- Aug 9, 2010
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Kennf1 said:
Here is a link to a scientific paper on hCG and sport from 1991 that indicates that testing for hCG was in place by then in the UK.
http://bjsportmed.com/content/25/2/73.full.pdf
From a review of the literature from as late as 1997, it is apparent that there were a lot of limitations to hCG testing around the time of Lance's cancer. The first hCG doping violation that I could find occurred in 1999. I still would like to see some more definitive evidence that testing for hCG was common and reliable in the mid-1990s before I pass judgment on this argument.
- Jul 27, 2010
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KayLow said:
The link you provide notes that there was no approved test for hCG at that time, though it was banned by the IOC in 1987. Apparently by 1994, however, there was. According to this later paper, published by a British group, a positive was defined as a level > 25 IU/liter. The article analyzed values of a large population of control subjects and concluded that the level could be lowered to 10 IU/liter without concern over false positives. Interestingly, they cite a study saying the incidence of hCG-secreting tumors in American men aged 20-35 is only 2-3 per 100,000. But they point out that an athlete who tests for a high level is strongly advised to see a doctor, and even note that a side benefit of the test could be to warn athletes who may have an undetected cancer.
- Apr 3, 2009
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Kennf1 said:
Actually a witch hunt implies the object of the pursuit is a non-existent fantastical entity. With magic powers.
Merckx index said:
That is not exactly how I read it. The paper notes that "At the Doping Control Centre, hCG administration in sportsmen is currently detected by analysing untimed urine samples by using immunometric assays which incorporate highly specific monoclonal antibodies." It then goes on to discuss the limitations of this approach. This suggests that testing was being done by 1991.
Moreover, other contemporary literature discusses the two separate immunoassay testing requirement that the IOC had in place for hCG. I do, however, believe that initially the IOC did not establish the threshold level of beta hCG for a positive test, because it was not known what the natural levels of beta hCG were in men. Also, when hCG was first added to the banned substances list, there was no single test that could reliably measure beta hCG levels in men, so none was adopted as the test that anti-doping agencies were to use. I don't think that this meant that anti-doping agencies were prohibited from implementing a testing program for hCG. Instead, I think it meant that every testing approach for hCG adopted by an anti-doping agency had to undergo an independent demonstration of reliability.
From pages 77-80 of David Walsh's book From Lance to Landis:
In a healthy patient, the level of beta-hCG is normally between one and two nanograms per milliliter of blood and almost always under five. At the time his cancer was detected, Armstrong’s beta-hCG level was enormously high. The figures vary according to the source, and even Armstrong himself has offered us three different figures: 52.000 ng/ml; 92.380 ng/ml; and 109.000 ng/ml. The first figure was quoted by Armstrong in an interview with French sports newspaper L’Equipe in November 1996; the other two appeared in his autobiography, It’s Not About the Bike.
It doesn’t matter which figure one take because all three are excessively high and it raises one obvious question: how was it that his enhanced beta-hCG was not detected in any of the drug tests Armstrong did through 1996? Human chorionic gonadotropin is a hormone produce by the placenta in pregnant women and its presence in urine is the standard proof of pregnancy. Enhanced beta-hCG levels in men are seen in cases of testicular cancer, but in its synthetic form beta-hCG is used by men to stimulate the production of testosterone. At the end of a cycle of anabolic steroids, the body’s natural ability to produce testosterone will often be impaired, and athletes may use beta-hCG to restart their own supply of testosterone. Hence, the synthetic hormone beta-hCG is a Class A banned substance, and if an athlete is proven to have abused it, he faces a two-year suspension. The potential benefit of testing for beta-hCG is that an elevated level may be caused by testicular cancer and, through a urine anti-doping test, the disease may be detected at a very early stage.
Given his victories in the Fleche Wallonne and the Tour DuPont, his stage victory and his second-place overall at the Tour of Holland, his fourth places in two World Cup races, and his second place at the Grand Prix Eddy Merckx, it is certain Armstrong was tested many times through 1996. Medical opinion varies on the length of time the testicular sufferer will show elevated beta-hCG levels, but it is accepted that in Armstrong’s case his levels of beta-hCG would have been enhanced for some time before the eventual detection of his illness. Even if one Chooses the lowest beta hCG level given by Armstrong, 52.000 ng/ml, medical opinion is that the level would have been raised for some months. “Fifty-two thousand units of hCG is a lot,” says Jean-Bernard Dubois, professor of oncology at the Faculty of Medicine in Montpellier, France. “There is a mathematical relationship between the level of the marker and the extent of the illness. This is important. On the other hand, it is difficult to date the beginnings of the cancer because it’s a cancer that grows very fast. A range? Between two years and three months for this cancer. Less than a month is just not possible.”
Comparable to anabolic steroids, beta-hCG stimulates muscle growth, increases training capacity, stimulates levels of aggression, and pushes back the fatigue threshold. The abused of beta-hCG was identified in 1983 and has been detectable through urine analysis since 1987. Its use was prohibited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Cycling Union (UCI) in 1988. That year, a report produced by Professor Raymond Brooks revealed hCG was being used by top British sports people. Though it was then on the list of banned products, it was not systematically tested for because no official threshold was established for a positive result. It was also the case that beta-hCG was not looked for unless it was known the testosterone level was already elevated.
