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Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

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Re: Re:

rick james said:
Escarabajo said:
bigcog said:
From another forum:

From Matt Slater.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has strongly denied that the decision to clear Chris Froome of cheating has left its policy on the asthma drug salbutamol in shreds.
Speaking to Press Association Sport, WADA’s science director Dr Oliver Rabin said the case was “not unique” ....”
Nice information and explanation. But I don't care. He still failed that test whether it was an anomaly or not. He should have been punished regardless.
So with this in mind if a lesser rider fails the test under similar circumstances and don't have the money to pay the scientific defense to reach the same conclusion then he is doomed? why are the rules there for?

whats the f*cking point!!!


he never failed because he took too many puffs....
So?
What he failed for?
If you cannot recreate the concentration you can get off?
I don't understand. It is still in your system.

On another note it is interesting the talks about the other cases that we don't know about but probably get off. Since we don't know and they get off we don't have that data. I wonder if they will make it public (the numbers only). Especially for cycling.
 
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If those cases had the AAF confirmed, there would have been sanctions. If there had been sanctions, they would have been published (you know the kind: "Dawg, an athlete in the sport of cycling, .."). Since you hardly found any reports of salbutamol sanctions, either the number or your understanding of what it represents is wrong. My guess is for the latter, since you seem to be in a wild frenzy grasping at the flimsiest of tree branches.

Time to face the music: if the only information you have is the amalgamation of a headline number from the Daily Mail, what you can read on SciHub and what pundits post on Twitter with the utmost conviction, you can be lead down the garden path. WADAs case died the moment they walked back on correcting for urine specific gravity. Whatever they decided would not have survived CAS and scientific challenge. It's clear from Rabins interview they'd rather take the plea deal with the Dawg than risk all of their Salbutamol enforcement at CAS; that's the very focal point of Rabin in that interview!
 
Re:

veji11 said:
It all points to the fact that only outright prohibition of a substance can prevent circumvention of the rules. I have read in other forums from pro riders themselves that a very important part of the peloton, if not a majority, happily puffs away... Some might call me a nasty anti-poor asthmatics, but there are some substances that should just be banned from now on. Too bad an asthmatic can't be a competitive cyclist, isn't it crazy to think that super efficient lungs without faults are key to an endurance sport like cycling ?

Anyway...

Apparently exercise induced asthma is highly common (like 2/3 of all endurance athletes or something). If that's in any way accurate, your proposal would kill off endurance sports. I don't really understand why you don't at least need a TUE though.
 
Re:

Robert21 said:
Further context on this from @WeAreForensic is that there were 15 AAFs for salbutamol in 2016, out of 200,000 samples. So that’s 0.0075%. So they’re rare. And all resulted in an anti-doping rule violation, as per Matt below. None of them had Froome’s legal might, clearly.

Just to add some context to Dr Rabin's claim that Froome's case wasn't that unique (ie it happens but we don't know about it). I FOI-ed UKAD for its salbutamol adverse findings in last 10yrs. There were 11. As far as I can tell, every one resulted in an anti-doping rule violation

https://twitter.com/Scienceofsport/status/1014096311581380608
Thanks.
Do you know if they publish all the adverse findings?
 
simoni said:
Its like tax when it comes down to it, isn't it?

Efficient, equitable, enforceable. Unfortunately, anti-doping is questionable in all three to one degree or another and it seems that the salbutomol rules have been found to be unfit for purpose once someone with enough resources comes along to challenge them.

Personally, I can see the merit in an argument that WADA/UCI use their resources developing the rules in the longer term into something that can work more quickly and reliably rather than focusing on one case although that doesn't mean I like the fact the Froome and Sky have probably got away with it.

Good post.
 
Re:

Bot. Sky_Bot said:
It should be repeated, Mr Rabin, WADA:
...
Asked why anyone else in Froome’s position will not use the same arguments, Dr Rabin said people were underestimating how many of these cases occur every year without anyone knowing about them, as was meant to happen in this case, too.
“It’s not a unique case but because it was Froome, a sporting celebrity, and it was put in the limelight, it appears to be unique,” he said.
“We deal with all cases on an individual basis and I have personally dealt with several in the past. Yes, there are elements of this case that are fairly unusual but I can assure you it is not unique.”

