But merely identifying athletes for OOC tests won't cut it. For the last two decades, the two most important means of cheating have been EPO and other stimulants of RBC production, and autologous blood transfusions. The short half-life of microdosed EPO, along with the absence of an effective test for self-transfusions, means that the passport needs to be enough evidence in itself to convict, otherwise it is useless.
We know that athletes have had BP patterns consistent with doping (Hg staying steady or increasing during a 3 week GT, suppressed retics) but haven't been flagged for review by experts.
"We do know that back in 2009 the software was flagging up 10-15 cases a week according to a presentation given by the UCI’s Doctor Zorzoli" (quoting from the Inner Ring website).
We know that the vast majority of those flagged escaped sanction, where being flagged means (direct WADA quote) "it is highly likely that a prohibited substance or prohibited method had been used and unlikely that it is the result of any other cause".
We know that the majority of passport cases happened in its first two years.
We know that climbing speeds are rebounding to vintage EPO era levels following several years of slowdown.
I can only conclude that either a) athletes have learned to blood dope and fly under the passport radar while still getting performance benefits b) doping other than blood doping e.g. metabolic modulators such as AICAR etc. is what's important nowadays or c) both a + b.
It seems that athletes can sail as close to the sun as they like, and if their wax wings melt, they can give some bull**** excuse to the expert panel and the general public is none the wiser. I don't see how the passport can be called effective in any way. Sometimes I wonder would Rasmussen have triggered a passport case if he was around today. One of the most comical dopers of all time, but his haematocrit never even hit 44%.
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