Klöden named in Freiburg report

[BigBoat]

"First, the numbers on the actual test would be very accurate. Let's say you sandbagged and your numbers were 312w. But then a week later you rode up Alpe d'Huez in 38 minutes after 200km of mountains."


To do Alpe D'Huez in 38 minutes at 315 watts you'd need to weigh about...90 pounds.

Cheers.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Well, that's why it would draw up a red flag. You'd be putting out a lot more than the 312 you did on the trainer the week before.

You study this crap probably more than any of us BB, chime in.

 

[PuncturedTyre]

my eyes have glazed over

 

[Leopejo]

The fact that peoples wattages are more or less within a certain range does not prevent the occurrence of great or heroic performances. What you are almost seem to be suggesting is that we need doping, (I am trying to spice up the discussion) in order to let athletes continuously surprise us and set new records.

Absolutely not, I condemn doping. I am just saying that it's ridiculous to base antidoping on performance and output. Use them to create suspicions and focus your antidoping efforts on suspicious athletes. But this is what they are already doing, without need for wattage testing.

I therefore think it's safe to say, that had we not had those suits, the next 10-20 years we might not have seen many improvements.

A good point for UCI in their stance for "athletes, not technological improvements". I hope in swimming they limit suits too.

If the odd one or two athletes would have set new records, beating the old ones with seconds, I am sure that 'yearly performance results measured by watt outputs', compared against those new WR, would actually have stood up against the test of scrutiny in court. At least as far as circumstantial evidence. In other words, if the tests are taken correctly by UCI, they sure seem to have some value in court...

So, where's the limit? You can't beat a WR by more than a second? Tenth of a second? This is conceptually wrong. Let a new record raise suspicions and that's it. And let's say the UCI tests you at 312 W. There's so many hurdles to condemn that 360 W performance up a mountain.

Even if Haussler and Hagen improve their results in a race, that does not mean that their watt outputs have become so much better. Haussler, formerly seen as a pure sprinter, has adjusted his training, and also his tactics. Instead of waiting for the bunch sprint, he picks his escapes, and with the improved conditioning of surviving hills as well as his stamina for long escapes he has become a better rider. I really sincerely doubt that his watt outputs have improved by over 10%!

Surely we could just put the athletes in front of a computer and let them play Pro Cycling Manager. Luckily, cycling is more than just tactics, with wattage (in its ranges from hours to seconds, depending on race and racer) the most important factor.

If you get a year older, improvements neither jump up 'abnormally'. By this reasoning, the blood passport has zero to nill value either. 'Your Hematocrit has gone up by over 10%',... 'Well', says the athlete 'I have gotten a year older' or 'My training schedule changed'... Heck even doping testing has zero value,... "you've got higher testosterone levels'... 'Well, I have become more of a man since I am a year older'...

Again, go review the power data of those athletes that put their power files online. Can you say if they doped?

The only thing that regular wattage testing would do is to give away those outliers that improve dramatically and suddenly. And those are already targeted by WADA and UCI, you don't need wattage for that.

Again, you are confusing tested performance in a lab setting with actual performances in a stage race. Watt outputs in a lab setting could serve as a guideline to discover anomalies.

Only very big anomalies. People think that wattage is something magical. It is only your output. Exactly the same as your speed in a track & field event (where suits don't have that impact as swimming), where it is safe to neglect running efficiency and tactics for the purposes of this discussion. Would you go and ask runners to regularly perform a 10 k test on a threadmill? Would you take their results on the track/road away if they are too good compared to the 10 k test? You are only putting an ARTIFICIALLY SET limit to improvement - contrary to the essence of sport itself. I am all for a doping free sport, I wish suits be banned from swimming - but imposing limits on performance (don't improve more than 10 %) is absurd.

If UCI would force all riders to use an SRM, we would soon see which rider's output values are 'abnormal'. Since they are in competition, ie in the TdF, on the Alpe.. I bet the GC contenders will give it all they got, wham, baseline info set...

How would you see this?

 

[hulkgogan]

This notion of using statistical analysis as prima facie evidence of doping is quite fascinating and prolly at the end of the day, a bit of a bummer. It's pessimistic about human performance, rather than optimistic. "Elite athletes only gain 3% a year, you've gained 20%. That's a 6 sigma deviation. Doper!"

The thing is sometimes guys do pull their finger out, and do get 20% better year on year.

The other thing I can't avoid thinking about are the flaws of modern (Gaussian) statistics; how Wall Street quants keep modelling black swan events happening once every several billion years when in reality one hits every 10 years.

 

[ingsve]

The thing is sometimes guys do pull their finger out, and do get 20% better year on year.

