State of the Peloton 2024

[pastronef]

If Vingegaard did it last year, which is certain since Detalo's CEO Carsten Lundby was there with him in Sierra Nevada before the Dauphine, then I guess Israel did too since they employ him. Btw, he led the race until the last stage, I wouldn't say he got his ass kicked.

has this news reached twitter or are people there still making jokes about breathing from a team car fumes?

 

[Slavique Nuke]

It sounded like you knew they had done it. Just because Visma were using the method last year, it doesn't mean Israel were as well, as I wouldn't expect them to be frontrunners.

The big difference is that Jumbo is model professional team with more capable riders. Israel had some decent results last year with oldsters like Woods and Teuns. And Gee was flying at the Giro, spending almost half of the three weeks in the break, regardless of parcour he was always fighting for the win.

has this news reached twitter or are people there still making jokes about breathing from a team car fumes?

I don't know. But the Danish media wrote about it last year in April and nobody cared - https://www.seoghoer.dk/sport/forsk...ards-krop-ved-endnu-ikke-om-det-har-en-effekt

 

[Rob5091]

CO use is also supposed to help build muscles, which sounds like a possible recovery aid.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0891584924004106

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The big difference is that Jumbo is model professional team with more capable riders. Israel had some decent results last year with oldsters like Woods and Teuns. And Gee was flying at the Giro, spending almost half of the three weeks in the break, regardless of parcour he was always fighting for the win.

Still it seems like a bit of a stretch to claim Riccitello was definitely high on CO during Avenir, if it's uncertain if the team even used it last year.

 

[Nick2413]

No doubt Vingo was using it when he didn’t go to altitude camp before Vuelta last year. Regardless of not needing to be at 100%, it would be silly not to use it.

 

[burning]

I am curious whether this year's jump in the performance is the biggest ever. I think similar jumps happened around 1990-1993, when EPO started to be used and optimized. I think this year's spike in performance may be somehow bigger than that era.

 

[Nick2413]

Derek Gee is probably the highest ranked rider who’s power data is available on Strava if anyone is curious.

 

[Monoxidator]

I am curious whether this year's jump in the performance is the biggest ever. I think similar jumps happened around 1990-1993, when EPO started to be used and optimized. I think this year's spike in performance may be somehow bigger than that era.

Next season will be wild if they don't ban it.

 

[hrotha]

I am curious whether this year's jump in the performance is the biggest ever. I think similar jumps happened around 1990-1993, when EPO started to be used and optimized. I think this year's spike in performance may be somehow bigger than that era.

I'm usually not one to theorize about new products because ultimately it's an unverifiable, magical solution that could answer any question, but I was thinking along the same lines. First some eye-browsing freak performances the last couple years (like EPO in 1990-1992), then a subsequent explosion when doctors have fully figured it out and the rest of the peloton has (and eventually does) catch up (like EPO in 1993-1998)

 

[Nomad]

Chronic continuous exposure to low-dose CO enhances erythropoietic processes
resulting in a 4.8% increase in Hbmass. The individual changes in Hbmass were correlated to the corresponding changes in V˙ O 2max. Examination of ethical and safety concerns is warranted before the implementation of low-dose CO inhalation in the clinical/athletic setting as a tool for modifying Hbmass.

Microdosing rEPO increases Hbmass by 10% - equivalent to approximately two (2) bags of reinfused of blood:

Current markers of the Athlete Blood Passport do not flag microdose EPO doping - PubMed

The Athlete Blood Passport is the most recent tool adopted by anti-doping authorities to detect athletes using performance-enhancing drugs such as recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO). This strategy relies on detecting abnormal variations in haematological variables caused by doping, against...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Microdosing rEPO doesn't flag any markers on the hematological module of the ABP, and is still undetectable outside an 8 hr window - if administered intravenously (WADA's protocol is no testing is allowed between 10:00 PM & 6:00 AM).

Olaf Schumacher has said microdosing rEPO can produce significant improvement in performance.

