Most disappointing drug suspension?

[Merckx index]

It doesn't have to be a favorite rider. For me, it was when Puerto broke, and Ulle and Basso were forced out of the Tour on about the day before it began. This was the first Tour since LA's reign and promised to be an epic battle between his greatest rivals. Basso had just won the Giro, so there was the added drama of a double attempt. Jan had used the Giro to train, but had dominated the final ITT. Basso had been second the year before, Ullrich third.

This had the potential to be one of greatest Tours, so I always thought. Ullrich was fresher, and would have taken time in the chronos, but Basso was king of the climbs.

 

[spalco]

Bernie Kohl for me, nice guy, plucky, hard working, the exact kind of cyclist I liked.
And I thought his success could be a real impulse for pro cycling in Austria, which would have been ripe. But almost immediately everything crashed down worse than anyone could have imagined.

 

[Aragon]

Contador - Suspicious as hell in every possible way, but trace amounts (only one lab could detect the amounts of a few picograms) of something in the middle of the Tour where it gave no benefit was just not enough for a two year ban particularly when trace amounts of picograms have later led only to a warning in some cases.

 

[macbindle]

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

 

[Aragon]

Re:

Even CIRC addressed the inequality of testing facilities in the report:

The CIRC again expresses concern over the different testing capacities of the laboratories,
as this results in unequal treatment. The Cologne laboratory was at that time, the only laboratory capable of detecting the minuscule thresholds of clenbuterol in Alberto Contador’s sample.

Funny you mentioned Landis, because having read through a lot of the material a few years ago, my recollection is that he would not've tested positive using some other lab criterion, and the whole thing with French Lab errors in documents and rules prohibiting lab staff testifying etc was really dubious.

But if one presumes everyone dopes, perhaps justice is served if a few are caught now-and-then even with dubious evidence.

 

[yaco]

Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Source?

 

[topcat]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Yes, Contador is as innocent as Froome. Both guilty as hell and caught. At least Contador had panache.

 

[macbindle]

Oh come on.

Froome lit up the Giro last year. If Contador had done a spinny-legged attack on the Ventoux you would have jizzed in your pants.

Why the silly exceptionalism for Contador? Hes a massive plasticizer-ridden doper.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Take it the Contador thread guys

 

[macbindle]

No, we won't.

The thread is about drug suspensions.

Froome hasn't had one. Contador has.

 

[topcat]

Re:

No, we won't.

The thread is about drug suspensions.

Froome hasn't had one. Contador has.

Yes we will. Contador attacks Contador, then bridges to Contador and lastly drops Contador on the final steep section.

 

[macbindle]

...crosses the line first.

The line happens to be made of freshly chopped up Clenbutarol which he promptly rails up his nose with panache

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Source?

It's on the WADA website.

 

[silvergrenade]

Contador - Suspicious as hell in every possible way, but trace amounts (only one lab could detect the amounts of a few picograms) of something in the middle of the Tour where it gave no benefit was just not enough for a two year ban particularly when trace amounts of picograms have later led only to a warning in some cases.

Wow! Just wow!

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Source?

It's on the WADA website.

I don't think its an amendment that no AAF will occur for low trace amounts, it's simply that it provides ADOs with the possibility of conducting an investigation into the AAF to see if it's consistent with meat contamination. Contador actually had that opportunity anyway.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Source?

It's on the WADA website.

Where exactly on the WADA website? Because I had a look and could not find anything to the effect of ' if a trace type amount is found then no AAF will be lodged'.

 

[zlev11]

when Ricco almost killed himself doing his own blood transfusion before Paris-Nice in 2011. i never got to see him race live.

 

[CTQ]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Source?

It's on the WADA website.

Where exactly on the WADA website? Because I had a look and could not find anything to the effect of ' if a trace type amount is found then no AAF will be lodged'.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2019-05/wada-publishes-stakeholder-notice-regarding-meat-contamination

 

[Koronin]

Froome NOT being given a ban he should have had.

I think someone who was given a ban the most disappointing for me is Sammy Sanchez at the end of his career.

 

[Scarponi]

Re:

Froome NOT being given a ban he should have had.

I think someone who was given a ban the most disappointing for me is Sammy Sanchez at the end of his career.

This one actually pissed me off a little bit.

 

[IndianCyclist]

All 2nd suspensions. Riders get a 2nd chance to reform and they blow it eg Diluca

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

I think Contador deserved the two year suspension.

Not for the drug use itself, but for the intelligence-insulting excuse he came up with about contaminated steak.

Mind you, if there was any justice in the world Tyler Hamilton would have got life imprisonment for his excuse.

Quite liked Floyd's one..." I had a whisky and it boosted my testosterone".

Yet - WADA has recently added an addendum to the list regarding the possible contamination from food supplement which can cause low grade positives for clenbuterol - In effect if a trace type amount is found ( think Contador ) then no AAF will be lodged.

Source?

It's on the WADA website.

I don't think its an amendment that no AAF will occur for low trace amounts, it's simply that it provides ADOs with the possibility of conducting an investigation into the AAF to see if it's consistent with meat contamination. Contador actually had that opportunity anyway.

Sam - Thanks for clarifying my post - So it means that more WEIGHT will be given to investigate the possible origins of some clenbuterol positives - So it's not a cut and dry AAF and you are guilty - Remember the Tour of Beijing - Think there were three positives to clenbuterol of which one was Rogers - After an investigation the cases were thrown out.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Mikel Astarloza and Ezequiel Mosquera for sentimental reasons.

A big one for me was Patrik Sinkewitz, the second time. Hitch has questioned me on it a few times as I raised the topic a lot a few years ago, but I had a lot of time for Patrik; meeting him when he made his comeback from his 2007 suspension was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. People who doped weren't sinister, shady people cooking up dastardly plots and sneaking around under cover of night like a stereotypical villain; sure some of them were two-dimensional villains, like Riccò, or power-hungry megalomaniacs like Armstrong, but the majority of them were just regular guys doing regular things, and doping was something that, for many, came with the job, much as we'd rather it didn't. Sinky returned with PSK Whirlpool but couldn't get a team for 2010, instead riding the entire route of the Frankfurt Maitagrennen for German TV to analyse the course and to effectively advertise his dedication. ISD (later Farnese Vini) signed him mid-season and he got good results in the Volta a Portugal, Tour of Britain and Italy's catalogue of autumn one-day races. Given how he'd been publicly slammed by many people in a way most dopers weren't (that was probably because he talked. At that point we had three dopers in short order - Sinkewitz, Sella and Frei - who were very candid about what they'd done, with who and so on, in a way that we really haven't with anybody that has been caught since) and his comeback restricted in a way that many other dopers weren't, I felt that it was good that he was getting a chance of redemption that had previously been denied him while hypocritical white knights like David Millar, or less contrite and helpful dopers like half the Italian ProConti scene, were not ostracized the same way.

And then he tested positive again.

 

[F_Cance]

Froome is the most disappointing non-suspension.