Cimber said:
Thing is we dont know all of Bert's defense yet. RFEC made their decision based on ruling out other options (i.e. doping). That means that Bert's defense included arguments/proof to rule blood transfusion of the picture.
Remember we r just pocket scientest here, and we dont have all the accessible information. It would be VERY wrong to make a vertict based on a forum dicussion thread.
Obviously. That doesn't mean we can't express our opinions, and it doesn't even mean we might not reach a more sensible verdict. The Landis case made transparent for the first time, for many of us, the thinking of an anti-doping body. While I agreed with the verdict, I wasn't the only one who saw substantial weaknesses in some of their arguments (both pro and con Floyd).
Some people here are cautioning us that RFEC may have seen evidence not made publicly available. Given that they didn't even mention the most damning evidence that i
s publicly available--not even to deny that it was valid, legal or even in existence, if that's what they think--it's pretty unlikely, IMO, that they have access to some secret studies that conclusively rule out a transfusion. Conclusively, as in, even more unlikely than a contaminated steak ended up on Bert's table.
Python has mentioned biopassport data, and that's a logical place to begin. But it's common knowledge in the peloton that the passport can be beaten, so even if Bert's passport tests looked fine during the period of possible transfusion--even assuming he was tested then--that hardly proves to a near certainty that there was no transfusion.
There has also been talk about proving that CB in transfused blood would not show up at the level Bert tested for. Given all the uncertainties in such a calculation (which some of us attempted to make when this story first broke), I don't see how that line of attack, either, could offer anything remotely approaching conclusive proof. You wouldn't know how much was in his blood when he withdrew it, you couldn't be sure how much of what was in his blood was degraded, and you wouldn't know how much in transfused blood would end up in the urine.
I can certainly understand clever lawyers presenting such notions in a way that makes it look like Bert couldn't possibly have transfused, but I would be very surprised if there were rigorous science behind such claims. The closest thing to rigorous science I have seen in this entire case is the evidence that it is extremely unlikely that he would ingest CB-tainted meat.
Look at it this way. If the DEHP test--not Bert's results specifically, but the general concept of a test--which would be in the very strong interest of certain people not to make public, nevertheless leaked out, how did some magical (I'm tempted to say) method for proving a low level of CB did not come from tranfusion manage to be kept secret? Given all the athletes testing for low levels of the substance, and the growing debate about whether it should have a threshold, I would have thought that a way of proving CB was not from a transfusion would be a highly welcome breakthrough, and publicized to the skies. Why would anyone want to keep that a secret?
I think the one test that could help Bert at this point is massive analyses of ordinary people, to find out the prevalence of equivalent levels of CB in the general population. If the Spanish are so supportive of Bert, and want to see him cleared, why didn't they organize something like this? Now if you could show that at any moment in time a substantial fraction of people have that amount of CB in their urine following a meal of meat, then I would take Bert's claims seriously. But I guess their support for Bert doesn't extend to making an actual effort to do something productive. Or maybe the cattle farmers wouldn't allow it.
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