General Doping Thread.

[fmk_RoI]

How could this take a year to come out?

Read the press release. It's a retest of an (one year) old sample

 

[GVFTA]

Read the press release. It's a retest of an (one year) old sample

I missed the reanalysis part. Thanks. Wonder if it was a random retest or if they received some info that indicated that they should.

 

[Mayomaniac]

"At the time of the sample collection the Rider was contracted to the UCI Continental Team Aevolo."

It is good that a rider on a ct-team got tested out of competition and his sample got retested, even if I've always liked the guy.
The question is, was it because he was already going to signwith EF for the 2nd half of the season and therefore already part of the passport/whereabouts program, so that he could compete in WT-races right after signing with them?

 

[F_Cance]

I think so

 

[fmk_RoI]

The question is, was it because he was already going to signwith EF for the 2nd half of the season and therefore already part of the passport/whereabouts program, so that he could compete in WT-races right after signing with them?

First, we know he was part of the RTP. Second, he only needs six weeks of ABP testing to ride a WT race. So what's the actual question?

 

[Mayomaniac]

First, we know he was part of the RTP. Second, he only needs six weeks of ABP testing to ride a WT race. So what's the actual question?

Ok, I was under the impression thhat it wasn't six weeks, but a few months, I think I got it mixed up with something else.

 

[fmk_RoI]

I think I got it mixed up with something else.

You thought he was coming back from retirement...

 

[samhocking]

Ok, I was under the impression thhat it wasn't six weeks, but a few months, I think I got it mixed up with something else.

Used to be riders needed 3 tests within Biological Passport first to race World Tour, but now they just need to be within ADAMS for 6 weeks prior to their first World Tour race. Basically riders have to submit their planned quarterly whereabouts though, so probably where your 3 months comes from (which is the same for reinstated riders), just that they have to pay for the 3 tests first.

 

[fbjim]

Eurosport has been rebroadcasting key TdF stages from the past 30 years or so. It's crazy to watch the EPO years -- Indurain, Chiapucci, Pantani, Riis, Virenque, Jalabert etc.

Also, just how closely LA/Postal and Froome/Sky resemble each other -- an unlikely leader + buying up the best doms == win!

I <<think>> I buy into the argument that cycling is cleaner now (not clean). But it could very well turn out that any retroactive testing finds something from the 2010s equivalent to EPO.

I loved rewatching that 1995 season. Jalabert going from sprinter (admittedly one with decent climbing legs) to winning everything in sight and having one of the best single seasons in the history of cycling. I think people might flip out nowadays if say, Peter Sagan or Michael Matthews suddenly won P-N, the Vuelta, La Fleche, Catalunya, and just finished off the podium in the Tour.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-csFFiFwnxc


Great things about this video include: Jalabert's incredible "cable knit sweater on a Harley-Davidson" look, and "he added endurance and stamina to his capabilities"- yeah I bet. God, I love Jalabert.

 

[Fatclimber]

Amazing what a little bit of confidence will do for a bike racer.

 

[Cannavaro]

I loved rewatching that 1995 season. Jalabert going from sprinter (admittedly one with decent climbing legs) to winning everything in sight and having one of the best single seasons in the history of cycling. I think people might flip out nowadays if say, Peter Sagan or Michael Matthews suddenly won P-N, the Vuelta, La Fleche, Catalunya, and just finished off the podium in the Tour.

Jalabert climbed with the best on Mont Faron and Col d'Eze (time trial) in Paris-Nice 1991 when he was just 22, highly likely without EPO and blood doping. I know that Mont Faron is no hors catégorie climb. However, Jalabert was never good at long, hard climbs not even in 1995. I find Jalaberts transformation less miracously than that of Geraint Thomas.

 

[pastronef]

Jalabert climbed with the best on Mont Faron and Col d'Eze (time trial) in Paris-Nice 1991 when he was just 22, highly likely without EPO and blood doping. I know that Mont Faron is no hors catégorie climb. However, Jalabert was never good at long, hard climbs not even in 1995. I find Jalaberts transformation less miracously than that of Geraint Thomas.

G.Thomas placed twice 15th in the TDF GC while being a domestique. got 2nd TDS 2015 (3 years before winning the TDF) and in Rettenbach stage (2600 mt finish) got 5th with M.A.Lopez . Won Paris-Nice 2016 and Trentino 2017. while Jalabert was a sprinter in 94, and won a GT in 95

 

[Libertine Seguros]

...and Jalabert was 2 years younger in 1995 than Thomas when he had that breakout Tour de Suisse.

Sure, by the time he won the Tour Thomas climbing like that wasn't shocking. But it doesn't stop him turning, at the age of 29, from a classics guy who can climb pretty decently for a classics guy, to a contender for GTs and mountainous stage races, from still being massively surprising.

