Liquigas Cannondale

[ToreBear]

I searched and could not find a suitable thread for this team so I'm starting a new one. I'm aware of the name change, but both names speak of past and future.

Threads were Liquigas is in the topic:
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=7991&highlight=Liquigas
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=10691&highlight=Liquigas

I think @captaintbag1 has sniffed out something.

no more space fer dopers, but what bout dope docs ? Danielson’s affadavid has a former fassa bortolo doc now Liquigas - Cannondale doc as stating riders had 2nd or 3rd homes to store dope cross referencing puts Emilio magni n (via poor automated translation) Roberto Corsetti with both uv those teams at both uv those fuggin times now when it became known to ferreti than tommy D had no dope doc he referred him To Ferrari an outside consultant how fuggin ever the data cited in the above link uv liquigas riders blood data during the giro

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22628339

shows yes an initial decline then fer several riders contrary tuh the authors conclusion an actual rebound in hgb in the second half concerning in Captain’s assessment fer blood doping now knowing that dope docs such as Ferrari leinders celaya n del moral have been hidden in plain site it begs the question what the **** are a couple uv less than un-guilted by association team docs doing riding with a rolling fuggin “anti”dope lab at

grand fuggin tours? given the history yuh know uv things like the guy who was developing the EPO test doping cyclists with EPO at the same fuggin time? n it’s not like
corsetti himself ever tried to cast doubt in the pellizotti case

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4...ng-charges-says-legal-action-is-possible.aspx

regarding

sufigginprize

blood parameters

http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33353448595/no-more-space-fer-dopers-but-what-bout-dope-docs

Quick google on Emilio Magni turned up:
http://translate.google.com/transla...X&ei=9ER9UNe3ComQ4gT2k4CYBA&ved=0CCgQ7gEwAjgK

Stating in a post from april 11. 2012 that he is the current team current team physician of Liquigas.

Corsetti / Magni / Idioits / Frauds / ?
http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33353448595/no-more-space-fer-dopers-but-what-bout-dope-docs

taken together under the watch uv one or both their riders doped n they knew they went to Ferrari n they knew their Riders Hgb s rose in the giro n they not only knew but published it

conclusion it’s normal n internally investigate pellizotti n again conclude that they have confidence that he’d show his values too where normal

http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33373697338/corsetti-magni-idioits-frauds

This post contains an image in the captains post

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22628339
captain extracted the 3 most suspicious profiles uv liquigas riders from the giro 2011

what yer lookin at is Hgb gm/dL at pre giro day 12 n day 22

note the lead author is team doc corsetti note all three have significant Hgb jumps
in the second half and two finish at even or higher than their starting values

now reading the paper they buried this data in averaged trends where they concluded

Hgb drops n then stabilizes but what yuh realy see is 2 different patterns

one being a big drop followed by a smaller drop consistent with expected volume expansion

the other is riders who initially drop consistent with volume expansion then rebound consistent with blood transfusion despite volume expansion

or epo use triggering increase in rbc along with a diuresis or volume contraction

from the data correlation with retic is not possible

fer reference giro team roster

Vincenzo Nibali,
Valerio Agnoli,
Eros Capecchi
, Tiziano Dall’Antonia,
Alan Marangoni,
Fabio Sabatini,
Cristiano Salerno,
Sylwester Szmyd and
Alessandro Vanotti.

http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33395093680/http-www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov-pubmed-22628339


This post also contains an image:

so should we throw corsetti a bone?

he argues there is previous data supporting his stance

“A stabilisation of the Hb and Ht values
was described in 16 cyclists during the Vuelta a Espa ñ a 1998 ;
Hb and Ht were 151 ± 5 g/L and 45.1 % ± 1.9 % at baseline,
140 ± 6 g/L and 42.5 % ± 2.5 % after 9 days, then 139 ± 6 g/L and
42.3 % ± 2.3 % after 15 days and 138 ± 7 g/dL and 41.9 % ± 2.4 %
after 22 days ”

the reference:

23. Chicharro JL, Hoyos J, Bandres F, Terrados N, Fernandez B,
Lucia A. Thyroid hormone levels during a 3-week professional
road cycling competition. Horm Res 2001;56:159 – 64.

but yuh may want tuh consider who was riding the 1998 vuelta;

