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Damsgaard conflict of interest.

Aug 13, 2009
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It is interesting to see how Damsgaard's opinion changes depending on if the rider is paying his salary or not.

Here are Rasmussen's values from 2007

Michael Rasmussen, 05.07.2007 - 40,3 Hct
Michael Rasmussen, 17.07.2007 - 43,1 Hct
Michael Rasmussen, 24.07.2007 - 43,9 Hct

Damsgaard's opinion at the time

http://paris.thover.com/story.php?l=en&ID=70

"Rasmussen did have a blood transfusion during the Tour or followed an EPO cure just before the Tour. Damsgaard says the increase of 3.6% in his hematocrit value and 1,1 gram per deciliter for his hemoglobin value is 'suspect', 'physiologically impossible' and scientifically impossible to explain in another way than that Rasmussen used doping"

Funny how he is not so certain when it comes to Armstrong.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Race Radio said:
It is interesting to see how Damsgaard's opinion changes depending on if the rider is paying his salary or not.

Here are Rasmussen's values from 2007

Michael Rasmussen, 05.07.2007 - 40,3 Hct
Michael Rasmussen, 17.07.2007 - 43,1 Hct
Michael Rasmussen, 24.07.2007 - 43,9 Hct

Damsgaard's opinion at the time

http://paris.thover.com/story.php?l=en&ID=70

"Rasmussen did have a blood transfusion during the Tour or followed an EPO cure just before the Tour. Damsgaard says the increase of 3.6% in his hematocrit value and 1,1 gram per deciliter for his hemoglobin value is 'suspect', 'physiologically impossible' and scientifically impossible to explain in another way than that Rasmussen used doping"

Funny how he is not so certain when it comes to Armstrong.
Rass was so good in 2007 too.

I wonder if he knew what I knew prior to the Tour, and the Rabobank management knew what was pending.
 
Sep 11, 2009
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Hay race radio! Nice name, though there is talk of a ban lol.

damsguard can evolve as a scintist. simple things like cowblood pudding can increase HT and climbing ability.

Rasumussen was more than likely doping in 2005 when he wrecked 5 times in TT. Only somebody on dope can do that. or durnk.
 
Jul 16, 2009
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do not underestimate the political and far reaching power of Livealie.

Shame he backed down. the suspect values are the indicators of blood doping.
If the UCI wont act- it is up to the educated fan base to react.

This half hearted response will just leave a 'cry wolf' reaction from the decision makers.
 
Aug 6, 2009
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Damsgaard has also said other fascinating things on this subject such as.

“The seven CSC riders [who completed the Tour] had hemoglobin numbers decline by between 12 and 22 percent, and that’s completely normal. When the opposite happens — that the [hemoglobin] number rises during a hard race like the Tour de France — it indicates that one has received a blood transfusion,” Rasmus Damsgaard explains.

“We conclude that a rise in hemoglobin by itself ought to constitute the basis for the possibility of a penalty.”

Oh and to add to the delicious irony. I found the quote through Livestrong.com

http://www.livestrong.com/health-ar...numbers_faf762b1-5b70-df79-a00d-760ac1e2bfb9/

(Translation slightly altered from what's present in the link to more accurately reflect what was said in Danish)
 
Cerberus said:
Damsgaard has also said other fascinating things on this subject such as.

“The seven CSC riders [who completed the Tour] had hemoglobin numbers decline by between 12 and 22 percent, and that’s completely normal. When the opposite happens — that the [hemoglobin] number rises during a hard race like the Tour de France — it indicates that one has received a blood transfusion,” Rasmus Damsgaard explains.

“We conclude that a rise in hemoglobin by itself ought to constitute the basis for the possibility of a penalty.”

Oh and to add to the delicious irony. I found the quote through Livestrong.com

http://www.livestrong.com/health-ar...numbers_faf762b1-5b70-df79-a00d-760ac1e2bfb9/

(Translation slightly altered from what's present in the link to more accurately reflect what was said in Danish)


great work ;)
 
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Cerberus said:
Damsgaard has also said other fascinating things on this subject such as.