Like Thomas, Jalabert had a couple of impressive climbing performances when he was still specialising elsewhere in the sport. I'd say the suddenness of Jalabert's transformation is more ridiculous, but that Thomas was no more a climber than Fabian Cancellara (remember, he won the Tour de Suisse, even if tut was a neutered edition, he still had to hang on on Crans-Montana and Serfaus, not great climbs but reasonable enough) or Jens Voigt until he was 30 years old, and then won back to back mountaintops dropping all the goats in the Tour de France, definitely means he belongs in the pantheon of most insane transformations. I always likened him to Hincapie for the job that he did and how he came to it, but he's definitely surpassed Big George in terms of legacy, reputation and history for obvious reasons.

They're both ridiculous transformations but in different ways.

A good parallel for the Thomas transformation would be if Oliver Naesen were to suddenly podium a week long stage race and become the right hand man to Romain Bardet, winning things like Paris-Nice and the Dauphiné, and then won the Tour in 3 years' time. I pick Naesen because Thomas, like Naesen, has never been a mug in the hills, he's the right age for Thomas' transformation, and his specialism fits. Naesen has been 2nd in the Paris-Nice Nice-Nice stage, and has top 30 finishes in mountain stages of Le Tour, the Dauphiné (including a top 10 finishing with Contador even, albeit from a break) to supplement his record which largely come in northern classics, with a better spread of results the hillier the races are, without ever really branching out into the Ardennes proper.

Jalabert is harder to find a parallel for - I can find the right kind of riders, but most of them are too old for an equivalent transformation (Matthews, Bouhanni, Barbero) or are too pure a sprinter (Groenewegen, Ewan, Gaviria) or just simply aren't prominent enough to make it a realistic comparison. Alaphilippe was giving it a good go last year, but he's been too strong a climber and not really mixing it up in genuine bunch kicks like Jaja was. Plus parcours trends toward ever steeper and bigger MTFs affect this too. Not that anything was likely to stop 1995 Vuelta Jalabert. I picked him in round 2 of the doping draft.

 

[fbjim]

Matteo Trentin, maybe? But I don't think Trentin was ever a threat in a "true" group sprint the way Jalabert was (though he was a good leadout guy early in his career)

I haven't been through PCS, but of post-war cyclists, I think his 1995 season is the best by any rider that isn't Merckx, Maertens, or Kelly. To his legitimate credit, he didn't crater once teams other than Gewiss figured out EPO, or when hematocrit started to get regulated (looking at you, Gene Berzin/Piotr Ugrumov), and he had a big engine before his transformation (he won the military road race, which, IIRC in the days of conscription/mandatory national service in France was a legitimately important junior race)

Anyway, his transformation/post-94 performances were ridiculous enough that when he was caught hot, I was shocked because, for the life of me, I had 100% thought he had been confirmed as an EPO user already.


I do find it interesting that the French teams of the period (Jalabert was on ONCE, of course) generally weren't implicated too badly until Festina/Cofidis*. Le Groupement, by several accounts, would have been part of that "next generation" of French teams if they actually had survived. Was it just old-fashiondness? Like Roger Legay and Guimard were like, "hon hon hon, le dope, here, Jacky Durand, have the number of my speed dealer"

*FDJ winning the UCI World Cup teams competition in '97 is definitely "interesting" as well

 

[Oldermanish]

Matteo Trentin, maybe? But I don't think Trentin was ever a threat in a "true" group sprint the way Jalabert was (though he was a good leadout guy early in his career)

I haven't been through PCS, but of post-war cyclists, I think his 1995 season is the best by any rider that isn't Merckx, Maertens, or Kelly. To his legitimate credit, he didn't crater once teams other than Gewiss figured out EPO, or when hematocrit started to get regulated (looking at you, Gene Berzin/Piotr Ugrumov), and he had a big engine before his transformation (he won the military road race, which, IIRC in the days of conscription/mandatory national service in France was a legitimately important junior race)

Anyway, his transformation/post-94 performances were ridiculous enough that when he was caught hot, I was shocked because, for the life of me, I had 100% thought he had been confirmed as an EPO user already.


I do find it interesting that the French teams of the period (Jalabert was on ONCE, of course) generally weren't implicated too badly until Festina/Cofidis*. Le Groupement, by several accounts, would have been part of that "next generation" of French teams if they actually had survived. Was it just old-fashiondness? Like Roger Legay and Guimard were like, "hon hon hon, le dope, here, Jacky Durand, have the number of my speed dealer"

*FDJ winning the UCI World Cup teams competition in '97 is definitely "interesting" as well

Trentin almost had the Rainbow Jersey. That would have changed his career arc for sure.