 

[Nomad]

I don’t see why this wouldn’t be the next big thing for the masses even outside the pro field if it’s really that simple. There’s probably some red tape on getting a hold of the device but breathing into a bag a few times a day for a ~5% performance gain is nuts.

This should bring up hematocrit though so would it just be in lieu of blood doping or somehow work synergistically or even better..?

It's going to affect the ABP - too big of an increase in blood values will flag the hematological module of ABP (Off-Score) regardless of the source.

Carbon monxide exposure & it's effect on the module has been researched as a confounding factor:

Factors Confounding the Athlete Biological Passport: A Systematic Narrative Review - PMC

Through longitudinal, individual and adaptive monitoring of blood biomarkers, the haematological module of the athlete biological passport (ABP) has become a valuable tool in anti-doping efforts. The composition of blood as a vector of oxygen in the ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[zlev11]

wouldn't manipulating your blood values with CO trigger the biopassport? i know that's why they would do it at altitude, but that must wear off after a couple weeks, no? they're still going insanely fast 3 weeks into the Tour. there has to be something else. maybe they are using blood transfusions with CO affected blood? i still think that would trigger the passport.

 

[Nomad]

It should if it affects blood values the same way as an ESA & transfusions do.

The ABP is set on the athlete's baseline Hct/Hgb & RET% numbers. The software of the hematological module has upper & lower parameters based on those individual values. Breaching the upper or lower parameters (Off-Scores) at any time flags the software & prompts an evaluation by anti-doping experts.

Some forms of altitude training (i.e. high enough altitude & long enough exposure duration) can affect the ABP & that's why it's a confounding factor, and would be taken into consideration by anti-experts before any potential hematological-anomalies case would be opened up against the athlete.

Here's Schumacher's landmark paper on the effect of ESA, blood transfusions, hypoxia, etc, on the ABP (PDF is available for free):

Detection of EPO doping and blood doping: the haematological module of the Athlete Biological Passport - PubMed

The increase of the body's capacity to transport oxygen is a prime target for doping athletes in all endurance sports. For this pupose, blood transfusions or erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESA), such as erythropoietin, NESP, and CERA are used. As direct detection of such manipulations is...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Ripper]

wouldn't manipulating your blood values with CO trigger the biopassport? i know that's why they would do it at altitude, but that must wear off after a couple weeks, no? they're still going insanely fast 3 weeks into the Tour. there has to be something else. maybe they are using blood transfusions with CO affected blood? i still think that would trigger the passport.

'Triggering' the passport only results in more targeted testing. And CO is not currently a banned method. It is grey (in more ways than one, lol), and I'm pretty sure they don't have a great test for it yet, unless you answer the testing call with blue lips.

 

[Gratemans]

Journalism and sport. Is there a more toxic combination?

Doping allegations are unjust

Let's ask two people within cycling why it's not doping. Then we tackled that subject and can move on and say again how Pogacar is giving cycling lessons to the rest of the peloton (literal quote yesterday during Eurosport broadcast). Just like everyone did during the Armstrong years. He was working harder, more innovative, high cadence and just better than everyone.

'journalism' and the repetitive cyclus.

They did not ask why your winning performances went from 6.2wkg at end of a stage with 40 minute climb to close to 7. Why years ago high carb intake and importance of it was already know. Weight limits on bike leaving only very marginal aero gains (especially in mountain stages). Heat training also isnt new. No, for the wide audience let's just play stupid again. Lack any and all criticism. Just to proof sports journalists can't be called journalists, just fanboys that are happy with a free item of their favorite sportsperson.

I can't retrace it, but someone a few days ago wrote a very astute post on how there used to be truly investigative journalism into cycling, and how that disappeared in the past years.
News outlets just don't have the money for independant investigative journalism anymore. It shifted towards writing about cycling just to get the most clicks. There is no vested interest in truly scrutinizing cycling and the doping that comes with it anymore. "Biting the hand that feeds you" and all that. It's pretty sad really.

