Returning Dopers racing at their doped level..

[alpine_chav]

But he isn't a known doper returning to previous form. Is he?

Yeah gotta love when a clean rider like Cadel wins! Go Cadel!!

 

[Zweistein]

Actually I think that the DNA has a memory for drugs be it EPO, THC, OPIATES, ROIDS what have you.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Are you intentionally trying to make it look like all these guys who are riding like they were before their suspension are now clean or do you just struggle with basic biology?

 

[D-Queued]

Actually I think that the DNA has a memory for drugs be it EPO, THC, OPIATES, ROIDS what have you. Once a person has trained and performed at the extreme method allowed by PEDs an individual knows their capabilities. Roids have to have a lifetime strengthening effect.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Are you intentionally trying to make it look like all these guys who are riding like they were before their suspension are now clean or do you just struggle with basic biology?

And here it was only a couple of days ago that I was lauding flick's comments.

But, maybe he is onto something here.

We have physical addition and mental addiction. Perhaps PEDs also give rise to DNA addiction? (ok, maybe a stretch)

Some might consider that a strengthening effect that reminds you to use PEDs.

If they are DNA addicted, will their children also be PED-addicted just like crack babies? (insert old joke about GH here)

Dave.

 

[Anonymous]

First of all, sorry if this has been a thread already, couldn't see it..

Secondly, I'm having trouble with the title of the thread


What I'm wondering is, how can returning dopers still achieve the same performance and results as when doped..
If they can achieve their current results 'clean', why did they ever dope in the first place??(And obviously the dope didnt work that well..if their results are the same )
And why do the cycling media never ask them how they can achieve their current results clean..
Leads me to believe that these cyclists are still at whatever they were at first..
Some examples that come to mind... Basso, Scarponi, Di Luca, Vino, David Millar(to a certain degree)

Of those I would say that Vino and David Millar were well below their previous level but obviously age etc comes into it. Di Luca we have yet to really see what he will do.

For the others, they would argue, that they doped when everyone else was doping, now that the sport is much cleaner, they are able to win races fairly.

 

[greatking88]

Of those I would say that Vino and David Millar were well below their previous level but obviously age etc comes into it. Di Luca we have yet to really see what he will do.

For the others, they would argue, that they doped when everyone else was doping, now that the sport is much cleaner, they are able to win races fairly.

I wouldnt agree with you on Vino, first in LBL, stage win in the tour, wearing the pink jersey in Giro and second in san sebastian, quite a good level for 2010..

And on David Millar, I dont particularly like him, pretty much blamed everyone for his doping except himself..

Di Luca looks like he's got a decent level in Tirreno this week..

 

[Rip:30]

Sure, possible. But no evidence that I’m aware of. The most suggestive evidence I know is that training is known to increase the levels of certain enzymes involved in energy metabolism, and some of that change, though probably not most, may persist in athletes after they stop training. One could theorize that EPO or blood transfusion, by increasing oxygen transport to cells, has a similar enhancing effect on these or other enzymes, some of which persists. But I would be surprised if the effect is very large. If it is, what is Millar doing wrong?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Training will increase the number of mitochondria per unit of muscle tissue as well as augment capillary development to feed the muscle. My understanding (text book only) is that this and other peripheral factors are the limiters for the long hard efforts required for road races. This has led me to wonder why blood doping is so effective? The actual cause of lactate threshold has always been confusing for me.

 

[Rip:30]

And here it was only a couple of days ago that I was lauding flick's comments.

But, maybe he is onto something here.

We have physical addition and mental addiction. Perhaps PEDs also give rise to DNA addiction? (ok, maybe a stretch)

Some might consider that a strengthening effect that reminds you to use PEDs.

If they are DNA addicted, will their children also be PED-addicted just like crack babies? (insert old joke about GH here)

Dave.

Yes, addictive tendencies are inheritable. If it runs in your family it's actually not that funny.

 

[Rip:30]

Originally Posted by flicker
Actually I think that the DNA has a memory for drugs be it EPO, THC, OPIATES, ROIDS what have you.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Are you intentionally trying to make it look like all these guys who are riding like they were before their suspension are now clean or do you just struggle with basic biology?

Totally plausible that enough drug use alters expression patterns in your genome for the rest of your life. Drugs by definition alter how your biology functions. Even if a drug doesn't directly interact with DNA, it's actions will be measured and responded to by your genome--guaranteed. How long that response lasts depends on many things like how long/much of the drug you've used. Although saying DNA "has a memory for drugs" is not exactly correct, there's a complex biological reality underlying the longterm effects of drug use that is anchored by the composition of your DNA and it's regulatory mechanisms.

