Sky - gaming the system?

[Hot Flatus]

"We invite anybody to come and examine us and scrutinise us.”

Yeah...right, Dave. Just like you invited Kimmage to accompany Team Sky on the 2012 Tour, then uninvited him shortly before the Tour started.

[Hot Flatus]

Fluimucil!

Gesundheit.

Available for €8 in any French pharmacy.  Seems a remarkable effort involving several people (Freeman, Sutton, Cope) and two organisations (BC, Team Sky) to ship something internationally that could have been picked up by a soigneur on their daily shopping trip.

[Karla]

Yebbut did it come with added Spanish steak?

[IJL]

Its an interesting drug, not licensed in the UK but a bit of googling shows its available from health food shops.  Its a precursor to Glutathione, its drug name is acetylcysteine, this is used in IV form to treat Paracetamol  overdose.

Its a Mucolytic and such drugs are only used in the UK in people with significant chest disease, its does seems to be marketed in other countries for much more general use.

A google of "acetylcysteine and exercise" brings some interesting stuff.  However as its not a banned drug it doesn't matter why it was being used.  It does however suggest that the Sky ethics code involve a bit of smoke and mirrors

[Hot Flatus]

That's even if it was the drug in the package....or indeed the only drug in the package. I dont take anything that comes out of Brailsford's mouth as fact.

Marginal gains, taking care of the smallest details bla bla bla.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Why would somebody conceal this particular product for so long? If you knew beforehand that you were being questioned about this particular parcel, why would you not confirm the contents and bring along your corroborating evidence, instead choosing only to pass on what you had been told by another person?

[Hot Flatus]

Brsilsford's line was that he immediately disclosed what he knew to the Daily Mail but it turned out that he was mistaken on what he thought he knew....like who the package was for and where Bradley Wiggins was....so he decided not to say anything at all.

He didnt know Bradley's choice of asthma drug was a massive PED either with a long history of abuse in cycling.

But he does know that Sky are clean and transparent 

[Samuel D]

LittleWheelsandBig: because, as Robert Howden and George Gilbert of British Cycling and Brailsford himself explained, they had been told by UKAD not to talk about the package while UKAD performed its own investigation. In fact, UKAD told British Cycling not only not to talk about the package but not to investigate it internally.

It was only an email from UKAD to the committee at the last moment that freed the witnesses to talk. Howden and Gilbert were so shocked by the sudden revelation of this email that they pretended it didn’t exist and stuck to their prepared line that they weren’t supposed to talk about the package and anyway didn’t know what it was. Brailsford had more time to ponder his options (while the others were questioned) and decided to reveal the package contents.

I suspect by Sutton’s replies that he knew fine well what was in the package despite his denials. Otherwise how could he have been so sure it was above board? When Brailsford did reveal the contents the committee became unsure of its purpose and ended up personally congratulating him for his achievements!

All a bit silly. There must be countless such packages winging their way around a bicycle race. Badly handled by Brailsford, though.

The separate line of questioning on the process and nature of TUEs got nowhere because the committee members didn’t know enough to ask sensible questions. The intent was there but they should have been better prepared.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

So Sutton lied about not knowing the contents? They had only been prepared by their lawyers to follow the 'know nothing' defence. Prosecute him for lying.

Nobody ever thought to bring along corroborating evidence? I call bullshit. So far we have several people involved with this package that has the contents supposedly identified by only one person who hasn't been questioned yet. The doctor is being lined up to fall on his sword.

Frankly, I could do a better job of questioning than this Parlimentary committee, if I had ten minutes to prepare.

[Jakob]

Fluimucil!

Well, that's what he claims

[Samuel D]

So Sutton lied about not knowing the contents?

That’s just my guess without proof. He said in several ways, with impressive conviction, that the package contents would reveal Sky to be above board. I’m not sure how he could have said that without knowing the package contents. (Of course he does have a general belief that Sky and British Cycling are clean.)

Nobody ever thought to bring along corroborating evidence?

As noted above, they were directly instructed by UKAD not to investigate the package or even talk about it. Obviously in that context there was never any possibility of evidence being produced today. Howden for British Cycling did commit to providing evidence within “a couple of days” if the package turned out to be pharmaceutical. He said they would have a paper trail in that case. Since it was revealed to be pharmaceutical an hour later, we should see some evidence soon.

Not that evidence will be enough to put off the true believers in systemic British doping.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Just keep believing in fairy stories. It'll keep you happy.

