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CMS Doping in sport revelations/discussion

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But ... but ... but ... you mean it wasn't you who said this: "In the context of this whole saga that’s a pretty tough one for him to explain and reconcile with the rest of his testimony"?

Do you often toss in an opinion without having looked at the story? Just so as I know for future reference...

Oh i looked at the story...it referenced searches relating to Viagra a month before the Testogel order, and undated and vague reports of searches relating to testosterone levels and endurance athletes.

Why don't you explain your comment 'one of the stronger cards' if you dont think the laptop data is difficult for Freeman to counter?
 
Why don't you explain your comment 'one of the stronger cards' if you dont think the laptop data is difficult for Freeman to counter?
It is one of their stronger cards because it's not the weak-ass crap they appeared to be trying to play with putting Shane Sutton in the dock to say "it weren't for me, guv!" The MPTS case that the Testogel was for doping - better still, their claim that it was for micro-dosing - is weak. So weak that this is one of their stronger cards.

Just because the GMC present the evidence doesn't mean it'll swing the (doping element of the) case for them. Just because Freeman dismisses the evidence doesn't mean it'll swing the (doping element of the) case for him.
 
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It is one of their stronger cards because it's not the weak-ass crap they appeared to be trying to play with putting Shane Sutton in the dock to say "it weren't for me, guv!" The MPTS case that the Testogel was for doping - better still, their claim that it was for micro-dosing - is weak. So weak that this is one of their stronger cards.

Just because the GMC present the evidence doesn't mean it'll swing the (doping element of the) case for them. Just because Freeman dismisses the evidence doesn't mean it'll swing the (doping element of the) case for him.
Fair enough...

I can't find the story now, but i think read earlier that all of the investigations into his search and download history were carried out by UKAD as part of their investigations?

If so, and if they didn't deem this 'evidence' to be strong enough to pursue any kind of formal case then i guess that's quite telling in terms of any solid links to the Testogel order
 
A sport doctor should be looking at the effects that his sport has on health. So that's not unusual. And the fact that additional testosterone boosts performance is common knowledge even to the dumbest people. So why would he look these things up if he's intending to dope? There's nothing to learn from those papers
Now if he had been looking up detectable doses or 'glow times' then that's a different matter. But the idea that one or two multi-million pound teams would entrust a doping progamme to someone who needs to google how to do it seems a bit of a stretch.
 
A sport doctor should be looking at the effects that his sport has on health. So that's not unusual. And the fact that additional testosterone boosts performance is common knowledge even to the dumbest people. So why would he look these things up if he's intending to dope? There's nothing to learn from those papers
Now if he had been looking up detectable doses or 'glow times' then that's a different matter. But the idea that one or two multi-million pound teams would entrust a doping progamme to someone who needs to google how to do it seems a bit of a stretch.
First, and foremost, you're perfectly correct to note that a sport doctor should be looking at the effects that their sport has on health. To that end, they should be looking at testosterone levels. (Which of the Walsh books is it has a story of one of the Motorola riders coming into a team hotel during the Tour - I think this was before they started their programme - and pointing to a kid in the hotel foyer and saying his testsoterone levels were lower than that kid's? The 1993 one, Inside the Tour de France?)

Why should Freeman research the subject? (We're excluding here that it was to check what Sutton bullied him into doing and excluding that it was for his own use.) Well, today's stories seem to be saying he was looking at sildenafil (Viagra) as a way of boosting testosterone. Last week Peters was pretty clear that (in his opinion) Viagra has no performance enhancement benefits. That was why when he (thought he saw the) Viagra, he didn't think: "Oh! Doping alert!" So there's a reason to research. Different opinions.

