The Armitstead doping thread.

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Being British really equals a get-out-of-jail-free card nowadays.

With our superior ability in riding bikes and sports administration I expect nothing less.

Coe and Reedie have outdone themselves in the last 12 months, Cookson has put the UCI into a €1.5m blackhole. It would be funny if not so tragic

 

[Vladivar]

Re:

Being British really equals a get-out-of-jail-free card nowadays.

Please send me mine, i need to rob a bank

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Being British really equals a get-out-of-jail-free card nowadays.

With our superior ability in riding bikes and sports administration I expect nothing less.

If you scratch the surface of your sports administration the stink would be a killer.

Superior riding ability, Wiggins in the Giro???? :lol:

 

[Vladivar]

Re: Re:

Being British really equals a get-out-of-jail-free card nowadays.

With our superior ability in riding bikes and sports administration I expect nothing less.

If you scratch the surface of your sports administration the stink would be a killer.

:

You hope and pray for every night

 

[joe_papp]

Re: Re:

There are rules in place to correct mistakes made by testers.

Good point. Well made. Now, who do we know who recently had a missed text expunged after these rules were applied?

The WADA rules - not some extra 'guidance' that UKAD provided, that many people here seem to want to say are the rules. It's the WADA rules that govern this case, not anything else.

True and if you were a clean athlete you would have no issue in supplying a room number. If you are doping and attempting to avoid testing, you don't provide a room number and put phone to silent.

Or you're just totally incompetent doing everything but update whereabouts.

That's really what it comes down to.

No clean athlete (let alone one who is world champ and top contender for Olympics) accrues 3 whereabouts filing failures in a year.

Still time for her to do the right thing and withdraw from the team...

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

There are rules in place to correct mistakes made by testers.

Good point. Well made. Now, who do we know who recently had a missed text expunged after these rules were applied?

The WADA rules - not some extra 'guidance' that UKAD provided, that many people here seem to want to say are the rules. It's the WADA rules that govern this case, not anything else.

True and if you were a clean athlete you would have no issue in supplying a room number. If you are doping and attempting to avoid testing, you don't provide a room number and put phone to silent.

Or you're just totally incompetent doing everything but update whereabouts.

That's really what it comes down to.

No clean athlete (let alone one who is world champ and top contender for Olympics) accrues 3 whereabouts filing failures in a year.

Still time for her to do the right thing and withdraw from the team...

And echoing the words of Victor Conte; all of this occurred in the lead up to arguably the biggest event for a UK sportsperson. Win gold and riches to follow.

 

[thehog]

The Daily Mail continue their unfair portrayal of the Armitstead affair :surprised:

Nor is it the assertion that, on the occasion of her disputed first missed test in Sweden, it was acceptable for the British world road race champion to have her mobile phone turned to silent during the hour she had nominated for her availability for testing under the wheareabouts rule. That is getting deep into Mo-Farah-I-couldn't-hear-my-doorbell territory and is also breathtaking.

Armitstead and the rest of the British cycling team had been specifically warned that, if they were staying in a hotel, they should include room numbers in the information they give anti-doping authorities to track elite athletes.

Serial apologists for British athletes who miss tests, like former heptathlete Kelly Sotherton, were angered by the notion that Armitstead's mobile should not have been on silent. Sotherton said Armitstead had a right to sleep. Armitstead, who is one of the favourites for gold on Sunday, said she was being considerate to a room-mate.

Has Armitstead never heard of the do-not-disturb function on a phone? They have them now, you know. If your designated whereabouts hour starts at 6am, set your phone to come back on at 6am. It's really very simple.

So don't insult our intelligence with this garbage at a time when Olympic sport is fighting for its very life. If you've got issues with an early morning call, nominate another hour for the testers to come. Nor is the most breathtaking thing the claim, mentioned over and over again by Armitstead, that because she was tested in competition the day after the missed Sweden test, it proves she's clean.

Please stop repeating that because nobody who knows anything about doping buys into it. They know some drugs of choice can disappear from the system within 24 hours. For Armitstead, and others, to cite those facts in attempted mitigation is breathtaking.

Nor is it the idea that, because Armitstead claimed in her emotive 1,275-word statement of self-exoneration that her third missed test was the result of an unspecified family trauma, she should somehow be spared criticism, although that, too, is breathtaking.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3727247/Gold-Lizzie-Armitstead-Rio-send-Olympic-sport-road-Hell.html

 

[purcell]

The Daily Mail continue their unfair portrayal of the Armitstead affair :surprised:

Nor is it the assertion that, on the occasion of her disputed first missed test in Sweden, it was acceptable for the British world road race champion to have her mobile phone turned to silent during the hour she had nominated for her availability for testing under the wheareabouts rule. That is getting deep into Mo-Farah-I-couldn't-hear-my-doorbell territory and is also breathtaking.

