How The Pro's Defeat The Anti Doping System

[Cozy Beehive]

I get this picture in my mind of the mafia leadership meeting in Apalachin, New York in 1957. When the gangsters spotted police, they fled the house, running through the woods in their suits and tossing guns and money as they went. For weeks afterward, locals found bank notes littering the woods.

I take it that most people who take part in sportives are amateurs, correct? How do the officials ensure they don't juice? Through doping control for amateurs? Is there anything like that?

 

[frenchfry]

i remember reading somewhere about Giro

http://cyclingfansanonymous.blogspot.com/2007/10/carlo-santucciones-poisonous-legacy-oil.html

does anyone remember back in 2003/2004 Giro debacle - riders throwing product/themselves out of windows ?

Maybe you are referring to the San Remo raid in 2001. I heard from someone who was there that it was literally raining syringes and dope on the streets outside the hotels.

 

[Oldman]

Hi.

In answer to your question, I know of it happening on at least two occasions involving three different clean riders, at the same race in subsequent years, with the same extortionist on the "official" side.

Best,

Joe

Thanks. For anyone doubting the ethical motivation of riders this validates the constant "gray area" that they must operate in to make a professional living. It is difficult to be honest when you're paying either way and is the heart of the problem. Directors extort young prospects for their first year's pay to allow them some featured races, Promoters extort marginal team's Directors to allow them into races, Officials skim the cream at every opportunity...Ask some older Irish racers how McQuaid made his way to the top and you'll find that fewer sports other than boxing are this compromised. Thanks again, Joe; for all my friends that couldn't say what you've said.

I still love to race and watch it, though. Keep on Beehive.

 

[python]

if a doping athlete is advised by a top professional - several are former ad lab employees - it is exceedingly difficult to catch him/her. even by a well designed series of unannounced ooc tests. those caught don't follow instructions well.

manipulating dozes and schedules was is and will remain the main method. the idea is to reduce the drugs concentration in the system due to normal (or ‘assisted’) clearance and pass a notoriously unselective screening test.

another sure fire option is to take a drug that is not being monitored for. in other words the ad laboratories can not test for something they dont know about (dont have chemical signature of). the various general screening indexes like t/e are almost useless against a designer steroid. worse, steroid profiling is not in the uci biopassport currently.

take a note, one multiple tour winner tested positive at least two times retrospectively assuming (rightly) the test did not exist when doping. same with several other big names who were less lucky.

 

[thehog]

A former team director arrested in cycling's biggest doping investigation says he may return to the sport.
Manuel Sainz was team director for Liberty Seguros when he was among five people arrested in May 2006 in the blood-doping scandal known as Operation Puerto that implicated more than 50 riders.

Sainz said in Saturday's edition of Diario Vasco newspaper that cycling "is my world, so it's only natural to return."

The 50-year-old Spaniard says only cycling's governing body and the World Anti-Doping Agency want to keep the investigation going despite a court having shelved the case three times.

Sainz was also a team director at cycling team Once.

 

[BroDeal]

A former team director arrested in cycling's biggest doping investigation says he may return to the sport.
Manuel Sainz was team director for Liberty Seguros when he was among five people arrested in May 2006 in the blood-doping scandal known as Operation Puerto that implicated more than 50 riders.

Sainz said in Saturday's edition of Diario Vasco newspaper that cycling "is my world, so it's only natural to return."

The 50-year-old Spaniard says only cycling's governing body and the World Anti-Doping Agency want to keep the investigation going despite a court having shelved the case three times.

Sainz was also a team director at cycling team Once.

Sweet! With Armstrong back in the sport, why not Saiz? Now we just need Rumsas' mother-in-law to get into the act.

 

[Escarabajo]

Read away at my new blog post. LINK.

Much courtesy to Joe Papp. I hope this will be a step in educating the "masses". Comments, questions and other insights are welcome at the blog. If you know any more "escape tactics" that will be keeping in line with the subject of the post, please add it as a comment below the post. That will be doing your part to, well, consider it a mission to educate.

Nice Info Cozy, thanks.

 

[Digger]

What about that story about USP having the campervan in the field and they saw the police coming, thinking they were being searched, and flushed the drugs down the toilet.

 

[Digger]

A former team director arrested in cycling's biggest doping investigation says he may return to the sport.
Manuel Sainz was team director for Liberty Seguros when he was among five people arrested in May 2006 in the blood-doping scandal known as Operation Puerto that implicated more than 50 riders.

Sainz said in Saturday's edition of Diario Vasco newspaper that cycling "is my world, so it's only natural to return."

The 50-year-old Spaniard says only cycling's governing body and the World Anti-Doping Agency want to keep the investigation going despite a court having shelved the case three times.

Sainz was also a team director at cycling team Once.

