Jonathan Tiernan-Locke written to by UCI, asked to explain blood values

[gillan1969]

good thinking as always.
but does the chronology of events support this?
Like del1962 also seems to wonder, could the letter to JTL carry cookson's signature if he wasn't president yet?

its more likely a double bluff.....

if A Mcquaid was asked which rider on his roster was likely to earn him the least amount of money in 2014 it would be JTL after his dismal year

so for Phat its an obvious choice as nobody would think he would seek to sanction (or at least pull up) a rider who his son looked after

although...to be fair...I don't think Phat is that clever

 

[Dear Wiggo]

good thinking as always.
but does the chronology of events support this?
Like del1962 also seems to wonder, could the letter to JTL carry cookson's signature if he wasn't president yet?

There's the letter and its leaking. As it's only been written about now, the letter would have been sent earlier. So possibly not Cookson's directive, no.

The points are "nice" but it looks too nice to be staged in such a fashion.

This whole leaking thing is strange. Like Contador's leak. Is someone making money from leaking things? Gaining in other ways?

Be interesting to see if Brailsford resorts to bus-throwundery in JTL's case.

Wasn't Julich saying the Sky riders were over trained? Fits with depressed blood values: higher plasma expansion --> lower Hct.

Interesting that the parameters in 2012 were high vs 2013, given the 2012 values were towards the end of the year, when you expect lowered Hct due to a season-long racing & training schedule.

I always feel - despite the clamour that only experts can look at blood profiles - that it would be wonderful to have true transparency.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

its more likely a double bluff.....

if A Mcquaid was asked which rider on his roster was likely to earn him the least amount of money in 2014 it would be JTL after his dismal year

so for Phat its an obvious choice as nobody would think he would seek to sanction (or at least pull up) a rider who his son looked after

although...to be fair...I don't think Phat is that clever

How about Hein? Is he that clever? Hein the puppet master I can make you a positive any time you like Verdruggen .

 

[sniper]

There's the letter and its leaking. As it's only been written about now, the letter would have been sent earlier. So possibly not Cookson's directive, no.

The points are "nice" but it looks too nice to be staged in such a fashion.

This whole leaking thing is strange. Like Contador's leak. Is someone making money from leaking things? Gaining in other ways?

Be interesting to see if Brailsford resorts to bus-throwundery in JTL's case.

Wasn't Julich saying the Sky riders were over trained? Fits with depressed blood values: higher plasma expansion --> lower Hct.

Interesting that the parameters in 2012 were high vs 2013, given the 2012 values were towards the end of the year, when you expect lowered Hct due to a season-long racing & training schedule.

I always feel - despite the clamour that only experts can look at blood profiles - that it would be wonderful to have true transparency.

yeah, only experts. but who / where are the experts?

they gladly give a limited set of data to a sell-out expert like grappe, and that satisfies the likes of walsh.

would be great if Ashenden would write an open letter to Sky asking for Froome's pre-2011-vuelta data (under the promise of confidentiality of course so that sky's opponents cannot benefit from the data )

 

[JimmyFingers]

There's the letter and its leaking. As it's only been written about now, the letter would have been sent earlier. So possibly not Cookson's directive, no.

The points are "nice" but it looks too nice to be staged in such a fashion.

This whole leaking thing is strange. Like Contador's leak. Is someone making money from leaking things? Gaining in other ways?

Be interesting to see if Brailsford resorts to bus-throwundery in JTL's case.

Wasn't Julich saying the Sky riders were over trained? Fits with depressed blood values: higher plasma expansion --> lower Hct.

Interesting that the parameters in 2012 were high vs 2013, given the 2012 values were towards the end of the year, when you expect lowered Hct due to a season-long racing & training schedule.

I always feel - despite the clamour that only experts can look at blood profiles - that it would be wonderful to have true transparency.

I have heard that JTL's explanation will be illness/overtraining, rumours of course but similar to the noises coming out about him earlier in the year. Considering how little racing he's done this year discrepancies in blood values that trigger alrams is difficult to undertsnad without previous doping.

What is clear is that this information shouldn't be in the public domain, and JTL is reported to be furious that it has been leaked. The motivation for that is difficult to gauge, he doesn't have a high enough profile to make too many waves. Is it a dig at Cookson from the outgoing regime to have a British and Sky rider under suspicion, or vica versa since the rider is managed by a McQuaid. Someone wanting to damage Sky, BC, Endura or the rider himself? It's certainly an odd one.