Armitstead and the rest of the British cycling team had been specifically warned that, if they were staying in a hotel, they should include room numbers in the information they give anti-doping authorities to track elite athletes.

Serial apologists for British athletes who miss tests, like former heptathlete Kelly Sotherton, were angered by the notion that Armitstead's mobile should not have been on silent. Sotherton said Armitstead had a right to sleep. Armitstead, who is one of the favourites for gold on Sunday, said she was being considerate to a room-mate.

Has Armitstead never heard of the do-not-disturb function on a phone? They have them now, you know. If your designated whereabouts hour starts at 6am, set your phone to come back on at 6am. It's really very simple.

So don't insult our intelligence with this garbage at a time when Olympic sport is fighting for its very life. If you've got issues with an early morning call, nominate another hour for the testers to come. Nor is the most breathtaking thing the claim, mentioned over and over again by Armitstead, that because she was tested in competition the day after the missed Sweden test, it proves she's clean.

Please stop repeating that because nobody who knows anything about doping buys into it. They know some drugs of choice can disappear from the system within 24 hours. For Armitstead, and others, to cite those facts in attempted mitigation is breathtaking.

Nor is it the idea that, because Armitstead claimed in her emotive 1,275-word statement of self-exoneration that her third missed test was the result of an unspecified family trauma, she should somehow be spared criticism, although that, too, is breathtaking.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3727247/Gold-Lizzie-Armitstead-Rio-send-Olympic-sport-road-Hell.html

That is an excellent piece that actually cuts through the BS.

 

[hondated]

So given all this , what can we expect to see today. A win or lose.
If we agree she's a doper then clearly given all this that's the last thing she will do today surely !
So if she wins its got to be because of her abilities, isn't it !
Or would it be more convenient for her and her future to just lose and let the sun set on this whole issue !.
Its going to be an interesting day even before they set off.
I am sure your all let me know if I am just being naïve.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So given all this , what can we expect to see today. A win or lose.
If we agree she's a doper then clearly given all this that's the last thing she will do today surely !
So if she wins its got to be because of her abilities, isn't it !
Or would it be more convenient for her and her future to just lose and let the sun set on this whole issue !.
Its going to be an interesting day even before they set off.
I am sure your all let me know if I am just being naïve.

It's difficult to say what Lizzie can do here, and what she does or doesn't do wouldn't prove anything either way.

The course is not ideally suited to her; the Giro is practically the only race she ever does where she's not the team's preferred option, and she never does the other mountainous stage races like the Emakumeen Bira or the Giro del Trentino. She's got great explosivity but has never been that competitive over longer climbs, so if she was to struggle it shouldn't prove anything as she's never been that strong on this type of course.

At the same time, Greg van Avermaet won yesterday and people are now saying, hang on maybe it wasn't as tough as we thought, and people like Emma Johansson come back into the reckoning. Emma has historically better climbing chops than Lizzie (she's won Bira, for example) but not that much more so than Lizzie, so given the phenomenal year she's been having it's not a huge stretch to imagine Armitstead can make it to the front group and fight out the win or escape from riders tired from trying to distance her late on. Lizzie is also an excellent descender (it's how she won the Trofeo Binda, the hardest one-day classic, climbing-wise, she has on her palmarès) and so the climbers (especially those who are poor descenders like Abbott) will need a big enough gap at the summit that she can't chase back on. So if she wins it isn't an enormous shock either.

Lizzie is absolutely not a rider to half-ass it either. She would never be entering a race to make the numbers up, especially when it's a race as important as this. She's here to win, quietly losing and letting the issue blow over won't even cross her mind. Notwithstanding that she probably genuinely believes it was somebody else's fault those tests got missed, she will absolutely feel that no matter what others may think (although it upsets her that people think she's not 100% honest when they find out she's been lying to them constantly for the last month), she's been cleared and there's no reason she should be questioned if she wins. She also may be motivated by spite and rivalry considering her reprieve, and her subsequent buck-passing and self-justification, have not been met with sympathy from within the bunch, in fact quite the opposite. And this may well have affected her preparation as well.

