The Armitstead doping thread.

[thehog]

Re:

When was Sagan's Puerto? When was Aru and Nibali’s?

The big giveaway is the fact that one single nationality is being focused on.

USPS/Discovery didn't just consist of US riders. Sky doesn't just consist of British.

Aru was accused by Greg Henderson of faking an illness when transfusing.

Nibali won the Tour de France in the same year as 5 doping positives for his team (including continental).

Vino is DS at Astana, they have all been asked those questions and been accused. Not at the same level as Puerto but accusations all the same.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Perceived domination. Perceived arrogance.

Perception is personal. It's shaped by ones own psyche.

Has anyone asked Sagan if he dopes? What did he answer?

Nibali was asked....did he admit or deny?

What relevance is asking Sagan or Nibali if they dope? Not even Ullrich answered "yes", although he left the answer in no doubt. Even the famous Indurain admission wasn't a direct statement.

I'm just saying why, in my opinion, it looks like the Brits get a rougher ride from the Clinic. Whether Sagan gives a straight answer to a question on whether he dopes that may or may not hypothetically have been asked has little bearing on my reasoning for that.

Oh, the fact that there are Britons in charge of major sporting organs at the same time as the nation punches above its historical weight in those sports is another factor that I didn't mention above. It goes back to Jonathan Vaughters' essay in the wake of Xavier Tondó shopping the Andorra drug ring to the police - joining the dots. Some dots really should be joined. Some shouldn't be joined, but are easy to, and many can't resist. Lizzie's quick reprieve may be the absolutely right decision, but those dots are so easy to join that not just the online posters who can readily be dismissed as conspiracy theorists, but even fellow riders with several years' experience in the péloton draw attention to perceived preferential treatment.

 

[kwikki]

Cookson was only elected UCI pres after half the British TdF wins had occurred.

The rollerball was already rolling.

(Excuse the brief replies. I'm at a family dinner. I'm pretending to answer work texts )

 

[Libertine Seguros]

And Coe was not in his current position when the British athletic success began. They are but one part of the reason that many question the narrative.

Back to Armitstead: like I say we don't have any actual evidence of any doping. But the fact that the World Champion being banned was kept under wraps not just from us but from the rest of the péloton and the quick speed with which she received her reprieve (regardless of whether or not it was the right decision) doesn't sit well with many and leaves a sour taste especially at the same time as many athletes, organizers, officials and pundits are trying to deprecate the perception of sport as dirty.

A major issue is that while it may be a fair policy to keep it anonymous until a decision has been made, therefore the suspension was not publicized until the reprieve was, it also makes it look like things are being deliberately hidden, which also creates suspicion and unease amid the calls for greater transparency in the wake of the Russia fallout.

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

Am i missing something. Why wasn't this case first heard by an UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal.

RTFM. It's a UKAD case.

I am confused. Sports usually ask NAD's to take samples from athletes in a range of sports. Then the Anti-doping Tribunal from that sport adjudicates the case. I am aware that a few sports leave it the NAD to make a Anti-doping Tribunal. I uncomfortable with thus scenario because the NAD is investigator, Prosecutor and judge..

 

[thehog]

Re:

And Coe was not in his current position when the British athletic success began. They are but one part of the reason that many question the narrative.

Back to Armitstead: like I say we don't have any actual evidence of any doping. But the fact that the World Champion being banned was kept under wraps not just from us but from the rest of the péloton and the quick speed with which she received her reprieve (regardless of whether or not it was the right decision) doesn't sit well with many and leaves a sour taste especially at the same time as many athletes, organizers, officials and pundits are trying to deprecate the perception of sport as dirty.

A major issue is that while it may be a fair policy to keep it anonymous until a decision has been made, therefore the suspension was not publicized until the reprieve was, it also makes it look like things are being deliberately hidden, which also creates suspicion and unease amid the calls for greater transparency in the wake of the Russia fallout.

Cookson and Coe were both on the management committees at the time of the "rise".

 

[peloton]

Stay on topic please.

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

I don't get it why on earth Rasmussen got shafted so hard in pretty much the same situtation, while she is enjoying full protection from BC. I guess every anglo rider would enjoy this protection when Cookson and his gang is in the charge.

If it turns out that she was in the Dolomites when she claims she was in Sweden, perhaps.

I like a good fantasy about Cookson secretly controlling the CAS so as to advantage Anglophone cyclists as much as the next crank, mind you.

