Serrano suspended

[Hugh Januss]

I know it's been going on since last year when his team dropped him, but now he is officially suspended for 2 years. Another great success for the bio-passport program.
Why is it that every time they announce someone being caught out by the bio-passport I have to google his name to see if he ever won anything? Well it seems this guy nailed down 102nd in the Giro 3 years ago.
How are we even suppose to believe that this system is catching all of the "bad apples" who are still dumb enough to dope?
Who here believes that? I would welcome any sort of well thought out believeable explanation for how this could possibly be the case.

Edit: I will be the final arbiter (sorry to drop that name) of what constitutes "well thought out".

 

[Cobblestones]

I know it's been going on since last year when his team dropped him, but now he is officially suspended for 2 years. Another great success for the bio-passport program.
Why is it that every time they announce someone being caught out by the bio-passport I have to google his name to see if he ever won anything? Well it seems this guy nailed down 102nd in the Giro 3 years ago.
How are we even suppose to believe that this system is catching all of the "bad apples" who are still dumb enough to dope?
Who here believes that? I would welcome any sort of well thought out believeable explanation for how this could possibly be the case.

Edit: I will be the final arbiter (sorry to drop that name) of what constitutes "well thought out".

I think the system picks mostly peloton fodder, not because of a huge conspiracy between the UCI, the labs, the teams, the organizers, the hog, and LA, but simply because most of the cycling low-life have to dope on their own and they're simply not smart enough to do it well.

People pay tens of thousands of dollar for 'training plans', not just to get the most effective treatment, but also to get the know-how of fooling controls and the passport. The peloton fodder doesn't have that kind of money, so they fool around and get caught. Good doping requires an individual plan and several tests of how the body reacts to whatever pills you pop.

Don't know if that answers your question or not, but that's my explanation why most of the ones caught are basically no-names.

 

[spanky wanderlust]

I know it's been going on since last year when his team dropped him, but now he is officially suspended for 2 years. Another great success for the bio-passport program.
Why is it that every time they announce someone being caught out by the bio-passport I have to google his name to see if he ever won anything? Well it seems this guy nailed down 102nd in the Giro 3 years ago.
How are we even suppose to believe that this system is catching all of the "bad apples" who are still dumb enough to dope?
Who here believes that? I would welcome any sort of well thought out believeable explanation for how this could possibly be the case.

Edit: I will be the final arbiter (sorry to drop that name) of what constitutes "well thought out".

the cyclingnews article says he was also positive for cera. so which is it? did he blow for cera and then they looked at the values and judged them abnormal? or the other way around? if the first way, this can hardly be called a "victory" for the passport programme--taking out a small-time domestique who blew for epo and retrospectively determining his crit was abnormal. there are so many things wrong with this.

it would be nice if someone could post these values so that we could analyze why they are "abnormal". it would be even better to show them side by side with all of the top riders from that giro. we need something that tells us a complete story. but i don't think the uci would like the story that a comparison of this nature would tell.

i don't have an explanation for how your bizarro scenario could be the case because i truly don't believe it.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Ah, but cases like this 'prove' that the UCI is tough on doping, and look they even catch Spanish riders.

It's the UCI version of the Chewbacca Defense 'Look, look, look at the funny UCI Biopassport, see how it dances'

 

[luckyboy]

Biological passport programme claims Spaniard

......
The UCI had requested that the Spanish Federation open disciplinary procedures against him in June 2009. Their request "was based on two elements of evidence collected within the biological passport programme: Mr Serrano’s abnormal haematological profile, and two laboratory reports indicating the detection of CERA in his blood samples collected on 07th May 2009 and on 13th June 2009".

Doesn't look like it was all down to the biopassport

 

[Hugh Januss]

i don't have an explanation for how your bizarro scenario could be the case because i truly don't believe it.

Oh, it's not my bizzaro scenario, I think it is the UCI's, and Phil and Paul's, probably Strickland's as well. I'm just curious to hear someone convincingly defend it, Pat, Bill, Phil? Anyone? Class?

