Sky - gaming the system?

[Russell]

A very reasoned article on BBC Sport.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/42350159

In other words, he would be taking something that was not performance-enhancing, that was certain to be discovered and that he had repeatedly informed the authorities about in any case. It would be deception as idiocy, duplicity by the guileless.

[DuncanM]

That is a good article.  It sticks to the facts and doesn't hypothesise about the unknowns. What makes it good could also be seen as avoiding the issue to a certain extent - it doesn't try to fill in the gaps at all, some of the other articles have tried to include more context and nuance...

[sojournermike]

That is a good article.  It sticks to the facts and doesn't hypothesise about the unknowns. What makes it good could also be seen as avoiding the issue to a certain extent - it doesn't try to fill in the gaps at all, some of the other articles have tried to include more context and nuance...

Agree it's a good article in that it sticks to the facts of the case immediately at hand. The real challenge for Sky remains that they (well Brailsford, so from the top) have shown themselves to be entirely willing to lie repeatedly to 'make stories go away' and to either not have organisational capacity and eye for detail that they have consistently claimed or to have destroyed evidence in terms of historic medical records. Salbutamol is a silly AAF to incur, which raises questions about how it happened at all, and the more so given the team's history. This is more about Sky and Froome really.

Funny how Brian Cookson was calling for their reputation to be reinstated recently.

[hillbilly]

Pity.  I quite like the role he carved out as the sport's ambassador.  A nice chap, articulate and fair minded.  But now tainted, regardless of the eventual outcome based on technical and process arguments from his legal team and expert.

An ambassador? Really??

I find him terribly dull. Every interview same tone of voice, same eyebrow moves, same sanitised PR-speak. Always seems to want to keep his head down, stay away from any controversy (let alone any teammates with doping connections), no real opinion on anything. A deeply uninteresting succesor to Wiggins.


Just MHO of course!

Ambassador in the sense that, as the holder of the yellow jersey, he is the most visible member of the peloton.  And he wore it well, even when people were throwing piss in his face and spitting at him on the road.

[andyoxon]

Re. Salbutamol. 

The inhaled form is literally kids' stuff, the entry-level asthma medication routinely prescribed by GPs. It is a performance enabler rather than a performance enhancer. It relieves constriction in the airways but does not make them bigger.

Repeated studies have shown negligible benefit to athletes without asthma. It does not give you some sort of super-lungs nor allow you to take in more oxygen than otherwise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/42350159

There seems to be a sense in which a limit for a legal therapeutic agent is kind of arbitrary, given any advantage seems to be minimal, and also with variations in an individual's physiology/metabolism compared to others...

[giropaul]

For anyone here with a long memory this has resonances of the PG Trips saga. A UK long distance time triallist was tested for caffeine - then positive over a certain value. He was badly dehydrated when his sample was taken and he failed the test. With normal hydration he would have been well within the limit.

The moral is never give a urine sample until you are highly hydrated

[trekker12]

Which is not easy considering you can't take a bottle from a team car in the last 20km, you get given perhaps one, two if you are lucky upon crossing the line where you are surrounded by team and then press. Following a brief sit down to contemplate your achievements you are frog marched onto the podium for a jersey presentation, you then give your sample, you then do endless interviews and finally get proper food a drink perhaps an hour after crossing the line.

On a hot day in August at the top of a mountain I would think most of the peloton were somewhat dehydrated

[TigaSefi]

Which is not easy considering you can't take a bottle from a team car in the last 20km, you get given perhaps one, two if you are lucky upon crossing the line where you are surrounded by team and then press. Following a brief sit down to contemplate your achievements you are frog marched onto the podium for a jersey presentation, you then give your sample, you then do endless interviews and finally get proper food a drink perhaps an hour after crossing the line.

On a hot day in August at the top of a mountain I would think most of the peloton were somewhat dehydrated

Apparently it was raining that day?

[Si S]

Re. Salbutamol. 

The inhaled form is literally kids' stuff, the entry-level asthma medication routinely prescribed by GPs. It is a performance enabler rather than a performance enhancer. It relieves constriction in the airways but does not make them bigger.

Repeated studies have shown negligible benefit to athletes without asthma. It does not give you some sort of super-lungs nor allow you to take in more oxygen than otherwise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/42350159

There seems to be a sense in which a limit for a legal therapeutic agent is kind of arbitrary, given any advantage seems to be minimal, and also with variations in an individual's physiology/metabolism compared to others...

