Leading GB cyclist tests positive (yikes)!

[thehog]

Re:

Anybody have the info on what percentage of pro riders have a TUE for inhalers?

WADA did release numbers at one point; the CIRC had the printed the following observation from one rider;

“In one rider’s opinion, 90 percent of TUEs were used for performance-enhancing purposes,” CIRC wrote.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re:

Anybody have the info on what percentage of pro riders have a TUE for inhalers?

I don't have it but the percentage I would be willing to bet is up there into the epidemic category. Must be all the years of cycling around MOTO vehicular traffic pollution that has caused it.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

Anybody have the info on what percentage of pro riders have a TUE for inhalers?

WADA did release numbers at one point; the CIRC had the printed the following observation from one rider;

“In one rider’s opinion, 90 percent of TUEs were used for performance-enhancing purposes,” CIRC wrote.

Who this CIRC guy? What's his credibility? He just does not realize there is a freaking peloton epidemic!

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Anybody have the info on what percentage of pro riders have a TUE for inhalers?

WADA did release numbers at one point; the CIRC had the printed the following observation from one rider;

“In one rider’s opinion, 90 percent of TUEs were used for performance-enhancing purposes,” CIRC wrote.

Who this CIRC guy? What's his credibility? He just does not realize there is a freaking peloton epidemic!

Has to be French with a name like Circ! Could be short for Circèil?

 

[spetsa]

Re: Re:

That it not the same as saying it will do nothing for you if you did not need it in the first place.

Salbutamol acts to prevent spasm in the alveoli. It doesn't increase lung capacity. No spasm = no action. Try it if you like - borrow a salbutamol and puff away. I guarantee it won't do a thing!

Increase lung capacity? That has f* all to do with this discussion. Increasing O2 delivery to the muscles is not dependent upon increasing lung capacity.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

That it not the same as saying it will do nothing for you if you did not need it in the first place.

Salbutamol acts to prevent spasm in the alveoli. It doesn't increase lung capacity. No spasm = no action. Try it if you like - borrow a salbutamol and puff away. I guarantee it won't do a thing!

Increase lung capacity? That has f* all to do with this discussion. Increasing O2 delivery to the muscles is not dependent upon increasing lung capacity.

It is when used in combination with a o2 vector doping program. Muscle spasms and hardness in the fires is one side effect.

 

[spetsa]

Re: Re:

That it not the same as saying it will do nothing for you if you did not need it in the first place.

Salbutamol acts to prevent spasm in the alveoli. It doesn't increase lung capacity. No spasm = no action. Try it if you like - borrow a salbutamol and puff away. I guarantee it won't do a thing!

Increase lung capacity? That has f* all to do with this discussion. Increasing O2 delivery to the muscles is not dependent upon increasing lung capacity.

It is when used in combination with a o2 vector doping program. Muscle spasms and hardness in the fires is one side effect.[/quote

I agree. My point is that the benefits of using a bronchodilator goes beyond increased lung capacity. It always helps to get blood moving quicker, even when it isn't thickened up.

 

[thehog]

Agreed, this is why the drug itself can't be looked at in isolation. Its always part of a bigger program.

For example, do people think Contador was only using Clen just to drop some weight? or was it because of bulk and that he was carrying water from the use of other drugs.

 

[coinneach]

Re: Re:

That it not the same as saying it will do nothing for you if you did not need it in the first place.

Salbutamol acts to prevent spasm in the alveoli. It doesn't increase lung capacity. No spasm = no action. Try it if you like - borrow a salbutamol and puff away. I guarantee it won't do a thing!

If I recall, the named rider in this thread did not use salbutamol. To discount the benefits of asthma meds on non asthmatics due to your experience with a drug not in question is naive. This thread has been hijacked by people who think their personal experience relates to performance enhancements of elite athletes. I guess that is why I frequent this place so seldom. We do not even know if Mr Yates took oral or inhaled meds.

But he and his team know this, and should tell us.

I disagree about the value of personal experience in this forum....for me, it's the most valuable bit...far more useful than the wild speculations that most posters exhibit.

My own experience, FWIW, is that I was diagnosed with mild asthma and proscribed an inhaler.
Going out to my club TT, I realised I'd forgotten it.
That night was my lifetime PB.

The only way out of this mess IMHO is for ALL medication to be disclosed....
I know others will scream about medical confidentiality, but, to mix my metaphor, you can't run for parliament in the uk or president in the USA without having a certain transparency in your tax affairs.