“The seven CSC riders [who completed the Tour] had hemoglobin numbers decline by between 12 and 22 percent, and that’s completely normal. When the opposite happens — that the [hemoglobin] number rises during a hard race like the Tour de France — it indicates that one has received a blood transfusion,” Rasmus Damsgaard explains.

“We conclude that a rise in hemoglobin by itself ought to constitute the basis for the possibility of a penalty.”

Oh and to add to the delicious irony. I found the quote through Livestrong.com

http://www.livestrong.com/health-ar...numbers_faf762b1-5b70-df79-a00d-760ac1e2bfb9/

(Translation slightly altered from what's present in the link to more accurately reflect what was said in Danish)

Interesting, funny, and ironic...why, its a Trifecta! Okay, so it is only funny because it is ironic. Either way, it is interesting that his opinion has changed so much. It is also interesting that he covers his ass by admonishing Mørkeberg for speculating on values PUBLISHED BY THE ATHLETE is a public forum.

Again, it is becoming clear that what we are seeing from the UCI and men like Damsgaard is an effort to standardize doping by providing the specific parameters a rider needs to stay within to be deemed "clean." In all honesty, that may be the best we ever get.
 
Aug 6, 2009
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Thoughtforfood said:
Interesting, funny, and ironic...why, its a Trifecta! Okay, so it is only funny because it is ironic. Either way, it is interesting that his opinion has changed so much. It is also interesting that he covers his ass by admonishing Mørkeberg for speculating on values PUBLISHED BY THE ATHLETE is a public forum.
Clearly Damsgaard has learned the error of his ways and gained a newfound but sincere respects for the rights of the poor defenseless dope.. ehhm athletes.

Thoughtforfood said:
Again, it is becoming clear that what we are seeing from the UCI and men like Damsgaard is an effort to standardize doping by providing the specific parameters a rider needs to stay within to be deemed "clean." In all honesty, that may be the best we ever get.
To be fair to the UCI I really do think that is the best possible. Perhaps those perimeters can be tightened further to account for things like rises in hemoglobin during Grand Tours (while still protecting riders from being punished for dehydrating), but until such stricter standards can be applied the UCI cannot really go around commenting on which of the rider fulfilling current perimeters are probably doped anyways.
 
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Cerberus said:
Clearly Damsgaard has learned the error of his ways and gained a newfound but sincere respects for the rights of the poor defenseless dope.. ehhm athletes.


To be fair to the UCI I really do think that is the best possible. Perhaps those perimeters can be tightened further to account for things like rises in hemoglobin during Grand Tours (while still protecting riders from being punished for dehydrating), but until such stricter standards can be applied the UCI cannot really go around commenting on which of the rider fulfilling current perimeters are probably doped anyways.

My only point about the UCI is that they are working to develop parameters to control the level of doping, not stop it. It is realistically the only real option considering the factors that 1) Doping is always ahead of doping tests, and 2) From what is being suggested, genetic doping is either in effect, or soon to show its head. The idea that it should be like the parameters set for automobile racing is apropos. The UCI just needs to maintain a dialogue with the appearance of objectivity and rhetorically anti-doping so that in the event a law enforcement organization finds that riders are visiting Hematologists, or Gynecologists en masse, they can opt out of the shit storm and pretend they had no idea people were doing such things.
 
BanProCycling said:
We haven't got Rasmussen's precise numbers so it's difficult to know what is being referred to, but obviously once a rider is thrown off the tour for missing drug tests, any anomaly then becomes much more suspect.

Keeping testers waiting on a number of occasions ring a bell maybe.
 
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Anonymous

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Its funny, Damsgaard's commented on a rider not found positive for doping, but for missing tests. It is also funny that Damsgaard referred to a blood profile and a specific marker that is present in the blood profile of The Uniballer, and that now he is under contract for the team of said uniballed individual, he changes his story. Isn't that what this thread is about?
 
Aug 6, 2009
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BanProCycling said:
We haven't got Rasmussen's precise numbers so it's difficult to know what is being referred to, but obviously once a rider is thrown off the tour for missing drug tests, any anomaly then becomes much more suspect.

