The Armitstead doping thread.

[samhocking]

It's a hundred times faster to appeal to CAS once suspended, than to appeal a decision directly to UKAD. UKAD advise athletes to appeal to CAS for speedy decisions and when the athlete wants privacy.

 

[thehog]

Re: 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.

The presumption of innocence does not exist in anti-doping. If an infringement has occurred as in Armistead's case she was found guilty by UKAD under rule 2.4. They would have then heard evidence and issued a ban.

She appealed to CAS and had that decision turned over.

You don't get "a day in court", it doesn't work like that, its arbitration on appeal.

 

[thehog]

Re:

It's a hundred times faster to appeal to CAS once suspended, than to appeal a decision directly to UKAD. UKAD advise athletes to appeal to CAS for speedy decisions and when the athlete wants privacy.

Really? You mean people appeal to CAS once suspended. Yes, generally athletes appeal have been suspended, genius :lol:

He real reason it was fast tracked was due to the additional CAS sittings schedule pre-games as there are cases that have to be heard prior to allow eligibility or not.

 

[IndianCyclist]

the way she missed her first strike and the 2nd, it would be interesting to know how many she missed over the years

 

[Tonton]

When you know that you got strike one, strike two, you would want to ensure that there's no way that strike three will kick you out.

I don't know if Wilco is the new Eddy, but Lizzie is looking like the new Jeannie. And the decision, after Froome's decision, clearly shows that politics are involved. Behind the scene, power and money call the shots.

Panem et circenses: the masses will chew wheat and shaff alike. Enjoy the games. Ahahahaha never felt you got cheated?

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

So who missed out on a team slot at Rio?

 

[gillan1969]

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.

Not say the CPS etc get it right every time, but they do generally make themselves comfortable that there is a case to answer before proceeding with charges, however if the tester was that incompetent and the case so 'clear' then I would have thought that somebody i.e. Nicole Sapstead would have had a look over before they in effect banned a reigning world champion and gold medal hope in the run up to olympics...you know a sanity check?

The UKAD statement suggests that not enough info was given to locate Amistead as it obviously is written to preempt a decision they have not seen...as she also notes they want to know "why" the strike was not upheld. On Amistead's reading it seems very straightforward...I can't imagine Sapstead hasn't made herself very familiar with the process of that test/tester before speaking in public about it....on that basis it is perhaps not as straightforward...at the moment Amistead has the benefit of leading the narrative....

PS what is with all these steads???

 

[gillan1969]

PS has Amistead seen the decision or is the basis of the story thus far her inference based on her defence i.e. she assumes that as she 'won' then it must be because of what she put forward?

do all interested parties not see the decision at the same time?

(apologies FMKRol )

 

[kwikki]

Re: 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?

He attempted to call.

She says she wasn't aware of the missed test until the letter arrived 13 days later. We have nothing to suggest she was aware of the missed call.

If we want to make suppositions we could instead suppose that a world champion athlete might have a very active phone with journalists, sponsors, team staff, friends, family, etc phoning all the time.

She probably had lots of missed calls, but being a world champion athlete probably isn't too fussed about responding to an unknown telephone number.

Therefore, why assume she knows. And why then build a whole tale on the back of an unlikely assumption?

So we are exactly where I said we were.

 

[simoni]

Re: 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?

He attempted to call.

She says she wasn't aware of the missed test until the letter arrived 13 days later. We have nothing to suggest she was aware of the missed call.

If we want to make suppositions we could instead suppose that a world champion athlete might have a very active phone with journalists, sponsors, team staff, friends, family, etc phoning all the time.

She probably had lots of missed calls, but being a world champion athlete probably isn't too fussed about responding to an unknown telephone number.

Therefore, why assume she knows. And why then build a whole tale on the back of an unlikely assumption?

So we are exactly where I said we were.

Do the rules require an athlete to be contactable by phone at the time they declare they're available for testing?

 

[kwikki]

When you know that you got strike one, strike two, you would want to ensure that there's no way that strike three will kick you out.

