what I say is Wada and Uci can't rely on something like the blood passport. every time we see how it's very difficult, from both sides, to work and read it.
what I say is Wada and Uci can't rely on something like the blood passport. every time we see how it's very difficult, from both sides, to work and read it.
Most attempts (or at least the PR about attempts) to "clean up" cycling have come from police actions (Festina, Puerto) or criminal court cases not from testing. But teams and the pros are much less sloppy than in those eras so I don't hold out much hope for that unless a disgruntled former team member (not necessarily a cyclist) hands over some dirt.
Apparently around 50% of ABP potential violations are let go because the accused has provided satisfactory evidence to not be charged. I'll also add the UCI needs to be 100% of an ABP violation because if they get challenged at CAS and lose two or three cases then that will be the end of the ABP.
I looked it up and you are right he did have some good results in 2024..
I am just bummed that riders have no control over bio passport data. And now in posts above, new to me, they don't have access to their own medical records, it's alleged that riders are not given access to their test results.
From what I have gathered Andorra is pretty going on..not Sierra Nevada or Girona but a happening spervu
The thousands of athletes involved would make your opinion just that much more depressing.
If law enforcement is seen as the most significant deterrent to doping bike racing is doomed. Look at most recent snags, guy racing almost exclusively in Portugal. In the US testing is being splintered by division in races done outside the federation and outside the preview of USACycling. So testing is diluted even further. And if law enforcement is a mechanism to catch cycling cheats, it ain't happening in America or most Western countries. If riders are travelling for treatments or mail ordering stuff from China, maybe increase the chances but unlikely. In Mexico and all over Central and South America many banned substances can be purchased without a prescription at a pharmacy or veterinary supply. Your reference of Puerto and Festina is excellent..Festina hasn't been a thing since 2001..I am complaining and moaning about UCI being a few years behind, catching guys with abnormal values from 2018 for example.. Imagine if @20, 25 years ago was seen as effective policing in sports.
If gravel for example in the US continues to grow, gain popularity and it's done by parties outside federation were is the testing protocol setup? Belgian Waffle, Lifetime, other big races make no noise, notice about emphasis on drug free racing.
If catching a 36 year old conti guy from Portugal for an anomaly, not a straight dirty test from 2018 is seen as success by UCI or anyone else, system should be abandoned completely.
UCI needs tests that take hours or days for turn around not years or decades.
And it's looking like latest riders are on 3 strikes your out..UCI reporting that 3 or 4 popped riders had 3 passport abnormalities over multiple years.. So were they waiting for a 3rd test to come back ?
Take Lazkano..issue in April and it took law enforcement and all involved months to get to Andorra, how does the saying go..
Justice delayed is justice denied - Wikipedia
Take Lazkano..issue in April and it took law enforcement and all involved months to get to Andorra, how does the saying go..
Justice delayed is justice denied - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
ITA-UCI knocked on his door in April informing him of the passport issues. all people involved didn't spend weeks in Andorra looking for him. they travelled there once, on the day they needed to inform him of the issues and take his phone and computer. Lazkano had disappeared just for us, the fans.
he kept updating his ADAMS whereabouts daily and the ITA-UCI guys found him at his home address he filled in the ADAMS protocol obvs.
from April he had these few months to explain the abnormal values. then the UCI sent out the official suspension news in October
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I certainly don't know, just read Cycling UpToDate, CN, couple others and YouTube channels all saying, where is he..what's his status? And again you could be right, I read stories to mean that he had an abnormal reading from years ago which was not acted on and latest abnormal test caused UCI or some jackboots to spring into action suddenly.
If you tell American law enforcement to go arrest someone for something inconclusive like a few years old abnormal test, they will toss you out of police station. And the chain of custody better be airtight, bulletproof from samples taken and stored for years and years. And some of these European guys might be subjected to crazy laws but if you are accusing me of a abnormal sample, dirty sample the accused should surely be able to see evidence during discovery process, including who took the test, where, where they stored it, how all that is verified, ect.
I find it insulting that UCI set some bizarre, arbitrary threshold for 3+ abnormal tests, some taken years ago to be call to action. So what were the abnormal tests from years ago? They needed abnormal confirmation by additional abnormal tests? One rider they popped recently had out of range test from 2013 or 14. Abnormal is defined as 3 times? Maybe they could just explain why they ignored the tests from years past.
The CPA, the only association for riders recognized by the UCI
The association "C.P.A., Cyclistes Professionnels Associés" is an international non-profit association that safeguards the interests of the professional riders
Cookster15
Moderator
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Surprised it says the biological passport is a simple and inexpensive measurement tool, similar to a virtual health record at any medical center? Simple and inexpensive? It doesn't seem like it knowing the confidence some seem to think it can be fooled or talk in the Pogacar/Gianetti thread about oil money to manipulate the passport or its monitoring by the UCI / ITA?
But as noted by others Lazkano is another small fish.
But as noted by others Lazkano is another small fish.
This sort of makes sense.. But it all depends on how you calculate " inexpensive " if you need three tests over multiple years in order to sanction a rider, that's one thing. But UCI should have to explain who did the tests years ago, why they chose not to act on abnormal results, or why a 3rd test years later triggered reevaluation of previous test (s) from years past. Doesn't sound fair to anyone, rider, team, sponsors, fans, race organizations.