But the thing is, as she herself knows (and tearfully pointed out), if she wins, it opens up a whole new can of worms and people will never trust it. If she doesn't win, people (especially casual fans, Olympics-only fans and even among more dedicated cycling fans, those who just look at her status as World Champion and her successes this year and don't take parcours into account) will anticipate it's because she wasn't able to get away with cheating anymore. Even among those more dedicated fans (such as myself, not to be too self-aggrandizing, that's her job), the fact we now know about all these missed tests makes her very selective calendar and her alternation of dominant victory and sickness-related absence much more worthy of scepticism. And her behaviour around the missed tests is suspicious in and of itself, with so many seeming logic holes (she sets a time for her testing availability, then puts her phone on silent so she isn't disturbed during the specific time she said it was ok to disturb her?) and the seeming cover-up is such that it makes it hard to trust her, and the continual shifting of blame to others and defensive privacy-invading hypocrisy from her fiancée makes it hard to feel sympathetic to her.

Maybe those sections of the British press that want to keep the clean heroes story going on would try to sell an Armitstead victory as a redemption story, putting the trouble behind her - but given that there's now a growing feeling in the péloton that she shouldn't even be there and that this was hidden until a part of the press blew the lid off it, it would almost be an invitation to investigate further.

I'm afraid you aren't going to get any straightforward answers shown in today's road race. There are too many factors at play, and neither a gold medal nor an anonymous 15th place, nor even a tearful DNF, will clarify much.

 

[gillan1969]

So given all this , what can we expect to see today. A win or lose.
If we agree she's a doper then clearly given all this that's the last thing she will do today surely !
So if she wins its got to be because of her abilities, isn't it !
Or would it be more convenient for her and her future to just lose and let the sun set on this whole issue !.
Its going to be an interesting day even before they set off.
I am sure your all let me know if I am just being naïve.

naive

unfortunately you are falling into the doping on the day assumption (which allows lizzie and and lance to proclaim how many tests they have passed)

out of competition is where it is at...you know your windows and you know your half life. Today's story about Kenya tells you all you need to know.....you reap the benefits of a program on race day you do not necessarily have something in your system on race day (unless you know the lab, or can phone zorzoli for back date that is)....so as long a those pesky esters can't actually test you....

as for the the racing...see LS response

 

[mr61%]

Re: Re:

There are rules in place to correct mistakes made by testers.

Good point. Well made. Now, who do we know who recently had a missed text expunged after these rules were applied?

The WADA rules - not some extra 'guidance' that UKAD provided, that many people here seem to want to say are the rules. It's the WADA rules that govern this case, not anything else.

It's not some extra guidance from UKAD. UKAD is simply instructing how ADAMS, WADA's own approved system, should be completed, particularly the additional information section, in the manner specified in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations as instructed by WADA:

WADA Code article 5.6. Athlete whereabouts information:
"Athletes who have been included in a Registered Testing Pool by their International Federation and/or National Anti-Doping Organization shall provide whereabouts information in the manner specified in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations. The International Federations and National Anti-Doping Organizations shall coordinate the identification of such Athletes and the collection of their whereabouts information. Each International Federation and National Anti-Doping Organization shall make available, through ADAMS or another system approved by WADA"

The International Standard for Testing and Investigations is quite clear that a Whereabouts filing failure has been committed if "A whereabouts filings is inaccurate or incomplete in order to reasonably locate the athlete for testing."

This is open to interpretation to some extent but it seems patently clear to me that if an athlete has not provided their hotel room number in the additional information section, which is specifically intended for such information, then it is going to be very difficult to locate them, hence a filing failure has been committed.

Which, as I've previously said, makes it very puzzling why CAS overturned the first missed test.

 

[fmk_RoI]

I think what we are going to discover here is that the tester gave up after not getting a room number and not getting a reply to the phone call, did not follow the rules and come 15 minutes later, try again, and on and on for the full hour. In other words, the tester wasn't available for the full hour.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Gooner, you are simply not adressing Sniper and GJB's points. Can you answer why she deleted these tweets after this stuff blew up? Please dont dodge that question if you are willing to argue.

I responded to sniper above. I don't know.

Fair enough if you don't believe her and you think she is a cheat. I have already said that to GJB123. That's not the discussion I'm having.

This is wanting to know about an athlete's personal life in a general sense. In the case of a legit family emergency it is none of our business to know the details. As I said above, no one has taken into account the likely fact that others will be affected if this was disclosed. Sniper and GJB123 want to know the details.

Perspective out the window around here as usual.

Which is why Lizzie's fiancé released personal information about Pauline Ferrand Prevot?

I believe she lost the ability to confidentiality the second she decided to aattack anyone who questioned the decision making process & the reasons supplied to CAS.