 

[hrotha]

Leaks like this are standard, if not legal, in cycling.

 

[sniper]

so we still don't know if this is mcquaid fooling cookson, or cookson fooling mcquaid.

 

[sniper]

Jonthn Tiernan-Locke ‏@J_T_Locke 4 Okt 2012

Absolutely made up to confirm my future with @TeamSky, but a massive thanks to everyone @enduraracing for helping me get to this point.

Jonthn Tiernan-Locke ‏@J_T_Locke 10 Jan 2013

Another day, another blood test...managed not to faint this morning though. #needtomanup

Jonthn Tiernan-Locke ‏@J_T_Locke 1 Feb 2013

Almost at my 1st race for @TeamSky...this time 10 years ago I had just bought a racing bike & was applying for a 4th cat licence! #timeflies

Jonthn Tiernan-Locke ‏@J_T_Locke 8 Mär 2013

Gutted to have to abandon on the day @TeamSky took hold of the race. Richie showed his class, while I filled a couple of sacks with vom!

 

[JimmyFingers]

Well whatever it seems JTL is the tethered goat, which he probably doesn't deserve. I must say there's not a lot of surprise at all of this over here amongst cyclists. Amazing one season, anonymous the next after picking up a fat contract, and issues with blood values after moving from Conti level to Pro-Tour.

Benefit of the doubt? Certainly, there's certainly a chance his blood values are explainable, particularly if he has been ill (again). That said his form is so poor and he has raced so rarely this season it's hard not to come to the conclusion that he doped to get a fat contract, now is under the auspices of the BP and pro-Tour, knocked the doping on the head and has produced poor results and now anomalous blood values.

But I'll repeat these aren't things you would have necessarily picked up on if you had the rider for a short period of time for testing and training.

 

[Cycle Chic]

BP Excuses

Brailsford didn’t give precedents, but pointed out there can be legitimate reasons for fluctuations in blood values: ‘The biological passport is a very good tool; instead of using a single (test), it tries to establish an individual’s normal physiology.

But all sorts of things can impact on readings: illness, trauma, time, long-haul flights, dehydration, tapering, being at altitude.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ot...ycling-possible-discrepancies-blood-data.html

So if a rider can give the above excuses for abnormal values the BP is worth nothing.

 

[the sceptic]

why so pessimistic Jimmy? Tom Southam says he is clean.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/opinion-why-i-think-jon-tiernan-locke-is-clean

summary:

He used to be lazy and sick but he always had the talent.

Then he stopped being lazy and sick and started winning everything.

Then when he signed for sky he became lazy and fat, and also lost all his confidence.

Thus he is clean, and people that doubt him are jealous haters that have never worked hard in their lives.

 

[coinneach]

Well whatever it seems JTL is the tethered goat, which he probably doesn't deserve. I must say there's not a lot of surprise at all of this over here amongst cyclists. Amazing one season, anonymous the next after picking up a fat contract, and issues with blood values after moving from Conti level to Pro-Tour.

Benefit of the doubt? Certainly, there's certainly a chance his blood values are explainable, particularly if he has been ill (again). That said his form is so poor and he has raced so rarely this season it's hard not to come to the conclusion that he doped to get a fat contract, now is under the auspices of the BP and pro-Tour, knocked the doping on the head and has produced poor results and now anomalous blood values.
But I'll repeat these aren't things you would have necessarily picked up on if you had the rider for a short period of time for testing and training.

Surprised at you Jimmy

Is it not a bit early to be coming to conclusions?

That's why there is a process with the BP.

Interesting to speculate: my own theory being Sky want rid of him & his fat contract, hence the leak to favoured Sky journalist.

But lets not have conclusions at this stage

 

[Ferminal]

why so pessimistic Jimmy? Tom Southam says he is clean.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/opinion-why-i-think-jon-tiernan-locke-is-clean

summary:

He used to be lazy and sick but he always had the talent.

Then he stopped being lazy and sick and started winning everything.

Then when he signed for sky he became lazy and fat, and also lost all his confidence.

Thus he is clean, and people that doubt him are jealous haters that have never worked hard in their lives.

Friggin clickbait! Anyway, I did pretty well to get this far:

Jon had ‘it’. He had that unbalanced mentality that you find in those rare people who can push themselves beyond anything the rest of us could imagine:he had the mentality of a real athlete. My ears had well and truly pricked up then, because I knew something else about Jon too, that he had ‘it’ physically as well.