 

[Merckx index]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Well, actually it often is, if the evidence should be there, and it's not found. There is no physical evidence for string theory, and that is evidence against this theory, though granted it's hard to test. There is no evidence that carbohydrates are the genetic material, and that absence of evidence is considered strong evidence of absence.

Absence of evidence is generally not proof of absence. The UFO crowd has been making hay on that for a long time.

Training will actually increase the number of mitochondria per unit of muscle tissue as well as augment capillary development to feed the muscle. My understanding (text book only) is that this and other peripheral factors are the limiters for the long hard efforts required for road races. This has led me to wonder why blood doping is so effective? The actual cause of lactate threshold has always been confusing for me.

Blood doping is effective because it brings more oxygen to those mitochondria. The cause of the lactate threshold is limits on how fast cells can metabolize this substance.

Totally plausible that enough drug use alters expression patterns in your genome for the rest of your life. Drugs by definition alter how your biology functions. Even if a drug doesn't directly interact with DNA, it's actions will be measured and responded to by your genome--guaranteed. How long that response lasts depends on many things like how long/much of the drug you've used. Although saying DNA "has a memory for drugs" is not exactly correct, there's a complex biological reality underlying the longterm effects of drug use that is anchored by the composition of your DNA and it's regulatory mechanisms.

FAir point. Drugs can and certainly do alter expression patterns of genes in the short-term, and many drugs, particularly steroids, in fact do interact directly with DNA. Addictive drugs result in alterations that may last a fairly long time. But these changes are not in the DNA itself, but in proteins/enzymes involved in metabolism.

Likewise with training. As I noted earlier, training raises the levels of certain enzymes involved in energy metabolism. The DNA that codes for these enzymes is not changed. The levels might be maintained by certain factors that regulate the DNA, thus keeping synthesis of the enzyme elevated.

 

[Rip:30]

FAir point. Drugs can and certainly do alter expression patterns of genes in the short-term, and many drugs, particularly steroids, in fact do interact directly with DNA. Addictive drugs result in alterations that may last a fairly long time. But these changes are not in the DNA itself, but in proteins/enzymes involved in metabolism.

Likewise with training. As I noted earlier, training raises the levels of certain enzymes involved in energy metabolism. The DNA that codes for these enzymes is not changed. The levels might be maintained by certain factors that regulate the DNA, thus keeping synthesis of the enzyme elevated.

You do realize how the expression levels are altered right? It could be a change in higher order structure of the chromosome that inhibits or enhances transcription factor binding, an allosteric interaction of a co-factor with that TF, epigeneitc methylation of the TF binding site, ect.

So yes the DNA sequence isn't altered, but it's totally incorrect to claim the "DNA itself isn't altered".

 

[Rip:30]

Well, actually it often is, if the evidence should be there, and it's not found. There is no physical evidence for string theory, and that is evidence against this theory, though granted it's hard to test. There is no evidence that carbohydrates are the genetic material, and that absence of evidence is considered strong evidence of absence.

Absence of evidence is generally not proof of absence. The UFO crowd has been making hay on that for a long time.

Ok proof is not a word I use. There's almost no such thing in biology.

But that aside, where are the longitudinal/mechanistic studies on the long term effects of PEDs, (i.e. after a two year ban, going clean, keep up training the whole time)? People have looked for UFOs, and come up with jack. With string theory we can't look yet b/c the experiments have been impossible to preform so far as I know.

My point is that no one has looked at PEDs --> performance over time, where there's a cessation of PED use somewhere in the middle of the athletes' careers. Therefore, we really just don't know at this point.

Blood doping is effective because it brings more oxygen to those mitochondria. The cause of the lactate threshold is limits on how fast cells can metabolize this substance. Likewise with training. As I noted earlier, training raises the levels of certain enzymes involved in energy metabolism. The DNA that codes for these enzymes is not changed. The levels might be maintained by certain factors that regulate the DNA, thus keeping synthesis of the enzyme elevated.

Certain enzymes, huh, like which ones?

My physiologist friends always tell me that LT is at an oxygen consumption rate below VO2max. To me that sounds like the mitochondria can't use all the oxygen that your cardiovascular system can deliver. So why does more oxygen from doping improve LT (does it)?

 

[Granville57]

As for a rider being psychologically changed, because he's had experience going beyond his former limits, seems to me that could work either way.

First off, thanks for this and all your other posts. Always well reasoned and rational.

As far as the psychological aspects, or what I referred to earlier as the "feeling" that the doped rider may experience:

I would imagine that there is something to be gained by quite literally "feeling" one's body perform at an elevated level. Even if those same peaks can not be reproduced without PEDs, knowing the limits of one's body and being able to gauge one's training and progress against those previous physical experiences would seem to offer something useful to any athlete (but as you suggested, this could be a double-edged sword).