Yes, they can cheat, but that standard exists in politics
I'll need to see that in cycling and other pros sports, before I begin to believe it

 

[vedrafjord]

Re: Re:

If I recall, the named rider in this thread did not use salbutamol. To discount the benefits of asthma meds on non asthmatics due to your experience with a drug not in question is naive. This thread has been hijacked by people who think their personal experience relates to performance enhancements of elite athletes. I guess that is why I frequent this place so seldom. We do not even know if Mr Yates took oral or inhaled meds.

And the alternative is what? That only people with neither actual experience or theoretical knowledge of the drugs in question speak?

If you look upthread I'm very suspicious of Mr Yates' decision to take the drug in question rather than salbutamol, given that he could have taken salbutamol without a TUE. I think the basic anti-asthma function of what he took is the same, but it's possible that it has other side effects, just as clenbuterol and ephedine were both used decades ago for asthma before better drugs were invented, but are banned because they have other effects. If he's taking pills rather than using an inhaler that's a massive red flag for me too as they'll have side effects outside the lungs.

The thread was first hijacked by people who wanted to ban asthmatics from elite sport completely, so it's only fair that we get to defend ourselves.

Finally, it's up to you to show that a certain drug has a beneficial effect on an elite rider but no effect at all on a trained amateur in good shape (which is what you seem to be implying). From all kinds of journalist exposes and fattie masters dopers we know that the stuff that works like EPO and testosterone gives a massive boost to someone at any level.

 

[Maxiton]

Somebody who cares about this more than I might want to look this up in detail, but I recall discussions a few years ago on this and other boards where there was a specific figure discussed for the percentage of the pro peloton with TUEs for inhalers. I don't recall the exact percentage but I remember it was astoundingly high.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Regarding the TUEs, I believe they're available in the WADA yearly statistics. The ones with breakdowns by event, nationality, etc. I don't have time to look now, but can do it later.

What does the clinic think of these comments by Canadian runner Cam Levins?

Cam: I have some medication I take for my asthma, but that is something that is wrong with me. I’m asthmatic.

Cam: Yeah, I was dealing with it before I joined the project actually. A little bit after the London Olympics I started having quite a bit of difficulty with it. So it was before I joined the [team].

Cam: No not in college. I think it had something to do with the 190 mile weeks I was running through Utah in the middle of the night, cold winter. I started having problems getting sick all the time. That is sort of what it stemmed with. Adult onset asthma is pretty common

Made some edits which I can explain later, but the guy trains hard, gets sick, and now takes asthma medication so he can train hard and not get sick. He even explains himself that it is not adult onset asthma, but probably caused by his own training.

A very frustrating example of abuse, by an athlete who thinks he is innocent on this issue. He's too dumb to hide it, and too dumb to realize it is a problem.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re: percentage of peloton using inhalers:

Kimmage wrote to day: http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/cycling/paul-kimmage-in-disturbing-times-for-nicolas-roche-and-cycling-has-the-landscape-after-lance-armstrong-really-changed-34694720.html

One third of {Nicholas] Roche's team have asthma.

So if the other teams are like that then we have a 33% estimate to be going on with.



http://cyclingtips.com/2016/04/why-do-so-many-elite-cyclists-have-asthma/
Conor McGrane:

About 40%, although that number is just off the top of my head.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Re:

Regarding the TUEs, I believe they're available in the WADA yearly statistics. The ones with breakdowns by event, nationality, etc. I don't have time to look now, but can do it later.

From 2013: https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wada-2013-adrv-report-en.pdf

International Cycling Union

TA Name Total Samples* Total AAFs** TUE No Case to Answer No Sanction Pending ADR
UCI 9430 91 14 19 4 7 47

What that means is that 14 would-be adverse findings were negated by a TUE. That would not include an athlete with a TUE who did not test positive for the TUE'ed substance, or a rider with a TUE that was not tested at all. It could be one rider with 14 positive tests negated, or 14 different riders, or somewhere in between.

And to help narrow it down, maybe, UKAD included 4 TUE cases in all their sports, USADA 23, RUSADA 4, South Africa (SAIDS) 10, ASADA 7, Netherlands (ADAN) 8.

 

[zigmeister]

There was a study that was done on elite athletes, cyclist in particular, with the performance effects, if any, of salbutamol.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8781870

My point regarding this has nothing to do with performance enhancement, except it is all relative performance.

Let's say I can't even ride/compete unless I take an asthma medication/inhaler like above. Isn't that a performance enhancement? After all, a person goes from not being able to ride/compete, takes their asthma meds, and can now ride and compete? Is that not an enhancement to performance? Of course it is.