Rules are rules and Simon Yates got a pretty ridiculous ban compared to what he has done. It is clear that UCI and BC is covering Brit cyclists whenever they trip a wire.

Armitstead not very convincing in follow-up interview with Lawton who broke the story.

1. Too busy with Worlds in Richmond to appeal first fail
2. Doesn't want to talk about the family emergency that caused the third missed test. She claims this was out of character, not sure why, as missing about 20% of her tests, it would seem completely in character
3. "I'm one of the most tested athletes in the world." Yes, that's her exact quote.
4. I am a clean athlete and honest person.

Right, I am glad that's all that straightened out. Nothing to see here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3720407/Lizzie-Armitstead-reveals-fears-missing-Rio-Olympics-banned-s-scared-about.html

Lol, it is pretty clear to me that she was glowing on each occasion and she dodged the tests, BC should just state that they would protect whatever their riders may do.

What a ridiculous and unsubstantiated statement about S.Yates. He got pretty much the standard penalty for that substance. Penalties across the board over all sports are between 3 to 6 months.

 

[yaco]

Re:

One interesting point is how quickly CAS decided on this case just in time for Olympics. Typically 3-6 months is usual delay. Look to me favoritism of the country top cyclists are always the agenda. The finger should be pointed to British cycling. Alex Rasmussen was banned more than 6 months after he was cleared by Danish AD.
Missing 3 tests doesn't prove doping though. It can also mean extreme carelessness. But considering professional athletes needed to be extremely meticulous in the way of life (training, dieting) if they want to win, carelessness should not come into the picture.

Spot on about how quickly this got heard by CAS. All done in around 7 weeks. This is what should be investigated.

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

Genuine question about the whereabouts system that I hope someone with experience can answer.
If you have the ability to change your details up to 1 minute before your window (per Nicole Cooke's comments), then what's to stop someone from making a change at 5.30am to say "at 6am today, I'm in Edinburgh rather than Aberdeen"?
You'd still be in compliance with the rules and regs, but would be physically unable to be tested at that time (unless someone was miraculously able to get from Edinburgh to Aberdeen in an hour).

Or have I misunderstood?

Yeah, i would like that explained too.

There is nothing to stop you, but if you repeatedly keep changing your whereabouts at the last minute, clearly you are then very identifiable as acting suspicious by never being where you said you would be.

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

One interesting point is how quickly CAS decided on this case just in time for Olympics. Typically 3-6 months is usual delay. Look to me favoritism of the country top cyclists are always the agenda. The finger should be pointed to British cycling. Alex Rasmussen was banned more than 6 months after he was cleared by Danish AD.
Missing 3 tests doesn't prove doping though. It can also mean extreme carelessness. But considering professional athletes needed to be extremely meticulous in the way of life (training, dieting) if they want to win, carelessness should not come into the picture.

Spot on about how quickly this got heard by CAS. All done in around 7 weeks. This is what should be investigated.

Cases with a clear doping positive or other anti-doping rule violations will take months if challenged by the athlete, because the athletes lawyers will require that much time to build the case to wriggle out of the violation. Clearer cut cases like Armisteads, where it seems it would be very easy to simply cross-check UKADs whereabouts procedure, with the procedure that actually took place should be a simple case of cross-reference. If parts of the procedure don't match or are clearly flawed, it's easy to work out the right decision and more importantly, the decision will hold up in court if challenged. I would be amazed if UKAD challenge CAS over their decision, because it seems relatively clear, if what Armistead is saying is true. Ie, you can't have an anti-doping procedure of whereabouts reliant on an athletes phone being on or off or a hotel receptionists willingness to give room numbers against a riders name, when officials told to ask for room numbers of the team.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

One interesting point is how quickly CAS decided on this case just in time for Olympics. Typically 3-6 months is usual delay. Look to me favoritism of the country top cyclists are always the agenda. The finger should be pointed to British cycling. Alex Rasmussen was banned more than 6 months after he was cleared by Danish AD.
Missing 3 tests doesn't prove doping though. It can also mean extreme carelessness. But considering professional athletes needed to be extremely meticulous in the way of life (training, dieting) if they want to win, carelessness should not come into the picture.

Spot on about how quickly this got heard by CAS. All done in around 7 weeks. This is what should be investigated.