 

[Nick2413]

'Triggering' the passport only results in more targeted testing. And CO is not currently a banned method. It is grey (in more ways than one, lol), and I'm pretty sure they don't have a great test for it yet, unless you answer the testing call with blue lips.

With so many ways to increase HCT/Hgb these days they should just go back to a hard limit on it and not even bother trying to detect exact compounds. Frankly it doesn’t even matter whether it’s EPO or CO or altitude, they all do the same thing, and the health risk is the high HCT values.

 

[Nick2413]

I can't retrace it, but someone a few days ago wrote a very astute post on how there used to be truly investigative journalism into cycling, and how that disappeared in the past years.
News outlets just don't have the money for independant investigative journalism anymore. It shifted towards writing about cycling just to get the most clicks. There is no vested interest in truly scrutinizing cycling and the doping that comes with it anymore. "Biting the hand that feeds you" and all that. It's pretty sad really.

The only hope is that the story becomes big enough to be a bigger revenue generator. The Lance saga probably made more money for involved media than if it never happened.

 

[E_F_]

The only hope is that the story becomes big enough to be a bigger revenue generator. The Lance saga probably made more money for involved media than if it never happened.

I think taking down Pogacar might just be sufficiently profitable by now. Especially with the UAE connection. We love stories where authoritarian states get involved in crimes!

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

The only hope is that the story becomes big enough to be a bigger revenue generator. The Lance saga probably made more money for involved media than if it never happened.

Yes but was also a story about a super narcissistic villain trying to figurate as Cycling-Jesus, coming back not from the dead but from cancer, Live Strong and all the other stuff that came with it. It's also that there was a lot to go on after a while, all we have to go on so far is watts, times and maybe CO intake, and that's not even banned. Lance is also a talent in making enemies, Pogacar doesn't seem to have that talent, outside of winning "to much".

I think one of the problems is, that everyone in cycling learned that the entire anti-doping thing isn't worth it, because you end up looking like the worst sport there is once you seriously try to get rid of it. I can't find it right now, but I saw a statistic recently how many riders were involved in doping incidents in the peloton and the number for the last years was incredibly low, like 3 percent, while it used to be around 50% just years prior. No one is getting caught: so either Anti-Doping is in a horrid state, or the stuff used is really hard to find.

 

[Nick2413]

Yes but was also a story about a super narcissistic villain trying to figurate as Cycling-Jesus, coming back not from the dead but from cancer, Live Strong and all the other stuff that came with it. It's also that there was a lot to go on after a while, all we have to go on so far is watts, times and maybe CO intake, and that's not even banned. Lance is also a talent in making enemies, Pogacar doesn't seem to have that talent, outside of winning "to much".

I think one of the problems is, that everyone in cycling learned that the entire anti-doping thing isn't worth it, because you end up looking like the worst sport there is once you seriously try to get rid of it. I can't find it right now, but I saw a statistic recently how many riders were involved in doping incidents in the peloton and the number for the last years was incredibly low, like 3 percent, while it used to be around 50% just years prior. No one is getting caught: so either Anti-Doping is in a horrid state, or the stuff used is really hard to find.

I don’t recall but I feel LA only started being seen as a narcissist once too many questions were asked. It’s hard to imagine Pog being worse but I see him as a much easier target than Vingegaard for example.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

I don’t recall but I feel LA only started being seen as a narcissist once too many questions were asked. It’s hard to imagine Pog being worse but I see him as a much easier target than Vingegaard for example.

Why do you think he is a much easier target? Vingegaard has his absurd TT and also pretty much absurd numbers considering where he's coming from with the injury even more so. I agree that Pogacars dominance is much more crushing on many levels, he also has a very tainted entourage to say the least, but Vingegaard has beaten him many a times and is also actually quite the dominant rider when Pogi is not around. He won 3 out of 4 stages in his first race of the season for example.
I agree that Pogacar is the easier target, but I don't think it's at all hard or much harder to question Vingegaard, if you want to.

