JV1973 said:
1. How did it come about that CaptainBag had an email from you with Ryder's blood values? Did he ask you for them, or did you volunteer them? If you volunteered them, why through CaptainBag and not just release them as you did with Brad's values?
Nobody else wanted them.
Weird. The Giro winner's blood values and noone else wanted them. Do you think there may have been more interest if they were released earlier?
JV1973 said:
You have released the blood values for 2 riders in 3 races: Brad 2009 Giro and Tour, Ryder 2012 Giro. 4 riders, 4 races: VDV, Millar, Wiggins, Hesjay
Yeah I saw that after I had posted the question and had my eyes bleeding from OT Girona posts. The graphs I saw online were about this big [ ] and had too little detail. So even if I knew about them, I would mention them with the caveat that they are far too small (at least the ones I found) to be of real "value".
JV1973 said:
3. Why are you releasing the values of only your best results? Do ABP values prove cleanliness?
Nobody seems too interested in other values. Also, if I'm trying to prove you can win GT clean, it isn't so interesting to see the results from the guy who got 123rd.
I get you're trying to show you can win a GT clean. I am very interested in seeing if a rider can simply finish a GT clean.
You seem to be implying that winning is the only thing and I would respectfully disagree. #123 is closer to what the conti or pro-conti rider is aspiring to, at least initially. I am not a huge fan of cyclingtips, but his Tour Down Under project each year to select an unknown rider and give them a fanclub for the race is pretty darn popular. To some extent I would argue you are attributing an arbitrary "value" to that rider #123, a valuation I do not share. Given there have only been a few ABP datasets released, I also believe any data released would be of interest. I'll acknowledge I am a nerd, however.
Releasing a couple of domestique's passport values would also support the notion that your entire team is clean.
Question: does the ABP prove cleanliness?
JV1973 said:
4. Have you considered releasing the blood values of a domestique from the same races - as a baseline, if you like and if not, why not? You would not even have to provide their name, just their numbers.
Sure. But not via the clinic.
Cool. I'll keep an eye out.
JV1973 said:
5. If there was, as you suggest, "systemic high readings at the Giro", you could release up to 8 other riders' values - from your team alone. You don't have to prove anything to me or anyone else, but are you prepared to do this to show us the veracity of your claim? Again - no names need even be shown, just the values. Is it difficult to get a rider's values?
Sure, but it's really not something I think i need to prove. Ryder's hct was 46% at the start of the Giro. Probably without slight lab error it would have been 45%. I don't really see this as terribly significant, unless it was part of an overall profile that was consistently elevated, which it is not. I was just giving you guys background. But let's say i was lying...OK...it's a 46% hct. That's still not very remarkable.
You and others have stressed how complex the ABP is, but I will respectfully disagree.
The issue Captain raised that you are avoiding is this: 16g/dl is an anomalous value, and your explanation for it is "systemic lab error", "agreed to by other team medics". A rule of thumb calc gives an estimate of Hct at 48% with 16 g/dl Hgb.
Saying Ryders Hct was 45% or 46% is irrelevant at best. Given you pay money for the ABP, you will surely know that
Only the HGB and Off-hr score are taken into account by the Bayesian model in order to define a possible anti-doping rule violation.
It is possible to have a Hct of 45% and Hgb of 18 g/dl - it just means you have to stuff lots of additional plasma in there at the same time. The problem then would be the ret% was down.
I didn't mention the elephant in the room regarding your "systemic lab error" explanation which is this: team medics (from memory) are typically not accessible to the general public (ie us, the receivers of your explanation).
Team owners are. You are a team owner - not the team medic. Are you saying other team medics knew the values tested were high and not the team owners? And if the team owners knew as well, why mention the team medics, when surely the team owners are who you interact with, not their medics. If my whole team tested high, as the team owner I would be bloody insistent on knowing these things asap.
I am not saying you were lying, JV, just trying to understand.
You could probably very easily show a couple of other passports from the same time period that support your explanation. Saying Ryder's Hct was fine just doesn't cut it for me. Especially when I read things like this:
Remember that hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers, like Oxyglobin, are red and are measured as hemoglobin with the cyanmethemoglobin method. This will always result in a high Hgb (compared to the HCT).
JV1973 said:
6. As pointed out previously, there is a consistent pattern of a bump in the 3rd week of all 3 datasets you have released. Is this something we would see in all passports, or only riders who perform top 5 in a GT?
Bump in third week? I don't see that. I see on stage 14 Ryder's hct went from 43.4 to 43.8. As I linked earlier, that could be because his head was tilted slightly differently or he had a glass of water. Please see my link to plasma shifts. If you see a hct bump with a corresponding drop in retics and increase in off-score, then look more carefully, but that's not the case here. You guys haven't seen so many blood bag profiles. They are way more interesting.
please read my link re plasma shifts .
I have only posted Hgb values in those graphs, so you are not seeing Hct in those graphs anywhere. As for Ryders Hct, according to the values you sent CaptainBag, we have:
May 14 (Stage 9): Hb 14.1, Hct 42.3, Ret 1.56
May 18 (Stage 13): Hb 14.4, Hct 42.6, Ret 1.74
May 27 (Stage 21): Hb 14.1, Hct 43.4, Ret 1.34
May 27 (Stage 21): Hb 14.1, Hct 43.4, Ret 1.71
There are no values from stage 14 whatsoever, and the number 43.8 does not appear anywhere in the dataset he has published on his website.
The Hgb bumps. Based on a rule of thumb, we would expect Hct of 42.3 (yep), 43.2 (nope) and 42.3 (nope). Rule of thumb, note, not iron clad at all.
Now that you mention the Hct though, what's up with that? It's constantly going up.
And there are only 2 theories for the final blood values, where Hb and Hct remain static on the same day, but Ret increases by 27% from 1.34 to 1.71:
1. lab error
2. the number of blood cells that died
exactly matched the increase in new blood cells.
Are you saying that's what happened? "Normal" ret% is 1% +/- 0.5% - ie 0.5% to 1.5%.