The other thing I can't avoid thinking about are the flaws of modern (Gaussian) statistics; how Wall Street quants keep modelling black swan events happening once every several billion years when in reality one hits every 10 years.

No, human physiology is not chaotic. It's highly predictable especially so when a baseline high level has been achieved. Thinking that anyone could "pull their finger out and do 20% better" is not scientific.

Comparing it with Wall Street is not applicable since the market is in fact chaotic.

 

[hmronnow]

There is power on a trainer, power on the road, and power during race. For most cyclists, these numbers differ. This is why most riders need to race for the max intensity performance - no other method let them produce their true maximum performance. Cyclists and their coaches can use all numbers because they know how hard they went when. And yes, season long profiling would give meaningful results for cyclists cooperating.

However, cathing cheaters is about catching those that are out to fool the system. Such a rider can create any fake season evolution of his indoor power test - compared to injecting blood or whatever, learning to ride at certain wattage without looking at the powermeter is easy. Of the three types of power, only obligatory power-meters during races will force the rider to reveal their true number.

But:
- you can not demand of a rider that he is capable of providing same power in a 20 minute indoor test that his race-winning performance where it all came together for him.
- therefore the only meaningful profiling is from race to race.
- Except in few situations (e.g. isolated on long uphills and flat TTs) races are highly varying in intensity, so you would have to use the asumptions behind comparing normalized power to compare performances from one race to another.
- There will be fluctuations in the cyclists performance - fatigue, illness, motivaiton, hydration, what not. And he may have different designated roles in different races.

Due to these reasons I think such protocol will be very inefficient at catching cheaters. Furthermore, it would be logistically heavy - having to have tamper free power meters on all bikes (most power meters need regular calibration etc). Given that UCI keeps needing more money for a blood pasport which has taken ages to establish and has produced nothing, I highly doubt getting into another profiling project would be efficient.


What puzzles me a bit is why the 50% rule seems to be considered useless?
- it seems that most efficient doping is various flavours of blood doping
- if so, there are only two relevant numbers: hematocrit % and total blood volume
- The >50% hematocrit rule means that no-one can be overly doped. If the 50% is considered too high, reduce it to 48% or 45%, in which case many more medical exemptions must be made, but that places burdon of proof (for naturally high %) on the riders. Mind you 50% is not dangerous - it is a highly common value amongst untrained couch potatoes (well actually couch potatoes are endangering their health, but that is a different discussion. Of course, such a 48% rule does leave room for cheaters to 'top up' their % to the limit. But the anomalously big dopers, who wreck the level competition and endanger their health, are prevented.
- It is a different question whether riders manage to cheat the system by having a higher % during races or training, and then somehow managing <50% at tests. How would they do that?
- The other possibility is if they increase their blood volume. I have no knowledge of how to test that. Some people have argued for such test - how do you measure that?

I am not saying that I condone epo up to the 50% level, but I am slightly puzzled why the 50% limit is no longer talked of? Does that not set a limit to how effective one can use epo?

 

[hulkgogan]

No, human physiology is not chaotic. It's highly predictable especially so when a baseline high level has been achieved. Thinking that anyone could "pull their finger out and do 20% better" is not scientific.

Comparing it with Wall Street is not applicable since the market is in fact chaotic.

I didn't say human performance is chaotic, I said statistical modelling has been proven lacking lately. The assumption that if a guy improves by 20% indicates doping, requires the null event to be very rare and here's where the analogy with the market holds - there isn't enough longitudinal data to valid that hypothesis. They got it way wrong in market economics where the big money is, why would exercise physiologists get it any better?

And a guy who was underperforming his first 3 years, figures out how to race and train and gets 20% better is entirely probable, and if that is not scientific then it supports my first point.

 

[ingsve]

I didn't say human performance is chaotic, I said statistical modelling has been proven lacking lately. The assumption that if a guy improves by 20% indicates doping, requires the null event to be very rare and here's where the analogy with the market holds - there isn't enough longitudinal data to valid that hypothesis. They got it way wrong in market economics where the big money is, why would exercise physiologists get it any better?

And a guy who was underperforming his first 3 years, figures out how to race and train and gets 20% better is entirely probable, and if that is not scientific then it supports my first point.

Because the market is chaotic and human physiologi isn't. Simple as that.

The original point was that the diffrence in output between age 22 and age 32 isn't that big after the rider is fit and at a pro level. The assumption here is that if a rider has trained for several years growing up and has now reached pro levels as a 22 year old he has reach high up on the training curve where you no longer see drastic changes.