 

[Nick2413]

Why do you think he is a much easier target? Vingegaard has his absurd TT and also pretty much absurd numbers considering where he's coming from with the injury even more so. I agree that Pogacars dominance is much more crushing on many levels, he also has a very tainted entourage to say the least, but Vingegaard has beaten him many a times and is also actually quite the dominant rider when Pogi is not around. He won 3 out of 4 stages in his first race of the season for example.
I agree that Pogacar is the easier target, but I don't think it's at all hard or much harder to question Vingegaard, if you want to.

For your same reasoning, personality. Not that Pogacar’s personality is hateable. But busting Vingegaard would be the most boring story ever and Denmark is probably harder to go after than Slovenia.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

For your same reasoning, personality. Not that Pogacar’s personality is hateable. But busting Vingegaard would be the most boring story ever and Denmark is probably harder to go after than Slovenia.

Good point, but I think the personality also gives him a lot of defense from a lot of people, also and especially in the media.
I remember well the die hard Lance believers, whatever came out, however clear the situation was, they didn't want to believe it untill it was all over and he confessed. But that took *** forever and a lot of people to talk if I recall correctly.
As you pointed out, Lance's nature became only obvious to a greater public through the questions that were being asked, but honestly also just because he pissed of or mistreated to many people. If Pogacar doesn't do that he'll be hard nut to crack if not for a criminal investigation, and probably even then.
And as I pointed out earlier, there are less Doping cases now in Cycling than basically ever before, so there's no indication anyone is looking very hard atm.

I don't really know how Slovenia/Denmark play into this, other than the prospect of local journalists getting funding to blow them up respectively. I also have no idea how Slovenian courts handle doping cases, if it came to that. Which would also need for the case to be in Slovenia. I'd be more concerned about UAE, because they'd surely want to protect their project from any doping revelations. Probably by all means necessary.

 

[Monoxidator]

With so many ways to increase HCT/Hgb these days they should just go back to a hard limit on it and not even bother trying to detect exact compounds. Frankly it doesn’t even matter whether it’s EPO or CO or altitude, they all do the same thing, and the health risk is the high HCT values.

That's not a terrible idea. Cap it say ... 55% or something. No excuses for going over it.

wouldn't manipulating your blood values with CO trigger the biopassport? i know that's why they would do it at altitude, but that must wear off after a couple weeks, no? they're still going insanely fast 3 weeks into the Tour. there has to be something else. maybe they are using blood transfusions with CO affected blood? i still think that would trigger the passport.

The teams are likely bribing the UCI into looking past the unrealistic HC numbers. For specific riders they have the plausible excuse of being "altitude responders." In the research paper I read, the effects of the CO therapy lasted as long as the treatment did ... 3 week treatment and 3 week elevated HC and Vo2.

 

[Rob5091]

The teams are likely bribing the UCI into looking past the unrealistic HC numbers. For specific riders they have the plausible excuse of being "altitude responders." In the research paper I read, the effects of the CO therapy lasted as long as the treatment did ... 3 week treatment and 3 week elevated HC and Vo2.

Roll out a university professor who's on the team to explain the "dodgy numbers" is always a good move. (like Froome's salbutamol case when Sky paid big bucks for the experts to say Froome's kidneys somehow stored salbutamol then released it later just as he was having a bad day at the Vuelta).
Not long ago there was an Instagram post with some UAE guys in front of a Ferrari and some gangster reference. That same week,the tv show 60 minutes in Australia had a segment on the UAE & Dubai called "Gangster's Paradise" Admittedly that should have been done like 5 years ago but at least they went there..
That the Al Maktoums are also into race horses (listen to the talk with UCI's anti-motor doping boss for his take on horse racing) is fitting - another sport where doped up participants keep schtum.
With all the big bucks coming into pro-cycling it's not surprising that organizations will start to turn a blind eye as performances become more and more extreme. Why rock the boat,or bite the hand that gives you a nice lifestyle and get to meet sporting "heroes"? It's only sport after all!