Sainz is no different to JB or BR....Just been around longer. I think Puerto was a great thing, but I'll say one thing for the people caught up in it. They were the unlucky ones, because how many other Fuentes' are out there.
And that's the point to my post, because that for me is the problem for cycling. Everytime someone is caught, all the other riders must think how lucky they are. It's all bulls***. Jan is persona non grata, yet Frank Schleck is still riding - yet we know he did the same thing, with the same person. It's farcical. Valverde same thing. Alberto same thing. Even Basso, with his nonsensical excuse, got a raw deal, in comparison. There are some days when I can just about understand Pantani's bitterness. Career destroyed for doing the same thing as the rest. As he said himself, 'rules, yes, but for everybody'. And the biggest doper of the lot is lauded as some kind of saviour. The whistleblowers get called liars and treated as lepers. The people that blame the lab for using tippex instead of crossing out the mistake, are kept in the family. In fact, they get the public to help with their defence. How clean are the riders at the top? How many complained about Valverde, Schleck, Alberto or the other one's return? I know if I was clean, and these guys were doing me out of prizemoney, I'd be pretty annoyed. But maybe pro cyclists are just 'tranquil'.
Vaughters organises a team around the idea of anti-doping. He markets his team on this, yet makes efforts to sign AC. His former 'trainer' says that any advantages from doping are borderline. Do they think we're ***? Their best placed rider goes from not holding the gruppetto's wheel, to one of the best climbers in the world. JV can talk bullsh** all he wants, yet he could rip the sport apart, which is exactly what it needs, if he only admitted what he knew about his time with USP and even the MSN conversation. Yet he hung Frankie out to dry and took the easy option, because he wanted to preserve the status quo. How does JV expect the sport to change, when the one person who has garnered most from it, is still its main protagonist?
The head of the UCI gurantees us a year prior to the Tour that the winner would not test positive. Why test at all?
I was watching the '87 video again this week. Delgado and Roche waning from side to side going up a mountain. Lucho and Parra dominating the mountains. The sport we have now is so far removed from this that it's not the same one any longer. FFS, they're breaking going around bends on mountains now.
So, let Sainz back in. What difference will it make?

 

[Kerbdog]

1. Individual I know uploaded the article on Scribd which can be accessed here. You can also download it. http://www.scribd.com/doc/24951496/How-Cycling-Pro-s-Defeat-Anti-Doping-Control

2. You can read my feed if just the blog site is blocked. http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/CB

3. You can read my blog on your cell phone. This site explains how to send it to your cell phone. Just put in your phone number in the space provided. http://cbmobile.mofuse.mobi/

I'm not recommending you violate office IT rules or anything, ofcourse

Big thanks for that Cozy Beehive. Just read it all this morning at work. Greatly appreciated !!

 

[joe_papp]

Thanks. For anyone doubting the ethical motivation of riders this validates the constant "gray area" that they must operate in to make a professional living. It is difficult to be honest when you're paying either way and is the heart of the problem. Directors extort young prospects for their first year's pay to allow them some featured races, Promoters extort marginal team's Directors to allow them into races, Officials skim the cream at every opportunity...Ask some older Irish racers how McQuaid made his way to the top and you'll find that fewer sports other than boxing are this compromised. Thanks again, Joe; for all my friends that couldn't say what you've said...

No problem. It's not hard to speak the truth anymore...it's liberating, actually.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Here is another method from back in the 80's. Cayn Theakston tells of hismissing B sample!

B Sample? What B Sample?
The manager came to me after I came off the podium and said; “We might have a little problem with the control” [drug test] and sure enough I failed. In those days there was a certain sum you paid to a certain someone for the B sample to vanish [both samples have to test positive, no second sample = no positive], the sum was paid and my sample duly vanished.

 

[Digger]

Willy Voet said one method was sticking your finger up your anus, and then outting the finger into the jar of urine. THe bacteria would damage the integrity of the sample.

 

[joe_papp]

Willy Voet said one method was sticking your finger up your anus, and then outting the finger into the jar of urine. THe bacteria would damage the integrity of the sample.

Anyone who would stick his finger in his **** in order to beat a doping control doesn't have to worry about delivering a sample with any integrity left in it...

 

[53 x 11]

Sainz is no different to JB or BR...
So, let Sainz back in. What difference will it make?

Greatest Post of all time, OF ALL TIME.

 

[fatandfast]

Anyone who would stick his finger in his **** in order to beat a doping control doesn't have to worry about delivering a sample with any integrity left in it...

1 of our US.Olympic riders was caught many years ago for using caffeine suppositories. It what said that the guys who used them put about half a dozen at a time...right in the balloon knot.

 

[Anonymous]

1 of our US.Olympic riders was caught many years ago for using caffeine suppositories. It what said that the guys who used them put about half a dozen at a time...right in the balloon knot.

Just stick some coffee beans up there, then they can claim they're just making the human equivalent of that Peruvian cat-poo coffee.

 

[flicker]

Frightening and sad blog. I am sorry to say that what is shared in the Cozy dope fraud blog is only a sample of ways to cheat a test.

I watched the tour 06 07 08 and it made me feel better when the cyclist cheaters were caught and banned.

 

[shawnrohrbach]

Thanks for the comments so far, like I said Joe helped write most of it and I played a small part in bringing it out to the public.

