Michael Rogers positive for clenbuterol

[no_slipstream]

Bet Cycling Australia is thinking how could this happen in our backyard.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Bet Cycling Australia is thinking how could this happen in our backyard.

Well of course they are. The funny thing is that the new head of Cycling Australia is also the owner of the Orica-Greenedge and owns the business that is the major sponsor of the track cycling program.

No conflict of interest there...

 

[Master50]

If there were 50% of riders ate the meat from the buffet then we should certainly see more positive tests from the Japan Cup.

look at the people that raced in China before the Japan cup for a clue. If it was contamination as I think is plausible he might get a reduced sentence?

 

[MatParker117]

look at the people that raced in China before the Japan cup for a clue. If it was contamination as I think is plausible he might get a reduced sentence?

If there's a rash of positives I imagine he'll be cleared.

 

[hrotha]

He shouldn't, though. No significant negligence only gets you a halved sentence. You have to be completely blameless to escape punishment altogether. Eating meat in China, after all the warnings? As Contador's teammate, even? That's some significant negligence. That's a full sentence in accordance with the principle of strict liability, and that shouldn't change no matter how many positives there are.

In practice, of course, if a dozen riders who raced in China tested positive, they'd probable be pardoned.

 

[Merckx index]

He was referring to Rogers specifically today and also said it's normally the same length of time to clear(2-3 days) even if it's transfused.

How long a drug takes to clear depends on how much you ingest, and the detection limit. CB has a half-life in blood of about 36 hr. If you eat heavily contaminated meat, and have a very sensitive detection limit, it's possible to be positive well beyond 2-3 days.

I haven't seen anything yet on his urine concentration. Knowing that would help a lot in estimating how much earlier he might have eaten contaminated meat.

Also, as I discussed at great length here a couple of years ago, supplements that are officially declared clean and safe to use could still have a level of CB that could trigger a positive in a highly sensitive test.

I'm not going to defend Rogers as clean, but if in fact he can establish that he took some supplement that had been approved, this could make a very interesting test case. That's assuming that he can't provide strong evidence of contaminated meat, i.e., other riders also testing positive. But as we have discussed here before, athletes by now should know not to eat meat in certain countries.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=16530

This study, about five years old, analyzed about 50 samples of different supplements, and found that about 25% were contaminated with steroids, and about 10% contaminated with stimulants (CB is classified as a stimulant). What I found very interesting was not the number of samples that didn’t pass inspection (earlier studies have come to a similar conclusion), but that the detection limit used for CB and other stimulants was 100 ng/g.* The level used for meat in Europe is a thousand-fold lower—100 ng/kg—which means that “clean” supplements can be considerably more contaminated than clean meat. This is basically what opens the door to an appeal (assuming it can be done within the legally allowed framework).

See also post 159 in that thread, which discusses accreditation standards for contamination.

An athlete taking such a supplement in reasonable quantities would test negative not only at the minimum required detection limit of 2 ng/ml, but in most cases much lower.

The problem, as highlighted by the Contador case, is that testing sensitivity is now more than 100x lower than that standard.

 

[BroDeal]

He shouldn't, though. No significant negligence only gets you a halved sentence. You have to be completely blameless to escape punishment altogether. Eating meat in China, after all the warnings? As Contador's teammate, even? That's some significant negligence. That's a full sentence in accordance with the principle of strict liability, and that shouldn't change no matter how many positives there are.

In practice, of course, if a dozen riders who raced in China tested positive, they'd probable be pardoned.

Holding competitions in countries where the food supply is contaminated then testing athletes for infinitesimal amounts of likely contaminates seems unreasonable to me.

WADA should have established a limit but did not for fear of tarnishing its catch of Contador.

 

[Granville57]

In practice, of course, if a dozen riders who raced in China tested positive, they'd probable be pardoned.

Which begs the question: How many riders were tested in China?

 

[simo1733]

How long a drug takes to clear depends on how much you ingest, and the detection limit. CB has a half-life in blood of about 36 hr. If you eat heavily contaminated meat, and have a very sensitive detection limit, it's possible to be positive well beyond 2-3 days.

I haven't seen anything yet on his urine concentration. Knowing that would help a lot in estimating how much earlier he might have eaten contaminated meat.

Also, as I discussed at great length here a couple of years ago, supplements that are officially declared clean and safe to use could still have a level of CB that could trigger a positive in a highly sensitive test.

I'm not going to defend Rogers as clean, but if in fact he can establish that he took some supplement that had been approved, this could make a very interesting test case. That's assuming that he can't provide strong evidence of contaminated meat, i.e., other riders also testing positive.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=16530



See also post 159 in that thread, which discusses accreditation standards for contamination.



The problem, as highlighted by the Contador case, is that testing sensitivity is now more than 100x lower than that standard.

Supplements that are officially declared safe? No such thing exists!

 

[Clausfarre]

Wow, I can't believe it has been 10 years. Seems like yesterday, Rogers got busted.

What a messy - but luckily distant - past cycling has.