 

[craig1985]

You would have to be a moron to dope with CERA.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

My $0.02

Can't supply you with any explanation for how the bio-passport is catching all the bad apples - believable or otherwise, but my perspective on the passport is still more positive* than most.

Basically, I think the biopassport staff and consultants are somewhat separate from the apparently corrupt UCI admin/heirachy. Essentially the passport group are a bunch of geeks, so they probably just want to know the answer and don't care who's ego gets in the way. Hein might have thought the passport was just going to keep doping hidden within limits. But I'm still hoping it will end up being a trojan horse and an effective anti-doping tool.

There are two key reasons why the big names are not having trouble with the bio-passport so far. The first is that they will probably have the most elaborate and carefully administered program, including masking. The second is, I think there are technical reasons why it has taken so long for strong, legally defensible evidence to be put together, so well-known riders like Pelizotti can be 'charged' on passport information only.

With time, the selectivity and specificity of passport analysis should improve. So the amount of doping that can fly under the radar should decrease. The thing that amuses me is that riders seem to think that if they get away with something now, they have gotten away with it. Retrospective testing anyone? Much easier to re-crunch the passport numbers after refining the models than it is to analyze samples four years later......If my blood values looked like some we have seen I wouldn't be feeling smugly confident about my future reputation.

*Petty revenge for the painful arbiter pun.

 

[ilillillli]

The thing that amuses me is that riders seem to think that if they get away with something now, they have gotten away with it. Retrospective testing anyone? Much easier to re-crunch the passport numbers after refining the models than it is to analyze samples four years later......If my blood values looked like some we have seen I wouldn't be feeling smugly confident about my future reputation.

this is easily the best idea i've seen here. well done. i know it's not as cool as "burning down babylon," but a passport program combined with retroactive testing has a real chance of making a difference, in my opinion. all of this depends on no accepted bribes, of course.

alternatively, i guess we could just burn it down. or kill the beast. or whatever.

 

[luckyboy]

this is easily the best idea i've seen here. well done. i know it's not as cool as "burning down babylon," but a passport program combined with retroactive testing has a real chance of making a difference, in my opinion. all of this depends on no accepted bribes, of course.

alternatively, i guess we could just burn it down. or kill the beast. or whatever.

Plus full body haemoglobin!

 

[Cobblestones]

this is easily the best idea i've seen here. well done. i know it's not as cool as "burning down babylon," but a passport program combined with retroactive testing has a real chance of making a difference, in my opinion. all of this depends on no accepted bribes, of course.

alternatively, i guess we could just burn it down. or kill the beast. or whatever.

I don't think retroactive testing is the golden bullet. So much can happen during a cycling career. You might have an unlucky fall which destroys a whole season, your team might not be invited to the GT you were hoping to ride, or you might not make the cut to be selected by your team, you might not have the breakthrough you hoped for etc. etc. The chance that maybe in two, three or four years someone might find out that your top ten spot in MSR was drug fueled is just one more of the vagaries of the sport. Unless you're a really big fish with great results spanning multiple seasons, at the point of retroactive testing, the limelight has long since moved on to somebody else. No big deal. I don't think it would scare off a lot of riders.

 

[flyor64]

You may be The Arbiter but...

I think the system picks mostly peloton fodder, not because of a huge conspiracy between the UCI, the labs, the teams, the organizers, the hog, and LA, but simply because most of the cycling low-life have to dope on their own and they're simply not smart enough to do it well.

People pay tens of thousands of dollar for 'training plans', not just to get the most effective treatment, but also to get the know-how of fooling controls and the passport. The peloton fodder doesn't have that kind of money, so they fool around and get caught. Good doping requires an individual plan and several tests of how the body reacts to whatever pills you pop.

Don't know if that answers your question or not, but that's my explanation why most of the ones caught are basically no-names.