Yeh, all those dopers who are untalented, lazy, and unwilling to put themselves through hell to succeed. Mentally weak... only the brains of clean athletes are wired on the sporting goal.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Well whatever it seems JTL is the tethered goat, which he probably doesn't deserve. I must say there's not a lot of surprise at all of this over here amongst cyclists. Amazing one season, anonymous the next after picking up a fat contract, and issues with blood values after moving from Conti level to Pro-Tour.

Benefit of the doubt? Certainly, there's certainly a chance his blood values are explainable, particularly if he has been ill (again). That said his form is so poor and he has raced so rarely this season it's hard not to come to the conclusion that he doped to get a fat contract, now is under the auspices of the BP and pro-Tour, knocked the doping on the head and has produced poor results and now anomalous blood values.

But I'll repeat these aren't things you would have necessarily picked up on if you had the rider for a short period of time for testing and training.

JTL is almost a separate pending argument.

IMO, while a stand alone test might not clear anyone, it could show anomalies that would show suspicion.
And then this goes back to the due diligence of Sky as a team.

While it seems they did test him the q is how often?
Did they do separate tests that seemed ok or did they rely on the BP to kick in and then not check it? Because, again for me the UCI to flag something would take a lot - why is Sky not more stringent.

 

[DirtyWorks]

so we still don't know if this is mcquaid fooling cookson, or cookson fooling mcquaid.

It's impossible to know what the motivation was. It could be as simple as someone unable to keep it all quiet inside the UCI. A sort of knowledge-is-power and this is how someone displays that political power. The *wildly* inconsistent anti-doping actions from the UCI coupled with the known widespread corruption just makes things more uncertain. Here's a fresh example: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-wants-georges-ban-extended-to-two-years

The tendency is for the UCI to sanction lower-level riders to manage doping at the elite level. IMHO, we saw it with the Colombian sanctions in 2013. That's about the only consistent thing the UCI does in regards to anti-doping.

JTL is right to be angry even if he doped for his Sky contract. Or, maybe he didn't dope for the Sky contract and Sky's training volume demands doping which got him nothing but fatigue. Or, as coineach hypothesized, Sky doesn't want him around and this is a great way to end a contract.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Southam says he won some 2.1 / 2.2 level races that were ideal for him. Short races relying more on explosive efforts than endurance. Then found the competition to be far too strong when moving up to World Tour level.

I wonder why he never mentioned his top 20 in the Worlds. He was pretty strong that day over 260 km - probably better than the bare result suggests

 

[JimmyFingers]

JTL is almost a separate pending argument.

IMO, while a stand alone test might not clear anyone, it could show anomalies that would show suspicion.
And then this goes back to the due diligence of Sky as a team.

While it seems they did test him the q is how often?
Did they do separate tests that seemed ok or did they rely on the BP to kick in and then not check it? Because, again for me the UCI to flag something would take a lot - why is Sky not more stringent.

Surely abnormal blood values show up over a series of tests rather than from a single one. This is how he has been pincged: in isolation his 2012 values are acceptable, compared to his 2013 there is a suspicious discrepancy.

How much independently testing are teams supposed to do exactly? In this case it seems he was certainly tested by Garmin, by Endura and trained with Sky. I think it's asking a lot for Sky or Garmin to pick up on anomalies in such a short time segment.

Anyway if you believe Sky is doping in an organised way then how much credibility will you give their testing? Also not sure teams should be responsible in this way.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Surprised at you Jimmy

Is it not a bit early to be coming to conclusions?

That's why there is a process with the BP.

Interesting to speculate: my own theory being Sky want rid of him & his fat contract, hence the leak to favoured Sky journalist.

But lets not have conclusions at this stage

The reason I highlight this is that for me the JTL situation has been bubbling under for a while now, and this request for an explanation fits suspicions and predictions made over a year ago in various quarters. We'll wait to see developments and I'm not throwing him under the bus yet, but there's a pattern to it that's can't be ignored.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Surely abnormal blood values show up over a series of tests rather than from a single one. This is how he has been pincged: in isolation his 2012 values are acceptable, compared to his 2013 there is a suspicious discrepancy.

Sure, the more done the better, but even a stand alone could show an elevated HCT (eg 50% ++) or a crazy off score and it would be a red flag.

How much independently testing are teams supposed to do exactly? In this case it seems he was certainly tested by Garmin, by Endura and trained with Sky. I think it's asking a lot for Sky or Garmin to pick up on anomalies in such a short time segment.

...and I did not say they should pick up the anomaly.
But you certainly can do the due diligence of doing as much as necessary to satisfy any future problem.

