King Boonen said:
This thread started with such good intentions...
This thread started with the intention of trying to add perspective to a complicated issue. Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? Consider the reality.
Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get a few names the journalist reporting the story remembers, nothing more, an incomplete and often misleading picture of reality.
Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get leaps between the World Tour (pop: c500 riders), pro conti and conti (pop: several thousand riders), track (pop: large), cross (pop: higher than you think), and even amateur levels (pop: vast). What seems unusual in a group of 500 riders doesn't always look unusual in a group of 10,000+ riders.
Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get next to no perspective on the real world incidence of such events, or even the incidence of such events in other sports. We know that SADS is real and we know that not all heart conditions can be spotted, no matter how much screening is put in place, so we know that we should expect some deaths and retirements. We just don't know how many.
Each time one of these cases arises, be it a death or a retirement, we get the usual leaping to conclusions that doping has to be involved. We've been through the problem of blaming doping: there's not enough cases for that to be true every time and if the argument is pushed we'll end up proving there is no doping and have to close the Clinic down.
Can doping be used to explain any of these cases? Maybe. The thyroid stories suggest there is genuine concern in some quarters about a particular problem, a problem thought to impact cycling. There was also genuine concern about the alleged EPO deaths in the early 1990s - even if not a single death in pro cycling has ever been ascribed to EPO - sufficient concern for the UCI to investigate the matter. There seems to be some evidence that the UCI is not unaware of the level of cardiac cases in cycling. But there doesn't seem to be a desire to talk publicly about the issue. So, while the UCI is now acting on the drugs we were complaining about three, four, five years ago, it may be only after Tim Kay's new Global Cycling Project has put a Chinese cyclist on the top step of the Tour's podium in 2025 that we'll see action from the UCI on thryroid meds. But can thyroid meds explain what we are actually seeing? I doubt it: it is at WT level that weight seems to be the biggest concern and yet here we are, nine months through 2018 and I don't think there's been a single cardiac case at WT level, which I don't think has happened since 2013.
Fifteen months in, has this thread achieved anything? No. People still see only what people want to see. People don't really want real evidence.