Problems for Sky...

[spesh]

And to add more grist to those who suffer from aluminium millinery-induced poisoning when it comes to Team Sky , Michael Rogers has tested positive for clenbuterol:

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/16022/Michael-Rogers-provisionally-suspended-for-Clenbuterol-adverse-analytical-finding.aspx

It's worth noting that Rogers returned a positive sample shortly after racing in China, which along with Mexico, is regarded by WADA as being a high risk for clen contamination of meat.

In addition to Rogers, the UCI has also announced that Crelan-Euphony rider Jonathan Breyne has also returned a positive A-sample for Clenbuterol, and is also provisionally suspended. The 22-year-old Belgian, who is set to join the Continental team Josan-ToWin in 2014, was tested at the Tour of Taihu Lake, in China, on November 5th.

[sg37409]

Who all had the burger ? 

[spesh]

Indeed, he has Kobe steaking his defence on a big dish of beef chow mein.

.

.

.

Yup, that's my coat, ta. I'll see myself out...

<exits stage left, whistling Werewolves of LondonSaxo>

[David Martin]

The 'it was a dodgy steak' defence only works if the jury and prosecution are incapable of maths. 

[spesh]

Assuming that you are referring to the question of how much clen per unit of volume was in the sample, and the half-life in-system, then I would say that it looks marginally better for Breyne (whose adverse sample comes from when he was actually racing in China) than it does for Rogers.

EDIT: For anyone wanting to second-guess the disciplinary process, Rogers raced in the Tour of Beijing, from October 11th to October 15th. His adverse sample was taken on October 20th. As far as I can tell from a quick Google, Clenbuterol's half-life is 35 hours.

An interesting abstract (from my POV) can be found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4045696

[Veloman]

Oh dear!

Does he still ride for the team that contains a certain Alberto Contador?

As Dave Martin has already pointed out, the omens do not look good and I believe the defence of "I was unaware of what I was eating" has not proven to be 100% successful.

[David Martin]

There is the nature of the half life, and the likely maximum clen content of any meat. Had he claimed to be eating bulls eyeballs (I'm sure they are a delicacy somewhere) then these will contain up to 1000 times more clen in any given animal than the steak would.

[simonp]

It's worth reading this to remind ourselves what actually happened in the Contador case.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2012/behind-scenes-contador-cas-hearing-michael-ashenden

Contador couldn't show that there was no possible other source of clenbuterol and there was evidence to suggest he'd been blood doping. This was a test fail during the race.

Clenbuterol post-race, is that going to help recovery?

[spesh]

Clen tends to be abused more for weight loss/improving muscle-to-fat ratio than for recovery, I think, so a cyclist would be more likely to be taking it during the early part of the season. At least, that's what I've seen from comments elsewhere. Testing positive for it mid-late season could be a sign that blood extracted while taking clen earlier in the season has been re-infused, and a number of people have drawn attention to Rogers' name being connected with the Freiburg investigation and Dr. Ferrari. There was also speculation that Rogers left Sky because he couldn't sign the zero-tolerance declaration with a clear conscience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clenbuterol

[David Martin]

Not sure the anti-doping declaration at Sky had much to do with it - if you are a cheater then you are a cheater and having pangs of conscience over a statement that you haven't cheated whilst signing on for races when you have is hardly a credible reason to jump ship. Maybe questions were being asked that weren't asked in Saxo?

[spesh]

Hence the use of "speculation". The trouble is that in the cycling fora where Team Sky gets discussed quite a lot, the signal/noise ratio isn't all that good.

[Ningishzidda]

Maybe he had a DNA Splice.

Some genes from a Cheetah.

If he was in Saxa and 'jumped ship', he's a 'Salty sea-dog' so the genes could have been from a greyhound.

[Biff]

Wrong. Just wrong:

[citoyen]

Well, if they really had nothing to hide, they wouldn't have made any of it opaque... 

[Biff]

The inspiration



Brailsford did promise transparency.

[andrew_s]

EDIT: For anyone wanting to second-guess the disciplinary process, Rogers raced in the Tour of Beijing, from October 11th to October 15th. His adverse sample was taken on October 20th. As far as I can tell from a quick Google, Clenbuterol's half-life is 35 hours.

It is possible to get clenbuterol blood levels in the region of 10,000 times what Contador had from eating a dodgy meal. There have been case of restaurants full of people having to go to hospital with clen poisoning, which is why there is reasonably thorough slaughterhouse testing for it in Europe. That allows for enough half lives to be detected quite easily after 5 days (always assuming MR left China immediately).
Still, WADA had issued warnings, and quite a few riders took note and either took their own food or went pescatarian for the duration, so I don't really see it getting him off.

[David Martin]

Really? The half life of clen is not long, retention in muscle (ie steak) fairly low. What is your source? It must have been a freshly treated and slaughtered animal to have that high a transmission.

[andrew_s]

My source is memory of looking things up during the Contador hoo-ha.
Contador was 50 picograms per ml, and I remember seeing reported levels in the dozens of nanogram range. That will have been in one of the hospital cases. Most of these were from offal (liver etc), but one was from meat. Back before testing, and likely in China currently, dosing the cattle could continue right up to slaughter, rather than taking care to stop a couple of weeks or so beforehand as I would presume any farmers still using clen would do in Europe nowadays (and there are some - a vet in the Canaries was caught for supplying a few months before Contador).

Anyway, evidence of the possibility for contamination of the non-cautious traveller is available.
22 of 28 tourists returning to Germany from China tested positive
109 of 208 tests at a FIFA junior world cup in Mexico were positive, and 14 of 47 food samples taken concurrently had enough clen in to explain the test results
from here (linky)

[andyoxon]

Wrong. Just wrong:
...

Not only does it look ridiculous, but seems to have very little SunPF.  Blun-der.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/10593146/Tour-de-France-champion-Chris-Froome-and-Team-Skys-marginal-gains-philosophy-backfires-in-South-Africa.html