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Bio passport beaten by EPO user in experiment

May 26, 2010
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The passport was not designed to catch dopers per se. It was a 'guide' to give riders a limit in between what they could and could not do. It also gave UCI the ability to 'ban' riders should they so wish or possibly extort 'donations', but one thing is for sure it was not designed to stop doping.
 
May 18, 2015
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Sad that "plain ol'" EPO can still beat the passport. The testing is probably a miserable failure for all the next level stuff that I'm sure most dopers are taking now.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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wonder what WADA will put out this time.
their response to that French tv program was thus:

"WADA is aware of the television report that aired on France Télévisions. We would like to clarify that while we did make the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) software available, we certainly did not 'bless' or endorse the study, as has been suggested," Howman said.

"The study does not accurately follow the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) guidelines, and therefore its relevance to the ABP is not entirely clear."

Howman said that while WADA "welcomed and encouraged" research relevant to the biological, it "does not ever recommend athletes take part as 'human guinea pigs' in a study in which they would be subjected to taking performance enhancing drugs."
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/wada-and-uci-respond-to-french-biological-passport-report
 
Sep 29, 2012
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Re:

sniper said:
wonder what WADA will put out this time.
their response to that French tv program was thus:

"WADA is aware of the television report that aired on France Télévisions. We would like to clarify that while we did make the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) software available, we certainly did not 'bless' or endorse the study, as has been suggested," Howman said.

"The study does not accurately follow the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) guidelines, and therefore its relevance to the ABP is not entirely clear."

Howman said that while WADA "welcomed and encouraged" research relevant to the biological, it "does not ever recommend athletes take part as 'human guinea pigs' in a study in which they would be subjected to taking performance enhancing drugs."
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/wada-and-uci-respond-to-french-biological-passport-report
While the programme suggests that the journalist, through his experiment, was able to enhance his performance without recording an adverse analytical finding (AAF), we haven’t been provided any information that would validate this allegation nor is there anything in the programme which would indicate that his profile would have “beaten” the ABP programme.
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2015-06/wada-statement-on-bbc-panorama-programme
 
Feb 24, 2015
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wonder what WADA will put out this time.

Already commented:

Wada's chief executive David Howman: "We certainly know that people try to get to the margins of beating systems and the passport will be no exception to that," said Howman.

"(But the passport) has made a big difference. It's substantially reduced, I would say, over-abuse of some of the blood doping that we knew in the past."

So basically admitting that EPO is abused, but not over-abused

So that's all right then...
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Nellyspania said:
...
So that's all right then...
very all right.

Bradley-Wiggins-Skinny.jpg
 
Surely to be comparable to ABP:-

- the journo would have needed to be tested a few times a year rather than every week
- he'd have needed to be doping at baseline rather than having a clean baseline from which to highlight any differences
- he'd have needed to have a doping doc rather than be unsupervised
- he'd have needed to have an army of experts and lawyers to deal with anything slightly dodgy
- he'd have needed to drink a gallon of water before being tested
- he'd have needed one or two illnesses with TUEs to help explain anything slightly dodgy
- he'd have needed to disappear for "altitude" training when not in competition

This just wasn't the same thing at all ;)
 
Oct 16, 2010
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great post, Eyeballs Out.

It really is a very good article btw, and imo a pretty well executed experiment.
Goes a long way in showing the "now you can win clean" claims are complete and utter bogus.

"By week eight, the changes were obvious. I was climbing big hills four hours into a ride as if they were not there. "

"I flew past my previous mark and hung on for more than 12 minutes and 375 watts. This gave me a score of 63, a 7% increase in seven weeks. When you consider that even half a percentage point can make the difference in elite sport, that is a huge bump.

There was no elation. More a weary acceptance of what I had suspected: if you put two people of equal ability up against one another, and one is on drugs, the cheat will almost certainly win."
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Nellyspania said:
wonder what WADA will put out this time.

Already commented:

Wada's chief executive David Howman: "We certainly know that people try to get to the margins of beating systems and the passport will be no exception to that," said Howman.

"(But the passport) has made a big difference. It's substantially reduced, I would say, over-abuse of some of the blood doping that we knew in the past."

So basically admitting that EPO is abused, but not over-abused

So that's all right then...
aint that a contradiction or fallacy by Howman?

is he not conceding, that you can operate (dope) within the passport, and the "beating" exists when it flirts with the margins like Prancestrong flirts with the blonde childcare supervisor at the local Austin creche?
 
Jun 2, 2015
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Sometimes it really is hard to take these people in charge of WADA seriously. Really....if its this difficult to figure out watch the BBC program from Montreal (its on youtube and available on the bbc website using something like hola) then how in the world can you think you are smart enough to catch dopers??? Yikes, its really hard to keep the faith in these folks sometimes! Seriously with all the chatter on the internet about it not one person at the WADA office watched or recorded the show???

"WADA rules say that athlete support personnel involved in doping someone as young as 16 could be liable for a lifetime ban. WADA chief executive David Howman said he was ‘totally shocked and very disappointed’ by the BBC claims.

Speaking from WADA’s Montreal headquarters, Howman said: ‘We are trying to get access to the BBC footage. I do not know how easy that will be — but that’s what we are undertaking at the moment. It’s probably sensible not to say too much until we have seen the footage of the programme, but if the allegations are as serious as they have been reported, then they need to be investigated beyond a national level.’"

PS Thanks for the good laugh with ur post E.O.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ot...Salazar-hurt-reputation-says-Andy-Vernon.html
 
Aug 4, 2011
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I mean Howman's response was a Fu%%ing joke . He's the WADA chief executive and he's never heard about micro dosing :D

Almost as Funny as all those responses to the BBC by Salazar. I couldn't stop laughing every time he made a response to an allegation
 
The charade that is the the bio-passport was highlighted when a relatively recent GT winner did a nah-nah-nah-nah-nah and posted his data, despite it suggesting a few irregularities. At least his disappearing into practical anonymity seems to be fitting karma.
 