Cases with a clear doping positive or other anti-doping rule violations will take months if challenged by the athlete, because the athletes lawyers will require that much time to build the case to wriggle out of the violation. Clearer cut cases like Armisteads, where it seems it would be very easy to simply cross-check UKADs whereabouts procedure, with the procedure that actually took place should be a simple case of cross-reference. If parts of the procedure don't match or are clearly flawed, it's easy to work out the right decision and more importantly, the decision will hold up in court if challenged. I would be amazed if UKAD challenge CAS over their decision, because it seems relatively clear, if what Armistead is saying is true. Ie, you can't have an anti-doping procedure of whereabouts reliant on an athletes phone being on or off or a hotel receptionists willingness to give room numbers against a riders name, when officials told to ask for room numbers of the team.

and if it was that clear then UKAD wouldn't have included it and we wouldn't be here...they appear not to have seen the decision as yet....

 

[samhocking]

UKAD haven't seen the reasoned decision but Nicole Sapstead has already said they respect the outcome of the CAS hearing against Elizabeth Armitstead in their statement.
Remember, the athlete can't appeal to CAS until 3 strikes, so other than the letter Armistead wrote to UKAD just after strike 1, Armistead would have had to have gone public to take it further. After strike 2 she would have had to have taken it public. Only after strike 3 can she then appeal strike 1 without going public. I can't say I blame her, innocent or guilty and sure UKAD advised her too. In fact they pretty much confirmed, they advised Armistead on how to proceed through CAS after British Cycling got involved due obvious Olympics coming up.

 

[thekiwi]

Re:

Lizzie Armistead's missed tests;

20/08/15
Wins in plouay 29/08 & women's world cup overall

... and as she is sitting at Breakfast, on her phone, less than an hour after the tester has tried contacting her on it ... and doesnt notice multiple missed calls, in a time window when she has nominated herself to be available.

No one from the Worlds top womens team is aware a tester has called, no one from the hotel mentions it to the team or her ...

Yea right ..

 

[samhocking]

Nobody knows what Armistead did or didn't do when she woke up. We already know the officer didn't contact the team which is what the teams expect to happen because they've said, had the officer asked reception for the team, they would then have given Armisteads room number to him.

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

Lizzie Armistead's missed tests;

20/08/15
Wins in plouay 29/08 & women's world cup overall

... and as she is sitting at Breakfast, on her phone, less than an hour after the tester has tried contacting her on it ... and doesnt notice multiple missed calls, in a time window when she has nominated herself to be available.

No one from the Worlds top womens team is aware a tester has called, no one from the hotel mentions it to the team or her ...

Yea right ..

You say 'multiple missed calls'.

Is this supposition, or do you know how many missed calls there were on her phone?

 

[samhocking]

Exactly, nobody has said anything about missed calls with UKAD officer. Only her phone was on silent. By silent I understand that to mean, silent if reception or her team called her. I doubt very much UKAD have the mobile phone number of the athlete if phoning an athlete directly is not part of WADA or UKAD whereabouts procedure.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Lizzie Armistead's missed tests;

20/08/15
Wins in plouay 29/08 & women's world cup overall

... and as she is sitting at Breakfast, on her phone, less than an hour after the tester has tried contacting her on it ... and doesnt notice multiple missed calls, in a time window when she has nominated herself to be available.

No one from the Worlds top womens team is aware a tester has called, no one from the hotel mentions it to the team or her ...

Yea right ..

Its hilarious I know, no time to take a drug test but lets chat "marriage advice" with the ladies, lol! :lol:

Clearly she wasn't worried about missing the test, I wonder if the tester was one of the 38 likes she got

There would have been at least 1 missed call on her phone we are aware of - was there a voicemail, did the tester try again each 15 minutes in the hour?

Hopefully by reason decision time we may find out.

 

[kwikki]

More supposition.

We don't know she was even aware there had been an attempt to test her. My understanding is that the first she knew of it was 13 days after the fact.

This rather makes the previous two posts look at little presumptuous.

 

[TheSpud]

Re: Re:

Lizzie Armistead's missed tests;

20/08/15
Wins in plouay 29/08 & women's world cup overall

... and as she is sitting at Breakfast, on her phone, less than an hour after the tester has tried contacting her on it ... and doesnt notice multiple missed calls, in a time window when she has nominated herself to be available.

No one from the Worlds top womens team is aware a tester has called, no one from the hotel mentions it to the team or her ...

Yea right ..

Its hilarious I know, no time to take a drug test but lets chat "marriage advice" with the ladies, lol! :lol:

Clearly she wasn't worried about missing the test.

There would have been at least 1 missed call on her phone we are aware of - was there a voicemail, did the tester try again each 15 minutes in the hour?

