Steakgate latest: Contador positive for Clenbuterol in four different tests

[El Imbatido]

In English:

http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/article1167489.ece

Contador tested + 4 times

 

[GreasyMonkey]

<snip> Were these samples initially sent to a different, less precise lab?

That was my first thought - they sent these samples initially to another lab, then asked for re-testing at the Cologne lab, looking for low levels.

 

[Jamsque]

Contador, or whoever is advising him, is completely stupid to think appealing the RFEC's decision is a good idea. I know he wants to be able to protest his innocence until the end of time, but given the four positive tests and the fact that the plasticizer evidence is admissible in the CAS mean that the only realistic outcome of the appeal is a LONGER ban.

 

[thehog]

Contador, or whoever is advising him, is completely stupid to think appealing the RFEC's decision is a good idea. .

Floyd?



......

 

[python]

Contador, or whoever is advising him, is completely stupid to think appealing the RFEC's decision is a good idea. I know he wants to be able to protest his innocence until the end of time, but given the four positive tests and the fact that the plasticizer evidence is admissible in the CAS mean that the only realistic outcome of the appeal is a LONGER ban.

ignorance itself at work.

 

[lean mean &green]

24th was the day of the TT, so maybe it was another contaminated bag - but I think attributing it to the error margin in the test sounds right.

in my, now sadly extensive, research of clenbuterol pharmacokinetics i've heard the figure at about +/-10 pg/mL for this particular test.

IMO news of 4 positives instead of 2 changes things very little.

 

[hrotha]

in my, now sadly extensive, research of clenbuterol pharmacokinetics of clenbuterol i've heard the figure at about +/-10 pg/mL for this particular test.

IMO news of 4 positives instead of 2 changes things very little.

Assuming the results could be 100% accurate, is it even possible to microdose clenbuterol in such small quantities that it'd produce such a small raise from one day to the next? Just checking to see if that can be completely ruled out.

 

[lean mean &green]

Assuming the results could be 100% accurate, is it even possible to microdose clenbuterol in such small quantities that it'd produce such a small raise from one day to the next? Just checking to see if that can be completely ruled out.

almost certainly not. even a small therapeutic dose of clenbuterol (20 mcg) would probably register as a concentration of a few thousand pcg/mL in the first 24 hours after ingestion. it's VERY unlikely he microdosed clenbuterol at any point during the tour.

 

[python]

a note on 'positive' tests (this was posted about a dozen times in multiple threads).

in order to declare an averse analytical finding (an official positive) wada code requires that a rigorous validated procedure be followed. it has to include a statement about the test data spread/standard deviation(in layman speak - tests accuracy). it is expressed as the banned substance concentation +/-. ('accuracy').

more recently, in the case of the german ponger ovcharov, 4 (four) of his teammates were found to test positive for clenbuterol.

it was the same lab in cologne - check
it was the same detection method- check
it was almost concurrent with contador's case (1-2 weeks apart) - check.

instead of suspending ovcharov's teammates, the dttb acquitted ovcharov.

the germam nada basis (provided in the separate letter): the super sensitive clen detection method for the 4 teammates was good enough to see 'some' clen but not sufficiently rigorous to declare them positive.

everything here applies to the contador's 3 additional positives.

 

[Jancouver]

Contador positive for Clenbuterol in four different tests

Contador positive for Clenbuterol in four different tests

According to both La Vanguardia and Marca, he was negative for the substance in tests on July 5,12, 19 and 20. However on Wednesday July 21, the second rest day of the Tour, his samples showed the presence of Clenbuterol at 50 picograms per millilitre. This dropped to16 picograms the following day, decreased further to 7 picograms/ml two days later (July 24) and then increased again to 17 picograms/ml on July 25th.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/7...-for-Clenbuterol-in-four-different-tests.aspx

 

[happychappy]

Why would someone take it in the middle of a race? If it's used to lean up surely that's something you should do somewhat earlier in the season. It's my understanding that it's hard enough to keep weight ON during a 3 week tour..

 

[Kodiak]

AC was merely swallowing a lot of meat at that point. I'm sure of it cause he says so. Looks like the got the blood bags mixed up in order.

 

[jimmypop]

Why would someone take it in the middle of a race? If it's used to lean up surely that's something you should do somewhat earlier in the season. It's my understanding that it's hard enough to keep weight ON during a 3 week tour..

Blood transfusions

 

[jimmypop]

AC was merely swallowing a lot of meat at that point. I'm sure of it cause he says so. Looks like the got the blood bags mixed up in order.

Two ways to read that...

 

[hrotha]

This new info is largely irrelevant as it stands. It's consistent with all the theories we already had.

 

[happychappy]

Blood transfusions

So he had blood drawn earlier when he was using Clen, shouldn't they test the blood to make sure they aren't going to get a positive? Sounds a bit amateurish.
I suppose that's why some get caught and others don't.

 

[Dimtick]

I just read that Contador has filed an official appeal.
the question that I have is who did he actually appeal to? I don't know the procedures. Is he appealing to the Spanish Federation or is this now in the hands of the CAS?

(I apologize if this isn't completely on topic with this thread. i didn't want to start a new thread.)

 

[thehog]

I just read that Contador has filed an official appeal.
the question that I have is who did he actually appeal to? I don't know the procedures. Is he appealing to the Spanish Federation or is this now in the hands of the CAS?

(I apologize if this isn't completely on topic with this thread. i didn't want to start a new thread.)

