" basis. TUE's have always been kept confidential to the general public but not to team management within cycling as far as I am aware.

inseine wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

i love cycling, i love the tour, ive loved the way Thomas won.

i dont believe in Father Christmas

Ok, fair enough. Weird but fair enough. I don’t see you posting much about the actual racing but maybe you’re just too excited to type.

I have a huge number of criticisms of Vino, but unlike most of the doping obsessives, he does actually contribute to race spoiler threads.

I think his position on Sky/doping is largely internally coherent and consistent, I just disagree vehemently with it.

He can also be an utter knobmoomin.

Vino'sGhost wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

inseine wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

i love cycling, i love the tour, ive loved the way Thomas won.

i dont believe in Father Christmas

Ok, fair enough. Weird but fair enough. I don’t see you posting much about the actual racing but maybe you’re just too excited to type.

I have a huge number of criticisms of Vino, but unlike most of the doping obsessives, he does actually contribute to race spoiler threads.

I think his position on Sky/doping is largely internally coherent and consistent, I just disagree vehemently with it.

He can also be an utter knobmoomin.

Oh ffs it started like a love letter and then

Don’t be so uncharacteristically sensitive: Utter Knobmoomin was a heroic figure of Danish folklore who continued to bang his drum despite people asking him not to, because it was really starting to get on their wick. Then he married a horse, or something.

Why do so many people find it hard to understand how a cyclist can lose weight and maintain power? Does muscle mass play any part in anything other than peak power? What would be the lowest peak power a pro (presumably one of the 'typical climber build') puts out? I'm pretty sure it would be more than the 400 oddwatts or whatever FTP that a top GC rider will put out so even they have the muscular strength to generate that power and it then comes down to the ability to work for longer at a greater percentage of that overall power which I can't see being influenced greatly by muscle mass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQeacK ... 60&list=WL

Excellent video of Dr. Sebastian Zeller (in German unfortunately) analysing Froome's numbers. TL;DR His values and subsequent performances are believable (and within believable parameters).