I agree, and if you believe Armistead's statement then so does she. She claims to have tried to set up a system to avoid missed tests by seeking clarification from UKAD and using staff from BC to help manage her whereabouts. She claims that the staff member moved on, and nobody told her, which caused a missed test.

Now, whether you believe that is up to you, but knowing the lack of interest in women's cycling at BC I can well believe it. It is, at least, not impossible.

For the third test she claims a family crisis. Again, not impossible...we all have them, and when they come nothing else matters.

What we are left with is UKAD being forced to accept that their tester was incompetent on the first test, but whilst acknowledging the circumstances of the next two missed tests they are actually saying tough sh*t.

I don't know if Wilco is the new Eddy, but Lizzie is looking like the new Jeannie. And the decision, after Froome's decision, clearly shows that politics are involved.

It would be interesting to know if Sagan has missed any tests, and whether he has staff dedicated to ensuring his adherence to the Adam's system. I think you can probably imagine that a Sagan ban for 3 missed tests seems like an absolute impossibility.

Of course, we can all wonder why.

 

[gillan1969]

When you know that you got strike one, strike two, you would want to ensure that there's no way that strike three will kick you out.

I agree, and if you believe Armistead's statement then so does she. She claims to have tried to set up a system to avoid missed tests by seeking clarification from UKAD and using staff from BC to help manage her whereabouts. She claims that the staff member moved on, and nobody told her, which caused a missed test.

Now, whether you believe that is up to you, but knowing the lack of interest in women's cycling at BC I can well believe it. It is, at least, not impossible.

For the third test she claims a family crisis. Again, not impossible...we all have them, and when they come nothing else matters.

What we are left with is UKAD being forced to accept that their tester was incompetent on the first test, but whilst acknowledging the circumstances of the next two missed tests they are actually saying tough sh*t.

I don't know if Wilco is the new Eddy, but Lizzie is looking like the new Jeannie. And the decision, after Froome's decision, clearly shows that politics are involved.

It would be interesting to know if Sagan has missed any tests, and whether he has staff dedicated to ensuring his adherence to the Adam's system. I think you can probably imagine that a Sagan ban for 3 missed tests seems like an absolute impossibility.

Of course, we can all wonder why.

i would have thought that even without the decision in front of them they would have been aware of the arguments put forward at the hearing and so would know if their tester was incompetent or not and, if they were that incompetent, would be slightly less 'combative' at this point e.g. the UKAD statement might be talking about 'learning experiences' rather than athletes making mistakes.....

 

[King Boonen]

Re: 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?

He attempted to call.

She says she wasn't aware of the missed test until the letter arrived 13 days later. We have nothing to suggest she was aware of the missed call.

If we want to make suppositions we could instead suppose that a world champion athlete might have a very active phone with journalists, sponsors, team staff, friends, family, etc phoning all the time.

She probably had lots of missed calls, but being a world champion athlete probably isn't too fussed about responding to an unknown telephone number.

Therefore, why assume she knows. And why then build a whole tale on the back of an unlikely assumption?

So we are exactly where I said we were.

Do the rules require an athlete to be contactable by phone at the time they declare they're available for testing?

Honestly I doubt it. You can't insist someone has a mobile phone or a landline and you can't insist they answer unknown numbers on the off-chance it might be an anti-doping officer.

 

[elduggo]

Re: Re:

Of all the points she makes in her defence these are the few that I find understandable. She makes a valid point that in men's pro racing people are employed to help look after riders' organisation. She says she sought and gained help from BC employer to help manage whereabouts.

I wondered about this. The suggestion is very much that its much easier to miss a test in women's cycling, than in men's, purely because of the lack of support and help available.

Which is pretty serious and is something that I'm surprised that more female riders aren't up in arms about.

Unless of course its not true. There may be many reasons why there is such a lack of support for Lizzie from her peers, but surely at least one of them would have been sympathetic if they felt they were continually at risk of missing tests.

Or is this just a problem with British women cyclists?