[giropaul]

Fluimucil!

Gesundheit.

Available for €8 in any French pharmacy.  Seems a remarkable effort involving several people (Freeman, Sutton, Cope) and two organisations (BC, Team Sky) to ship something internationally that could have been picked up by a soigneur on their daily shopping trip.

From experience (only for allowed pharmaceuticals for e.g. Skin allergies) . Me to pharmacist " have you got bonzogel please." Pharmacist " No, we will order it for tomorrow " . Me " Sorry, we will be 120kms away by tomorrow " cue Gallic shrug. On bike races a soigneur  really hasn't got time, when someone is arriving tonight who can bring the stuff from the service de course stores. It would be just the same for chainring bolts, or energy gels.

[Hot Flatus]

Here's what another former soigneur had to say, Paul...

https://twitter.com/Emma_OReilly/status/810833079409504263

[drgannet]

...who has no connection this, whatsoever...

[Hot Flatus]

Neither does Giropaul 

However Emma O'Reilly knows a thing or two about what doping looks like in pro cycling.

Heres her subsequent tweet:

https://twitter.com/Emma_OReilly/status/810838022417682432

[Veloman]

Perhaps Sky wanted control of the product to check providence of product to ensure it did not contain it should not have.
Was any rule broken?
Ethics, tactics, marginal gains or whatever. More interested in UKAD report than a group of non-experts asking questions.

[Hot Flatus]

http://www.biomed.cas.cz/physiolres/pdf/58/58_855.pdf

Hmmm.....did I misread this study? Fluimucil can provoke a 9% gain in HCT??

Another marginal gain?

[Veloman]

Is it legal?
If so then use it to get marginal gains.
Whatever next?
Employing specialist in bike design or clothing design to gain improvements. Horror of horrors!

[David Martin]

http://www.biomed.cas.cz/physiolres/pdf/58/58_855.pdf

Hmmm.....did I misread this study? Fluimucil can provoke a 9% gain in HCT??

Another marginal gain?

That study is interesting. The cross comparison between NAC and ALA should show that the controls are within statistically significant bounds. This is the case for most of the measures but not for Glutathione. It is also not the case that the two groups are directly comparable (looking at the physical parameters of the subjects). The Glutathione for the NAC treatment is in line with the ALA control and treatment groups.

Also strange is the increase (albeit modest) in EPO but the number of RBC have dropped instead of rising. The difference in Hct is due to a change in RBC volume.

I'm not sure you can take very much from a small-n study like this. They have not explicitly mentioned any repeat measures correction for the single sample analysis (all the analyses are paired, so should be subject to a repeat measures correction). The latter would tend to make the results appear more significant.

Needs to be repeated with a larger sample size.

[DrMekon]

So last time I saw my respiratory consultant, I asked what he thought about therapeutic use exemptions and winning events on prednisolone (like Froome). "If you need prednisolone, you have no business being in competition" was the straight faced answer. This time I said "so what do you reckon about Wiggins being given Kenalog just before an event? It's cheating, right?" Got a flabbergasted "yes, yes, yes!"

I wish I'd followed up with "so when do I get some?" (I'd just spent the consultation resisting his efforts to put a 13th medicine on my prescription, but I have to got back in 6 weeks, so I'll see).

Someone ought to do a delphi study of respiratory consultants with a vignette about a cyclist needing treatment before a race.

[IJL]

"so what do you reckon about Wiggins being given Kenalog just before an event? It's cheating, right?" Got a flabbergasted "yes, yes, yes!"

I wish I'd followed up with "so when do I get some?" (I'd just spent the consultation resisting his efforts to put a 13th medicine on my prescription, but I have to got back in 6 weeks, so I'll see).

Someone ought to do a delphi study of respiratory consultants with a vignette about a cyclist needing treatment before a race.

Kenalog (triamcinolone) used to be a fairly common treatment for people with bad hayfever, an IM injection would get rid of all hayfever symptoms, sometimes for the whole hayfever season.  There are still a few patients where I work that insist on it. Not many people will prescribe it as there is a real risk of fairly nasty side affects

[Hot Flatus]

Yes, you might inadvertantly win a Grand Tour 

[Hot Flatus]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/daily-mail-claims-brailsford-tried-to-kill-the-mystery-package-story/

Well well well

And...
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/brailsfords-failure-to-convince-only-fuels-further-scepticism/

Ouch.

[Jakob]

If it was 'just' fluimucil, why were they so reluctant to say so?