Just like somebody, Team Type 2, taking insulin. Insulin shown/proven performance enhancement, particularly certain forms, like IGF-1 and the likes. I know, they could die by not taking insulin. But this can be applied to any "accepted medical condition" that requires some type of medication to live, or get by.

We could make the same argument for an athlete that has an idiopathic reason for low testosterone. If normal levels are let's say 300-1100ng/dL...and somebody has 150ng/dL of Testosterone naturally. Why don't we just make a case an exception to allow somebody to take Testosterone to increase their levels to "normal" range?

I know, Testosterone has an anabolic effects in many respects, to include muscle development, recovery and increasing hemotacrit...but certain asthma medication can also increase your oxygen uptake. As other drugs that TUEs are needed for, to increase performance, or allow them to compete.

Maybe my theory is off in left-field. But it seems whatever is some old-school medically accepted diagnosis/condition, gets a pass in regards to "doping" and PEDs.

 

[Maxiton]

Re:

There was a study that was done on elite athletes, cyclist in particular, with the performance effects, if any, of salbutamol.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8781870

My point regarding this has nothing to do with performance enhancement, except it is all relative performance.

Let's say I can't even ride/compete unless I take an asthma medication/inhaler like above. Isn't that a performance enhancement? After all, a person goes from not being able to ride/compete, takes their asthma meds, and can now ride and compete? Is that not an enhancement to performance? Of course it is.

Just like somebody, Team Type 2, taking insulin. Insulin shown/proven performance enhancement, particularly certain forms, like IGF-1 and the likes. I know, they could die by not taking insulin. But this can be applied to any "accepted medical condition" that requires some type of medication to live, or get by.

We could make the same argument for an athlete that has an idiopathic reason for low testosterone. If normal levels are let's say 300-1100ng/dL...and somebody has 150ng/dL of Testosterone naturally. Why don't we just make a case an exception to allow somebody to take Testosterone to increase their levels to "normal" range?

I know, Testosterone has an anabolic effects in many respects, to include muscle development, recovery and increasing hemotacrit...but certain asthma medication can also increase your oxygen uptake. As other drugs that TUEs are needed for, to increase performance, or allow them to compete.

Maybe my theory is off in left-field. But it seems whatever is some old-school medically accepted diagnosis/condition, gets a pass in regards to "doping" and PEDs.

Sounds like a lot of obfuscation. You have a medical condition that requires a TUE, or you don't. End of.

 

[thehog]

Remember Agostini? Of course no one does, because he is Italian and went down cor 15 months over 0.7 billionths of a gram of a steroid cream which was marked on his anti-doping form (Cologne lab).

The UCI refused ro listen probably because be didn't speak English.

Clearly their won't be any consistency in these cases.

To the attention of Mr. Leroux Dominique
UCI – CH 1860 Aigle/ Suisse

Object : UCI file 043/2013 – Agostini Stefano

Dear Sirs,

I want to clarify that my acceptance of the sanction is to be understood as a declaration of capitulation: I give up to a system that has decided that at age 25 I should stop being a professional cyclist.

I think the sanction you have decided for me is not right and I do not feel at all belong to me since I have never made use of performance-enhancing drugs.

My biological passport is impeccable, the different and multiple blood tests can not be faulted.

It is just that the emeritus laboratory in Cologne has detected the presence of 0.7 billionths of a gram in my urine of a substance called Clostebol, the active ingredient of the ointment Trofodermin that I myself had declared at the time of the test and that I had been regularly prescribed by a doctor to treat a rash.

The laboratory has reported, in infinitesimal extent, what I had said in perfect good faith. If I had not declared it probably now I would not be in this paradoxical situation because it would not even been found. This will remain a strong and unresolved question in my mind.

Everybody knows that you can’t dope with an ointment, for more prescribed by your doctor, and sold in any pharmacy or drugstore, even without medical prescription.

Well after 7 long months of suspension, explanations of the factual circumstances of the case, requests of additional information with maturities of short and peremptory time, of grueling waiting for some kind of feedback from you (which came systematically after weeks by my questioning), wear and tear and stress mixed with apprehension … the esteemed UCI, despite having a very clear situation documented beyond any doubt, decided to treat me in such a way besides significantly more severe than other athletes “stumbled” into Trofodermin, even the same way as who does and has done in the past use of EPO, cocaine, blood transfusions, or manipulations of his own blood, proposing a 15-month ban, in addition to the payment of the expenses incurred by you, which is almost like a bad joke.

