Astana rider details Contador's doping practices

[soulor]

Have you ever read Humo?

Again don't believe what you read on Wikipedia...

They wouldn't run articles like this to take the ****.

If you don't know the magazine you really shouldn't comment on what kind of magazine it iss.

+1

Their reportage may have a satirical edge at times, buy like Private Eye (in the UK) that does not mean their news stories are hoaxes. They have managed to get the Nobel lit winner right...

 

[Mich78BEL]

So why is this a joke and not a serious genuine article?

it's not a joke, its a serious article, wether the source tells the truth we obviously don't know for shure (at least for now)

 

[JRTinMA]

I don't read Dutch but through google translator I went through the web page after I read the Contador article. If that web site is satyrical its the worst satire I have ever seen. I guess the satire is lost in translation literally.

 

[Chuffy]

it's not a joke, its a serious article, wether the source tells the truth we obviously don't know for shure (at least for now)

I've lost track of who might be pulling who. Time to go to bed and pull myself. Someone send me a memo when it's all cleared up, 'k?

 

[Squares]

Well if the Clen came from a 150cc blood bag, then the concentration in the body's blood immediately after the infusion would be about 30 times lower that the concentration in the blood in the bag (which would have been the concentration Contador's blood when it was drawn).

So at what rate is Clen filtered out into the urine? Couldn't find that on the web, but its safe to assume it goes up when the Clen concentration in the blood goes up. Contador's test showed 50 picograms/ml, and from here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9213863

a toxic amount (requiring a visit to the hospital) is 50 +- 42 nanograms/ml (in urine tests). So 1000 times the concentration in Contadors test is toxic. Given that levels so high can be filtered out by the kidney, it seems likely that a 30 times increase in clen concentration would result in a 30 times increase in urine concentration.

I'm no expert, but it seems like a reasonable explanation to me. Much more so that Contador's story.

You are correct, the clen concentration in the urine does go up when the blood plasma concentration goes up.

Even more noteworthy is that the urine concentrates clenbuterol. In fact, this article "Pharmacokinetics and disposition of clenbuterol in the horse" J Vet Pharmacol Ther. 2004 Apr;27(2):71-7 states

"The difference between plasma and urinary concentrations of CLB was 100-fold irrespective of the route of administration."

This also may explain why he thought it was clear, because his team tested the blood, not the urine!

 

[Derukeman]

Contador wants all of the defamatory stories to be silenced...wonder why? For the survival of the sport of cycling they need to bring the hammer down on Alberto and strike him from the records of the Tour. If they leave him off with that bogus excuse cycling will lose whatever shred of decency it may have left with cycling fans and sponsors.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

This also may explain why he thought it was clear, because his team tested the blood, not the urine![/QUOTE]

Crafty, but not quite crafty enough...

 

[jilbiker]

Contador wants all of the defamatory stories to be silenced...wonder why? For the survival of the sport of cycling they need to bring the hammer down on Alberto and strike him from the records of the Tour. If they leave him off with that bogus excuse cycling will lose whatever shred of decency it may have left with cycling fans and sponsors.

Yes the legal rant from AC reminds me of LA who chased just about everyone possible with law suits for any rant about him. Hey they were together for a while, learn a few good and bad habits.

 

[auscyclefan94]

So it was someone on the Astana Dauphine team that gave these quotes?

Astana
12 David De La Fuente (Spa)
13 Dmitriy Fofonov (Kaz)
14 Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa)
15 Daniel Navarro (Spa)
16 Benjamin Noval Gonzalez (Spa)
17 Paolo Tiralongo (Ita)
18 Andrey Zeits (Kaz)

I'd actually put my money on Fofonov. He knows about PED's and doping and I doubt that any of the spaniards would dob him in.

 

[Tubeless]

Refrigerated blood is only good for a few weeks. If you want to use blood mid-season that was withdrawn early in the season, you would have to separate red cells from plasma, and freeze them. There was a discussion on this forum a while ago in which it was claimed that most riders don't have the resources to do this. Though if anyone did, it presumably would be Contador.

But IIRC, the blood doping schedules I've seen involve several withdrawal-transfusion cycles, beginning early in the season, but extending several months, with withdrawn blood transfused a few weeks later. So the idea is, you have on hand blood withdrawn several weeks before the Dauphine, and infuse that after the Dauphine (assuming you aren't targeting that race). That way, you recover faster after what amounts to a training ride. Then a little later, you withdraw again, and use that blood for the Tour. IOW, you're in effect using your own body to store blood for withdrawal before the Tour, to get around the problem of limited storage out of the body.

Another option is to micro-dose with EPO after the Dauphine in order to get your HT up quickly for withdrawal. And of course, if you use someone else's blood (homologous transfusion), then you can transfuse any time that the other blood is available. But the test for that makes it unpopular.