1. Abraham Olano Spain BAN 93h 44’ 08s
2. Fernando Escartín Spain KEL a 1’ 23s
3. José María Jiménez Spain BAN a 2’ 12s
4. Lance Armstrong United States USP a 2’ 18s
5. Laurent Jalabert France ONC a 2’ 37s
6. Roberto Heras Spain KEL a 2’ 58s
7. Álvaro González de Galdeano Spain EUS a 5’ 51s
8. Alex Zülle Switzerland FES a 6’ 05s
9. Marco Serpellini Italy BRE a 8’ 58s
10. Marcos Serrano Spain KEL a 10’ 17s

though it is true that this is just post festina so it may be a cleanerish vuelta

but certainly considering it was 1990s Spain where yuh could walk around with epo taped to yer forehead it’s unlikely clean and probably not the best evidence to use to support yer data is clean

even still

the graph above shows that the 1998 vuelta data looks less suspicious than Corsettis Liquigas 2011 data
with a 9% hgb drop for the vuelta versus 6 % fer corsetti so basically corsetti’s rationalization

is at best wrong

at worst intentional hand waving

or as ashenden called it data bending

http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33443652938/so-should-we-throw-corsetti-a-bone-he-argues

Nothing is more annoying than intentionally misleading in a research paper, except when you're actually covering up doping at the same time.
continued with image:

if we take the 3 suspicious profiles from corsetti’s 2011 liquigas giro data n compare it to the vuelta data he cited things go bad to worse fer the good doctor

in the graph above

while its fine to argue that every person is unique there are some factors such as a grand tour that have such a large impact that it is incredibly unlikely that he effect literally disappears

and while it’s clear that there is still data needed to firmly establish true normal ranges uv response to a grand tour data that doesn’t make sense or seems to violate basic physiological response needs to be looked at with a healthy skepticism

in the context that no needle policies are jus policies n in no way should be mistaken for proof uv the absence uv doping

more troubling is that if this data is accepted as comming from undoped riders on blind faith when doping is infact present

it will give every doper an extra 10% margin on the Hgb concentration for doping effectively destroying any deterent that the biopassport may currently effect

If this is allowed to happen, a skewing of the baseline, the blood passport is in deep trouble. These docs, need to be rooted out, or sent back to school. Either they are doping docs looking to stay in business or they are incompetent.

That is my take on the captains writing.

As for Ashendens talk of doping in new age teams. It would not surprise me if he had Liquigas-Cannondale in mind.

IIRC he worked on the passport program, and would perhaps have seen a lot of these suspicious values.


There is something fishy about Liquigas-Cannondale, and I hope it gets cleared up before it affects the young talent on that team.


ps. All of this is from the Captain, I only tried to make stuff a bit more readable.

 

[ToreBear]

He also has something on Ivan Basso.
http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33625923840/like-armstrong-like-basso-the-above-data-comes

He's comparing Armstrongs blood values to Bassos. I only read the conclusion, but it does not look pretty. He's been at Liquigas since 2008.

Btw. When did they start to establish a baseline for the blood passport? Was it in 2008, so that by 2009 they could start to use the values?

 

[Zam_Olyas]

I am very interested as to how many number of post will this thread gets.

 

[Arnout]

Pity the links are not in English.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Still very few post.

 

[ToreBear]

Pity the links are not in English.

It becomes understandable after a little while.

 

[Arnout]

I don't have the energy to translate stuff like that in normal English after a day of studying. I'll let the guy have his small pleasure, but it's totally pointless in my view.

 

[hrotha]

It's a bit like reading Scots. Don't let the initial barrier discourage you.

Anyway, Liquigas is one of the shadiest teams in the peloton. Remember the allegations that Nibali and Pellizotti were working with Ferrari?
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/pellizotti-and-nibali-deny-working-with-ferrari

The La Repubblica article also alleged that two riders had worked with Ferrari in Livigno in 2007. Fanini said that, at the time, he had advised Liquigas manager, Robert Amadio, who confirmed to him that Nibali and Pellizotti were in Livigno. However, he said Amadio denied that the riders were training with Ferrari.

Nevermind the claim that they were working with Ferrari in 2009; right here, we have what appears to be an outright lie in light of Bertagnolli's affidavit.

In 2008, Liquigas probably instructed their riders to "stop working with Ferrari wink wink". Pellizotti would later get popped.

 

[ToreBear]

Looks like Basso doped for the 09 vuelta.