It does seem that there may be some bigger, underlying issue here that needs to be addressed. Maybe she doesn't have the energy or the inclination to get these issues addressed. If what she is saying in her statement is true, and that its pretty much everyone else's fault, then she should back that up by looking to get those shortcomings in everyone else, addressed.

 

[kwikki]

Re:

ffs...how hard can it be to be where ya say ya gonna be...and if ya plans change

..update the system?

Mark L

ps credibility is shot...lizzie should not be going to rio........................

Bearing in mind that it has to be done daily, I would have thought the chances of making a mistake are pretty big.

The cyclingtips.com interview with a tester says that people miss tests all the time. Of course to miss a test you need your mistake to coincide with a planned test, which is pretty unlucky. It suggests to me that people probably make far more mistakes than they get missed tests.

 

[sniper]

if she goes, Vos's gonna have to 'save' womens cycling by beating her clean.

huge responsibility for Vos, having just been out for a year with a silent ban.

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re:

ffs...how hard can it be to be where ya say ya gonna be...and if ya plans change

..update the system?

Mark L

ps credibility is shot...lizzie should not be going to rio........................

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that the second and third failures were not her responsibility. She gave an explanation for one of them that might make it seem a little less silly or incompetent, but not, I think, expecting exoneration.

But as to the first matter, even though it has been chewed over here and in the Brits don't Dope thread by peope with varying agendas, the fact of the matter is that the Court of Arbitration in Sport did decide that UKAD did not follow the procedure properly for it to stand. It follows that she was not negligently responsible. The tester fouled up and UKAD could not rely on that incident.

Therefore, whether posters like it or not, she now has two failures not three and the circumstances of those two make no difference to her entitlement.

It's OK for people from other nations to *** about it (as they will) but it reflects badly on them. I also understand it if British posters like her less, as it were. She herself has been worried abou the negative effect on her image, and quite rightly.

But at the end of the day there's nothing to stop her competing in the Olympics or anywhere else. The rules say three and she now has two by a CAS decision that is binding and final.

I know this is all about doping, or alleged doping, or likely doping, or whatever, but I have never seen such interst in either women's cycling or the Olympics on these pages, where the purists tend to say the Olympics are rubbish and nobody cares about them. It turns out they do, it seems.

 

[elduggo]

Re:

if she goes, Vos's gonna have to 'save' womens cycling by beating her clean.

huge responsibility for Vos, having just been out for a year with a silent ban.

this. Its getting to a stage where its nearly safe to assume that everyone who hasn't raced in a while has either been banned, or is hiding away getting charged up.

 

[bewildered]

There must be a whole host of women cyclists missing 3 tests if they don't have the support of a third party to help them with their whereabouts. Where are the others? Where are the other female athletes up in arms supporting her on this? I've only seen other athletes say that 3 missed tests is absolutely inexcusable, which of course it is.

The buck stops with the athlete but she is blaming BC. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting the potential fate of my career in the hands of a third party even if I hadn't missed one test, never mind two. She even says in her statement that she was introduced to the Whereabouts system 9 years ago, but Thornton was only assigned to her in October 2015. So, presumably she didn't have a problem complying with Whereabouts testing for 8 years and then all of a sudden it became too much for her after 8 years experience of it? Computer says 'No'.

The last line of her statement is pathetic. It comes across as a thinly veiled 'people on twitter have never cycled a bike before and need to clear their heads of the crazy notion that I am not clean'. It's like Wiggins bone idle wnkrs comment written by a PR person or someone with more tact. And her Fiancee was as bad as any of them, as are some of those on twitter who think she's clean.

 

[biker jk]

Re:

There must be a whole host of women cyclists missing 3 tests if they don't have the support of a third party to help them with their whereabouts. Where are the others? Where are the other female athletes up in arms supporting her on this? I've only seen other athletes say that 3 missed tests is absolutely inexcusable, which of course it is.

The buck stops with the athlete but she is blaming BC. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting the potential fate of my career in the hands of a third party even if I hadn't missed one test, never mind two. She even says in her statement that she was introduced to the Whereabouts system 9 years ago, but Thornton was only assigned to her in October 2015. So, presumably she didn't have a problem complying with Whereabouts testing for 8 years and then all of a sudden it became too much for her after 8 years experience of it? Computer says 'No'.