+1
 
Re: Re:

Summoned said:
Bot. Sky_Bot said:
It should be repeated, Mr Rabin, WADA:
...
Asked why anyone else in Froome’s position will not use the same arguments, Dr Rabin said people were underestimating how many of these cases occur every year without anyone knowing about them, as was meant to happen in this case, too.
“It’s not a unique case but because it was Froome, a sporting celebrity, and it was put in the limelight, it appears to be unique,” he said.
“We deal with all cases on an individual basis and I have personally dealt with several in the past. Yes, there are elements of this case that are fairly unusual but I can assure you it is not unique.”
But this does not actually explain anything. It is him saying we do this often enough that we know what we are doing, but he does not provide any basis for why the decision was made.

I appreciate your curiosity of wanting to know ... but respect more Froome’s, UCI’s and WADA’s right to confidentiality ... if they so choose. Rather simple, really.
 
Re: Re:

Alpe73 said:
Summoned said:
Bot. Sky_Bot said:
It should be repeated, Mr Rabin, WADA:
...
Asked why anyone else in Froome’s position will not use the same arguments, Dr Rabin said people were underestimating how many of these cases occur every year without anyone knowing about them, as was meant to happen in this case, too.
“It’s not a unique case but because it was Froome, a sporting celebrity, and it was put in the limelight, it appears to be unique,” he said.
“We deal with all cases on an individual basis and I have personally dealt with several in the past. Yes, there are elements of this case that are fairly unusual but I can assure you it is not unique.”
But this does not actually explain anything. It is him saying we do this often enough that we know what we are doing, but he does not provide any basis for why the decision was made.

I appreciate your curiosity of wanting to know ... but respect more Froome’s, UCI’s and WADA’s right to confidentiality ... if they so choose. Rather simple, really.
Understandable, of course, but it places a rather unfortunate burden on WADA, as in addition to having to promulgate rules and procedures, they are also now subject to not being able to explicate the actual implementation, and in this instance, decision not to implement their own rules and procedures. As such, their ability to function as an objective, clinical body is rendered questionable at best, and leaves them vulnerable to accusations of obfuscation on behalf of parties involved in proceedings that are under the supervision of WADA. As long as WADA is subject to not being able to provide information to support their findings and decisions, the ultimate arbiter of their effectiveness is the trust they inspire in the public. They are proving to be unable to warrant that trust.
 
Re:

Escarabajo said:
So actual value should have been 1190 ng/ml.

http://www.revistamundociclistico.com/ruta/25745-caso-froome-el-valor-correcto-del-salbutamol-encontrado-en-la-muestra-era-de-1190ngml-y-no-2000-como-siempre-se-afirmo-ama.html

I guess the correction for dehydration is a standard procedure. So for Ulissi and Petachi they corrected the values before they evaluated their cases for sanctioning?
Without the other data from people who have gotten off it is hard to compare.
I think correcting for dehydration is quite a new thing, so it wouldn't have been done for Ulissi and Petacchi.
 
Re:

Escarabajo said:
So actual value should have been 1190 ng/ml.

http://www.revistamundociclistico.com/ruta/25745-caso-froome-el-valor-correcto-del-salbutamol-encontrado-en-la-muestra-era-de-1190ngml-y-no-2000-como-siempre-se-afirmo-ama.html

I guess the correction for dehydration is a standard procedure. So for Ulissi and Petachi they corrected the values before they evaluated their cases for sanctioning?
Without the other data from people who have gotten off it is hard to compare.

They seem to misunderstand. The corrected value is 1429, which is 19% more than the decision limit of 1200. It's 43% more than the threshold of 1000 ng/ml.

Petacchi and Ulissi were not allowed to correct their values. Wish someone had asked Rabin, who seems confident there won't be any lawsuits from sanctioned riders on the basis of the Froome decision, how WADA would respond to a lawsuit from Petacchi. If the correction had been allowed--and his lawyers argued during his case that it should have been--his value would have been a little over 800. Even uncorrected, his value was lower than Froome's corrected value.

Ross Tucker has a fifteen minute video summarizing his thoughts on the decision. I think his most important point is that Froome has managed to reverse the AD process. It used to be that the athlete had to prove why his test result should not result in a sanction. But WADA's dropping the case indicates that it became a matter of WADA/UCI's having to prove that he should be sanctioned. And Tucker points out cases of athletes who probably would have gotten off if they had had the money to push WADA the same way.
 
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Re:

Escarabajo said:
I guess the correction for dehydration is a standard procedure. So for Ulissi and Petachi they corrected the values before they evaluated their cases for sanctioning?
Correcting salbutamol levels for specific gravity is a new policy that was only introduced this March, which is rather convenient for Froome. Ulissi and Petacchi did not benefit from such an adjustment.

https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/td2018dl_v1_en.pdf
 
Re:

Escarabajo said:
Thanks Robert and MI.