...I vote for Cobblestone's explanation as "well thought out"

 

[MacRoadie]

People pay tens of thousands of dollar for 'training plans', not just to get the most effective treatment, but also to get the know-how of fooling controls and the passport. The peloton fodder doesn't have that kind of money, so they fool around and get caught.

You know, I've been thinking about this for awhile and I still can't get my arms around something.

A Pro Tour team (let's say Astana cause if I say RadioShack this will derail) spends big money on their GC contender, both in salary and "preparation". They also hire their "pack fodder" at a substantially lesser salary.

While we may jokingly refer to them as "pack fodder", they still play a tremendously important roll: they MUST see after the star rider. They MUST be able to set tempo for hours a la the "rolleurs", and they MUST have above average climbing skills a la the "grimpeurs" in order to do their job. The domestique is the foundation upon which the cycling team is built. No bottle carriers, no stars.

Given the tremendously important roll the domestiques play in the success of their star, it would seem to be in the team's best interest (or should I say PRIMARY interest) to make sure these domestiques are sufficiently "prepared" to perform their job?

Certainly the level of "preparation" doesn't need to match the level of the star's program, but to leave those riders to their own devices, to prepare as they see fit or as they can afford from their own resources creates a huge level of uncertainty when it comes to the ultimate goal: a podium finish for the star rider.

I really have a hard time buying the suggestion that these guys are completely left to their own devices, when the team has so much riding on their strengths and subsequent success of the star riders. There HAS to be some participation on the part of the team. There has to be some oversight, some monitoring, some guarentee for the team that the riders are doing what they "have" to do to be "prepared".

Just a thought.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

this is easily the best idea i've seen here. well done. i know it's not as cool as "burning down babylon," but a passport program combined with retroactive testing has a real chance of making a difference, in my opinion. all of this depends on no accepted bribes, of course.

alternatively, i guess we could just burn it down. or kill the beast. or whatever.

Not my idea. Wish I could find the article! Someone fairly credible said that the beauty of the biopassport is that the data are not going anywhere, as they get better info they can reanalyze.... So I think it's what the science types intend to do.

Would probably need the political will from the hierarchy to budget for the staff time required...unless the geeks want to just do it in their own time and leak the results to Le Equipe....

 

[ilillillli]

I don't think retroactive testing is the golden bullet.

a golden bullet? no.

a far more substantive plan than "burn down babylon"? yes.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

You know, I've been thinking about this for awhile and I still can't get my arms around something.

A Pro Tour team (let's say Astana cause if I say RadioShack this will derail) spends big money on their GC contender, both in salary and "preparation". They also hire their "pack fodder" at a substantially lesser salary.

While we may jokingly refer to them as "pack fodder", they still play a tremendously important roll: they MUST see after the star rider. They MUST be able to set tempo for hours a la the "rolleurs", and they MUST have above average climbing skills a la the "grimpeurs" in order to do their job. The domestique is the foundation upon which the cycling team is built. No bottle carriers, no stars.

Given the tremendously important roll the domestiques play in the success of their star, it would seem to be in the team's best interest (or should I say PRIMARY interest) to make sure these domestiques are sufficiently "prepared" to perform their job?

Certainly the level of "preparation" doesn't need to match the level of the star's program, but to leave those riders to their own devices, to prepare as they see fit or as they can afford from their own resources creates a huge level of uncertainty when it comes to the ultimate goal: a podium finish for the star rider.

I really have a hard time buying the suggestion that these guys are completely left to their own devices, when the team has so much riding on their strengths and subsequent success of the star riders. There HAS to be some participation on the part of the team. There has to be some oversight, some monitoring, some guarentee for the team that the riders are doing what they "have" to do to be "prepared".

Just a thought.

I assumed by "pack fodder" he meant riders from the smaller low-budget teams (and quite possibly their better riders) as opposed to domestiques from the powerhouse teams.