This is a good observation. American Red Cross lists the "shelf life" of an autologous donation at 42 days:

http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/donation-faqs

A full recovery of a standard donation of 450ml is deemed to be 4-6 weeks. Which would put the the body's own recovery from a 150ml blood extraction at one third of that, or no more than 2 weeks.

Timing works here ok:

- Dauphine was done June 13
- Tour de France started on July 3

So the sequence could have been as follows:

- Contador finished Dauphine on June 13
- He goes on a "diet" of Clenbuterol aided by Triiodothyronine
- A friendly lab tests Contador near the end of June to make sure clen is gone
- 150mm of blood is extracted at the end of June
- but this is immediately replaced by a bag of blood extracted 2 weeks before Dauphine so there's no negative effect for the beginning of the tour
- Contador receives the blood taken at the end of June the day before Tourmalet, on July 20

Micro-dosing with your own blood gives a smaller boost, but it also has a smaller effect for the recovery period. The rotating transfusions make a lot of sense as this makes the storage / resupply process much easier and avoids the use of expensive centrifuge machines and deep-freeze equipment.

 

[scribe]

What comes first, the chicken or the steak?

Damn, that sounds good. Must be dinner time here.

 

[Merckx index]

Micro-dosing with your own blood gives a smaller boost, but it also has a smaller effect for the recovery period.

Another advantage of the smaller amounts of blood withdrawn/transfused is they have less immediate impact on passport parameters. Floyd mentioned that the way riders avoid triggering red flags in the passport when transfusing is by micro-dosing EPO, which would counteract the inhibitory effect transfusion has on synthesis of new red blood cells (reticulocytes). A rider transfusing a smaller amount of blood still might feel the need to do this, but would require correspondingly less EPO, making that, too, less likely to be detected.

Let me just add that while I have been very pessimistic about cleaning up the peloton, this report about 150 cc transfusions, if true, does lend support to the idea that while the passport and other anti-doping activities haven't prevented doping, they may have limited it. Beyond the question of whether the playing field is more level than in the past, riders are probably a little safer. The less blood you withdraw and transfuse, the less likely you are to suffer from adverse effects.

 

[hiero2]

So what: the Chicken says he's innocent, and that's good enough for me.

I so wanted to start a thread called "Contador picks up a Chicken endorsement," but there are plenty of Contador threads already...

Ya, I had to laff when I saw the bit about Rasmussen. If he could come up with more zingers like that one, I can get him a job at SNL.

 

[HoustonHammer]

Now a virtual eyewitness tells the story of how and why, specifically when and what. The story fits with everything that we already generally know about doping and how underform
and desperate Contador was.


I missed something in last Dauphine? Can't believe how naif people can be in this forum.

It is not repeat so many times that a rider should not be in top form at Dauphine in order to be competitive at the Tour. Why was contador desperate at Dauphine. I think he made the homework, same as the previous year, same as when Lance was beaten by Iban Mayo in 2004.

I have to agree with this. To say that AC was out of shape at the Dauphine is absurd. Top GC guys go to the Dauphine to tune up for the TdF; if they win, great, but that's not their goal.

A guy who wins Alpe d'Huez on his way to 2nd at the Dauphine should feel pretty good about his conditioning for TdF.

The picture for AC right now looks pretty damning, but this business about him being out of shape is crap.

 

[Tubeless]

Another advantage of the smaller amounts of blood withdrawn/transfused is they have less immediate impact on passport parameters. Floyd mentioned that the way riders avoid triggering red flags in the passport when transfusing is by micro-dosing EPO, which would counteract the inhibitory effect transfusion has on synthesis of new red blood cells (reticulocytes). A rider transfusing a smaller amount of blood still might feel the need to do this, but would require correspondingly less EPO, making that, too, less likely to be detected.

Let me just add that while I have been very pessimistic about cleaning up the peloton, this report about 150 cc transfusions, if true, does lend support to the idea that while the passport and other anti-doping activities haven't prevented doping, they may have limited it. Beyond the question of whether the playing field is more level than in the past, riders are probably a little safer. The less blood you withdraw and transfuse, the less likely you are to suffer from adverse effects.

Given the close scrutiny of the various blood parameters, the one missing key value that is still not measurable via the biological passport is the total Hb volume in blood. Assuming Contador has a total blood volume of 5.5L, a 150ml resupply would give him approximately a 3% boost in total Hb.

Since the blood bag boosts total blood volume, the relative Hb figure which is measured as grams per unit of blood and Hkr which is % of red blood cells stay unchanged and do not trigger any red flags. Retic count would go down slightly but since the blood boost amount is so small, as you noted it would stay within the "acceptable" passport limits.

This is roughly comparable to a 0.5g/L boost in Hb - or 1.5% boost in Hkr. Nothing like the good ol' days but if you don't have this advantage, you're likely to be dropped on the Tourmalet if your competitor has it.