There was an interesting comment for the post in my email today. It went like this :



I can't answer this comprehensively enough. What factors are exactly contributing to a winner's paycheck apart from sponsors payout and such? Is there a slice of public money in there from ticket sales and so on? (I'm thinking of a track race where people buy tickets to get into the velodrome but I also can't see how it is "free" for someone to stand at the barriers near the finish line of say the Tour de France? How much do you have to pay to get that privilege?

The pay out to the cyclist from the fan is not as direct as, say, the pay out to a professional doping baseball player when I pay $75 for a seat a few rows up from third base only to watch the most current fraud hit his umpteenth home run of the year. In cycling, since most of the venues do not charge, the fan contributes to the paycheck by buying the products sponsoring the team and then a specific cyclist. The bigger the brand, the better the endorsement deals. During the US Postal sponsorship years, when I was cycling a lot in Seattle, every other jersey on the BK trail was a US Postal. Now, the reverse is true as well; witness the exodus of sponsors from the Tiger Woods camp as the billionaire boy wonder loses one after the other. Calculate the revenue from sponsorship and endorsements enjoyed by the current mega stars of cycling and the exodus of sponsorship when team sponsors decide they do not want to be associated with sleazy cheats; people lose jobs and revenue. My protest against doping in professional baseball is simple; I don't buy tickets and I know many baseball team owners are hurting, not from my protest as much as the economy, but I know many., many people who refuse to pay $75 to watch dopers cheat. Now I extend my boy-cot to bicycle related products, or products associated with certain teams through sponsorship, when there is evidence or very strong suspicions of doping. Before t-mobile got out of sponsoring sleazy dopers, I was looking for another cell phone company but stayed with them when they stopped sponsoring sleazy dopers. To stop the cheating, cut off the money supply.

 

[Oncearunner8]

1 of our US.Olympic riders was caught many years ago for using caffeine suppositories. It what said that the guys who used them put about half a dozen at a time...right in the balloon knot.

something tells me that "George Takei" likes this!

http://takei.fojin.com/

 

[BigBoat]

Whats really sad....

Is that the biggest fish dont even use EPO anymore except for little tiny doses on an IV drip...As they blood dope with their frozen packed red cells that are 6 months-10 years old!

HGH will never be tested for in small doses, or IGF-1, insulin...Too bad gene doping is already here to!

Want Lance to loose the Tour for sure... How? Total body hemoglobin test his rear end & throw Dr. Ferrari out of sports!

 

[ravens]

The pay out to the cyclist from the fan is not as direct as, say, the pay out to a professional doping baseball player when I pay $75 for a seat a few rows up from third base only to watch the most current fraud hit his umpteenth home run of the year.

Baseball is a rather unique example. Don't know how old you are, but my dad used to take me once a year to see the Mets play the Reds because I loved the reds. A program was like a buck and a quarter. He'd get box seats on the 3rd base side, it was the mid-70's. He probably spent more on gas in his luxo-barge to drive down than the tix cost for 4 people.

I'd always look at the back of the program to see what the cheapest seats were. The cheapest seat in the house was like $2. I used to imagine how awesome it would be to be a kid that close to a stadium and be able to just go to a major league game on a whim. I got to live that dream about 10 years later while at NYU. A classmate and I took the subway to shea to watch a double header. It was really cool!

Baseball has lost its way with the fans. They think they can hang with football fans and the phenomenal ticket prices of football. They can't. The economy only has made that more obvious. The expense of going to see pro sports becomes even more realistic when you can put a 65 inch hdtv in your man-cave and watch whatever you want and eat/drink whatever you want with whoever you want right at home. Try and imagine that tickets for 4, food drink, souvenirs and parking for ONE major market NFL game is going to set you back more than that TV and the Sunday ticket package.

As for doped home run hitters, yes, it exists but I contend that the dope makes individual stats bigger and better but that the outcome is not so different as it would have been without dope. The dope extends careers, but really that just means keeping a player that would take the doper's place on the bench. That's my theory. It's a work in progress. I reserve the right to change my mind or be wrong.

gosh, i didn't mean to write a book.....

 

[Carboncrank]

I'm posting this here to move it into the clinc from the alberto 2010 thread.

He wasn't doping, in the same way that Lance wasn't doping in the 2009 TdF.

Both had values which clearly showed they were doping, but neither failed a drugs test.

A doper posting their blood test on line would be kind of like a serial killer posting goggle map photos of their house.

It is nice that the person who's making this allegation, Mørkeberg, has a supervisor that thinks highly of him. Maybe someday he'll have his own Doctorate.
It's also nice Cyclingnews decided to mention what professor Hans Erik Heier, MD, PhD, Cheif Medical Officer, Professor of Transfusion Medicine, had to say about what the lab rat had to say. "“The hemoglobin values are too low for it to be possible to manipulate them down there,” he told Dagbladet. “I interpret this to mean that he must be clean.”

Funny, I don't see Alberto's blood values anywhere?

 

[Race Radio]

A doper posting their blood test on line would be kind of like a serial killer posting goggle map photos of their house.

Wonder why the doper changes his numbers, then took them down? Something to hide?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Funny, I don't see Alberto's blood values anywhere?

... because at the end of the day he is smarter than Lance.