His post has images:

now in Ivan ‘s data there are several curious things to discuss

but let’s start with a cluster uv low retic values the 2009 vuelta

the green lines the retic 0.65 0.6 0.65

average fer Ivan is 0.94

the staring hgb 14.6

average fer Ivan is 14.1

dips to 13.25

then recovers to 15

amazing

nearly identicle to the Armstrong data

fer corroboration

just prior to the vuelta hgb 14 retic 1.2

n

then just as would be expected

following a transfusion jus prior to the vuelta

the hgb jumps up a bit to 14.6

n

the retic gets suppressed to 0.65

so completely consistent with blood transfusion

just before n during 2009 vuelta

now there’s a few fewer data points than lances

so the odds may be more like 1 in 10,000 instead uv 1 million

but likely well past the 99% threshold

so why isn’t basso facing a lifetime ban fer a second offence ?

who the fugg knows

the final gc by the way
1 VALVERDE, Alejandro ESP Caisse d’Epargne 87:22:37

2 SÁNCHEZ, Samuel ESP Euskaltel - Euskadi 00:55

3 EVANS, Cadel AUS Silence - Lotto 01:32

4 BASSO, Ivan ITA Liquigas 02:12

5 MOSQUERA, Ezequiel ESP Xacobeo Galicia 04:27

6 GESINK, Robert NED Rabobank 06:40

7 RODRIGUEZ, Joaquin ESP Caisse d’Epargne 09:08

8 TIRALONGO, Paolo ITA Lampre - NGC 09:11

9 DEIGNAN, Philip IRL Cervelo TestTeam 11:08

10 COBO, Juan José ESP Fuji Servetto 11:27

11 MORENO, Daniel ESP Caisse d’Epargne 14:24

http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33625923840/like-armstrong-like-basso-the-above-data-comes

Hmm. Why is Basso still racing?

UCI lost the adress of the biopassport comitee?

They thought the files were Lances since they looked so similar, hence did'nt forward them?

Perhaps they thought Liquigas would suffer enough with Franco Pellizotti's ban?

Perhaps Pellizotti was expendable, while Basso was not expendable?

The Liquigas team of Franco Pellizotti, who yesterday was named as one of three riders under investigation by the UCI in relation to possible doping, has floated the possibility of taking legal action over the matter.

The team issued a statement today in which it said that its preliminary investigations don’t prove that the rider concerned has done anything improper.

“In order to fully understand the situation and the factors which led to this decision, Liquigas Sport has tasked its own physician, Doctor Roberto Corsetti, to analyse the medical and scientific aspects relating to this case,” it said in the communiqué.

“According to current analyses, the evidence which has been presented does not seem to scientifically prove with certainty any improper conduct by the athlete. Liquigas Sport has faith in the explanations that will be provided by Franco Pellizotti and by the experts whom he has hired.”

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4...ng-charges-says-legal-action-is-possible.aspx

Hmm. They wanted to sue the UCI. Well that certainly would get Pat's attention. And their Doctor Corsetti even said there was nothing wrong.

Perhaps Pat didn't quite have the guts to sanction Basso then. And if he was about to find his nerve......

Liquigas sends out another threat to the Coni's head anti doping proscecutor:

Paolo Zani, the CEO of the Liquigas company that sponsors the Italian cycling team, has revealed plans to sue Ettore Torri, the head of the Italian anti-doping prosecutor's office because of his suggestions that doping was rife in cycling.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/liquigas-to-sue-ettore-torri-over-doping-comments
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=10691&highlight=Liquigas

Where Lance does his work with carrots, Liquigas seems to use sticks....

Anyway, fast forward to 2011-2012 and Liquigas drives around with a refrigeration truck with fresh italian produce doing science and stuff for the good health of their riders.

Will that be fresh Sicilian yogurt with your transfusion sir?
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/liquigas-cannondale-team-doctor-how-cycling-helps-science

Perhaps after Corsetti is done with his science on the blood, he and Magni reinfuses it a few weeks later for the riders. If the blood is only going to be stored, one might as well do a little tinkering with it at the same time. For science of course.

So a team with doping doctors travels around with a mobile laboratory and a refrigeration truck for science. The scientific papers they deliver don't seem to hold water since some their subjects might be doped(by them).

And they have to be careful with the data they publish, since they don't want it to be too obvious what they are really doing, besides the questionable science.

And of course they also deny their staff knew their riders worked with Ferrari after he had been banned by Coni.

Which is a lie:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012...new-riders-worked-with-michele-ferrari_256724

With Liquigas leaving and Cannondale taking over. Perhaps one can hope for a little bravery from the UCI's numba 1 doping crusader Pat Mcquaid?


Someone please wake me up. This stuff is getting weird...

 

[ToreBear]

Liquigas Cannondale has links to the Leonardo Bertagnolli affidavid in the USADA case.
Discussed here:
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=18784

Blog post here:
http://thegaviafiles.tumblr.com/pos...tagnolli-testimony-a-look-into-ferraris-world

A little extract:

Apparently, the Mapei Center façade at last wore off and that old Ferrari magic just wasn’t so magic any more.