The idea that a multi-million pound team would entrust a doping programme to someone who needs to Google how to do it might seem a bit of a stretch to you but (playing devil's advocate here more than punting this as what happened) imagine you have a team under pressure (their first year has been hard on the ego etc) and imagine within that team you have a doctor under pressure (two sports docs with more relevant cycling experience have been brought on board and your mental health issues might lead you to feeling your position was under threat) then you can imagine a multi-million pound team ending up with a doping programme like this. Peters, despite being Freeman's boss, doesn't seem to have shown much interest in what medicines were in the cabinet and what reasons they were there for. Brailsford, for all the claims that at this stage in the game he was micro-managing the heck out of everything, doesn't seem to have shown any interest at all. Motive and opportunity, that's a good place to start these things. Multi-million pound business frauds have started with less. (I should say here that this looks like the "one rotten apple" defence but I'd prefer to spin it as a rotten culture that turned a blind eye, cause I'm embarrassed to think I've played the rotten apple defence.)

I don't think the GMC are anywhere near proving their argument that the Testogel was for the doping of an athlete - for the micro-dosing of an athlete! - and personally I don't understand why the GMC are trying to wrap Freeman's misconduct charges up with that ribbon (evidence? or hubris?) but one thing that does bother me in this is Peters' assertions that you wouldn't do it this way if you were doing doping and O'Rourke's assertions that you wouldn't do it this way if you were doing doping. Why couldn't doping be this banal?

From the get go, from the time all the chest thumping started and all the ethically purer than thou nonsense commenced, some people have allowed that Sky probably did start off trying to be clean (even Paul Kimmage has said that). Many of those people also said that if there was doping it would be at the edges of legality, excursions across the thin blue line into the grey area, sometimes into outright illegality but only of the sort that was too tempting not to. The DCMS anonymous whistleblower, a lot of what they said suggests that Freeman was doing some form of basic récup (why they brought Bartolucci in to do a récup programme if this was this case is another story), that the extra contents of the Jiffy bag was needles and B12. That Sky's "doping programme" (if one exists/existed) might be pretty banal - when compared with the glory of the EPO years - is not beyond imagination.

Accepting the possibility that the banality of it all should not be ruled out - that we shouldn't be expecting it to fit a particular and possibly inaccurate image of what doping looks like - reconsider the likelihood of doing interweb searches on Testogel in 2011. That's actually a good time to be doing interweb searches on Testogel. Cause that's when the no needles policy was coming in and you might want to be considering testosterone in a gel.

Is this what happened? I don't know. But ruling it out cause it's too banal ... I'm sorry, I'm not buying that either.
 
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O'Rourke wants Sutton's evidence thrown out and and the remaining four charges being contested to be dismissed.
Following on from Wednesday's sitting where it was claimed Freeman had researched testosterone-boosting drugs a month before he made the order, the credibility of Sutton's evidence was debated on another day when legal argument dominated proceedings.

But after hearing from anti-doping expert Professor Cowan, and with only one more GMC witness to be called, O'Rourke said: "The GMC has no evidence to support its case, even as amended."

She also told the tribunal that Sutton's evidence, which was cut short after he left the hearing, should not be submitted because he was an unreliable witness.
BBC
 
I don't think the GMC are anywhere near proving their argument that the Testogel was for the doping of an athlete - for the micro-dosing of an athlete! - and personally I don't understand why the GMC are trying to wrap Freeman's misconduct charges up with that ribbon (evidence? or hubris?) but one thing that does bother me in this is Peters' assertions that you wouldn't do it this way if you were doing doping and O'Rourke's assertions that you wouldn't do it this way if you were doing doping. Why couldn't doping be this banal?

From the get go, from the time all the chest thumping started and all the ethically purer than thou nonsense commenced, some people have allowed that Sky probably did start off trying to be clean (even Paul Kimmage has said that). Many of those people also said that if there was doping it would be at the edges of legality, excursions across the thin blue line into the grey area, sometimes into outright illegality but only of the sort that was too tempting not to. The DCMS anonymous whistleblower, a lot of what they said suggests that Freeman was doing some form of basic récup (why they brought Bartolucci in to do a récup programme if this was this case is another story), that the extra contents of the Jiffy bag was needles and B12. That Sky's "doping programme" (if one exists/existed) might be pretty banal - when compared with the glory of the EPO years - is not beyond imagination.