Any endeavor taken to a very high level becomes very personal and internalized in a way that is probably unique for everyone. Having reached the summit, so to speak, if even briefly, will at least provide that person with recognizable (internal) landmarks in their attempts to find their way back.

I would probably rank this type of effect as pretty low on the list of factors that would have meaningful—at the elite competitive athlete level—impact on real-world results (there's no shortage of previously doped athletes who did not, or could not, return to the same level once clean) but I do believe that it could have some effect.

I suppose that a healthy mental state would be even more important for an athlete to come back from doping and rebuild his or her abilities to competitive levels.

(Was that too heady? It's late and I'm not as eloquent right now as perhaps this topic requires. )

 

[Granville57]

Another problem with all of this is that there's is no way to quantifiable know just how good a doped athlete could've been had they never doped. How could that ever be known?

David Millar has talked about the irony of PEDs because he has claimed that he didn't need them (although he's speaking specifically about TTs). He feels he could have had the same results with or without. [5:45 mark]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_SAAUO_tbY

But then we have this:

schmalz And what was the effect of it? I don't think it's like you inject something and suddenly you're like Popeye...

Millar You wouldn't notice it unless you were a high level athlete, an elite athlete. And if you're an elite athlete, it makes a big difference.

schmalz And then in training it was a big difference?

Millar All you do is, all that happens is, let's say you're riding up the climb and breathing really hard. - Iit really hurts. Once you do EPO, same sensation: I – it really hurts, but you can keep going. You keep going. A five k climb, where you're like "It really hurts!" I, it still really hurts when you're on EPO, but you get ten ks. And then you can recover immediately, boom, do it again the next climb. It sustains your maximal effort.http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/david-millar-interview

We also have this exchange between Bonnie D. Ford and FLandis as a reference, but again, no real way to come to any definitive conclusions about what any given athlete may have been like without PEDs.
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/columns/story?columnist=ford_bonnie_d&id=5215959

Q: Do you have any way to gauge how good an athlete you were without performance-enhancing drugs?

A: Performance-enhancing drugs don't make as big a difference as most people would like to think they do. Nevertheless, I used them to do what I was able to do, so I guess it really doesn't matter. At the time, it was part of the game, and like I say, I don't regret it at all.

Q: So if you were in a fantasy world there were no performance-enhancing drugs and you were racing against all the other guys you were racing against [from 2002 to 2006], you would still be one of the best?

A: I have no way of knowing. I could hypothesize that a given drug would help any given athlete, probably, differently than it would help another one, but I have no way of knowing that.

Q: I've heard it said that drugs can make a great athlete a little better, but they're not going to make a mediocre athlete into a great athlete. Would you agree with that statement?

A: I really don't have enough information to know. I know what I did, and I don't -- I find it hard to believe it would turn somebody who didn't do any training or wasn't in any way talented into an athlete, but I'd guess not.

Interesting comparison.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

Returning clean?

Here's a perfect example that should help answer some questions:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/sin...e-analytical-finding-for-human-growth-hormone

His team's comments are interesting as well...

 

[Ferminal]

Can we have a list of returning dopers and who may be clean?

Vino: No
Ricco: Gone
Sinkewitz: Gone
Di Luca: Doesn't look good
Scarponi: Highly questionable
Basso: As above
Ventoso: Possibly
Millar: Tough one
Hondo (did he actually get busted?): Hesitant yes

Add some more...

So I would say Hondo, Millar and Ventoso who I would actually think about the possibility of being clean. There are none who you could say are definitely clean, but I guess that is a rare commodity even out of the whole lot. I think though that if you took a random sample of the top cyclists you would at least find more who you might consider to be clean, even if you have difficulty saying it with 99% certainty.

 

[greatking88]

Can we have a list of returning dopers and who may be clean?

Vino: No
Ricco: Gone
Sinkewitz: Gone
Di Luca: Doesn't look good
Scarponi: Highly questionable
Basso: As above
Ventoso: Possibly
Millar: Tough one
Hondo (did he actually get busted?): Hesitant yes

Add some more...

So I would say Hondo, Millar and Ventoso who I would actually think about the possibility of being clean. There are none who you could say are definitely clean, but I guess that is a rare commodity even out of the whole lot. I think though that if you took a random sample of the top cyclists you would at least find more who you might consider to be clean, even if you have difficulty saying it with 99% certainty.

I agree with your post mostly. My only problem with Millar is that I dont believe his TT performance in the World Championships..

 

[Angliru]

Any cyclist who comes back from a doping ban cannot and will not achieve the same performance as before and they never do. Most dopers come back and continue to dope. Valverde, DiLuca, Ricco, Frank Vandenbroucke....they all continueto dope.

Ummm, Valverde is currently suspended and isn't racing. VDB, RIP, well I'm quite certain he's not.

 

[Angliru]

And you know Vino is not doping how?