Hopefully by reason decision time we may find out.

Well the call, if there was one, would have been between 6am and 7am. Likely it would have been a number not recognised by her. Whether she saw it live or later woukd she have twigged? I get calls from numbers I don't know all the time - I'm not a hot shot world champion, so I'm guessing she probably does too. We'll never know if there was a voicemail or not.

And anyway - that tweet was posted in the evening, not 'during breakfast' ...

 

[thehog]

Re:

More supposition.

We don't know she was even aware there had been an attempt to test her. My understanding is that the first she knew of it was 13 days after the fact.

This rather makes the previous two posts look at little presumptuous.

From the Daily Mail article:

..he then attempted to contact Armitstead on a mobile phone that the cyclist had put on silent while she slept.

So where are we now?

 

[samhocking]

Typically if you've been marked down for a missed test, you wouldn't find out you have missed it until you receive the letter which is usually around two weeks.later.
The way I read Lizzies statement, was the UKAD officer asked reception for Armisteads room number and of course no hotel will give you a room number against just a name. The officer then called Armisteads room and I would assume this was from the receptionists phone. Assuming no voicemail was left, Armistead simply had a missed call from reception.
We now know Armistead did appeal via letter to UKAD after the first missed test though.
The thing is, Strict conditions mean that further appeal to the CAS from UKAD would be unlikely to be accepted, so unless they appeal, well never know. Even if Armistead did know the officer had called her, it's too late once you're outside your 1 hour window stated in your whereabouts to do anything about it even if you wanted to.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Lizzie Armistead's missed tests;

20/08/15
Wins in plouay 29/08 & women's world cup overall

... and as she is sitting at Breakfast, on her phone, less than an hour after the tester has tried contacting her on it ... and doesnt notice multiple missed calls, in a time window when she has nominated herself to be available.

No one from the Worlds top womens team is aware a tester has called, no one from the hotel mentions it to the team or her ...

Yea right ..

Its hilarious I know, no time to take a drug test but lets chat "marriage advice" with the ladies, lol! :lol:

Clearly she wasn't worried about missing the test.

There would have been at least 1 missed call on her phone we are aware of - was there a voicemail, did the tester try again each 15 minutes in the hour?

Hopefully by reason decision time we may find out.

Well the call, if there was one, would have been between 6am and 7am. Likely it would have been a number not recognised by her. Whether she saw it live or later woukd she have twigged? I get calls from numbers I don't know all the time - I'm not a hot shot world champion, so I'm guessing she probably does too. We'll never know if there was a voicemail or not.

And anyway - that tweet was posted in the evening, not 'during breakfast' ...

Is that why you don't answer my calls? :lol:

The time on the tweet is from the users timezone not when the tweet was actually posted Swedish time.

 

[MatParker117]

Re:

And Coe was not in his current position when the British athletic success began. They are but one part of the reason that many question the narrative.

Back to Armitstead: like I say we don't have any actual evidence of any doping. But the fact that the World Champion being banned was kept under wraps not just from us but from the rest of the péloton and the quick speed with which she received her reprieve (regardless of whether or not it was the right decision) doesn't sit well with many and leaves a sour taste especially at the same time as many athletes, organizers, officials and pundits are trying to deprecate the perception of sport as dirty.

A major issue is that while it may be a fair policy to keep it anonymous until a decision has been made, therefore the suspension was not publicized until the reprieve was, it also makes it look like things are being deliberately hidden, which also creates suspicion and unease amid the calls for greater transparency in the wake of the Russia fallout.

Because they are allowed there day in court and unfortunately people don't understand that being charged is not the same as being guilty. Naming everyone who has a positive test prior to there hearing risks ruining the reputations of athletes who may turn out to be clean.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Typically if you've been marked down for a missed test, you wouldn't find out you have missed it until you receive the letter which is usually around two weeks.later.

The way I read Lizzies statement, was the UKAD officer asked reception for Armisteads room number and of course no hotel will give you a room number against just a name. The officer then called Armisteads room and I would assume this was from the receptionists phone. Assuming no voicemail was left, Armistead simply had a missed call from reception.
We now know Armistead did appeal via letter to UKAD after the first missed test though.
The thing is, Strict conditions mean that further appeal to the CAS from UKAD would be unlikely to be accepted, so unless they appeal, well never know now.

So, she now put the hotel room phone on silent? That can be done?

I get the sense you're making this up as you go along...