 

[Cannavaro]

G.Thomas placed twice 15th in the TDF GC while being a domestique. got 2nd TDS 2015 (3 years before winning the TDF) and in Rettenbach stage (2600 mt finish) got 5th with M.A.Lopez . Won Paris-Nice 2016 and Trentino 2017. while Jalabert was a sprinter in 94, and won a GT in 95

Yes, what pure sprinter he was in 1994. Who does not remember him winning in sprinters paradise Lagos de Covadonga. His kick on that day was so magnificent, that he gaped the second by 9 seconds.
And we should not forget his memorable sprint at Clasica San Sebastian in 1990 when he was 21. Indurain managed to get away, but he beat Kelly and Rominger in a three man bunch finish for second place. From that day it was clear to everyone that he would become one of the finest sprinters of his generation.

 

[42x16ss]

G.Thomas placed twice 15th in the TDF GC while being a domestique. got 2nd TDS 2015 (3 years before winning the TDF) and in Rettenbach stage (2600 mt finish) got 5th with M.A.Lopez . Won Paris-Nice 2016 and Trentino 2017. while Jalabert was a sprinter in 94, and won a GT in 95

Thomas also finished 2nd last in the 2007 TDF and 118th at the 2008 TDF.

BTW, Jalabert finished 34th on GC when he won his first Green in 1992 and came top 10 at LBL in 1993. Before he became a GC contender...

 

[TourOfSardinia]

FWIW BBC Radio begins a new 10 episode series later today

BBC Radio 4 - Bloodsport, 1. Doping Central

The story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[BullsFan22]

FWIW BBC Radio begins a new 10 episode series later today

BBC Radio 4 - Bloodsport, 1. Doping Central

The story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state.

www.bbc.co.uk

Evidence Casts New Doubts on Russian Doping Whistleblower

For five years, the sporting world has been gripped by Russian manipulation of the anti-doping system. Now new evidence suggests the whistleblower who went into a witness protection program during the scandal may not have been entirely truthful.

www.spiegel.de

 

[Sciatic]

Evidence Casts New Doubts on Russian Doping Whistleblower

For five years, the sporting world has been gripped by Russian manipulation of the anti-doping system. Now new evidence suggests the whistleblower who went into a witness protection program during the scandal may not have been entirely truthful.

www.spiegel.de

I will have to read it again more carefully, but most of what the Spiegel story puts forth as evidence are the denials of athletes and coaches??? It’s a weird read.

 

[BlueRoads]

The Spiegel plays a weird role in this kind of debates. They seem to take sides a bit biased, but so far I did not really get to the bottom of it. They seem to be critical towards doping - but just as much towards the "ARD guys", who, on the other hand, have Russia's doping system as one of their priorities.
I also find it hypocritical to behave like doping is mostly a Russian thing, as it obviously isn't. On the other hand it cannot be seriously debated that Russia as a state has applied a system of doping which exceeds by far what is done in most other countries. Personally I would like to delete all this patriotic stuff regarding sports. I know people are often mostly attracted to watching sports because they want to cheer for their country (=themselves), but I would like the associations to find other impulses. If it was me, I would stop the flags, the anthems, the national jerseys, everything. For team sports, let the teams find themselves or draw them or whatever, just stop mixing sports with nations...

 

[GuntherL]

I haven't followed this topic, but has someone talked about Pogacar in 2019?
Decent junior, ok U23. Joins the team of the dirtiest man in cycling and immediately becomes the best 20-year old the world has ever seen.
I don't believe it for a second.

 

[fbjim]

I mean, yeah, but he did win the Tour de l'Avenir, which is a bit more than "OK u23". He was pretty hyped up when he debuted as a pro.

 

[Oldermanish]

I haven't followed this topic, but has someone talked about Pogacar in 2019?
Decent junior, ok U23. Joins the team of the dirtiest man in cycling and immediately becomes the best 20-year old the world has ever seen.
I don't believe it for a second.

His progression wasn't overnight and makes more sense when you include Bernal, Higuita and others. He has raced intelligently as well so he hasn't flat-out pummeled a field and set some new standard.

 

[TheSpud]

Not necessarily doping but interesting

London 2012 Olympians used in ‘secret project to test experimental substance’

Athletes signed no-disclosure agreements and were allegedly given no guarantees it would not breach anti-doping rules

www.telegraph.co.uk

British 2012 Olympians guinea pigs for Special Forces 'wonder drug'

REVEALED: British Olympians were used as guinea pigs to test an experimental substance in a secret UK Sport project costing hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money.

www.dailymail.co.uk