Is the UCI's Biological Passport flawed?

[Benotti69]

Sooooooo.....

How do you propose going about the fix? Keep in mind there is a budget with which you need to address.

do away with passport. more testing. make the teams pay for it, min 10 out of competition tests a year per rider. there is no fix all, but a simple solution is longer penalties. min 4 year first time. no behind scenes dealing so riders get lesser penalites. Di Luca should not be back in the sport, it sends out the wrong message, you can get caught 3 times in a career and still do very well from the sport.

that has a benefit of scaring the bejeebus out of athletes who spent 6-8 years training and racing before becoming a pro to risk throwing that commitment away. Also there needs to be sanctions to teams or the teams DS and doctors. more than 3 riders on a team dope and lose automatic invitations to major races. this **** and bull that the riders do it themselves does not wash with me.

but this is all theory. no solution is possible while the headless chicken that is P McQuack is running the UCI........

 

[flicker]

guys, next step is contador cleared of all this. You will see, UCI is dealing the whole doping story in a way that it will revolve against them

Of course for the good of the sport Contador will be cleared. Very unfair to the fans who believe in sporting fairness and the Basque beef industry.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Actually, I think the riders are getting by with HCTs much below 50% now and do not need to get it up that high.

The HCT is a measure of the proportion of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells compared to the total voulme of blood.

In the past they doped up to the 49% level and left it there with no repurcussions. After the EPO tests came along, they switched and started the micro-manipulations.

Microdose EPO (iv according to Floyd) and dring a ton of water so it clears from the urine before a dope test, then remove blood (at the same HCT range as you want to maintain) in smallish volumes. Then when you add back the blood, your volume goes up too but as your body clears the extra fluid you have a short term higher HCT. Then when the dope testers come, you go to the shower and give yourself a shot of iv saline equal to the volume of blood you have added and your HCT is back to the normal value for the passport.

The passport means that today's riders manipulate/manage the blood volume as much or more as they apply EPO, clenbuterol, testosterone, etc... That is why hydroxyethyl starch is now showing up because it is a blood volume expander that means you don't have to do the daily saline shots on days after you transfuse.

Saline was a response to the 50% limit. It didn't just show up once the passport was introduced. Before, riders were hemodiluting to stay below 50%, now they're doing it to stay reasonably close to their baseline. That's an improvement I guess...

Using HES is stupid since you will get caught if tested for it.

do away with passport. more testing. make the teams pay for it, min 10 out of competition tests a year per rider. there is no fix all, but a simple solution is longer penalties. min 4 year first time. no behind scenes dealing so riders get lesser penalites. Di Luca should not be back in the sport, it sends out the wrong message, you can get caught 3 times in a career and still do very well from the sport.

that has a benefit of scaring the bejeebus out of athletes who spent 6-8 years training and racing before becoming a pro to risk throwing that commitment away. Also there needs to be sanctions to teams or the teams DS and doctors. more than 3 riders on a team dope and lose automatic invitations to major races. this **** and bull that the riders do it themselves does not wash with me.

but this is all theory. no solution is possible while the headless chicken that is P McQuack is running the UCI........

Why get rid of the passport? I really don't see the logic in that. How would letting the riders have ridiculous blood values be a good thing? There'd be greater blood boosting and thus greater performance gains from doping.

The bolded part is spot on though.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

And one thing that must be introduced, at least in GT's, is the total body Hb test. Do it right after stages. It cannot be fooled. The actual Hb mass and changes in it will be known with certainty. No dehydration BS.

 

[David Suro]

Yes, it is flawed.

Every effort to control doping will have some flaws. The biochemistry of humans is too complex for any type of analysis to be perfect.

In general, doping controls are always improving. In general, dopers are a half-step ahead of the controls.

The tests for EPO and CERA were big advances even if they did not completely correct the problems.

Crooks will always find a way to beat the law.

There are no banks that cannot be robbed, no security that cannot be breeched, and no doping test that cannot be beaten.

The job of the controllers is to make it as hard as possible and constantly work toward advances in their techniques.

 

[Squares]

Now that's a good post. I'd like to know how you know these tricks.

1) having extensive scientific training (I am on the faculty of a Medical School with an appointment in the Division of Hematology)

2) reading what Landis, Manzano, Kohl and other riders who talked have to say

3) putting 2 and 2 together.

 

[rhubroma]

1) having extensive scientific training (I am on the faculty of a Medical School with an appointment in the Division of Hematology)

2) reading what Landis, Manzano, Kohl and other riders who talked have to say

3) putting 2 and 2 together.