 

[The Hitch]

Wow, I can't believe it has been 10 years. Seems like yesterday, Rogers got busted.
.

Yeah man it does seem like yesterday. The days are long but the years are short

 

[Clausfarre]

For the same reason as people were rejoicing when Phil Zajicek was finally brought down. Rogers has had too many fingers in too many pies and it's been more or less common knowledge that he's shady for almost a decade. This is "Ferrari" Mick "Freiburg" Rogers, who Sinkewitz attested to visiting the clinic where T-Mobile riders were getting blood boosters on TdF rest days, and who Leipheimer's affidavit in the Reasoned Decision explicitly fingers as having been visiting Ferrari for training plans along with those known crusaders for clean cycling Alexander Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin. This was at the time when Ferrari was banned from acting as a physician or pharmacist specifically because of his actions in the doping of professional athletes. This rider has then been a key component (road captain) of a dominant train of cyclists that aggressively touted their cleanliness at all opportunities while putting out higher power outputs than he ever did at T-Mobile or while a Ferrari client. Seeing a rider with his history then boasting of his power outputs and cheerfully telling his teammates they can ignore attacks by GT winners like Evans and Nibali based on the power he's putting out makes it seem doubly appropriate that he should finally be busted.

Of course, there is still a good chance that he may have been innocent on this occasion, but as hrotha already pointed out, given that we know Rogers has been cheating at least at some point in his career for the best part of a decade, good riddance to the guy. I thought he was Teflon, so I'm glad to see I was wrong.

Nice recap. No one is untouchable and there are so many stories still to come (I hope).

 

[Master50]

If there's a rash of positives I imagine he'll be cleared.

I might speculate that he will get some punishment regardless of intent and even if contamination is proven.
I see fewer and fewer outright dismissals of doping positives including those that have good evidence of accidental positives.
Athletes are frequently held to higher standards than criminals. If he had a pst positive I would expect that will effect any leniency too. Instead of an 8 year ban he gets 6 months.
We will see.

 

[thehog]

Which begs the question: How many riders were tested in China?

And how many for this band of product?

 

[oldcrank]

Which begs the question: How many riders were tested in China?

Well, at least one, the Belgian Jonathan Breyne who
had an adverse analytical finding at the Tour of Taihu
Lake in China on 5-NOV-2013.

 

[TourOfTexas]

Great news! Get lost, doper. Glad you finally got busted.

 

[Ferminal]

I thought I'd turn the news on and see who they wheeled out to run interference.

Yep, you guessed it, Mr "I finished 12th in the 96 Tour clean".

"I think... Mick Rogers and for us cyclists is known as Mr Clean of cycling and never ever in his long career have we ever doubted any of his performances"

 

[Stingray34]

I guess we can stop calling him 'Dodger' now.*













*Damn I'm funny. Hope no one beat me to it. Then I'm just an a-hole. What else is new?

 

[Ferminal]

Rogers doesn't hold an Australian license (Swiss or Italian?), he's out of luck if that means he doesn't get the incompetent ASADA prosecuting.

 

[sittingbison]

I thought I'd turn the news on and see who they wheeled out to run interference.

Yep, you guessed it, Mr "I finished 12th in the 96 Tour clean".

"I think... Mick Rogers and for us cyclists is known as Mr Clean of cycling and never ever in his long career have we ever doubted any of his performances"

jeebus you just wouldn't believe the drivel these guys...and this one in particular... come out with

 

[ralphbert]

I thought I'd turn the news on and see who they wheeled out to run interference.

Yep, you guessed it, Mr "I finished 12th in the 96 Tour clean".

"I think... Mick Rogers and for us cyclists is known as Mr Clean of cycling and never ever in his long career have we ever doubted any of his performances"

Don't go crazy, it's just a simple typo, I have fixed it:

"I think... Mick Rogers and for us cyclists is known as Mr Clen of cycling and never ever ever in his long career have we ever doubted any of his performances"

 

[Blakeslee]

This certainly raises questions for Team Sky. I was looking at a picture recently of Froome and Porte from earlier this year, they both looked downright skeletal. I would speculate there is widespread use of some kind of power to weight ratio manipulation going on, whether it is Clenbuterol or another drug or technique.

 

[SundayRider]

This tweet is very interesting - a mainstream British sports broadcaster openly questioning Sky -

Richard Keys‏@richardajkeys9m
Tiernan-Locke. Now Michael Rogers. And the trail seems to lead in only one direction......!

 

[Dear Wiggo]

This tweet is very interesting - a mainstream British sports broadcaster openly questioning Sky -

Richard Keys‏@richardajkeys9m
Tiernan-Locke. Now Michael Rogers. And the trail seems to lead in only one direction......!

Would really like to see the "peloton entry vector" for clenbuterol.

 

[del1962]

This tweet is very interesting - a mainstream British sports broadcaster openly questioning Sky -

Richard Keys‏@richardajkeys9m
Tiernan-Locke. Now Michael Rogers. And the trail seems to lead in only one direction......!

Key was sacked by Sky, in the Andy Gray sexism scandal