Is The Biopassport Dead?

[T_S_A_R]

my reading of the judgement of the contador case was that the judges were unwilling to consider a collated circumstacial evidence of doping as proof of doping. wada seemed to believe that they had a good case against contador but every aspect of their transfusion theory only had to have the smallest hole shot in it before it was discarded by the judges.

the judges seemed unwilling to accept a starting position that it was probable a pro cyclist would be likely to dope and by their rejection of the protected witness aren't interested at all in anecdotal evidence.

the biopassport was presented as a way to build cases against dopers. now it's clear that cas won't accept anything over than a smoking gun surely the biopassport is useless?

 

[BotanyBay]

the biopassport was presented as a way to build cases against dopers.

Dear TSAR,

We finally captured the last doper and banned him. His name is Floyd Landis. All is well now. But thanks for asking.

- Pat McQuaid
UCI el-Presidente

 

[Nederick]

As the evidence by which sanctions will be passed down? Who knows.
As a tool to direct more targetted testing, I think it will live on.

 

[hrotha]

I think people need to be more reasonable. Did they honestly expect the passport to solve the problem of doping overnight. It's like when they complain about the introduction of blood tests in 1997 because "they only put a vague cap on how much you could dope" - guess what, that was a huge step forward at the time.

 

[Catwhoorg]

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/03/biological-passport-effective-fight-or.html

Its a little old, but clearly shows that there have been two major shifts in the blood profiles in cycling.
The first when EPO was able to be tested for, then again with the blood passport.

As far as I know every case presented under the blood passport has resulted in a sanction, and has withstood appeals.

The main issue is that the levels set to trigger a sanction are maybe a little high, such that the change in behaviour (microdosing etc) makes it possible to still dope at a lower level, and not trigger an adverse finding.

 

[Benotti69]

it was never alive!

It was a benchmark to riders to not over do the doping otherwise we will ban you on the passport.

Did they cut down or just manage their intake and levels much better?

How many tests are done to monitor blood levels? few if any!

Another smoke screen and when they wanted rid of a rider they brought out the passport.

 

[Escarabajo]

it was never alive!

It was a benchmark to riders to not over do the doping otherwise we will ban you on the passport.Did they cut down or just manage their intake and levels much better?

How many tests are done to monitor blood levels? few if any!

Another smoke screen and when they wanted rid of a rider they brought out the passport.

But that is progress IMHO. Worse would be nothing.

Now to the OP. Lately there have been some scientists very critical of the decreased number of samples. That can create a big hole in somebody's profile. I would be more worried about the frequency than anything else. Passport is fine. Now if it is used by Pat for extortion purposes, that is something else.

 

[Benotti69]

But that is progress IMHO. Worse would be nothing.

Now to the OP. Lately there have been some scientists very critical of the decreased number of samples. That can create a big hole in somebody's profile. I would be more worried about the frequency than anything else. Passport is fine. Now if it is used by Pat for extortion purposes, that is something else.

No it wasn't progress. it was more like get your shít together and manage your doping like true professionals.

Dont take huge amounts during the race and risk getting caught.

Get your training camps to islands where testers cant sneak up on you. dope during training and dope hard.

We aint seen any dramatic fall in race speeds. they still ride uphill on the big chainring

Evans TdF win was faster than Contador's 2009 win. Go figure.

 

[Escarabajo]

No it wasn't progress. it was more like get your shít together and manage your doping like true professionals.

Dont take huge amounts during the race and risk getting caught.

Get your training camps to islands where testers cant sneak up on you. dope during training and dope hard.

We aint seen any dramatic fall in race speeds. they still ride uphill on the big chainring
Evans TdF win was faster than Contador's 2009 win. Go figure.

I can ride on the big gear on a climb. If it is 4% gradient I can.

On the second point, you are generalizing waaaaay too much. There are too many variables to jump into conclusions just like that.

Again I prefer having a the overrated Bio-passport than not having it at all.

 

[BotanyBay]

The concept was brilliant. Throw the idiot dopers under our own bus, meanwhile, providing valuable data to the intelligent dopers to help them get faster and beat our own farcical system.

 

[DirtyWorks]

No it wasn't progress. it was more like get your shít together and manage your doping like true professionals.

Dont take huge amounts during the race and risk getting caught.

Get your training camps to islands where testers cant sneak up on you. dope during training and dope hard.

We aint seen any dramatic fall in race speeds. they still ride uphill on the big chainring.

The CAS decision at a very high level was consistent with the anti-doping rules. They rejected Contador's ridiculous claim as they should have.

Maybe a prettier way to restate Benotti69's comment is the passport in its current manifestation prevents MOST riders from killing themselves accidentally while doping. Ricco still managed to screw it up. The bio-passport works in that regard.

There's way more to it than that with the UCI being involved in every aspect of anti-doping process thus guaranteeing most riders have no positive results, but that's a non-controversial summary. As Benotti69 points out, some would argue it is not returning riders to baseline pre-EPO/CERA performances and that too is by design because doped riders attract more viewers.

 

[bikeguy]

The main issue is that the levels set to trigger a sanction are maybe a little high, such that the change in behaviour (microdosing etc) makes it possible to still dope at a lower level, and not trigger an adverse finding.

I played a bit with the biological passport app that is available on the app store and I found the margin to dope to be rather small. For example, for hemoglobin, I do not think that they can transfuse more than one blood bag. They may hemodilute to hide doping but then there is the percentage of young blood cells (reticulocytes) that is not affected by hemodilution.

 

[Benotti69]

The CAS decision at a very high level was consistent with the anti-doping rules. They rejected Contador's ridiculous claim as they should have.

Maybe a prettier way to restate Benotti69's comment is the passport in its current manifestation prevents MOST riders from killing themselves accidentally while doping. Ricco still managed to screw it up. The bio-passport works in that regard.

There's way more to it than that with the UCI being involved in every aspect of anti-doping process thus guaranteeing most riders have no positive results, but that's a non-controversial summary. As Benotti69 points out, some would argue it is not returning riders to baseline pre-EPO/CERA performances and that too is by design because doped riders attract more viewers.

I feel that CAS found Contador guilty for the simple law of having banned substance in his body, but put 3 lawyers in a room and you will get pages and pages of lawyer talk.

As for Biopassport, UCI have too big an interest in allowing riders to dope. There is the mentality that athletes will always dope.

Yes but if you make the rules and tests tight you will catch the stupid ones.

Passport basically says dope but keeping it within these parameters. And if you do that teams will dope as much as possible and push those parameters to the absolute limits while bribing testers and UCI.