 

[Old School]

This is so sad it's funny.

 

[python]

Given the close scrutiny of the various blood parameters, the one missing key value that is still not measurable via the biological passport is the total Hb volume in blood. Assuming Contador has a total blood volume of 5.5L, a 150ml resupply would give him approximately a 3% boost in total Hb.

Since the blood bag boosts total blood volume, the relative Hb figure which is measured as grams per unit of blood and Hkr which is % of red blood cells stay unchanged and do not trigger any red flags. Retic count would go down slightly but since the blood boost amount is so small, as you noted it would stay within the "acceptable" passport limits.

This is roughly comparable to a 0.5g/L boost in Hb - or 1.5% boost in Hkr. Nothing like the good ol' days but if you don't have this advantage, you're likely to be dropped on the Tourmalet if your competitor has it.

you're on the right track but your volumetric numbers/estimates should be brought down by 20-30% due loss of function during blood storage (a complex subject deserving it's own thread) after maximum practical storage period of 5 weeks (i'm implying glycerol-nitrogen blood treatment was not applied).

hence, blood passport would miss it since most validation studies were done under the assumption that at least one unit was necessary to improve performance.

otoh, micro infusion/transfusion greatly increases risk factor for an athlete willing to gamble - each 'micro session' (withdrawal/infusion etc) has to increase in frequency exposing the rider to making mistakes or becoming a victim of an unannounced surprise testing.

 

[HoustonHammer]

Well if the Clen came from a 150cc blood bag, then the concentration in the body's blood immediately after the infusion would be about 30 times lower that the concentration in the blood in the bag (which would have been the concentration Contador's blood when it was drawn).

So at what rate is Clen filtered out into the urine? Couldn't find that on the web, but its safe to assume it goes up when the Clen concentration in the blood goes up. Contador's test showed 50 picograms/ml, and from here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9213863

a toxic amount (requiring a visit to the hospital) is 50 +- 42 nanograms/ml (in urine tests). So 1000 times the concentration in Contadors test is toxic. Given that levels so high can be filtered out by the kidney, it seems likely that a 30 times increase in clen concentration would result in a 30 times increase in urine concentration.

I'm no expert, but it seems like a reasonable explanation to me. Much more so that Contador's story.

A comment on timing of Clen use:

There are three concentrations of Clen in urine that are interesting to our discussion:

- Max possible - 50ng/ml (because that's the toxic level)
- WADA testing standard - 2ng/ml (labs have to be able to detect this)
- AC's tested level - 50pg/ml

If you use 36 hours as the half-life of Clen in the human body (a rough average of what I've seen on the internet) then it takes about 7 days to get from 'max possible' down to 'WADA testing standard' and about another 7 days to get from 'WADA testing standard' down to 'AC's tested level'.

It would be interesting to know what the therapeutic level would be for weight loss. That would allow a rough guess of how long of a window an athlete would want between taking a dose and giving a sample in order to feel safe.

It could be a pretty narrow window. Depending on how much notice of a 'surprise' OOC test a guy like AC might get, he might feel fine about using Clen.

 

[scribe]

This use of clen of late has got me thinking there must have been a masking agent developed for it. Perhaps the purported length of time clen sits in the system, is longer than the masking agent stays in?

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

I think the mask is the same as for probenicid and winstrol (Ben Johnson, sprinter who was busted knows this). It's name escapes me at the moment. I'm sure with the brains on this thread someone knows. Help me out!

 

[Anonymous]

and Andy Schleck was clean

it seems a question of believe...

I didn't say Andy is clean.

A note to your logic: You are saying Schleck is dirty, but Condadope beat him and isn't. See the problem?

 

[Anonymous]

Amazing.

In 2010, someone comes along suggesting we look beyond out glasses to the truth that blood doping doesn't exist.

This just goes to show that when it is your hero, the rules all change. (not YOUR hero obviously, "your" in the general)

I think the fact that the guy had a Barbie Doll worth of plastic in his blood would tend to show that he ate a Barbie Doll that was tainted with Clen...

 

[Chuffy]

Barbie dopes? Say it ain't so!

Edit: Barbie and Clen!

I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress.

 

[Anonymous]

Ya, I had to laff when I saw the bit about Rasmussen. If he could come up with more zingers like that one, I can get him a job at SNL.

Now I want to start a thread titled: "Contador really needs to shut the f**k up...Seriously Contador, shut the f**k up!"

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-calls-for-end-of-defamatory-news

 

[scribe]

Now I want to start a thread titled: "Contador really needs to shut the f**k up...Seriously Contador, shut the f**k up!"

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-calls-for-end-of-defamatory-news

Due process is getting all the information on the table. Each passing day really has made this worse and worse for AC. I can totally see why UCI and contador's camp wants a speedy resolution.