If the situation is such that the rider isn't fully trained and still has alot of potential to improve then chanses are that he isn't really a pro cyclist.

 

[BroDeal]

I didn't say human performance is chaotic, I said statistical modelling has been proven lacking lately. The assumption that if a guy improves by 20% indicates doping, requires the null event to be very rare and here's where the analogy with the market holds - there isn't enough longitudinal data to valid that hypothesis. They got it way wrong in market economics where the big money is, why would exercise physiologists get it any better?

And a guy who was underperforming his first 3 years, figures out how to race and train and gets 20% better is entirely probable, and if that is not scientific then it supports my first point.

I think you are looking at this wrong. If it were a matter of looking at individuals drawn from the general population then, sure, the individuals' performance levels would be quite random and there would be outliers, possiblly outliers that would be very surprising. But looking at a single individual, his performance due to training is constrained by biological processes. Performance increase is roughly an asymptotic curve that approaches some potential determined by his particular genetic gifts. Most of the benefit from training comes from the initial training. Additional training gives progressively smaller benefits.

Even if power profiling is not used for sanctioning, it would be good for two purposes. First it provides data for targeting suspicious riders for additional testing. A situation, like Armstrong, where a middling one day rider transforms into the best climber and best time trialer in the world, should be a giant red flag that something is wrong. Second it makes doping harder. Currently riders do not have to just worry about their hematocrit levels; they have to worry about their reticulocyte levels and other blood parameters that indicate that they are doping (Assuming the UCI blood passport was actually on the level--which it isn't.) Power levels would be an additional layer of complication. If enough hurdles are added, the more difficult doping will be.

On that second point. If you could add enough hurdles to the doping process to make doping difficult for all but the top level riders then the rest of the riders, who cannot afford the expert advice necessary to avoid suspicion, might become resentful enough to undermine omerta.

 

[tifosa]

my eyes have glazed over

Mine too. Bla, bla, effing bla.

 

[Bala Verde]

Absolutely not, I condemn doping. I am just saying that it's ridiculous to base antidoping on performance and output. Use them to create suspicions and focus your antidoping efforts on suspicious athletes. But this is what they are already doing, without need for wattage testing.

As I ps'ed before, when I talk about performance, I talk about the experiment in lab settings to see what a rider's capacity is. I am not talking about results in races, how many wins, second places or third places.

The fact that they are already having their suspicion, does not mean they have evidence to prove these suspicions. With measuring wattages, and let's not only focus on wattages, because if you took a good look at Gesink's 'data' you also saw HR, time, elevation, speed, altitude etc, you have more evidence then saying, 'Hey you climbed the Alpe d'Huez in 39m, you are an anomaly'. In court you can't use 'Hey you have black hair, hence you are the suspect'.

What you can use is 'Hey, you climbed the Alpe in 39m, but given your past couple of wattages, that is an improvement of 20%. That's rather suspicious. Here judge and doctor, have a look at it, is this even humanly possible?'

Or, to pull it in the CSI scene 'Hey we found black hair on the crime scene, and you have that exact same hair on your head, how did it get there. What's your alibi?'

A good point for UCI in their stance for "athletes, not technological improvements". I hope in swimming they limit suits too.

I mentioned swimming NOT to emphasise the technological advantages, but to demonstrate, rather poignantly, that human beings, top athletes, do not improve their performance a lot. Swimming has seen new records 'shattered' by marginal time differences, hence the athletes performances have NOT improved significantly.

So, where's the limit? You can't beat a WR by more than a second? Tenth of a second? This is conceptually wrong. Let a new record raise suspicions and that's it. And let's say the UCI tests you at 312 W. There's so many hurdles to condemn that 360 W performance up a mountain.

You don't need to set a limit. The limit is based on the baseline information you already have over years of collected data. Does it seem odd to you when someone shatters a swimming record with more then a second, while it has been more or less the same for decades, where new records have been set only by margins? It only happens when something drastically changes, ie swim suits, lighter bikes, more aerobikes, not because someone develops a new speed gene or spin gene that makes one go over 75K an hour in a TT... Human capacities are set within narrowly identifiable margins

The only thing that regular wattage testing would do is to give away those outliers that improve dramatically and suddenly. And those are already targeted by WADA and UCI, you don't need wattage for that.

Excatly! And wattages is a useful tool, and it could reduce the burden on cyclists, because they don;t need to be tested every day, week for doping. If the data can be used reliably, (which at one point I believe they can) the whole 'privacy' discussion, and whereabouts burden, could be greatly reduced. Many riders don't like to fill out the ADAMS whereabouts system, and some already opted to wear a bracelet that displays the exact location of the rider, just to ease the burden of letting UCI know where you are.