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/7...-for-Clenbuterol-in-four-different-tests.aspx

 

[alpine_chav]

Seems awful close together to do 2 transfusions

 

[hrotha]

I just read that Contador has filed an official appeal.
the question that I have is who did he actually appeal to? I don't know the procedures. Is he appealing to the Spanish Federation or is this now in the hands of the CAS?

(I apologize if this isn't completely on topic with this thread. i didn't want to start a new thread.)

He appealed to the RFEC. The ruling wasn't definitive yet.

 

[theswordsman]

First of all, though this just hit the press a couple of days ago, the four positives were known back in December when DeBoers wrote his report. He was told of the positives on the 23rd and 24th by Contador's lawyer

http://velonews.competitor.com/files/2010/09/02RAMOS10.u.pdf

I've read a lot of the fresh articles this morning, and most state that the amounts of the four days actually support Contador's theory.

What a lot of people are missing from the stories in English is that the Competition Committee think that Contador is innocent based on the reports and studies he's submitted at the start. The UCI in their 600 pages put forth all the possibilities of how the Clenbuterol got into Contador's system. This from Contador's lawyer:

"What has been missing is that while Article 22 applies, which says that when the athlete has to prove where it came from the banned substance is about all the possibilities, to weight them all and see which is most likely. There were four possibilities, the microdose, autologous transfusions, nutritional supplements and feeding contamination and tested three of them were impossible. The only thing left was that of food contamination.

http://www.larazon.es/noticia/927-nadie-nos-ha-demostrado-que-alberto-sea-culpable

Some people jump to conclusions. We don't seem to notice that a lot of information about Contador never makes it out of Spanish. Someone here once said in a thread that he knew based on scientific data that Contador wasn't on vacation at the beach when he got the call for the 2008 Giro. In real life, he was in good shape before he went, took the bike along, had only planned to be gone for like five days, and his fiancee brought along the hotel bill to show to the journalist at Marca or whatever.

People here say that Contador was guilty in Operacion Puerto. I can't tell you how many times I've read here that he refused to give a DNA sample to check against blood bags. People have been saying for four years he was guilty, mostly based on that. Someone posted a link the other day on a Jesus Hernandez thread about OP testimony.

I tracked down the original El Pais article, and looked up some other stories covering Contador's ten or fifteen minute court appearance. Guess what, at some point in that quarter of an hour, he was asked if he'd be willing, if requested, to submit a DNA sample that could be compared to blood bags. or some reason, he initially said no. But before that ten or fifteen minute testimony was over, he'd reconsidered, and said yes. It wasn't years later, it was while he was still being questioned, in that same ten or fifteen minute testimony. Everyone who has since stated, or led people to believe, that Contador walked away from that room refusing to give DNA was dead effing wrong. So was anyone who used it to declare him dirty in a forum court.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/depo...olaba/cosas/elpepidep/20061212elpepidep_3/Tes

A few days ago, Contador gave two radio interviews. The longer of the two was nineteen minutes. The only English language article even mentioning it was at Velonews. Some people picked up the brief press release about WADA later. Yesterday after meeting with the Competition Committee, Contador spoke with RTVE for 25 minutes. The audio is out there. How many articles have you seen about it?

A lot of people have made a lot of decisions and condemnations the past five months, based on tiny bits of info. Contador's attorneys worked with fifteen scientists on this case. They commissioned robust studies, and reports. We haven't seen them. I hope the RFEC will declare him innocent, and that Contador's people will release summaries of some of the defense documents, because these tiny bits of info are being perpetuated as the truth.

"I think we worked with 15 scientists from around the world. The UCI and WADA have not actually submitted anything. The UCI sent a dossier was not material to the instructor and not even mentioned. The instructor asked the AMA reply on all the scientific reports that we ask or even answer. The only one who answered was the Spanish Anti-Doping Agency, which said it was food poisoning, they are discarded the other two options and Alberto in the days before did not test positive. Every time I went a scientist saying that if the plastic or do not know why we called them and asked them to make a report showing that Alberto is guilty. But none agreed to work with us and show that Alberto was guilty. The case is overwhelming.

http://www.larazon.es/noticia/927-nadie-nos-ha-demostrado-que-alberto-sea-culpable

This case is about 50 picograms of Clenbuterol, which could not have enhanced performance. It's about Strict Liability and a lack of a minimum threshold. Hopefully ot will be obvious soon that it's not about a rest day blood bag. And hopefully that news will make it into English.

 

[Barrus]

To be quite honest the only new thing about this for me is the later increase. I believe that the other positive samples were already known for several months. Only the tests after the first two positive tests were that small that those were kind of ignored

 

[DAOTEC]

To be quite honest the only new thing about this is that the ISL won't survive the threshole, the SOP will be burned down to the ground, with the lab getting in legal trouble thereafter.

 

[Jamsque]

Assuming the increase in Clen levels in the last test isn't just an accuracy error, to me it seems to point further towards blood transfusions. We've been hearing a lot lately from Landis, Kohl and others about what doping techniques modern riders are using, and smaller doses are the fashion of the day. In Tours gone by, riders would re-inject a whole litre of blood on a rest day. Now, riders space that litre out over a week or more to keep their blood passport in order. I can easily imagine Contador re-injecting 300 or 400 ml of stored blood on the rest day, and then topping up with another 200 or 300 before the final ITT of the race.

Obviously this is speculation.

 

[hrotha]

Swordsman, Contador's lawyer is, well, Contador's lawyer. The RFEC says they had to use conflicting studies, they never said the transfusion theory didn't hold.