Feb 22, 2011
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If WADA discourages people from participating in research studies in which they take performance enhancing drugs to test the effectiveness of the Biopassport program, the only way WADA can confirm the Biopassport program works is by never having an athlete fail it.
 
Nellyspania said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Interesting experiment where an amateur increases his VO2 max by 7% in 7 weeks using EPO and passes a blood passport test.

Really cool article and a good read, but not really news. We've known for years that micro-dosing beats the passport. The passport is good in that it adds a layer of safety, but as mentioned, it's not going to stop doping.

I liken it to the 50% rule. It slows down doping from the previous era, does not in any way stop it, adds safety for the riders and allows the UCI to say they're the most advanced in fighting doping.

Thanks heavens we're not Tennis or Futbol who do basically nothing.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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red_flanders said:
Nellyspania said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Interesting experiment where an amateur increases his VO2 max by 7% in 7 weeks using EPO and passes a blood passport test.

Really cool article and a good read, but not really news. We've known for years that micro-dosing beats the passport.
It's not news to us in the Clinic. But to many neutral fans it's probably news. And it goes a long way in exposing clean cycling crusaders like Vaughters and Walsh for the frauds that they are. Articles like these - if only we'd see more of the same quality - could serve to counterbalance the "now you can win clean" brigade which is damaging cycling because it makes people look the other way whilst the arms race is full on.
 
May 12, 2015
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The WADA folks will always be one step behind. Even in the current status quo, in which WADA pretty much has their finger's up cyclists rear ends (bio passport, testing, spies within the peloton, whereabouts protocol, et cetera,) they only function is only to ensure cyclists do not megadose. The head honcho says so and no one blinks an eye.

It's like your garbage men picking up half of the garbage.

Awesome!
 
sniper said:
red_flanders said:
Nellyspania said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Interesting experiment where an amateur increases his VO2 max by 7% in 7 weeks using EPO and passes a blood passport test.

Really cool article and a good read, but not really news. We've known for years that micro-dosing beats the passport.
It's not news to us in the Clinic. But to many neutral fans it's probably news. And it goes a long way in exposing clean cycling crusaders like Vaughters and Walsh for the frauds that they are. Articles like these - if only we'd see more of the same quality - could serve to counterbalance the "now you can win clean" brigade which is damaging cycling because it makes people look the other way whilst the arms race is full on.

Do you really think that this sort of news will affect "neutral fans" at all? I am pretty sure that most of them will continue on cheering their clean rider.
 
Sep 29, 2012
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dearwiggo.blogspot.com.au
5/63 = 7.9%
5/58 = 8.6%
25/350 = 7%



This confirmed my fears that the passport had put a stop to the worst excesses of the Lance Armstrong era but was not sensitive enough to pick up a careful programme of micro-dosing. Lundby was even more alarmed that this had been discovered by a rank amateur.

Have they not heard of Strada2 or Michael Ashenden? :confused:

Ashenden did a proper study on this ages ago proving what they found.
 
sniper said:
red_flanders said:
Nellyspania said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Interesting experiment where an amateur increases his VO2 max by 7% in 7 weeks using EPO and passes a blood passport test.

Really cool article and a good read, but not really news. We've known for years that micro-dosing beats the passport.
It's not news to us in the Clinic. But to many neutral fans it's probably news. And it goes a long way in exposing clean cycling crusaders like Vaughters and Walsh for the frauds that they are. Articles like these - if only we'd see more of the same quality - could serve to counterbalance the "now you can win clean" brigade which is damaging cycling because it makes people look the other way whilst the arms race is full on.

The fact that the biopassport can be beaten does not automatically point to the conclusion that a clean rider cannot win. A clean rider could not win a major race when doping was full on, but I still think it may be possible for a clean rider to win on occasion. Though it does give me pause about riders I formerly thought were clean like Degenkolb and Kittel, or even Dan Martin.

I hold no illusions about being able to win stage races clean.

And because the biopassport can be beaten, as we've known for years, does not mean guys aren't trying to run clean teams or give their riders an environment where they can win clean. There simply is no logic which says "bio-passport can be beaten, therefore all team managers are assisting their riders in doping". Simply fails any logic test.

Now it surely is true that some team managers who claim to be running clean teams are not. And some are surely aiding and abetting the doping of their riders, or at least covering for it. But it is not necessarily true that all team managers are doping enablers.
 
Jun 2, 2015
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Taxus4a said:
Nellyspania said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Interesting experiment where an amateur increases his VO2 max by 7% in 7 weeks using EPO and passes a blood passport test.

Do the amateur have biopassport? :confused: :confused: :eek:

Anyway of course you can use EPO and pass biopasport, but not an important amount.

So an amateur got 7% gain with microdosing w/o tipping off the passport software, for a pro even a 1% gain is huge so microdosing certainly seems to me to be an "important amount" of gain over an athlete of equal talent not doping
 
Sep 29, 2012
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I think it's possible, based on the simple rule of aerodynamics, for a clean rider to beat a doped rider. You save 20% sitting on someone who is potentially 10% "stronger" than you thanks to doping.

But if you have a few doped riders, and any sort of attacking going on, the odds start to go down very quickly that the clean rider can keep up with attacks, and in particular, any hills will have the potential to seriously drain the clean rider.

Given the classics are predominantly about the hills - at least that certainly seems to be a focus - and the attacks tend to come towards the end of the race, I think you'd be really pushing it to win. A significant amount of luck would be involved. Not impossible, for me though, largely improbable.
 

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