That's not journalism, that's a statement leaning into the UCI narrative and pushes guilt without evidence. " they must have a good case" about the UCI is ridiculous, given history and the present were arbitrary days of discovery are common.. UCI multiple times this year " oh yeah we found some abnormal tests from years ago " we want to act on now.. What was the reason for delays?
Yeah, and it was Salas' initial & very first sample (#1) given in his ABP that was red-flagged as abnormal...crazy as that sounds. His Hgb concentration (17.1), reticulocytess (0.25%) & OFF-score (141) were all abnormal at 99.9% specificity (note: the normal OFF-score baseline range for this athlete is between 90-100).
The anti-doping experts overseeing his case concluded:
"In the present case, it appears that the erythropoietic suppression, expressed through the OFF score, is much
more important in magnitude: The OFF score in sample 1 is 141, whereas the true OFF score baseline of the
athlete ranges probably between 90 and 100 (see for example samples 3,5,6). The likelihood of observing an
OFF score of 141 in an undoped male athlete even considering a ‘worst case scenario’ (i.e. all confounding
factors such as altitude in favour of the athlete) is about 1:10 000. It should also be mentioned that the athlete
declared short sojourns at altitude for other samples which are not followed by any similar changes (see for
example samples 2 and 3). It is thus highly unlikely that altitude alone has caused changes in the OFF score
visible in the profile”."
Salas had another sample (#4) that was also abnormal, but it was that very first one that was red-flagged leading to his eventual ban.
I've only seen one other time where one of these first time samples taken in an athlete's initial ABP that was red-flagged leading to a ban. That involved a Kenyan elite distance runner, Abraham Kiptum, back in 2018. The sample taken a few days before he set the half-marathon WR showed an showed abnormal Hgb, Ret% & an OFF-score of 148 - all well above the 99.9% specificity. One of Kiptum's defenses was that he donated blood to a sick friend in the weeks leading up to the race but had no proof to show for it. Lol
Here's the Salas CAS hearing if anyone is interested:
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Uh, it seems like they're saying the excel spreadsheet (or whatever) where the test results are archived is "simple and inexpensive" to use. So once you have already collected the data (test results), modern tech makes it easy to collate and track. Of course the cost of many tests over many years and also the expert analysis is not cheap. And the WADA IT department that stapled together the glorified spreadsheet probably has a combined defined benefits package stretching into the tens of millions of USD.
Also, "simple" could be taken to mean "easy to fool".
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"Four of Lazkano's tests came back anomalous" So 3 wasn't enough to react to?
Edit - add-
https://ita.sport/news/uci-decision...-of-oier-lazkano-lopez-based-on-abp-findings/
The boss man at the APMU in Lausanne Switzerland from May this year talks ABP etc
https://cleancompetition.org/2025/0...lete-biological-passport-olivier-salamin-phd/
Edit - add-
https://ita.sport/news/uci-decision...-of-oier-lazkano-lopez-based-on-abp-findings/
Did the UCI jump the gun?
The boss man at the APMU in Lausanne Switzerland from May this year talks ABP etc
https://cleancompetition.org/2025/0...lete-biological-passport-olivier-salamin-phd/
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Thanks for the post!
An Australian and a Belgium guy in Spain tracking dopers. I assume the third "research officer" was Spanish as somebody had to be local. ( I see the Univ of Queensland in Australia has just been made an ITA Academic Centre so not so surprising I suppose)
Is there another cyclist among the "ten or twelve other Spanish athletes", I wonder. Also, so many suspects for one investigation means the ITA are looking for a dodgy doctor with a network, I would guess. (also explains the phone and computer grabbing). Going from the article it seems that the ITA got nada from his phone and 'puter.
We await the next nabbing in Spain of one of the other suspects.
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So are conventional tests just totally worthless if Lazkano can evade them for years? We're not talking about a particularly well funded individual here. Is there even a point in paying for developing and administering direct tests instead of going all in on ABP? (At the top level at least. Doesn't work so well if a first timer shows up to a natty champs.)
Three years is probably way too delayed for the application of justice to be an effective deterrent. By then you've collected your money, fans, laurels. But it's perhaps by design as it doesn't rock the boat too much.
Three years is probably way too delayed for the application of justice to be an effective deterrent. By then you've collected your money, fans, laurels. But it's perhaps by design as it doesn't rock the boat too much.
They aren't worthless. Remember that conventional testing is designed to pick up on the use of things like testosterone, hormones, steroids, EPO etc. If riders aren't getting caught by them, it suggests that the tests are probably doing a fairly good job of deterring widespread use of these substances. The issue is if dopers have moved on to substances or methods of doping that are hard for conventional tests to pick up on. My understanding is micro-dosing EPO would be one example of this. We don't know exactly what Lazkano was doing, but presumably it was something along these lines that wouldn't be detectable in and of itself, but would lead to elevated blood values and trigger an investigation via the biological passport. So conventional testing is still important in ensuring a (hopefully) cleaner sport, but it's performing a slightly different job to the APB.
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