I'd agree that the big money teams with the big money programs provide for all their riders - that certainly seems to have been the case in the past - not only for the obvious team performance enhancement but also so that they're "blooded" so to speak

 

[MacRoadie]

I assumed by "pack fodder" he meant riders from the smaller low-budget teams (and quite possibly their better riders) as opposed to domestiques from the powerhouse teams.

I'd agree that the big money teams with the big money programs provide for all their riders - that certainly seems to have been the case in the past - not only for the obvious team performance enhancement but also so that they're "blooded" so to speak

I'll agree with that. Let's keep in mind though, that Fuji-Servetto is a ProTour team and is also the former Saunier-Duval, home of such well-known, non-pack fodder, riders like Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli

 

[Eyeballs Out]

I'll agree with that. Let's keep in mind though, that Fuji-Servetto is a ProTour team and is also the former Saunier-Duval, home of such well-known, non-pack fodder, riders like Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli

When Ricco was busted he claimed (if you can believe a word that comes out of his mouth) that he was charged 700 euros for his CERA ( http://www.podiumcafe.com/2008/8/1/584628/the-ricco-case-a-new-twist ). As far as the cycling doping world goes that seems pretty low budget

 

[turtlesoup]

Big money teams will provide support for the whole team, Id assume alot of the smaller teams even if they could afford to do it wouldnt because it's harder for them to find/hold onto sponsors, a positive test would hurt them more id think.

 

[lightandlongshadows]

I really have a hard time buying the suggestion that these guys are completely left to their own devices, when the team has so much riding on their strengths and subsequent success of the star riders. There HAS to be some participation on the part of the team. There has to be some oversight, some monitoring, some guarentee for the team that the riders are doing what they "have" to do to be "prepared".

I think you just hit upon the success of USPS/Discovery. Pay the domestiques enough, everyone's on the same page and call it "professional".

There's no accounting on individual actions though, self-administering (outside the program) with hopes of more is hard to predict or control.

I heard an interesting story about Freddy Maertens brother visiting 3 or 4 different doctors back in the day. He eventually went a bit "off" and tried to run someone over with his car, if my memory serves me correctly.

 

[Hugh Januss]

I think you just hit upon the success of USPS/Discovery. Pay the domestiques enough, everyone's on the same page and call it "professional".

There's no accounting on individual actions though, self-administering (outside the program) with hopes of more is hard to predict or control.

I heard an interesting story about Freddy Maertens brother visiting 3 or 4 different doctors back in the day. He eventually went a bit "off" and tried to run someone over with his car, if my memory serves me correctly.

I never heard any story like that about Maertens brother are you sure you don't mean Erik De Vlaeminck, Rogers brother? He had a lot of trouble at one point in time.

 

[lightandlongshadows]

I never heard any story like that about Maertens brother are you sure you don't mean Erik De Vlaeminck, Rogers brother? He had a lot of trouble at one point in time.

You may be correct but it's not whom I recall, it was a long time ago.

The story(s) was told to me while I was racing in Belgium as a way to convince me to stop being a baby and dope.lol! Let's just say it was ineffective. Stories of the all time great dopers (pro & amateur) intermingled with the odd crazy winding up in the psyche ward aren't very persuasive to me.

The point is that these "techniques" were/are readily available from numerous sources so it's plausible to me that a number of riders (particularily up and comers or domestiques) may go "off the reservation" for an extra benefit.

 

[python]

it’s not the bio passport nor the retro testing that’ll save the sport (though i’m positive on both) but this piece of news.

very surprised this was not reported widely and completely missed by cn

http://translate.google.com/transla...ciweb.it/index.php&sl=it&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

On July 6, 2010 will be an important day in the fight against Doping in Lausanne, in fact, Wada and FIIM (Federation Internationale Medicines Industry) will sign an important agreement with big pharma: The purpose of is to allow anti-doping organizations to more easily expose the cheaters. . The pharmaceutical companies are also committed to alerting the Wada potential of a medicinal product since its first development phase. And the engineers of the fight against doping will have access to these molecules from the outset to develop a detection system well before the product is sold.