Accepting the possibility that the banality of it all should not be ruled out - that we shouldn't be expecting it to fit a particular and possibly inaccurate image of what doping looks like - reconsider the likelihood of doing interweb searches on Testogel in 2011. That's actually a good time to be doing interweb searches on Testogel. Cause that's when the no needles policy was coming in and you might want to be considering testosterone in a gel.

Is this what happened? I don't know. But ruling it out cause it's too banal ... I'm sorry, I'm not buying that either.
To address these points in order. Why the doping angle? Because media and politicians got involved. If Freeman was a doctor on cruise ship, for example, he'd be quietly admonished or pushed into retirement. They don't want to set an unwanted precedent.

As for Sky starting out whiter than white. Maybe. But as Mike Tyson said - Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. They realised this isn't track and better medical care was needed. But people expect them to stick to their naive early pronouncements. They said what they were going to do in Richard Moore's book.

As for the DCMS whistleblower, that seemed a very believable picture.

Banal? I'd say inept, amateur, clueless. Plenty of posters on here could come up with a better plan. And why would you stop using needles because a UCI rule prevented it and replace it with something banned by WADA?
 
Banal? I'd say inept, amateur, clueless. Plenty of posters on here could come up with a better plan. And why would you stop using needles because a UCI rule prevented it and replace it with something banned by WADA?
Sure, plenty of people could come up with a better plan, but many of these things happen without a plan, they're things that circumstances etc drag you into.

Let's be fair here: an awful lot of cycling's doping history is amateur hour at the five and dime. Swannies keeping vials of EPO and Testosterone and Clenbuterol in the vegetable drawer of the fridge? Carrying your EPO around in a Rupert the Bear thermos? Where's the secret compartments in the heel of your shoe, where's the hidden room in the swannie's house with a fully kitted out state of the art medical room, all white and gleaming chrome? Even Dr Evil, Ferrari, he's only Mike Myers level Evil, meeting his clients in a camper van parked in a lay-by (if he was Mike Myers you'd have a scene where doggers knock on the side of the van asking to come in and that, for me, is where The Program went wrong, it lacked humour). What's the most sophisticated we've had, Fuentes with his Siberia fridge? But what was Fuentes if not inept, mixing up different blood bags?

If we demand that doping look sophisticated in order to be challenged then we're going to turn a blind eye to an awful lot of doping.

(Again, for the record, in my opinion the doping part of the GMC case against Freeman is weak-assed crap but it's not weak-assed simply because what they're showing is not sophisticated enough to fit the myth of the Medal Factory.)

As for something banned by UCI/banned by WADA - devil's advocaat hat again as the GMC are making such a poor fist of their case - first, research, to see if its viable; second, an experiment to see if it's practical. (I still think the GMC case is weak-assed crap and wouldn't withstand a big bad wolf, unless the wolf was having a bit of a wheezy day, its asthma playing up.)

Arising from that, a geek question here, for those who are clued up on this topic: in 2011 there was no steroid part of the ABP so in theory you had more freedom to mess about with your T levels than, say, with your red blood cells. T has an impact on red blood cells, yes? Is that impact noticeable in the ABP's blood module? And is the effect different for injections and topical application?

(Or - in more general terms - why do cyclists use patches and gels when, as established upthread, injections are more efficient? Glow time?)
 
Arising from that, a geek question here, for those who are clued up on this topic: in 2011 there was no steroid part of the ABP so in theory you had more freedom to mess about with your T levels than, say, with your red blood cells. T has an impact on red blood cells, yes? Is that impact noticeable in the ABP's blood module? And is the effect different for injections and topical application?

(Or - in more general terms - why do cyclists use patches and gels when, as established upthread, injections are more efficient? Glow time?)

I don't have any specific research to hand to back it up, but certainly anecdotally bodybuilders (obviously taking much higher doses) have had problems with dangerously high Hct levels when using Test (amongst other AAS) but im not so sure this would be an issue at the sort of doesages cyclists are reported to have used.