Update: Liquigas-Cannondale has issued a press release “to express its opposition and strong desire for clarification” to the testimony of Bertagnolli. The team asserts a commitment to clean cycling. From the press release:

Following the case of the athlete Di Luca (who was not resigned) visiting doctor Santuccione and the report about banned doctors issued at the end of 2007 by the national anti-doping prosecutor Torri, Liquigas Sport has worked to get to the root of this problem and prevent it by putting a clause (the first team in the world to do so) in the team-athlete contracts that categorically prevents them from seeing trainers or doctors outside of the team (Paolo Slongo and doctor Roberto Corsetti), with the penalty of immediate dismissal with just cause. There has only been one exception since 2008 and this was granted to Ivan Basso, who is followed by Aldo Sassi and by the Mapei Center.

The team also restates its commitment to transparency and supporting anti-doping efforts in cycling, but does not explcitily deny the details of Bertagnolli’s statement.

What's up with this Mapei Center?

 

[Ferminal]

After Bertagnolli I have zero faith in Amadio's ability to run a clean team.

What's up with this Mapei Center?

It's where Australians go to pretend they are clean.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

http://captaintbag.tumblr.com/post/33755728771/tuh-jump-in-on-a-kill-after-its-been-made-is

Basso was a 3 on the suspicion index.

 

[del1962]

Clostebol abuse from Agostini

 

[Ferminal]

Luckily he was clean as an amateur!

 

[Netserk]

The other day I saw the Zonc times from '07, '10 & '11 and noticed that Nibali was faster in '07 when he was a dom than he was in '10 & '11 when he podiumed the Giro

Says a lot about the state of Liquigas (and cycling) in '07...

Link

 

[The Hitch]

Basso doped in 09?

But wait a minute, that was one of ryos "things I know for a fact". That basso did not dope post suspension.

 

[EnacheV]

It's funny how there's so much brit bashing here but the only weasels that pop up are from somewhere else.

UKADA must suck.

 

[ToreBear]

The other day I saw the Zonc times from '07, '10 & '11 and noticed that Nibali was faster in '07 when he was a dom than he was in '10 & '11 when he podiumed the Giro

Says a lot about the state of Liquigas (and cycling) in '07...

Link

There could be other explanations. Tactics on the stage, when in the race the stage was, amount of drafting available, wind direction, wind speed. Too many variables IMHO.

 

[Netserk]

Have you seen the Zonc? It's more or less stripped for tactics (and drafting). The only risk is blowing up Evans style.

 

[Galic Ho]

There could be other explanations. Tactics on the stage, when in the race the stage was, amount of drafting available, wind direction, wind speed. Too many variables IMHO.

The Killer won that year followed by Andy Schleck. Now take a look at how they race these days. Netserk is right. Just like the Angliru, tactics mean little. It's delightfully making a comeback for the next Giro on the second last day...or so I read. Can't wait!!!

2007 was balls to the wall blood doping with lots of EPO micro dosing. Ask the Chicken and see what he did at the Tour that year. Was an amazing year for doping performances. They're only just now getting back to those levels.

2008 did slow things down. Not clean, but slowed a lot of people down. ABP came into play.

The Basso graphs are interesting. Take Ivan's form these days. I have no doubt he doped for the 2009 Vuelta, but look at his profile for GT's after that. If it's accurate, I'd be hard pressed to say I even thought he'd blood doped. Even for the 2010 Giro. Not the same rider he once was and his blood profile, although it only goes up to 2011 on the graphs shows that. Big difference. Oh and he has been injured the last two seasons. Crash and a boil. Ewww.

 

[ToreBear]

Have you seen the Zonc? It's more or less stripped for tactics (and drafting). The only risk is blowing up Evans style.

Haven't seen it. But I was also thinking about the parcours on the the stage before the climb. As in how much energy had been used on the stage and previously.

Then there are factors during the race. Was it a ride slow procession for most of the stage or full gas all the way? Was Nibali doing a lot of work at the front or saving himself?

There are a lot of variables involved. I'm just weary of using the stopwatch as a dope detector. I think of it more as something to take note of, nothing more.

Nibali clean or not? I don't know, I hope he is clean, but there are some things to look upon as risk factors IMHO.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

He is probably dirty. 99.9 and a half chance.

 

[Ferminal]

Remember 2007 was only one year after 2006 where we had supra-human trio on Alpe d'Huez and in the Tour we had the amazing performances on Galibier/PdB/Aubisque. The only "restriction" to doping was failing an off-score...

 

[Ferminal]

Zam stop trying to inflate the post count, it does not correlate with cleanliness!

 

[Zam_Olyas]

zam stop trying to inflate the post count, it does not correlate with cleanliness!

:d

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