In a previous post, I listed three things that Bert has not established. I have seen no post by you, RC (or anyone else, for that matter), addressing them.
The DEHP test, if there ever was any done, is NOT evidence. Until now it is just a rumor nothing more. No matter how much you would like it to be different there are no official papers anywhere stating that the test took place and that the result indicated blood doping. Rather than people denying it, I would wait for WADA confirming it. Perhaps this is a small legal issue for your scientific brain, but it is a big issue that you cannot convict someone on the basis of evidence (real or imagined) that was not presented to the courts.
Last year, David Howman said that the DEHP evidence could be used in Bert‘s case. That is really going out on a limb for a WADA director to say that about “just a rumor“. One would think if it were just a rumor, it could be easily dispelled, and certainly it would be in Bert’s interest to dispel it if he could. Instead, he avoids the issue like the plague.
If it is a rumor, how do you suppose it got started? Do you think someone at the lab just made these values up, out of the blue? Have you ever heard of this happening before, for any other rider? We do know that a DEHP test exists, that labs have been carrying out the research necessary to establish that it can be used as an anti-doping tool. Yes, this is speculation, but if we are going to make a judgment, it seems to me far more likely that where there is smoke, there is fire. That a test was done and a result was obtained. I can well believe the use of that result is in legal limbo at this point, but that does not mean it is not evidence, both for forum discussion, and for WADA, as Howman said.
You seem to think because the DEHP result is not hard and fast genuine evidence, you can just dismiss it as irrelevant to Bert’s case. That logically, there is no difference between a reported DEHP test that is unconfirmed, and no test ever occurring and ever reported. But those are logically very different possibilities. The latter is your “no evidence”. The former is evidence; the only debate is how much weight to give this evidence in a forum discussion.
Have you seen all of the files. In fact you have not. To be true you don't have the first clue what exactly was presented and why the theory of blood transfusion was deemed unlikely or impossible. Now we can sit here and speculate to our hearts content, but that is the bottom line.
Of course, we‘re all speculating, including you. At least I’m speculating on the basis of actual reports--such as the number of CB cases in Spanish cattle, and the DEHP values. Bert‘s past history is also suggestive. You have no evidence whatsoever to support your view, except for the negative CB tests prior to and after the positive ones. But those results are entirely consistent with transfusion, particularly when the positives came after a rest day.
From virtually day 1, posters here figured out it was contamination or transfusion. There has not been made public one iota of evidence specifically favoring the contamination theory as against the transfusion explanation. All the known facts that suggest contamination are just as applicable to transfusion. But there are additional reasons that suggest transfusion.
Though I’m not privy to all the files, it’s not rocket science. There are only so many points you can bring up to support the contamination theory. The most direct evidence would be to show that the meat was contaminated, which they haven’t done and almost certainly cannot do. Next to that would be to show that eating contaminated meat is quite likely, which they haven’t done and which all the science I have seen says they can’t demonstrate.
So if they can’t prove contamination, what’s left? Cast doubt on the transfusion scenario. But how? Passport data? Fine, negative passport data help the case, but they don’t prove that a transfusion didn’t occur. At this point, the best way to cast doubt on the transfusion alternative is to show that the DEHP results are either phony, or produced under conditions that invalidate them. Have they in fact done that? Is this all in the files? Maybe. But I rather doubt it. I think if they could prove these results are worthless, they would publicize this finding.
Brother Fran gave an interview recently in which he strongly hinted that the reason Bert got off was because (unless I have missed something in translation) of the series of tests for CB on consecutive days during the Tour. That is old news, and has long been shown not to rule out transfusion. Nothing about passport tests, and nothing about the DEHP values being phony or invalid. If they have some ace up their sleeve, why hide it and provide what would amount to a red herring to the media? What’s the point of doing that?
For all we know, Contador was tested so often that basically from a pharmokinetics point of view there would have been no possibility to have used Clen without flagging up a positive out-of-competetion.
If he was, he is the first athlete in history to be tested like that. He would also be the first accused doper in recent memory not to bring up, in support of his innocence, a testing schedule so exhaustive that it could not merely suggest (a la Armstrong) but flat out prove that he never doped. LA took every opportunity to claim he was the most tested athlete in history, but even he couldn’t argue that all these tests ruled out 100% any doping. You’re suggesting that this might be the case for Bert?
In order for this to rule out tranfusion, he would have to have been tested exhaustively during the period when he might have withdrawn the blood. But that could have been any time. It could have been in June, not long before the Tour, but it also could have been much earlier in the season or in the previous off-season. So you’re saying that Bert has always been tested, at least for the past year or so, in such a way that it would be impossible for CB use not to be detected?
And as for the ratio of guilty riders getting off compared to innocent riders who is prevented from being convicted, you get the figure from where? Gut feeling?
Statistics showing, e.g., the probability of having a T/E > 4. Also, some of the numbers admitted dopers (e.g., Millar) have provided, indicating how many times they beat the EPO test.
To me every innocent rider that is convicted is simply unacceptable, for you it is just collateral damage from the justifiable witch hunt against doping. To hell with normal legal principles!
To me, every doper who gets away with it steals a livelihood from some clean rider. To you, lost livelihood is just collateral damage from the justifiable witch hunt against people trying to clean up cycling. To hell with a level playing field!
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