Luckily, WADA is not involved, but everything is done behind closed doors with lawyers present normally, so it might well be dragged out until after the season (unless, as with Froomey's "problem", it gets leaked to the media).well with the time WADA usually takes, we might get the results by Lombardia or Guanxhi
It looks plausible. mRNA tech was first tested on men in 2013 (rabies vaccine), in 2020 we get the mass application for Covid and expanded research globally. A few years later many labs should have the tech to develop something custom. Maybe the 2023-2024 winter was the first trial period of a succesful campaign of gene doping in cycling.
I don't want to give an excuse because I believe that they are doped to the gills. That said, in my opinion, bike technology has made a huge difference. Experts often say nutrition is the biggest factor, but from my own experience, modern bikes have improved dramatically. I'm an overweight old guy, yet I can still ride surprisingly fast on today's high-end bikes. I'm not sure it's any one specific feature but everything as a whole.
siRNA/antisense RNA are something that's worth looking into, there's already some approved application of those (like inclisiran for familial hypercholesterolemia or patisiran for a specific form of amyloidosis) and you've got ongoing research like this as a proof of concept that they can be used as a blood boosting agent.
There's been a huge amount of various aero tests recently and it's shown 30-40 watts is the aero difference between an 8 to 10 year old endurance bike with shallow wheels and high front end and a modern WT level aero bike.
On a climb at 23km/h air resistance should be around 50-60W (check with the many available watt calculators), in no way a better bike can reduce the drag by 30-40W.
Yep, there has been more than a certain reluctance to admit the seriousness of this testing event, or otherwise downplay it, except to moan about that it’s detrimental for cyclists to be woken at silly o’clock. From this article and others I have read, including interviews with quite a few seriously knowledgeable people, this is quite a big deal and indicative of intelligence that doping was going on. Whether this was widespread or within a single team we might never know because it is quite possible that they’ll want to protect their own information sources by doing tests beyond just the target suspects.Really good article on doping testing.
‘This Is Effectively a Warrant’: Sports Scientist Speaks on the Tour de France Night Time Doping Tests
Sports scientist Ross Tucker discusses the controversial decision to test Tour de France riders at night.velo.outsideonline.com
The example about track and field is great... and painful. Basically obvious there was doping, just hard to proof conclusively. Also point about people demanding more insight into the why of the Midnight tests. It's stupid as that would help the dopers.
Lots of other interesting things in there.
Finally got around to reading it, and it seems to back up my suspicion that if anything happens it'll be ABP irregularities. To pinpoint a certain substance seems unlikely, but the testing is a lot better then back in Armstrong's days. Just think of all the tainted supplement stories.Really good article on doping testing.
‘This Is Effectively a Warrant’: Sports Scientist Speaks on the Tour de France Night Time Doping Tests
Sports scientist Ross Tucker discusses the controversial decision to test Tour de France riders at night.
The example about track and field is great... and painful. Basically obvious there was doping, just hard to proof conclusively. Also point about people demanding more insight into the why of the Midnight tests. It's stupid as that would help the dopers.
Lots of other interesting things in there.
The guys and gals at the Paris lab will be busy. Hope they remember to clean their machines, as they got suspended back in 2017 when a bodybuilder's sample was so full of steroids, ("200 times higher than generally found in positive cases") it messed up the testing machine and contaminated other samples.
