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CMS Doping in sport revelations/discussion

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It's still a judgement based on what doping code was first 'violated' Merckx to get to a tribunal hearing in the first place is the point. Same as speeding. No anti-doping tribunal is ever started because of an ethical/unethical doping violation but satisfying WADA Prohibited Substances & Methods and is the context which began this discussion and my point re. Freeman, Sky, DCMS, UKAD. You have either illegally violated the code or you haven't, there is no ADRV for legal doping unethically, only the sanction itself can be adjusted with leniency if an ethical point it might not be intentional aka Pettachi.
 
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Tribunal updates last 5 days as the usual journalists don't seem to have been there the last few days. Sounds like the Chair is now trying to bring Jackson's 5 week cross-examination to a close that was meant to only take him 5 days but more documents during the cross-examination of Freeman kept being added. Chair has now asked the panel not to take any more additional documents into their consideration even though they will be included in the cross-examination. The tribunal won't be affected by Covid lockdown. Continues on Monday where hopefully we then hear from Freemans witnesses.

 
Big movement with testogate story today with it at last being linked and because of vengeance over Sutton and Lawton fabricating jiffygate. Freeman for the first time under oath, also says no injection ever took place on the bus or with Wiggins I believe. Seems like Jackson is yet to realise this isn't an alibi to cover-up the testogel order, it's simply the legal opportunity Wiggins lawyer and Freemans lawyer has to expose what Lawton and Sutton did.
 
Freeman's QC playing softball as doc's stint in the witness box enters its seventh week. But ... note the number of qualifiers in Freeman's statement:
“My job is to protect the health of the riders even against themselves,” he said. “We do have to take risks because these are elite sportsmen, there’s no time to sit down if they have asthma or something. They all want to win but it’s not at all costs. You have to take a risk/benefit analysis, this is elite sport.

“I would never, ever take risks or put a rider at serious harm’s way and I have to be prepared to fall on my sword and if senior management sack me then so be it. I have never, ever taken any undue risks with a rider and they have never come across any harm because of my care. I will stand to that until my last breath.”
 
Freeman's QC playing softball as doc's stint in the witness box enters its seventh week. But ... note the number of qualifiers in Freeman's statement:
Not the 7th week. The Chair ended Jackson's 5 days of cross-examination that he actually took 5 weeks over. This week is week 1 of Freeman being examined by O'Rourke now and Freeman's witnesses to give evidence. Yesterday or Monday, we had Ineos submitting the zero-tolerance stuff related to Froome and Sutton. I assume today we hear from Nicole Cooke or or her Dad which was meant to be yesterday.
 
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Probably more significant and why Ineos submitted this as evidence on Sutton in the first place, is Sutton has clearly lied about his own doping past given Freeman's witnesses stating he used to dope and used to store testosterone in his fridge. That added to his DCMS v Lawton statements will probably sway the panel to believing Freeman more than Sutton about who the Testogel was ordered for.
 
Jackson's question wasn't about anti-doping in terms of riders, it was in the context of 2.6.2. ie Freeman admitted he wasn't aware that under certain circumstances Testogel could be against WADA Code for Sutton. As it turns out Jackson was running on the assumption it is prohibited, when in fact 2.6.2 clearly permits ordering and possession of testogel for non-athletes anyway.
 
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Knows how to bork a hard drive, didn't know testosterone was a PED.
At his fitness-to-practice hearing, Dr Freeman was asked by tribunal chair Mr Neil Dalton about the drug culture within cycling in 2011 and whether the medic would have known testosterone could be used to boost performance. "No, I wouldn't have, really," he told a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service on the final day of his cross-examination that has stretched into a seventh week. "I'm not a cycling fan, I'm a doctor in sports medicine. We [the team] were focused on managing athletes and there was this mantra that we were a clean team and it was never discussed."
 
How could anyone associated with cycling in any way not have heard of Floyd Landis?

I suppose Freeman never heard of Contador or clenbuterol, either.

"I'm not a cycling fan, I'm a doctor in sports medicine. We [the team] were focused on managing athletes and there was this mantra that we were a clean team and it was never discussed."

How can you do your job of sports medicine responsibly if you aren't aware of substances, legal or illegal, that riders might be putting into their bodies?
 
Well when they were discussing 2.6.2 Jackson was also quizzing Freeman browsing research articles on basic stuff like iron kevels relating to testosterone so it would seem Freeman didn't have any basic knowledge in terms of its doping properties. As for Landis, unless you were a keen cyclist and a doctor, you would never have heard of Landis. I just asked my father in law who was a GP and he had no idea who Landis is or how testosterone is used in cycling and he's inly 10 years older than Freeman and only has a general interest in all sports other than F1 and Cricket. Still a surprising answer from Freeman, but context is a bit unknown just like it is for Froomes motorbike statement from Sutton. Pretty sure Froome used to own a motorbike instead of a car in the early days anyway.
 