 

[thehog]

Re:

I think what we are going to discover here is that the tester gave up after not getting a room number and not getting a reply to the phone call, did not follow the rules and come 15 minutes later, try again, and on and on for the full hour. In other words, the tester wasn't available for the full hour.

You mean you're working off a rumour and not fact? :lol:

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
It's not some extra guidance from UKAD. UKAD is simply instructing how ADAMS, WADA's own approved system, should be completed, particularly the additional information section, in the manner specified in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations as instructed by WADA:

WADA Code article 5.6. Athlete whereabouts information:
"Athletes who have been included in a Registered Testing Pool by their International Federation and/or National Anti-Doping Organization shall provide whereabouts information in the manner specified in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations. The International Federations and National Anti-Doping Organizations shall coordinate the identification of such Athletes and the collection of their whereabouts information. Each International Federation and National Anti-Doping Organization shall make available, through ADAMS or another system approved by WADA"

The International Standard for Testing and Investigations is quite clear that a Whereabouts filing failure has been committed if "A whereabouts filings is inaccurate or incomplete in order to reasonably locate the athlete for testing."

This is open to interpretation to some extent but it seems patently clear to me that if an athlete has not provided their hotel room number in the additional information section, which is specifically intended for such information, then it is going to be very difficult to locate them, hence a filing failure has been committed.

Which, as I've previously said, makes it very puzzling why CAS overturned the first missed test.

excellent post, hard to argue with this.

 

[sniper]

Has this been posted already?

Crankpunk's blog: "Why Lizzie Armitstead shouldn't be at the Olympics".

http://www.crankpunk.com/blogs/crankpunk/item/1054-why-lizzie-armitstead-should-not-be-at-the-olympics.html

 

[TheSpud]

Re: Re:

There are rules in place to correct mistakes made by testers.

Good point. Well made. Now, who do we know who recently had a missed text expunged after these rules were applied?

The WADA rules - not some extra 'guidance' that UKAD provided, that many people here seem to want to say are the rules. It's the WADA rules that govern this case, not anything else.

It's not some extra guidance from UKAD. UKAD is simply instructing how ADAMS, WADA's own approved system, should be completed, particularly the additional information section, in the manner specified in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations as instructed by WADA:

WADA Code article 5.6. Athlete whereabouts information:
"Athletes who have been included in a Registered Testing Pool by their International Federation and/or National Anti-Doping Organization shall provide whereabouts information in the manner specified in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations. The International Federations and National Anti-Doping Organizations shall coordinate the identification of such Athletes and the collection of their whereabouts information. Each International Federation and National Anti-Doping Organization shall make available, through ADAMS or another system approved by WADA"

The International Standard for Testing and Investigations is quite clear that a Whereabouts filing failure has been committed if "A whereabouts filings is inaccurate or incomplete in order to reasonably locate the athlete for testing."

This is open to interpretation to some extent but it seems patently clear to me that if an athlete has not provided their hotel room number in the additional information section, which is specifically intended for such information, then it is going to be very difficult to locate them, hence a filing failure has been committed.

Which, as I've previously said, makes it very puzzling why CAS overturned the first missed test.

It's obviously not patently clear since she successfully challenged the validity of the attempted test on the basis that the attempted test had not been undertaken correctly. I think it would be reasonably easy to locate a professional cyclist in an hotel if the right questions were asked and the right info given about why you were asking for the room number (ie "I am from UKAD here to perform a test). If the tester had got the room number, gone there and found the room empty (ie she was at breakfast) - would that be a whereabouts failure?

 

[sniper]

what CAS do is they hear people.
likely they also heared the UKAD tester, and sh/e likely admitted s/he was at fault.

Incredible to realize how much room for corruption there is in a system so tainted by conflicts of interest.
UKAD and BC basically funded by the same funding source.

What would it take to bribe an antidope tester to get a strike cancelled...Probably it wouldn't cost anything as the tester doesn't want to go against his/her boss.
But even if it costs you a 1000, 2000 pounds, that's absolute peanuts in the wider scheme of National Lottery's goals and ambitions.

I don't doubt the whereabouts system is defrauded and testers are bribed on a daily basis.
Here we're just lucky to see some evidence of how fragile and corruptable the system is.
And in that respect the UK appears to be not much different from other countries such as Russia.

 

[TheSpud]

Re:

what CAS do is they hear people.
likely they also heared the UKAD tester, and sh/e likely admitted s/he was at fault.

Incredible to realize how much room for corruption there is in a system so tainted by conflicts of interest.
UKAD and BC basically funded by the same funding source.