Sure we have his numbers, they were publicly released, just like Armstrong’s.
http://velonews.com/article/13636

As for abnormalities being more suspect when you lie about your whereabouts sure, but Damsgaard did not just call Rasmussen’s values "suspect" he also called them 'physiologically impossible' and scientifically impossible to explain in another way than that Rasmussen used doping". Impossible is impossible, whereabouts or no whereabouts. To be fair Rasmussen’s values increased more than armstrongs (3,6% vs. 2,4) but nonetheless Damsgaard sanctimonious call for us to refrain from judging rings very hollow. So rather than displaying such towering hypocrisy he should, if there is anything to his position beyond knowing who signs his paycheck explain why a 3,6% increase is "impossible to explain in another way than doping" while 2,4% increase is perfectly normal. He hasn't explained that, he has simply waffled around about the UCI blood passport, Bayesian models and similar (while never saying anything specific mind you) while giving such heartwarming reassurances as "far from fully proven". A statement that is if possible even more confidence inspiring than Bjarne Riis's "I have never been tested positive".
 
Cerberus said:
Sure we have his numbers, they were publicly released, just like Armstrong’s.
http://velonews.com/article/13636

As for abnormalities being more suspect when you lie about your whereabouts sure, but Damsgaard did not just call Rasmussen’s values "suspect" he also called them 'physiologically impossible' and scientifically impossible to explain in another way than that Rasmussen used doping". Impossible is impossible, whereabouts or no whereabouts. To be fair Rasmussen’s values increased more than armstrongs (3,6% vs. 2,4) but nonetheless Damsgaard sanctimonious call for us to refrain from judging rings very hollow. So rather than displaying such towering hypocrisy he should, if there is anything to his position beyond knowing who signs his paycheck explain why a 3,6% increase is "impossible to explain in another way than doping" while 2,4% increase is perfectly normal. He hasn't explained that, he has simply waffled around about the UCI blood passport, Bayesian models and similar (while never saying anything specific mind you) while giving such heartwarming reassurances as "far from fully proven". A statement that is if possible even more confidence inspiring than Bjarne Riis's "I have never been tested positive".

Interestingly, these numbers show, that Rasmussen´s crit values during 2005-2006 GT´s (Giro, Vuelta, TdF) kept the dropping trend. In this context values of 2007 TdF are in really strong contrast.

(As a side note, 20 tests during 3 years is a bit little for the rider of his caliber.)
 
Mar 13, 2009
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all the noise on Rass was he was a bigtime doper from the start, from his mtb period. So it seems he did not have any overt enhancement program during those years intra Tour. Perhaps "recovery therapy". And the Rabo docs may have dosed him with the 32 injections per stage, that never show up in the tests. Insulin, igf-1 etc.

All his (game changing O2) charging was left to outside the Tour, in training, up til 2007.

Amazing what it does, he made Contador look silly in 2007. Like Landis really toyed with the peloton in 2006, and I think would have had Bassos measure without the jour sans.
 
Von Mises said:
Interestingly, these numbers show, that Rasmussen´s crit values during 2005-2006 GT´s (Giro, Vuelta, TdF) kept the dropping trend. In this context values of 2007 TdF are in really strong contrast.

(As a side note, 20 tests during 3 years is a bit little for the rider of his caliber.)

Can't test him if you can't find him!
 
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“We conclude that a rise in hemoglobin by itself ought to constitute the basis for the possibility of a penalty.”
Dr Rasmus Damsgaard
 
A

Anonymous

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“We conclude that a rise in hemoglobin by itself ought to constitute the basis for the possibility of a penalty.”
Dr Rasmus Damsgaard
 
Aug 13, 2009
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Cerberus said:
Sure we have his numbers, they were publicly released, just like Armstrong’s.
http://velonews.com/article/13636

As for abnormalities being more suspect when you lie about your whereabouts sure, but Damsgaard did not just call Rasmussen’s values "suspect" he also called them 'physiologically impossible' and scientifically impossible to explain in another way than that Rasmussen used doping". Impossible is impossible, whereabouts or no whereabouts. To be fair Rasmussen’s values increased more than armstrongs (3,6% vs. 2,4) but nonetheless Damsgaard sanctimonious call for us to refrain from judging rings very hollow. So rather than displaying such towering hypocrisy he should, if there is anything to his position beyond knowing who signs his paycheck explain why a 3,6% increase is "impossible to explain in another way than doping" while 2,4% increase is perfectly normal. He hasn't explained that, he has simply waffled around about the UCI blood passport, Bayesian models and similar (while never saying anything specific mind you) while giving such heartwarming reassurances as "far from fully proven". A statement that is if possible even more confidence inspiring than Bjarne Riis's "I have never been tested positive".