I just asked my father in law who was a GP and he had no idea who Landis is or how testosterone is used in cycling

But your father-in-law, I take it, doesn't work for a cycling team. If i worked for any kind of pro sports team, in any kind of capacity, I would have a good working knowledge of the recent history of that sport. Maybe that's just me, but I can't see how you wouldn't, regardless of whether you were a fan or had any interest in who won or lost. It's just basic background.
 
But your father-in-law, I take it, doesn't work for a cycling team. If i worked for any kind of pro sports team, in any kind of capacity, I would have a good working knowledge of the recent history of that sport. Maybe that's just me, but I can't see how you wouldn't, regardless of whether you were a fan or had any interest in who won or lost. It's just basic background.
The idea that any doctor working in sports medicine for over a decade wouldn't know that testosterone could be used for doping seems absolutely ridiculous to be honest. Not least because it would mean they could be prescribing banned substances to athletes, resulting in their suspension.
 
The idea that any doctor working in sports medicine for over a decade wouldn't know that testosterone could be used for doping seems absolutely ridiculous to be honest. Not least because it would mean they could be prescribing banned substances to athletes, resulting in their suspension.
Well when he ordered it, he had been working in cycling for just 17 months, initially part time. If knowledgeable of Testosterone in cycling and doping with it, putting an order for Testogel on Sutton's expense account for UKAD to find Fit4Sports invoice just seems a weird conscious decision to me if really knowing it is wrong and you need to evade anti-doping with omerta. Who knows, I think the context of what was in private is missing from this part of the tribunal held in public. It going from private to public doesn't help clarity. Like Froomes motorbike story, it's clearly simply Sutton aware Jullich admitted doping as a rider from Armstrong investigation and Froome travelling between Italy & Porte with Jullich in Monaco to get coaching a little extreme perhaps. Froome then sold everything to move toMonaco to be coached with Porte by Jullich I believe anyway.
 
Well when he ordered it, he had been working in cycling for just 17 months, initially part time. If knowledgeable of Testosterone in cycling and doping with it, putting an order for Testogel on Sutton's expense account for UKAD to find Fit4Sports invoice just seems a weird conscious decision to me if really knowing it is wrong and you need to evade anti-doping with omerta. Who knows, I think the context of what was in private is missing from this part of the tribunal held in public. It going from private to public doesn't help clarity. Like Froomes motorbike story, it's clearly simply Sutton aware Jullich admitted doping as a rider from Armstrong investigation and Froome travelling between Italy & Porte with Jullich in Monaco to get coaching a little extreme perhaps. Froome then sold everything to move toMonaco to be coached with Porte by Jullich I believe anyway.
This addresses nothing in my post so I have no idea why you quoted it.

He's a doctor in sports medicine with over a decade of experience. I cannot, for a second, believe he did not know testosterone could be used as a PED. This implies he didn't know it was on the Prohibited List and would make him a massive liability in his position.
 
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This addresses nothing in my post so I have no idea why you quoted it.

He's a doctor in sports medicine with over a decade of experience. I cannot, for a second, believe he did not know testosterone could be used as a PED. This implies he didn't know it was on the Prohibited List and would make him a massive liability in his position.
I'm pretty sure he knows it's prohibited even before entering cycling from Ben Johnson etc. What doesn't align with an assumption he knew it was a PED, knew it was prohibited, knew it needed to be hidden due to knowing/believing it being for a rider is then ordering it from licenced medical wholesaler, putting it on Suttons expense account, leaving a paper trail on Fit4Sports & BCs accounts and even having it itemised on an invoice UKAD can then find just leaves more questions than not that's all. You can order Testogel in several more discreet ways. The most obvious method online or across at ASDA with a fake prescription paid in cash.
 
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I'm pretty sure he knows it's prohibited even before entering cycling from Ben Johnson etc. What doesn't align with an assumption he knew it was a PED, knew it was prohibited, knew it needed to be hidden due to knowing/believing it being for a rider is then ordering it from licenced medical wholesaler, putting it on Suttons expense account, leaving a paper trail on Fit4Sports & BCs accounts and even having it itemised on an invoice UKAD can then find just leaves more questions than not that's all. You can order Testogel in several more discreet ways. The most obvious method online or across at ASDA with a fake prescription paid in cash.
Again, this has very little to do with what I posted. I've not made any assumptions about his ordering of potential doping products and whether he would attempt to hide that or not. Please do not quote my posts if your post is not related.


On the one hand: he's too dumb to have known that testosterone was a PED
On the other hand: he's too intelligent to have left a paper trail.

QED: it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
It could be that he's trying to get out on a technicality. Going from what is in the Sky article you posted, maybe he's trying to claim that he didn't know testosterone is specifically used to dope cyclists, because he's never read/heard anything to show that. I'd find it very hard to believe, he'd have to be purposefully choosing not to educate himself, and the questions seems to have be could, which would mean any knowledge of any possible doping or enhancing effects of testosterone on athletes would be enough, but maybe that's what's going on.

As it's currently being reported, I don't see why anyone would believe what he's saying.
 
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