The last line of her statement is pathetic. It comes across as a thinly veiled 'people on twitter have never cycled a bike before and need to clear their heads of the crazy notion that I am not clean'. It's like Wiggins bone idle wnkrs comment written by a PR person or someone with more tact. And her Fiancee was as bad as any of them, as are some of those on twitter who think she's clean.

Well said. It seems that most of her blind fans are suggesting that since the CAS found in her favour to have the first missed test excluded then there should be no questioning of her integrity with respect to doping. It's sort of a "if the glove don't fit you must acquit" defence. And we all know that OJ was guilty.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

When you know that you got strike one, strike two, you would want to ensure that there's no way that strike three will kick you out.

I agree, and if you believe Armistead's statement then so does she. She claims to have tried to set up a system to avoid missed tests by seeking clarification from UKAD and using staff from BC to help manage her whereabouts. She claims that the staff member moved on, and nobody told her, which caused a missed test.

Now, whether you believe that is up to you, but knowing the lack of interest in women's cycling at BC I can well believe it. It is, at least, not impossible.

From her statement, I don't see that she is claiming to have tried to set up a system to avoid missed tests. It seems more likely that this "support plan" is protocol coming from one of BC or UKAD

 

[Tienus]

Bearing in mind that it has to be done daily, I would have thought the chances of making a mistake are pretty big.

She failed three out of sixtien or about 20 percent of her tests if I understood correctly. That would mean she got it wrong a lot.

 

[kwikki]

A clean cyclist could get a ban by missing 3 tests.

Not saying Armistead is clean, just saying that a couple of missed tests in itself proves nothing except itself.

 

[Freddythefrog]

Re: Re:

.......... the fact of the matter is that the Court of Arbitration in Sport did decide that UKAD did not follow the procedure properly for it to stand. It follows that she was not negligently responsible. The tester fouled up and UKAD could not rely on that incident.

Therefore, whether posters like it or not, she now has two failures not three........

It's OK for people from other nations to *** about it (as they will) but it reflects badly on them................

In the interests of fairness does that mean Froome can go back to CAS and ask that his appeal against his missed test when the front desk of the hotel did the same thing, that was not supported by them, can now be overturned ?

Did we ever find out who was on the panel ? Three middle aged white males - young female athlete ?

The tester fouled up? Why did LA put down her personal number ? Tester being made a scapegoat ? From what we can make out from the variety of different stories we are getting here LA is ill, LA is not racing so she can prepare for RIO, LA did not appeal the 1st instance until after the third, LA did appeal the first instance to UKAD but they rejected it (I must confess I am getting a little lost here there are so many versions of the total truth in this new transparent era, flying around) it would seem that UKAD came to a decision that their tester did not foul up but rather that LA did not facilitate access for testing. ie a decision exactly in line with that deemed the case in Froome's missed test.

It is not just other nationals that are "bitching" (def - to *** - to be making informed and substantive claims that one athlete is being given preferential treatment in the manner and expedited timing of their case over others.) even the podcast fanboys Birnie and co were sufficiently upset that the LA team had told them she was not doing La Course or Ride London as she was preparing for RIO after her illness - they even ran the whole tape they had prepared pre Lizziegate, praising her dedication and foregoing financial reward and publicity by not competing in two of the most lucrative races on the circuit, such was her commitment.

I think something along the lines of "LA told lies to us" was the subliminal message we got.

To paraphrase Sir David - you don't say that on Monday you are going to ............. and then when you get up on Tuesday you will.............

If the Mail hadn't broken the story, the good ship would have sailed into through and out of the Olympics with none of us being any the wiser.

 

[Lyon]

Isn't it just typical! All these administrative problems when there is an olympic road race coming up and you are the dominant rider. Why can't these things happen when you are a lesser rider? But no, it has to happen when you are on top of the world and there is an olympics on.
An honest athlete just can't get a break anymore. The gods hate a winner!