• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Katie Compton

Page 2 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
This fits so many athletes. Most don't intend to go there but the lure of getting that step closer....
It begs the question: how many of our heroes will be found out as not clean as the technology to test improves? Retroactive testing has always been a deterrent as long as samples exist. Maintaining those are risky from a cost and legal standpoint.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt
This fits so many athletes. Most don't intend to go there but the lure of getting that step closer....
It begs the question: how many of our heroes will be found out as not clean as the technology to test improves? Retroactive testing has always been a deterrent as long as samples exist. Maintaining those are risky from a cost and legal standpoint.
Is it a deterrent though? Would Compton have chosen not to dope her way to 15 titles if she knew this was coming?
 
This fits so many athletes. Most don't intend to go there but the lure of getting that step closer....
It begs the question: how many of our heroes will be found out as not clean as the technology to test improves? Retroactive testing has always been a deterrent as long as samples exist. Maintaining those are risky from a cost and legal standpoint.
The pressure in lots of endurance sports is different..Cycling being such a far,far fringe sport it's really intense.. Very few events and teams and if you put 2,3 months of specific event training and anything,flu, bronchitis, some clicking gristle sound in your knee..the temptation is there because it feels like all or nothing..and that might not just be a feeling,it maybe reality.
I look at Valverde getting put back together with super glue,duct tape and screws..I know why because it's almost over and he can't ride a stationary bike for 3 weeks waiting for his pesky collar bone to fuse naturally..he is going turbo repair in order to make the most of these last months..
there are a couple of people on this forum who have paid a really really heavy and personal price from riding juiced and getting caught. And they have said,don't do it!!just say no..ect..not sure where Compton is going to come down on this..it's a process..and sometimes the public never gets to participate..we are definitely there now w the offending athlete saying things like supplements..maybe a tainted cut of meat, a bad burrito..I don't know. Like everyone else I will wait..but if the history I saw w my own eyes repeats there will be more to the story..
 
This fits so many athletes. Most don't intend to go there but the lure of getting that step closer....
It begs the question: how many of our heroes will be found out as not clean as the technology to test improves? Retroactive testing has always been a deterrent as long as samples exist. Maintaining those are risky from a cost and legal standpoint.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg2np37JNEg
 
Agreed on Contador and I'm pretty certain that there will be people who condemned Sha'Carri Richardson for something that clearly shouldn't still be on the banned list (it's there because of the "war on drugs" and has remained because the USA reps recently argued against its removal) which she admitted to and accepted her punishment, who are now more than happy to give Compton the benefit of the doubt. Favourites always come into it and people are rarely objective in this area. My issue is she's the second high profile USA athlete who seems to have been given much more leeway to prove her innocence before the positive was announced.

The defence she's given has the same problem many do; if it's true it's highlighting the real issues many athletes face, particularly female athletes, when it comes to proving innocence (and I do think that the current anti-doping procedures and the banned list aren't really fit for purpose), but it's also the exact same defence someone who is lying would use.

I'm curious, not looking to pick a fight. Do you mean to say female athletes face unique issues? (I mean, of course they do - sexism, wanting to have children, etc.) Care to elaborate on what you meant? Just curious, not looking to start a battle here.
 
I'm curious, not looking to pick a fight. Do you mean to say female athletes face unique issues? (I mean, of course they do - sexism, wanting to have children, etc.) Care to elaborate on what you meant? Just curious, not looking to start a battle here.
Her main claim (at least my interpretation of it) is lack of funding, which, except in a minority of sports and only at the top of those sports, affects female athletes more than male athletes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nayr497
I have posted in the Tom Danielson thread an hypothesis regarding the intermittent eating of large amounts of soy protein as an hypothesis for an athlete testing positive in the CIR test for a tiny amount of 'artificial testosterone', whilst only ingesting food and not even contaminated supplements. I do not know what katie's levels were of 'artificial testosterone', but I have questions regarding the threshold of 'artificial testosterone' which should be considered a positive test which I have posted in the Tom Danielson thread at (1) Hypothesis - Could Tom Danielson have been Innocent of Doping in 2015? | Cyclingnews Forum .
 
I have posted in the Tom Danielson thread an hypothesis regarding the intermittent eating of large amounts of soy protein as an hypothesis for an athlete testing positive in the CIR test

I read your post in the other thread. It seems well thought out and it certainly seems like you have a better understanding of the science then I do, but my question is: would we not see more of these positives if soy protein was the culprit? It is a really common ingredient. For example, I use perpetuem by Hammer Nutrition and that contains soy protein.
 
I read your post in the other thread. It seems well thought out and it certainly seems like you have a better understanding of the science then I do, but my question is: would we not see more of these positives if soy protein was the culprit? It is a really common ingredient. For example, I use perpetuem by Hammer Nutrition and that contains soy protein.
I honestly do not know. There are certainly quite a few cases where people are maintaining their innocence yet accepting their suspension, or arguing 'it was the supplements' - when possibly what I am saying could indeed be the explanation - but it is a defence that no-one has used yet because no-one is aware of it. So it could be that it is indeed a more common explanation than we realise, simply that no-one who has had a positive test has thought to look into it.

Regarding the supplement - If you are regularly taking a soy supplement, at a constant amount each day, the levels of C13/C12 would be the same for both the testosterone and the reference steroid as the intake is steady. What is more likely to cause the problem is if you take intermittent high levels of soy, interspersed with food which has high C13/C12 which is maybe more likely with diet than with regular supplement - we vary our meals -
as that is what may cause the spikes/troughs, which would be out of phase time-wise in your urine for the testosterone and the reference steroid. Possibly it is relevant the digestive problems pro cyclists have during lengthy races - I don't know .

It was particularly surprising that Katie had a positive test when she has been vey anti-doping in her public stance. It is ironic that her own anti-doping stance led her to volunteer for extra optional screening tests, and the very test that came out positive seems like it might (I'm not quite sure - I have lost the link to the article) have been in response to a screening test to the voluntary screening programme that she herself specifically asked to join. I believe that she increased her chances of a false [EDIT - POSITIVE] by signing up for that programme - albeit that it depends on the numbers whether it was likely to be a false [EDIT - POSITIVE]. However - the fact that she was in that screening programme likely increased her chances of being tested at a higher frequency, and if she was being tested at a higher frequency than the average, then that changes the denominator in Bayes theorem (see wikipedia page on Bayesian statistics) making the likelihood that she did in fact dope lower than if she were being tested less frequently. (Possibly it is a similar thing with Tom Danielson - if he were being tested more frequently than the average owing to his prior doping confession, then the denominator in Bayes theorem is lower, making it less likely that he did indeed dope). I would suggest that both Tom Danielson and Katie Compton assuming they are innocent get advice from a proper statistician who understands Bayes theorem rather than simply my amateur explanations. The fact is, that if you are getting tested more regularly then 'Probability of false positive' is greater, meaning that 'Probability that the positive is false given a positive' is lower, because Bayes theorem says:

Probability that the positive is false given a positive = Probability of a Positive X Probability that any given Positive is false DIVIDED BY Probability of false positive

This would be why certain health screens (e.g. HIV before the tests got better) clinic often only screens you for HIV if you are at high risk in the first instance - the test is nearly but not quite 100% accurate, and given the low prevalence of HIV in the population, there are more false positives than you would imagine. (Or at least this used to be the case). Also it is why so many women have cervical cancer scares which turn out to be benign - because cervical cancer is tested for in all women yet is in fact a disease with a very low prevalence rate.
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
Reactions: veganrob

TRENDING THREADS