...and you know for a fact that he is???? How, pray tell, do you if that is the case?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Can we have a list of returning dopers and who may be clean?

Vino: No
Ricco: Gone
Sinkewitz: Gone
Di Luca: Doesn't look good
Scarponi: Highly questionable
Basso: As above
Ventoso: Possibly
Millar: Tough one
Hondo (did he actually get busted?): Hesitant yes

Add some more...

So I would say Hondo, Millar and Ventoso who I would actually think about the possibility of being clean. There are none who you could say are definitely clean, but I guess that is a rare commodity even out of the whole lot. I think though that if you took a random sample of the top cyclists you would at least find more who you might consider to be clean, even if you have difficulty saying it with 99% certainty.

Sella? I know he's not really been racing at his pre-suspension level (well, he has if you take that farcical 2008 Giro out of the equation)...

It's too early to tell on Schumacher (or Cabreira, which will be an interesting one), but Rasmussen has done enough racing to judge. Bastianelli perhaps?

 

[Merckx index]

Certain enzymes, huh, like which ones?

Citrate synthase, hexokinase, carnitine-palmitoyl transferase, cytochrome c oxidase, succinic dehydrogenase. Studies have also shown that if there is an inactive period following training, levels of at least some of these enzymes fall back to normal, or even below normal.

My physiologist friends always tell me that LT is at an oxygen consumption rate below VO2max. To me that sounds like the mitochondria can't use all the oxygen that your cardiovascular system can deliver. So why does more oxygen from doping improve LT (does it)?

Aerobic and anaerobic metabolism both involve glycolysis in the cytoplasm, producing pyruvate. Then they diverge, with pyruvate going to the Krebs cycle in the mitochondria (aerobic) or converted to lactate in the cytoplasm (anaerobic). The LT is defined as the point at which lactate can’t be cleared as fast as it’s produced.

Even at low exercise intensities, some pyruvate, I believe, is being converted into lactate. IOW,there is always a low level of anaerobic metabolism occurring, even if there is in theory enough oxygen for the energy needs tobe met purely through aerobic metabolism. This is just a design feature of the cell; as pyruvate is produced from glycolysis, not all of it will get into the mitochondria.

As exercise intensity increases, more pyruvate is produced, and even though more of it goes into the mitochondria, more of it also is converted to lactate. At some point, therefore, the LT can be reached even though neither oxygen delivery nor pyruvate transport into the mitochondria is maximal.

I don’t know if oxygen vector doping increases LT. I imagine it probably does, through a variety of ways. One way would be to alter the balance or equilibrium between pyruvate transport into the mitochondria and that staying in the cytoplasm. IOW, as more oxygen is available, more pyruvate goes into the mitochondria, so less remains in the cytoplasm to be converted into lactate.

 

[luckyboy]

I'd have a hard time saying any of Ferminal's list were clean. Didn't know about Ventoso's positive though.

Sella? I know he's not really been racing at his pre-suspension level (well, he has if you take that farcical 2008 Giro out of the equation)...

This is from a Savio interview last October about Sella (old post). He was right about Ricco at least.

Savio said last month that he asked for & received from the UCI Sella's his blood and urine results dating back to 2008. He said there was no dubious variations (as there were in 08) since he returned. He also said Sella is shy and impressionable and could've stayed clean if he had better people around him.

Then he said he wouldn't have signed Ricco because because he'd be impossible to manage this way.

 

[hrotha]

I'd have a hard time saying any of Ferminal's list were clean. Didn't know about Ventoso's positive though.



This is from a Savio interview last October about Sella (old post). He was right about Ricco at least.

Any chance that doesn't mean Riccò wouldn't stick to a program and would always do some extra stuff on his own because, hey, it couldn't hurt, whereas Sella would take only what Savio's doctor told him to take? I'm only half kidding.

 

[webvan]

Quite possibly...the Millar interview is interesting, he really emphasizes the endurance and recovery benefits. That works for Sella who always was a gifted climber, remember how he took off early in the climbs in the 2005 Giro and then...petered out and was caught by guys like Simoni. Fast forward to 2008 and he took off and was never seen again, three days in a row. At least they weren't misleading anyone as his team had refused to sign the joke that was the "UCI Charter" or something like that.

Not sure what Simoni's situation was in regards to PEDs (he only got popped for his Grandma's Peruvian cocaine flavored candy AFAIK) but he really lost out to convicted dopers in the Giro, same place, the arrival in Aprica, first in 2006 to Basso (that he then accused of trying to sell him the stage victory) and to Sella in 2008.

 

[greatking88]

I see Sella is back flying away in the mountains..

 

[hrotha]

I see Sella is back flying away in the mountains..

Nah, look at the people he beat. This result is normal for him. I think I've had enough of Androni as a whole, though.