If wattages can be used to ease the life of riders, I don't see why not.

Only very big anomalies. People think that wattage is something magical. It is only your output. Exactly the same as your speed in a track & field event (where suits don't have that impact as swimming), where it is safe to neglect running efficiency and tactics for the purposes of this discussion. Would you go and ask runners to regularly perform a 10 k test on a threadmill? Would you take their results on the track/road away if they are too good compared to the 10 k test? You are only putting an ARTIFICIALLY SET limit to improvement - contrary to the essence of sport itself. I am all for a doping free sport, I wish suits be banned from swimming - but imposing limits on performance (don't improve more than 10 %) is absurd.

They already do that to test themselves and measure their own improvements! Athletes don't measure their own anomalies and big gains, they measure seconds, HR decrease by 1-5 beats, watt output by 5-10W per year. That's not an anomaly, they use it to confidently say 'Hey my new training worked, my watt output has gone up 10W, my heart rate has gone down by 5 beats'

Runners do have their intermediate threadmill sessions, just because it measure performance under the exact same conditions, every year/half year. It enable themselves to measure their own increased efficiency, the results of their year long training and to evaluate if they are in peak condition to run the NY marathon with a new record...

How would you see this?

Some people said that riders could fake 'output', which to me seems difficult. A doc can see that someones output is not maxed since the HR stays too low at the given output level. (It's not only about watts)

Anyhow, if UCI puts an SRM on each rider's bike, they will be able to collect data that reflects max output, since they are in competition. It was just an idea. If they can determine the weightlimit, they must be able to force riders to use and register output data for UCI purposes...

 

[Leopejo]

...

I can't get my points across. Let's just agree to disagree.

 

[ElChingon]

Back to Kloden and less about who can post watt discussions, you guys should start a thread on it so you can concentrate on it and not go off topic.

So any word on the proceedings of his case?

 

[BigBoat]

I wish I was running the testing... Along with Lemond and Decanio!

"Horner what happend.... Time for a total body hemoglobin test Chris.... Oh by the way how the F did your threshold power go from 350 watts to 500 in two days?"

 

[BigBoat]

"So any word on the proceedings of his case."

If you are not going to remove the whole Liquigas team for having a dope scandal on TV last month... And Astana for having 15 dope scandals... And Saxo Bank for having Riis who helped Schleck/ Basso, etc blood dope with their own blood and then admitted to using epo, tests, HGH, etc, etc himself... And Garmin for destroying Astana and producing impossible power numbers, having several former busted riders including Millar who has Italian doping doctor Chechini as his "trainer"... Remove Confidis because years ago they had riders on their team so jacked they were addicted to amphetamines and were running around naked high on Darvon...

Remove the whoe Katusha team because its Russian continuation of Tinkov and had seveal busted riders. Russian teams are all jacked anyways. Get rid of that McDonalds team too, they have coke addicts and alcoholics on their team.

Bro take down the whole damn Tour and replace it with 15 year old juniors... And watch them kill themselves in the mountains, injure themselves. More controversy lol.

 

[Bala Verde]

In lieu of news on the Kloeden-case, which unfortunately robs us as forum members from expressing our dissatisfaction and the 'I knew it all along's, based on a 200 word newsflash on cyclingnews, regardless of the actual (German) content of the report, I will share an interesting, and somehwat related (German) article with you about (blood)doping from former Austrian Triathlon Champ Lisa Hütthaler.

She makes an interesting remark about the 'myth of winter off season weight increase'.

Hütthaler: Die Veränderungen durch die männlichen Hormone habe ich schnell bemerkt. Trotzdem habe ich versucht, mir die Bestätigung von meinem Freund zu holen, dass alles okay ist. Er sagte, ich solle mir keinen Kopf machen. Außerdem war ich glücklich, tatsächlich abzunehmen. Wenn ich mit dem Zeug aussetzte, nahm ich nach nur wenigen Tagen sofort zu. Schauen Sie sich manche Ausdauersportler an, die sind im Winter immer viel dicker als im Sommer. Die Leute glauben, die Sportler legen zu, weil sie im Winter zu viel Süßes essen. Das ist Quatsch. Man ernährt sich genauso wie im Sommer, trainiert sogar noch härter im Trainingslager. Aber durch die Dopingpause nimmt man trotzdem zu.

And where she injected Dynepo, so that it would not be visible on her arms.