My bold

Which is totally disingenuous, it's use as a PED at high doses is not to develop "super-lungs" but as a mild anabolic agent and a lypolysis agent that some studies have shown to be more effective than clenbuterol.

I don't think that the case here^* but it's important to remember that the performance enhancement of some substances are the often the side effects.

^*Unless you subscribe to the blood-bag theory. 

[Samuel D]

The "overzealous rules" have been brought in to counter decades of systematic, cynical and increasingly convoluted drug cheating and are targeted at known performance-enhancing drugs.  How do you think public confidence would be affected if (as you imply) those pesky rules were relaxed?

Currently we have sportspeople being dragged over the coals for taking legal or inconsequential substances. There is near-zero “public confidence” in cycling despite these actions.

The era of massive oxygen-vector doping is over. That distorted sport as we understand it and was worth fighting with extreme measures. But now society holds cyclists to impossible moral standards (see the Wiggins case) with consequences arguably more harmful than residual doping.

In the present case, the public should simply not know about Froome’s AAF, since people equate an AAF with doping (not to mention salbutamol with EPO). For these reasons and others, the UCI is not allowed to tell us about an AAF unless the athlete consents. Leaks like this one ruin careers and the sport’s reputation. And for what? To sell a week’s worth of fake news. Not cool.

[sojournermike]

The "overzealous rules" have been brought in to counter decades of systematic, cynical and increasingly convoluted drug cheating and are targeted at known performance-enhancing drugs.  How do you think public confidence would be affected if (as you imply) those pesky rules were relaxed?

Currently we have sportspeople being dragged over the coals for taking legal or inconsequential substances. There is near-zero “public confidence” in cycling despite these actions.

The era of massive oxygen-vector doping is over. That distorted sport as we understand it and was worth fighting with extreme measures. But now society holds cyclists to impossible moral standards (see the Wiggins case) with consequences arguably more harmful than residual doping.

In the present case, the public should simply not know about Froome’s AAF, since people equate an AAF with doping (not to mention salbutamol with EPO). For these reasons and others, the UCI is not allowed to tell us about an AAF unless the athlete consents. Leaks like this one ruin careers and the sport’s reputation. And for what? To sell a week’s worth of fake news. Not cool.

.


Not sure how anyone could confuse Salbutamol and EPO, but you may be right.

I tend to agree that there is good reason for the AAF to be kept confidential, but there is also a long history of cover ups and deception that means people do not have confidence in closed door processes. Again, Sky have been a real contributor to this distrust.

Shame about oxygen vector doping being finished. The only way to hit 7W/kg now would be to lose loads of weight without losing power.

[Jakob]

The "oBut now society holds cyclists to impossible moral standards (see the Wiggins case) with consequences arguably more harmful than residual doping.

Say what? Sky themselves put them up in that pedestal and then the whole thing came tumbling down, when they and Wiggins repeatedly lied.
If anything Wiggins has been treated relatively kindly, given his transgressions.

[simonp]

Blood doping is probably still happening. Masked via micro-dosing of EPO to mask the effect on the age profile of red blood cells. Was the plasticiser test ever approved?

[Samuel D]

Sky themselves put them up in that pedestal and then the whole thing came tumbling down …

An extremely foolish thing for Sky to have done, in retrospect. On the other hand, the moral landscape has already changed so much since Team Sky’s inception that it’s unfair to judge their past behaviour by today’s standards.

Not sure how anyone could confuse Salbutamol and EPO, but you may be right.

I only mean that people will think they’re both cheating or attempts to cheat, whereas EPO improves performance while the serious people seem to think salbutamol does not.

Fun tweet by Michael Hutchinson here.

Earlier in the thread there was some speculation about salbutamol being a masking agent (like a diuretic). The testing director at the French AFLD (national doping agency) told Daniel Friebe it doesn’t work like that.

Any early guesses on how this will pan out? I think there’s a chance Froome will pass the pharmacokinetic test, true to his freaky nature. If he or his advisers thought there was no chance, I doubt he would have made such promising noises about the Giro.

On the other hand, I don’t think he’s already done the test (or passed it), or he and Sky would sound a bit cockier now. Probably it’s very hard to get the urine concentration to 2000 ng/ml without exceeding the 1600 μg dose in 24 hours or 800 μg in 12 hours. You’d have to assume there’s a real risk Froome exceeded the allowed dose on the day of that Vuelta stage, perhaps panicking at his asthma symptoms.

If he doesn’t pass the pharmacokinetic test, he might try to take an argument to WADA about the validity of the test. That would be messy and his reputation would be shot with large sections of the public even if he (a) didn’t exceed the allowed dose, and (b) successfully changed the rules (two big ifs).