What would it take to bribe an antidope tester to get a strike cancelled...Probably it wouldn't cost anything as the tester doesn't want to go against his/her boss.
But even if it costs you a 1000, 2000 pounds, that's absolute peanuts in the wider scheme of National Lottery's goals and ambitions.

Presumably that's the same in most countries - national Fed and the NADO receive some element of government funding? Hard to know how else it could be structured - that's not a defence of the structure, just not sure how you'd get a totally independent model.

 

[gooner]

Re: Re:

Gooner, you are simply not adressing Sniper and GJB's points. Can you answer why she deleted these tweets after this stuff blew up? Please dont dodge that question if you are willing to argue.

I responded to sniper above. I don't know.

Fair enough if you don't believe her and you think she is a cheat. I have already said that to GJB123. That's not the discussion I'm having.

This is wanting to know about an athlete's personal life in a general sense. In the case of a legit family emergency it is none of our business to know the details. As I said above, no one has taken into account the likely fact that others will be affected if this was disclosed. Sniper and GJB123 want to know the details.

Perspective out the window around here as usual.

Which is why Lizzie's fiancé released personal information about Pauline Ferrand Prevot?

I believe she lost the ability to confidentiality the second she decided to aattack anyone who questioned the decision making process & the reasons supplied to CAS.

FMK explained this perfectly up thread about Deignan.

It still doesn't give you the right to know about her family emergency.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Gooner, you are simply not adressing Sniper and GJB's points. Can you answer why she deleted these tweets after this stuff blew up? Please dont dodge that question if you are willing to argue.

I responded to sniper above. I don't know.

Fair enough if you don't believe her and you think she is a cheat. I have already said that to GJB123. That's not the discussion I'm having.

This is wanting to know about an athlete's personal life in a general sense. In the case of a legit family emergency it is none of our business to know the details. As I said above, no one has taken into account the likely fact that others will be affected if this was disclosed. Sniper and GJB123 want to know the details.

Perspective out the window around here as usual.

Which is why Lizzie's fiancé released personal information about Pauline Ferrand Prevot?

I believe she lost the ability to confidentiality the second she decided to aattack anyone who questioned the decision making process & the reasons supplied to CAS.

FMK explained this perfectly up thread about Deignan.

It still doesn't give you the right to know about her family emergency.

I don't think anyone is asking for that right. What is been shown is the hypocrisy in the matter of self justification, that is all. I don't think anyone cares what the emergency nor with regards to Prevot's personal life. What is more interesting is the tactics applied as a defence.

Those tactics are rather reminiscent of a 7 time Tour winner.

 

[gooner]

Re: Re:

Gooner, you are simply not adressing Sniper and GJB's points. Can you answer why she deleted these tweets after this stuff blew up? Please dont dodge that question if you are willing to argue.

I responded to sniper above. I don't know.

Fair enough if you don't believe her and you think she is a cheat. I have already said that to GJB123. That's not the discussion I'm having.

This is wanting to know about an athlete's personal life in a general sense. In the case of a legit family emergency it is none of our business to know the details. As I said above, no one has taken into account the likely fact that others will be affected if this was disclosed. Sniper and GJB123 want to know the details.

Perspective out the window around here as usual.

Which is why Lizzie's fiancé released personal information about Pauline Ferrand Prevot?

I believe she lost the ability to confidentiality the second she decided to aattack anyone who questioned the decision making process & the reasons supplied to CAS.

FMK explained this perfectly up thread about Deignan.

It still doesn't give you the right to know about her family emergency.

I don't think anyone is asking for that right. What is been shown is the hypocrisy in the matter of self justification, that is all. I don't think anyone cares what the emergency nor with regards to Prevot's personal life.What is more interesting is the tactics applied as a defence.

Those tactics are rather reminiscent of a 7 time Tour winner.

That's fair enough, yet I don't see why you said "she lost the ability to confidentiality" when the discussion was about posters wanting to know what it was about.

I don't disagree with the bolded.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

You mean you're working off a rumour and not fact? :lol:

Calmez vous down. I offered an opinion, did't tart it up as a fact. I am not aware of any such rumour.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

You mean you're working off a rumour and not fact? :lol:

Calmez vous down. I offered an opinion, did't tart it up as a fact. I am not aware of any such rumour.

Uh huh, it wasn't a very good opinion, just mere supposition.

I think what we are going to discover here is that the tester gave up after not getting a room number and not getting a reply to the phone call, did not follow the rules and come 15 minutes later, try again, and on and on for the full hour. In other words, the tester wasn't available for the full hour.