Luck is on Froome's side.

Lucky that his case arose at a time of increased understanding behind the science, and he had the resource to stand his ground.

Of course you have to sympathise with those before him who didn’t have this benefit, but this doesn’t mean Froome should suffer just because those before him did
 
Re: Re:

Merckx index said:
Escarabajo said:
So actual value should have been 1190 ng/ml.

http://www.revistamundociclistico.com/ruta/25745-caso-froome-el-valor-correcto-del-salbutamol-encontrado-en-la-muestra-era-de-1190ngml-y-no-2000-como-siempre-se-afirmo-ama.html

I guess the correction for dehydration is a standard procedure. So for Ulissi and Petachi they corrected the values before they evaluated their cases for sanctioning?
Without the other data from people who have gotten off it is hard to compare.

They seem to misunderstand. The corrected value is 1429, which is 19% more than the decision limit of 1200. It's 43% more than the threshold of 1000 ng/ml.

Petacchi and Ulissi were not allowed to correct their values. Wish someone had asked Rabin, who seems confident there won't be any lawsuits from sanctioned riders on the basis of the Froome decision, how WADA would respond to a lawsuit from Petacchi. If the correction had been allowed--and his lawyers argued during his case that it should have been--his value would have been a little over 800. Even uncorrected, his value was lower than Froome's corrected value.

Ross Tucker has a fifteen minute video summarizing his thoughts on the decision. I think his most important point is that Froome has managed to reverse the AD process. It used to be that the athlete had to prove why his test result should not result in a sanction. But WADA's dropping the case indicates that it became a matter of WADA/UCI's having to prove that he should be sanctioned. And Tucker points out cases of athletes who probably would have gotten off if they had had the money to push WADA the same way.

Problem for Ulissi and Pettachi is they didn't have the daily urine test result Froome had. What was it? 15 back-to-back and 2 on the rest day? That's basically Froomes Pharmo test at least for the deviation side.
 
Re: Re:

samhocking said:
Problem for Ulissi and Pettachi is they didn't have the daily urine test result Froome had. What was it? 15 back-to-back and 2 on the rest day? That's basically Froomes Pharmo test at least for the deviation side.

Petacch--who, to repeat, would have gotten off under current rules, I don't think his sample even would have been classified as an AAF--was tested five times in that Giro.

We don't know much about Ulissi, because his decision wasn't published. But he did take the CPKS, so would have generated a baseline there
 
Re: Re:

wrinklyvet said:
Koronin said:
wrinklyvet said:
Well I give up Koronin - you see it but you don't accept it - you want an injustice for Mr X until the claimed injustices for Mr A and Mr B are reversed. Can't seem to shift you on that. It's a special kind of thinking that I am sure you will retain for ever.

They should have been given a public apology at the same time. Otherwise there are some major problems with the way this looks and the way it came about. This has all the looks of a double standard.

Perhaps, but do you not now see that if you persist with the view that Froome was guilty rather than accepting that the WADA regime was defective you don't help your other friends at all? All the work done to prove that was so is what led to the result, and if it hadn't your other riders would be able to show no injustice for them at all.

They can now base their grievance on having being punished under a defective regime. By securing his innocence Froome brought that regime down. The injustices you refer to don't have anything to do with Froome's present position and it's not a case of bargaining between the two.

It is really expecting too much that at the same time two matters that were not under consideration should have received attention. It took long enough to get where we are.


I highly doubt they have the money to even try. Yet again it goes back to money. If you have money you can get off of anything, while if you don't you get convicted rather you're guilty or not. Maybe the UCI should have realized those two cases would have been brought up since they have been mentioned from the start as to why Froome IS guilty, and that their decision actually makes things worse by the just looking like it's a double standard.
 
Re:

Robert5091 said:
It seems to me that WADA's rule change left a wide open loophole for Froome to ride through. Throw in one dodgy study and, not even a fine later, "hello TdF!"

This is the NASCAR idea of the rule book is written in pencil so we can change the rules to protect the "golden boy" that we can let anything happen to.
 
Re: Re:

ahsoe said:
brownbobby said:
bambino said:
brownbobby said:
Pantani_lives said:
He had an inexplicable dose of salbutamol in his body. He failed to proof that his body can miraculously produce these levels by just taking a few puffs. The only acceptable decision would have been to ban and disqualify him. WADA and UCI aren't following their own rules. It's class justice.