[...] Er sagte, dass man die Form von Epo, ich bekam Dynepo, noch nicht nachweisen könne. Trotzdem wusste ich, dass Blutdoping generell nicht so lange nachweisbar ist, wenn ich es mir intravenös spritze. Das war nicht so einfach, weil ich als Triathletin ja im Badeanzug antrat und man die Einstichstellen am Arm sehen würde. Deshalb habe ich manchmal eine Vene am Fuß genommen.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,621732,00.html

 

[mr. tibbs]

In lieu of news on the Kloeden-case, which unfortunately robs us as forum members from expressing our dissatisfaction and the 'I knew it all along's, based on a 200 word newsflash on cyclingnews, regardless of the actual (German) content of the report, I will share an interesting, and somehwat related (German) article with you about (blood)doping from former Austrian Triathlon Champ Lisa Hütthaler.

She makes an interesting remark about the 'myth of winter off season weight increase'.



And where she injected Dynepo, so that it would not be visible on her arms.



http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,621732,00.html

You must now translate.

Plz?

 

[Bala Verde]

You must now translate.

Plz?

The bold part in the first section:

1) 'People believe that athletes gain weight, because they 'eat too much sweet(s)/sweet things (as in cakes, tarts etc)' during the winter. That's nonsense. One acts exactly the same as in summer, [what am I saying], one even trains harder during (winter/off season)training camps. The fact is, because of the doping pause one gains weight.'

-The obvious reason for this doping stop is the lack of competition.-

second quote:

2) 'He [Matschiner] told me that this form of EPO, I got Dynepo, could not be detected yet. On top of that, I knew that blood doping would even be more difficult to detect, when I'd inject it intravenuously. That was rather precarious, because as a Triathlete, I was supposed to compete in a bathing suit, which would make visible the 'injection points'. Therefore I often used a vein on my foot.

 

[Cookie Crumbler]

The bold part in the first section:

1) ... The fact is, because of the doping pause one gains weight.'

-The obvious reason for this doping stop is the lack of competition.-

second quote:

2) ... Therefore I often used a vein on my foot.

2) Does she swim with socks on?

1) According to this reasoning Kloeden must be either doping all year round or be the epitome of cleanliness. I've never seen him other than super skinny. This remark does not relate to blood doping, or does it? You may loose weight through growth hormone or testo but not through epo. Or am I wrong here?

 

[Bala Verde]

Interesting update

http://www.volkskrant.nl/sport/article1200166.ece/Strafonderzoek_naar_wielrenners_Rasmussen_en_Kohl

Public prosecutors in Austria have opened a criminal investigation to see if they can get Kohl and/or Rasmussen convicted for aiding other atletes in the pursuit of and use of autologous blood doping. Apparently Stefan Matschiner had sold Kohl a blood centrifuge valued at 75.000E, towards which Kohl contributed 20.000E. Kohl had declared that 'other athletes' also chipped in. The question is, did these owning athletes including Kohl and potentially Rasmussen, use the centrifuge to enrich the blood of 'non owners'.

Really, some people see investment opportunities anywhere. What an entrepreneurs... Would they have advertised on E-Bay as well?

"For Sale, your blood, enriched and full of red blood cells. No need to mislead the whereabouts system, because we also do deliveries"

 

[BroDeal]

Interesting update

http://www.volkskrant.nl/sport/article1200166.ece/Strafonderzoek_naar_wielrenners_Rasmussen_en_Kohl

Public prosecutors in Austria have opened a criminal investigation to see if they can get Kohl and/or Rasmussen convicted for aiding other atletes in the pursuit of and use of autologous blood doping. Apparently Stefan Matschiner had sold Kohl a blood centrifuge valued at 75.000E, towards which Kohl contributed 20.000E. Kohl had declared that 'other athletes' also chipped in. The question is, did these owning athletes including Kohl and potentially Rasmussen, use the centrifuge to enrich the blood of 'non owners'.

Really, some people see investment opportunities anywhere. What an entrepreneurs... Would they have advertised on E-Bay as well?

"For Sale, your blood, enriched and full of red blood cells. No need to mislead the whereabouts system, because we also do deliveries"

Okay, this is freakin' hilarious. Operation Puerto, version 2.0.

 

[ingsve]

Okay, this is freakin' hilarious. Operation Puerto, version 2.0.

Of course it is. Wasn't that obvious ever since Matschiner got caught earlier this year? In this doping hub it's even confirmed who some of the other athletes than cyclists involved were and not just rumored as in OP.

 

[ElChingon]

It would be better named "Verfahren Strudel"? My bablefish attempt at German

 

[BigBoat]

These guys are idiots... All you need is one good trusted source.... Pay one guy $100,000.

I guess poor Kohl/ Kloden did not have millions in the bank so then it is harder when operating on a budget.