Chapeau! Thanks again.

 

[avanti]

McQuaide is quoted as saying
"I’ll go with the WADA legal experts as to whether it’s flawed or not.”

I would have felt better if he had said "scientific experts"

 

[Benotti69]

............

Why get rid of the passport? I really don't see the logic in that. How would letting the riders have ridiculous blood values be a good thing? There'd be greater blood boosting and thus greater performance gains from doping.

The bolded part is spot on though.

the passport means a rider is tested how many times? a domestique, what 5 times a season, how can you prove anything with so few tests? Domestiques need to dope to do their job for leaders who are doped. how does a team like saxo ride hard at the front day after day or liquigas.....

the passport in my opion is the uci allowing doping but also to control riders with the idea they can pick on riders they dont like or worse possibily bribed to pick on(i have no proof, but Pellizotti seemed to be singled out on 3 small values).......

more testing like the Lab in Cologne is what is needed. a better understanding of what it is riders are doing to dope would help testers create tests to beat them.

 

[Benotti69]

Yes, it is flawed.

Every effort to control doping will have some flaws. The biochemistry of humans is too complex for any type of analysis to be perfect.

In general, doping controls are always improving. In general, dopers are a half-step ahead of the controls.

The tests for EPO and CERA were big advances even if they did not completely correct the problems.

Crooks will always find a way to beat the law.

There are no banks that cannot be robbed, no security that cannot be breeched, and no doping test that cannot be beaten.

The job of the controllers is to make it as hard as possible and constantly work toward advances in their techniques.

this is the bottom line and i agree with all of your post. but what WADA must do is back dating tests and that is scary for riders like 7 time GT winners that their legacy can be pulled out from under them at a later date.

UCI has apparently in its current guise said to riders ok dope but dont dope too much, here is the new level, stay within it ok. well it's like giving a pyromaniac a box of matches isn't it and tell him only a small fire no big ones....

 

[Squares]

Interestingly, there was a point in the new CN article about methylhexanamie and the costa brothers getting trapped by a supplement.

at the bottom talking about Actovegin, it had the following statement:

WADA only allows intravenous injection by syringe of less than 50mL.

So, if you only do 150 mL transfusions of your own blood, and then do refills with intravenous saline to lower the HCT prior to your drug test you are OK as long as you only us a syringe to inject smaller than 50 mL.

 

[Cobblestoned]

The passport lookes like a plucked chicken right now and perhaps thats good.

I think it is not the right way to catch "dopers".

It should be used for radaring the riders and then do target controls.
But in the end it should only be a positive test for a forbidden substance that catches a doper.

Following the Pechstein-case early taught me that the passport alone can't be the right way to sort things out.
For example 5 "experts" say so and so, 4 others say it was like that and that, and 3 others tell that the 9 others have no clue and everthing is different.

 

[brianf7]

The WADA panel of experts is what UCI refer to expert X the unknown quantity and spurt a drip under presure.

These people very highl qualified Doctors in the feild can only generalise because they dont know the indevidual.

Doctors are trying to make a diagnosis without seeing the paitent.

Just like you and me getting a diagnosis from Google when we are sick its a guide nothing else.

So the athleat wins in Court because its flawed so who pays the club members fees you and me in our memberships.

Maybe that Irishman will go and consult the faries and come up with something better

 

[luckyboy]

And one thing that must be introduced, at least in GT's, is the total body Hb test. Do it right after stages. It cannot be fooled. The actual Hb mass and changes in it will be known with certainty. No dehydration BS.

This is pretty much the only way.

The only way the bio-passport could work is to test a lot more than they are doing in order to catch people.
It's pretty depressing to think about - if they managed 2 riders per team per day, guys would come away from a GT with about 4 tests each, which still isn't enough for the bio-passport.

 

[The Hitch]

Actually, I think the riders are getting by with HCTs much below 50% now and do not need to get it up that high.

The HCT is a measure of the proportion of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells compared to the total voulme of blood.

In the past they doped up to the 49% level and left it there with no repurcussions. After the EPO tests came along, they switched and started the micro-manipulations.

Microdose EPO (iv according to Floyd) and dring a ton of water so it clears from the urine before a dope test, then remove blood (at the same HCT range as you want to maintain) in smallish volumes. Then when you add back the blood, your volume goes up too but as your body clears the extra fluid you have a short term higher HCT. Then when the dope testers come, you go to the shower and give yourself a shot of iv saline equal to the volume of blood you have added and your HCT is back to the normal value for the passport.