Anyway if you believe Sky is doping in an organised way then how much credibility will you give their testing? Also not sure teams should be responsible in this way.

I will ignore the strawman - but if they were anti-doping they would be stringent in their tests.

That does not mean it will pick up everything - but it would show a clear attempt to try and stop it. And quite simply whatever criteria the UCI use, an anti-doping teams should be more stringent.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Anyway if you believe Sky is doping in an organised way then how much credibility will you give their testing?

The goal in bike racing is to win and not test positive. Why would a team/athletes who is/are doing whatever it takes to win spend any resources on anti-doping compliance besides never testing positive? Unless you are JV/Garmin, it doesn't seem to matter to team owners.

The contradiction of Sky-scientific-decisions-is-what-makes-Sky-team-all-powerful and the fact JTL was hired on apparently without any "Sky science" make some sense if Brailsford does not care one scintilla about clean riders.

 

[The Hitch]

But lets not have conclusions at this stage

Do you give the same benefit of the doubt to Contador, who afterall, it was officially deemed had not intended to dope and got his clen from a tainted supplement.

I'll be honest, when I heard about Contador's positive I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was probably doping. And I do the same here.

What about you, have you reacted the same way to both?

 

[the sceptic]

Friggin clickbait! Anyway, I did pretty well to get this far:

Jon had ‘it’. He had that unbalanced mentality that you find in those rare people who can push themselves beyond anything the rest of us could imagine:he had the mentality of a real athlete. My ears had well and truly pricked up then, because I knew something else about Jon too, that he had ‘it’ physically as well.

Yeh, all those dopers who are untalented, lazy, and unwilling to put themselves through hell to succeed. Mentally weak... only the brains of clean athletes are wired on the sporting goal.

Somehow I doubt they are going to publish a "why I think JTL was doping" article anytime soon but I guess thats what this forum is for

 

[coinneach]

Do you give the same benefit of the doubt to Contador, who afterall, it was officially deemed had not intended to dope and got his clen from a tainted supplement.

I'll be honest, when I heard about Contador's positive I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was probably doping. And I do the same here.

What about you, have you reacted the same way to both?

No I haven't; not yet anyway.

Contador's "conclusion" came after a VERY long time. They dismissed his arguments and found that he had doped, albeit probably unintentionally

I'll wait for JTL's "conclusion" before I treat them both the same way.

A better question would be "did I react to both situations the same way?
But Contadors was a failed test of a banned substance.
I'm awaiting developments with JTL, but keeping an open mind just now.
What did you think of my theory about why & who leaked it??

 

[Dr. Maserati]

No I haven't; not yet anyway.

Contador's "conclusion" came after a VERY long time. They dismissed his arguments and found that he had doped, albeit probably unintentionally

I'll wait for JTL's "conclusion" before I treat them both the same way.

A better question would be "did I react to both situations the same way?
But Contadors was a failed test of a banned substance.
I'm awaiting developments with JTL, but keeping an open mind just now.
What did you think of my theory about why & who leaked it??

<snipped>

Interesting to speculate: my own theory being Sky want rid of him & his fat contract, hence the leak to favoured Sky journalist.

I know you asked Hitch - but IMO this has the potential to show Sky in a poor light (regardless of what actually happens JTL) that they were not duly diligent.

It would have been much easier to throw him out for 'irregularities' by going to UCI first. This does not appear to be the case.

 

[Beech Mtn]

Well, well, well.

Endura Racing previously made attempts to arrange for additional spontaneous testing for its riders through UKAD. Unfortunately this request was rejected however Endura Racing’s willingness to fund additional testing to expose its riders to a more prolific test regime than the mandatory requirements is clear evidence of Endura’s position on the matter.

Endura, with the full support of JTL, also made a request to the UCI to be allowed to pay to have him put on a biological passport in order to counter the rumours of PEDs that circulated after his wins in Tour Méditerranéen and Tour du Haut Var in early season racing during 2012 however this request was refused by the UCI.

Source

If a team is willing to pay for additional testing, why in the world would an anti-doping body (UKAD) or the UCI refuse to do so? Other than a desire to hide doping? What am I missing here?

Forgive my "doing a Hog" and quoting myself, but I'm still wondering about this. Does anyone have any thoughts about why UKAD and UCI refused to do the extra testing on JTL? Is there something in the rules that would forbid it? I can't think of anything, or any good reason why they wouldn't have welcomed a team asking for (and paying for) more testing on its rider.