If your conclusion is to impose me a disqualification undoubtedly excessive, what is most striking are the reasons for this choice. The documentation produced by me duly in your terms proved the truthfulness of my version and then my honesty, the UCI itself has recognized the use of Trofodermin cream for a therapeutic purpose, motivated by a medical prescription, but this explanation and justification was not enough, given the imputation of liability.

This is the process culmination of sanction acceptance that you proposed me months ago, with the stated purpose of speeding up the decision and avoid a trial and related expenses. Obviously none of this has happened and the conclusion then is grotesque.

The alternative that I have is the transmission of the dossier to the Italian Cycling Federation with the steering of the process, the outcome of which will have to confirm the authority deciding the 15-month disqualification otherwise the UCI itself, as already stated candidly in a veiled blackmail tone, will recourse to CAS in Lausanne; for myself this would obviously mean conducting counter and expertise, contribution to a legal defense of the mandate as well as the appointment of arbitrators for a total cost of around 30-35,000 Euros that I don’t have.

I dare say, in the light of the absurd conclusion of this case, that the UCI Anti-Doping “network” has undoubtedly some malfunction since it does not make a distinction with regard to who gets stuck there, even in the light of the circumstances that are certainly worth to distinguish one case from another, as mine and the one of a “real” drug-taking in order to alter performance and distort the results.

Reiterating then as the end of my cycling career due exclusively to 0.7 nanograms (0.000000007 g) Clostebol coming, for your same recognition, as an ointment used once in order to cure, under medical advice, a demonstrated disease, I would like to add that from this vicissitude a deep and intractable disillusionment in the values of honesty, justice, and equality in the sense of treating equal situations [equally] and different situations in different ways remain me.

I leave professional cycling with dignity, knowing that I never cheated and I conquered all my results with dedication and sacrifice, well aware that this absurd story has also caused considerable damage to my image.

Finally, I think that this story, which has ruined my career and destroyed my dreams, will also undermine the credibility, usefulness, and infallibility of your doping control system.

Sincerely,
Stefano Agostini


http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/04/news/agostini-gives-cycling-letter-doping-suspension_323757#E14YsWG680bFuGk7.99

 

[samhocking]

He might feel innocent of his actions, but when the riders are clearly responsible for what enters their blood, perhaps Agostini shouldn't have just asked his mum to rub some cream she found in the back of the medicine cabinet into his butt without calling the team Doctor first or loading up WADAs banned substance app on his phone to check first?
Despite his letter of innocence, I'm sure he wished he'd just suffered the itch in his butt for a couple of more minutes while he checked, and given that his team sacked him too, perhaps they wished this too?

Such heinous conduct, which was in multiple violation of the anti-doping rules and the precise instructions of the medical staff in pre-season meetings, has led to the immediate dissolution of his contract.

 

[hrotha]

This could easily go on a dozen different threads, as it's about British Cycling rather than about Yates per se, but wow:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-cycling-issues-email-threat-to-riders-0sx76qbpm?shareToken=33a22be8384ddcabffc28382ca1f6551

 

[Benotti69]

Yeah threatening people is the behaviour of clean sporting people.

 

[pastronef]

the tide has shifted?

someone wants to tear down the UK cycling organisation?

because lately there have been a few "leaks" and scandals

 

[Benotti69]

the tide has shifted?

someone wants to tear down the UK cycling organisation?

because lately there have been a few "leaks" and scandals

I think people feel the treatment of athletes is way out of order. Bit more than leakage , but it seems sport is the furtherest thing from fairplay and those who run it make sure of that.

 

[King Boonen]

Disgraceful email, just goes to back up the claims from Varnish et. al. The explanation of the "poor wording" is complete BS in my opinion, he knew exactly how it would be taken.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Disgraceful email, just goes to back up the claims from Varnish et. al. The explanation of the "poor wording" is complete BS in my opinion, he knew exactly how it would be taken.

Awesome stuff from British Cycling. First the deny everything with regards to Sutton, then after insomuntable media pressure begin an investigation of which, if you tell the truth you lose your Olympic spot!

And Russia supposedly has the problem.... sheeeeh

 

[gazr99]

Re:

Disgraceful email, just goes to back up the claims from Varnish et. al. The explanation of the "poor wording" is complete BS in my opinion, he knew exactly how it would be taken.

Agreed the second email is the realisation he just basically sent a threatening email to everyone when he knows there is a leak at BC, which means it will be in the media soon, so is covering his back. No honestly I didn't mean it

Different question who do we think the leak/leaks are at BC? I think one will be one of the female riders/support staff trying to prove sexism and how BC treat riders