An inexplicable dose that he managed to errr....explain :confused:

Well... actually you don't know whether he did or not.

The details are not there to be judged whether they managed to explain anything or did they just point out to measurement errors that will be dealt in court for the next 2-3 years. Or something else. Actually none of us knows jack **** about why exactly it was whitdrawn.

You beat me to it. Exactly my point :)

Oh i see, this thing only works one way...we can happily jump to conclusions about bribes, pay offs and cover ups...but we cant suggest that the reason the case was dropped was because he explained the readings to the satisfaction of the people that matter. Ive got it :cool:

No it works both ways. You can suggest that the case was dropped because he explained the test results in a satisfactory way. And it might true.

What I stated in my other post, and what Bambino is suggesting here (correct me if I am wrong) is that there are certainly very reasonable possibilities for this outcome other than a satisfactory explanation from Froome to the test results.
But we simply do not know, and we need more information.
Edit: Which it seems from the latest Sky statement, we will not be getting.[/quote]


If we don't get that info then a large portion of the fan base will consider Froome and Sky guilty regardless of anything else. It doesn't matter what is said without actual concrete proof that they do not want to provide, thus leading many to believe it does not actually exist.
 
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This was truly marginal gains in the working.

You go from 2k and then with every step you peel something off until it starts hurting the opposition beyond repair.

It is/was only possible with huge amounts of ressources together with desperation from UCI/ASO who more than anyone wanted this done and dusted before the potential biggest sporting acheivement of the century taking place - only to be replaced by the biggest sporting joke in history.
WADA claiming everything (even salbutamol) is back to normal now, is simply astounding.. Of course they can't go and say, hey we are useless. But a hint of reflection would do.

If there truly is 10+ people scating this evert year, then one would think their minor adjustment earlier this year is still just a joke. They had Froome walk anyway, along with others which values we dont know. Yet it seems implausible, with former bans in mind that anyone of those had a reading like Froomes.
 
Re:

veji11 said:
It all points to the fact that only outright prohibition of a substance can prevent circumvention of the rules. I have read in other forums from pro riders themselves that a very important part of the peloton, if not a majority, happily puffs away... Some might call me a nasty anti-poor asthmatics, but there are some substances that should just be banned from now on. Too bad an asthmatic can't be a competitive cyclist, isn't it crazy to think that super efficient lungs without faults are key to an endurance sport like cycling ?

Anyway...


Even better, the one actual rider with real asthma that we know of, Simon Yates, doesn't even use this medication and has a TUE for a different medication that actually is a banned substance because that's the one that helps him, not this one.
 
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As with everything context is key. How come Froome almost dying from atshma and what not can take a few puffs to get double the score of the allowed limit, and yet. Just absolutely destroys his competitors in the very same days. How that isn't abuse of performance enhancing drugs should be a mistery to any logical thinking person.
 
Re: Re:

An inexplicable dose that he managed to errr....explain :confused:[/quote]

Well... actually you don't know whether he did or not.

The details are not there to be judged whether they managed to explain anything or did they just point out to measurement errors that will be dealt in court for the next 2-3 years. Or something else. Actually none of us knows jack **** about why exactly it was whitdrawn.[/quote]

You beat me to it. Exactly my point :)[/quote]

Oh i see, this thing only works one way...we can happily jump to conclusions about bribes, pay offs and cover ups...but we cant suggest that the reason the case was dropped was because he explained the readings to the satisfaction of the people that matter. Ive got it :cool:[/quote]

No it works both ways. You can suggest that the case was dropped because he explained the test results in a satisfactory way. And it might true.

What I stated in my other post, and what Bambino is suggesting here (correct me if I am wrong) is that there are certainly very reasonable possibilities for this outcome other than a satisfactory explanation from Froome to the test results.
But we simply do not know, and we need more information.
Edit: Which it seems from the latest Sky statement, we will not be getting.[/quote]


If we don't get that info then a large portion of the fan base will consider Froome and Sky guilty regardless of anything else. It doesn't matter what is said without actual concrete proof that they do not want to provide, thus leading many to believe it does not actually exist.[/quote]

Of course; but everything I've read so far, including the latest statement from Froome, points towards a decision based on science and numbers, rather than loopholes being exploited.

And Sky didnt really say they wouldn't release any details; that's what the click bait headlines wanted you to think....the point was the data that decided the case belonged to Wada, it's for them to release. Sky say they hope it is released. So do I.
 

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