In his favour, the UCI will be worried about being sued if they call the shots wrong or indeed if they’re found liable for the leak. They’re going to need a waterproof case here.

[Karla]

There are all sorts of reasons/theories/speculation why it could be non-enhancing this, masking enhancing that, or accidentally introduced via this enhancing treatment.  Fact is, he had an overdose of a controlled substance in his blood, and unless he comes up with a mighty convincing case as to why he's a genuine exception, he should be banned for it.  Athletes are strictly liable for what ends up in their blood and if he hadn't ingested it somehow, it wouldn't be there.

I'd like to be the first to congratulate Garmin for winning the Tour de France.  To think how they were nearly out of a sponsor, eh?

[Hot Flatus]

Nibali has already said he won't enjoy winning the 2017 Vuelta if Froome goes down.

He wants to win because of his own drugs, not because of somebody else's 

[Samuel D]

Fact is, he had an overdose of a controlled substance in his blood …

We don’t know that. We only know he had a level of a so-called “Specified” substance in his urine that demands an explanation. The reason an explanation is required is that one is possible that doesn’t involve exceeding the allowed dose. The Swiss anti-doping lab test mentioned on INRNG (scroll down to chart) showed that possibility, as well as showing that the concentration in the urine doesn’t scale linearly with inhaled dose.

At present, there’s no evidence that Froome had an “overdose” of salbutamol.

[Jakob]

Sky themselves put them up in that pedestal and then the whole thing came tumbling down …

An extremely foolish thing for Sky to have done, in retrospect. On the other hand, the moral landscape has already changed so much since Team Sky’s inception that it’s unfair to judge their past behaviour by today’s standards.

Absolute nonsense. Clean means clean. Not 99% clean.

[Karla]

Fact is, he had an overdose of a controlled substance in his blood …

We don’t know that. We only know he had a level of a so-called “Specified” substance in his urine that demands an explanation. The reason an explanation is required is that one is possible that doesn’t involve exceeding the allowed dose. The Swiss anti-doping lab test mentioned on INRNG (scroll down to chart) showed that possibility, as well as showing that the concentration in the urine doesn’t scale linearly with inhaled dose.

At present, there’s no evidence that Froome had an “overdose” of salbutamol.

Inhaled?  Where did I say 'inhaled'?

[sg37409]

Geraint Thomas press release the other day  now has different complexion on it.   I’d want out too

[Hot Flatus]

Here's a doping doctor's explanation of inhaler use by athletes:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/angel-hernandez-i-no-longer-dope-athletes-but-pretty-much-everyone-else-does/

"‘I call it the “transporter”,’ he says. ‘It opens and expands not only your lung capacity but also your pulmonary capability, so it has improved capacity to move the blood cells…

‘In other words, if you were using EPO, or if you were using another substance like EPO, it would help you to boost endurance even more. It is like multiplying the effects by between three and five times.’

He points out some athletes are using the pumps legitimately because they have what he calls ‘induced asthma’ from training, but that others are cheating by conning doctors into giving them medical letters stating that they have the condition, letters that no anti-doping agency on the planet can argue with. ‘It’s like a green light for doping,’ he says."

[toontra]

He's effectively saying that as a top athlete you'd be crazy not to try to get diagnosed as being asthmatic (using the services of a medic like the one on Radio4 yesterday who claimed that Salbutamol has limited performance-enhancing effects) and it would be almost impossible to disprove.

Did he try and get his athletes signed off as having asthma?   "Of course! All my athletes were asthmatic"!

[SoreTween]

I can't take anything Hernandez says even the smallest bit seriously.  1) No other source is describing he beneficial effect he claims. 2) Slinging mud at others makes him look less dirty in comparison.

[Hot Flatus]

If you read the full interview you'll see his take on anti-doping. Essentially, they are ineffective...but they have to pretend to be in order to maintain funding.

So who do you expect to corroborate Hernandez's words? Other doping doctors? Anti-doping authorities? 

Not likely.

Remember that the mud Hernandez is slinging is primarily at himself. He's saying what he did....and would do, were he still interested.

Credible as a possibility? Absolutely. Was this why Froome was pumping himself full of it? We don't yet know.

What we do know is that Froome's meteoric rise from nobody to GT podium stsr is literally incredible. We also know that he rides for an unethical and dishonest team.

[Karla]

I bet Mikel Landa is pretty sick.  He's moved to Movistar to get a shot at leading races,  but they now have more GC guys than Sky.