Berzin said:
The tests aren't always administered the way we think.
Case in point-when Roberto Heras got busted at the Vuelta, he made a big deal about testing positive so near the end of the race, when he had the victory already in the bag.
Part of his defense was how he had been tested as race leader a few times before and nothing ever came up. So why would he dope so close to the end of the race when he was assured of the overall victory?
We later find out that (and please remember the Vuelta is one of the three grand tours on the racing calendar) that none of the previous samples were ever tested. They were just collected. When those previous samples were tested after the first positive, they also came up for EPO. He had been riding dirty the whole time.
The excuse why the previous samples were never tested boiled down to the costs of each individual test. Meanwhile, Heras was riding those days thinking he had passed those tests and was basically home free.
The moral of this story? There is a big difference between what we are told and what actually occurs.
Berzin,
My trip to the WADA sight did not bare much fruit, certainly not like at USADA.
http://www.wada-ama.org/en/Resources/Global-Statistics/testing-statistics/
First, they only post results that go back 2 years.
Second, it looks like all they do is take the data given to them by the UCI – I was under the impression that they did their own testing; someone needs to confirm this – and they do not report it by named individual like USADA does; they just report the total numbers, both in and out of control.
I suppose someone could email them to see if they would release LA's number of tests by year; not likely IMO. But the total number of tests for all cyclists in 2009/2008 does not seem that high, at least to me, and especially given the cesspool pro cycling has become.
This leaves the TDF (ASO) – unless I have overlooked another “governing body”/organization (?) – and my guess, without even looking, is that those numbers will be even harder to extract. I drew goose eggs on their sites.
So what we have at this juncture, and in all fairness to LA, is the 22 confirmed tests performed by USADA from 2001-2010 shown on their web site, and the 63 UCI data points reported by myra above as published by L'Equipe in 2005 – a "known" French tabloid/bird cage liner of a sports rag (I believe that is what the LA camp called it in some fashion or another) – so those number must be looked at with a jaundice eye and assumed to be all BS. Of course, most people in the know would say that L'Equipe is a highly regarded sports publication on par with SI in the states, but that is another story.
Even if we double those numbers (22 + 63 x 2 = 170) to take into account ASO (very generous in my opinion) we are still left with a number well below the numbers reported by the LA camp (300, 400, 500 . . . or was it $25,000, $100,000, $500,000?). In fact, if we just look at the USADA numbers – there are any number of athletes – cyclists and others – who have been tested significantly more than LA in the period from 2001 – 2010.
Perhaps one of the paid trolls from PS that frequent The Clinic – or a pure fan boy/girl wearing rose colored glasses that still believes in the tooth fairy – would be happy to enlighten us about the numbers posted here thus far.
The hunt continues.
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