The passport means that today's riders manipulate/manage the blood volume as much or more as they apply EPO, clenbuterol, testosterone, etc... That is why hydroxyethyl starch is now showing up because it is a blood volume expander that means you don't have to do the daily saline shots on days after you transfuse.

Ill add to the "good post " comments.

 

[Squares]

Ill add to the "good post " comments.

Thanks Hitch and the others who posted on my comment. I appreciate positive feedback on this site!

 

[python]

for those involved closely, faber is not a new face on the anti-doping scene.

a statistician by trade, he's often critical of the anti-doping procedures and methods. he's even been to court rooms invariably defending athletes who almost always turned out being dopers.

his critique of the blood passport though is largely justified.

but not for the reasons he cited. the problem is not in the 'primitive' statistical analysis he advocates (is it really a surprise for a statistician by trade) but in 'putting the cart before the horse' approach by the uci.

once again, as has been pointed out in every thread on biopass, ashenden cautioned everyone long ago.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

Interestingly, there was a point in the new CN article about methylhexanamie and the costa brothers getting trapped by a supplement.

at the bottom talking about Actovegin, it had the following statement:


So, if you only do 150 mL transfusions of your own blood, and then do refills with intravenous saline to lower the HCT prior to your drug test you are OK as long as you only us a syringe to inject smaller than 50 mL.

Apart from the fact that IV interventions are not legal unless the athlete is hospitalized...

 

[DAOTEC]

Dnevnik | Time out - torek, 09.11.2010

.
Strokovnjak Klaas Faber meni, da je biološki potni list, ki ga uveljavljajo v kolesarstvu, sporen

http://www.dnevnik.si/sport/timeout/1042401390

 

[BotanyBay]

The passport itself is not flawed. Its what they choose to do WITH the passport results that's flawed.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Missing the Point

Some of the comments reflect a kind of faith that the UCI is on the enforcement side of the doping issue when in fact they are not.

As another comment stated, the message the UCI sends to the peloton is the bio passport is for setting limits. Don't do more because when a bunch of Juniors taking EPO died, the UCI got a whole lot of negative press. They were dragged kicking and screaming into setting limits.

The other message sent to the peloton is your presence in the peloton depends entirely on an undocumented process that has no rhyme or reason from anyone's perspective outside the UCI. In fact, a rider doesn't even need a positive test result for his career to end!

If the goal was enforcement, UCI would at least endorse backwards testing. AFAICT, it would discourage most PED risk taking. There are always someone who sees doping as the means to an end. The tests would catch up to them.

Still, it's early days in PED testing. Even if the UCI was on the enforcement side, they still have to send the results to the rider's federation. The laws are primitive or lax in many countries. (U.S. too!) I find it doubtful most federations would apply the federations rules equally anyway. Until the laws catch up, some positives won't be penalized. Pat's relying on that too. It makes the enforcement theater all the better.

 

[kfaber]

for those involved closely, faber is not a new face on the anti-doping scene.

a statistician by trade, he's often critical of the anti-doping procedures and methods. he's even been to court rooms invariably defending athletes who almost always turned out being dopers.

I don't recognize myself. Please be more specific: names of athletes, for example, that I 'defended', as if I'm a lawyer.

 

[DAOTEC]

how low can these so called scientists (pocketing gypsies) go

BP a sinking ship ...

Desined as target module milked up and misused by the UCI as avidence "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt".

UCI biological passport panel member calls for more transparency

November 21, 11:50: [http://cyclingnews.com]

"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment."
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
Lord Rutherford

 

[L'arriviste]

2011 will see a significant increase in the number of controls conducted on riders whose profiles may indicate illegal behaviour

Source

"Questionable riders". They should make all the numbers public, questionable or not. The numbers can speak for themselves. If the passport is supposed to work, let's all see all of the results. Individuals and teams.

Let's see the graphs go up and down, let's see what the UCI sees.

Let's see the results of controls. It can't cost that much to do. Then the public can decide for itself, as can teams when it comes to transfer season.

No more awkward suspensions and suspicions?

 

[Ney the Viking]

Let's see the graphs go up and down, let's see what the UCI sees.

I thought Kohl said that having a clean biopassport was the easiest part of it all, you juse needed a good schedule?

So isn't this just UCI saying that the bio passport is the new 50% limit? Have a stable passport and we wont hassle you too much, good luck and have fun.

I may just be a cynic however.