I think the question over why patches/gels over injections again comes down to doseages....typically injectable testosterone will come in oil dosed at between 200-400mg/ml. This is good for the kind of doseages used for strength and size gains where the typical user will inject twice per week to get doseage in the 400-800mg per week range....but as discussed upthread i think most pro cyclists would want to avoid going over 100mg per week due to the weight gains associated, with doses spread out daily to reduce glow time....you could see how it would be problematic/impractical to draw up such small doses of oil based T for injection....and if you're getting the dose you need/want from the gels then it makes sense to avoid the added risks that would come with daily injections.
 
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News from Manchester - quelle surprise, the Daily Mail didn't hand over the contents of their safe and a decision is to be made on what happens next (a long, slow climb up the legal ladder that'll take the tribunal well past its scheduled end date of Dec 20th, or something else):
BBC report:
On Friday, O'Rourke said she had received an acknowledgement from the Daily Mail but described that as "inadequate", adding: "We have asked the GMC to pursue an obtaining order and they are still considering their position."

She also said that her client, Dr Freeman, was keen that the tribunal did not "drag out" should the alleged document itself become the subject of litigation.

The tribunal, which has already been hampered by legal argument, is set to conclude on 20 December.
 
If Daily Mail resist 35A then they are perverting the course of justice as that's part of the medical act and it ends up a criminal matter for them in Court I believe. If they sacrifice their Editors embarrassment Sutton and Lawton made up the jiffy contents, Daily Mail escape with probably only the PCC to deal with and Sutton potentially takes all the heat for Perjury.
The defamation claims will be interesting if PCC decide Daily Mail didn't follow editors code of practice and Courts find Sutton guilty.
 
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If Daily Mail resist 35A then they are perverting the course of justice as that's part of the medical act and it ends up a criminal matter for them in Court I believe. If they sacrifice their Editors embarrassment Sutton and Lawton made up the jiffy contents, Daily Mail escape with probably only the PCC to deal with and Sutton potentially takes all the heat for Perjury.
The defamation claims will be interesting if PCC decide Daily Mail didn't follow editors code of practice and Courts find Sutton guilty.
Oh Sam. You're so funny. Newspapers not giving up their sources is considered proper journalistic practice, you know that as well as the rest of us do, so cut the crap, all this spinning is dizzying.

Also, where's the perjury? Collins would like the power to make telling porkies to Commons Committees perjury, but currently it's not.
 
Contempt of Court. Section 10 of the 1981 Act:
Sources of Information
No court may require a person to disclose, nor is any person guilty of contempt of court for refusing to disclose, the source of information contained in a publication for which he is responsible, unless it be established to the satisfaction of the court that disclosure is necessary in the interests of justice or national security or for the prevention of disorder or crime.
 
MPTS operates as a Civil Court. Affidavit will be Daily Mails insurance to run Suttons story without any evidence, just his word legally. 35A is part of the Medical Act. To not provide the document under 35A becomes a criminal act of withholding evidence to a Court.
Sutton has said opposite to DCMS he has to Lawton under oath. That then is Perjury if a lie under oath. If a lie to DCMS, the truth to Lawton, Sutton is potentially very stuck legally as is Daily Mail with PCC if Sutton decides to admit he lied to Lawton.
 
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Contempt of Court. Section 10 of the 1981 Act:

Medical Act 1983 is what you need to be looking at also fmk. It allows a Court Order.

(6A) If a person fails to supply any information or produce any document within 14 days of his being required to do so under subsection (1) above, the General Council may seek an order of the relevant court requiring the information to be supplied or the document to be produced.

This will be GC today requesting the document through a higher Court. ie through the Crown Court. If Daily Mail wishes to withhold the document then 'disclosure is necessary in the interests of justice' becomes relevant and of course they will have to ignore a Court Order. The Medical Act is part of the justice system and so therefore is the GC requiring that evidence for it to proceed using 35A via Court Order.

The consequences for breaching a Court Order include imprisonment and high financial penalties.
 
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