An important comparison point would be the off season baseline, not the level right before the Tour. In this case the Armstrong increase is even more alarming.

I think that it is correct to say that Rasmussen's whereabouts issues are an important part of how one views his numbers. At the same time the fact that Armstrong has tested positive 7 times, delayed testers three times so far this year, and his team was caught dumping large amounts of doping products in the past should certainly factor into how his results are looked at. The fact that he retroactively changed the most incriminating of his publicly released numbers makes his results all the more questionable.

It is not like this is the first time Damsgaard's actions have been questionable. His own boss does not trust him
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/damsgaard-faces-criticism-over-anti-doping-programme

Guess we now know why Armstrong chose Damsgaard over that pesky Catlin.
 
Aug 6, 2009
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BanProCycling said:
But they appear to be numbers from only a couple of days. I don't know if the long term pattern was more suspicious. It's hard to know.
No they "appear" to be numbers from 3 years, probably because they are numbers from 3 years.



BanProCycling said:
All I can find is that isolated quote. Since we know such movements are not physiologically impossible, it's again hard to know what he is refering to.
It’s quite easy to know what he meant, all one has to do is to read the quote from the OP, or possibly even follow the link. Damsgaard is explicitly referring to Rasmussen’s blood numbers. Also "we" do not in fact know that it's physiologically possible for a clean rider to have such numbers. On the contrary we have it on good authority that such numbers are wildly inconsistent with what we should expect from a clean rider. Damsgaard-before-working-for-Astane has said so, Mørkberg has said so and Damsgaard-working-for-Astane when confronted with Mørkberg's conclusions essentially admitted as much.
 
Aug 1, 2009
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auscyclefan94 said:
UCI wouldn't touch armstrong as it would rip cycling apart.

In USA maybe - I think European cykling would survive. It would just be another example of one of the stars of the EPO-era falling to the ground.
 
Aug 1, 2009
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This year Damsgaard was hired by Astana to monitor their riders' blood values. Presumably to warn the team if there were irregularities. How would it make him and his business ("Radar"?) look, if he admitted that one of the riders had values that in his own words are physiologically impossible?

a) He could say that he didn't notice before now - that would mean that he had done a bad job.

b) He could say that he noticed and told the team but they ignored it - That would not get him hired next year.
 
Sep 29, 2009
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HL2037 said:
This year Damsgaard was hired by Astana to monitor their riders' blood values. Presumably to warn the team if there were irregularities. How would it make him and his business ("Radar"?) look, if he admitted that one of the riders had values that in his own words are physiologically impossible?

a) He could say that he didn't notice before now - that would mean that he had done a bad job.

b) He could say that he noticed and told the team but they ignored it - That would not get him hired next year.
What is current update?
Simple interest calculator calculation rates mortgage compound high interest savings account
 
Race Radio said:
It is interesting to see how Damsgaard's opinion changes depending on if the rider is paying his salary or not.

Here are Rasmussen's values from 2007

Michael Rasmussen, 05.07.2007 - 40,3 Hct
Michael Rasmussen, 17.07.2007 - 43,1 Hct
Michael Rasmussen, 24.07.2007 - 43,9 Hct

Damsgaard's opinion at the time

http://paris.thover.com/story.php?l=en&ID=70

"Rasmussen did have a blood transfusion during the Tour or followed an EPO cure just before the Tour. Damsgaard says the increase of 3.6% in his hematocrit value and 1,1 gram per deciliter for his hemoglobin value is 'suspect', 'physiologically impossible' and scientifically impossible to explain in another way than that Rasmussen used doping"

Funny how he is not so certain when it comes to Armstrong.

Yeah well, the question about Damsgård for some time now has been, "Is he incompetent or is he corrupted?"
 

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