“At that time [the 1980s],” says Jacques de Ceaurriz, director of the French national laboratory for drug testing at Chatenay-Malabry, “there was not an established threshold and I don’t know if beta-hCG was being detected. What I do know is that at this time [1996], testing for beta-hCG was operational and systematic. But there is a difference between the intention to look for a banned substance and the reality. For an analysis to be valid, it must go through two stages: first, the banned product must be measure and analyzed in the laboratory; second, the conclusions must be reported and acted upon. Perhaps the second point was not carried out. Moreover, the relevant body knew full well that his [Armstrong’s] beta-hCG levels were not brought to light. The case caused profound embarrassment.”
Implicit in De Ceaurriz’s observation is the possibility that Armstrong’s elevated beta-hCG level was picked up in the test but perhaps was not acted upon by UCI. De Ceaurriz knows he understates the case when he speaks of the embarrassment caused. Inside the medical commission of the UCI, there was ample reason for panic. What would happen if Lance Armstrong employed attorneys to investigate the case, figured out why his elevated levels of beta-hCG had not shown up in drug tests, and then sought compensation from the governing body? This was a failure of doping control that could have cost him his life. Armstrong, however, was clam about the failure of the drug tests to detect his cancer in its early stages. In responses to questions on this subject, he explained in a January 1997 interview with the French daily newspaper Le Monde that he knew beta-hCG was looked for in doping controls.
“I would like to know what my level was at the time of the control,” he said in a reference to his drug test after the Grand Prix Suisse in August, six weeks before his cancer was detected “It it’s true the UCI keeps all the results, it should be possible to know where my cancer was at that time.” Asked by the American journalist James Startt about the failure of the doping controls to identify his elevated beta-hCG levels, Armstrong regretted this had happened. But there was not public explanation, either from the rider or the authorities, as to why the system had failed.
In 1996 the French laboratory Chatenay-Malabry was under the direction of Jean-Pierre Lafarge. Interviewed by Le Monde on November 24, 1996, Lafarge was categorical on the question of beta-hCG. “Testing for this substance was systemic. The cases were rare, probably lower than one case in ten thousand. In Lance Armstrong’s cases, it is surprising that no trace of the illness was detected during the controls.” The analysis of the drug controls at the Grand Prix Suisse in August 1996 was carried out by an IOC-approved laboratory at Cologne. Its director, Wilhelm Schanzer, told Le Monde that his “laboratory had the capacity to find hCG.” At the time, the Cologne laboratory detected slight abnormality in Armstrong’s testosterone analysis but did not think the deviation suspicious enough to take it further. Results sent by the laboratory to the UCI showed Armstrong’s test was negative.
The only official reaction from UCI to the apparent contradiction of hCG not showing up in drug tests came from Anne-Laure Masson in an interview with Le Monde. Masson was then medical coordinator of the world governing body. “I’m perplexed because if the level of hCG was also high, Lance Armstrong should have tested positive, in principle. For now, it is inexplicable.”
In a healthy patient, the level of beta-hCG is normally between one and two nanograms per milliliter of blood and almost always under five. At the time his cancer was detected, Armstrong’s beta-hCG level was enormously high. The figures vary according to the source, and even Armstrong himself has offered us three different figures: 52.000 ng/ml; 92.380 ng/ml; and 109.000 ng/ml. The first figure was quoted by Armstrong in an interview with French sports newspaper L’Equipe in November 1996; the other two appeared in his autobiography, It’s Not About the Bike.
It doesn’t matter which figure one take because all three are excessively high and it raises one obvious question: how was it that his enhanced beta-hCG was not detected in any of the drug tests Armstrong did through 1996? Human chorionic gonadotropin is a hormone produce by the placenta in pregnant women and its presence in urine is the standard proof of pregnancy. Enhanced beta-hCG levels in men are seen in cases of testicular cancer, but in its synthetic form beta-hCG is used by men to stimulate the production of testosterone. At the end of a cycle of anabolic steroids, the body’s natural ability to produce testosterone will often be impaired, and athletes may use beta-hCG to restart their own supply of testosterone. Hence, the synthetic hormone beta-hCG is a Class A banned substance, and if an athlete is proven to have abused it, he faces a two-year suspension. The potential benefit of testing for beta-hCG is that an elevated level may be caused by testicular cancer and, through a urine anti-doping test, the disease may be detected at a very early stage.
Given his victories in the Fleche Wallonne and the Tour DuPont, his stage victory and his second-place overall at the Tour of Holland, his fourth places in two World Cup races, and his second place at the Grand Prix Eddy Merckx, it is certain Armstrong was tested many times through 1996. Medical opinion varies on the length of time the testicular sufferer will show elevated beta-hCG levels, but it is accepted that in Armstrong’s case his levels of beta-hCG would have been enhanced for some time before the eventual detection of his illness. Even if one Chooses the lowest beta hCG level given by Armstrong, 52.000 ng/ml, medical opinion is that the level would have been raised for some months. “Fifty-two thousand units of hCG is a lot,” says Jean-Bernard Dubois, professor of oncology at the Faculty of Medicine in Montpellier, France. “There is a mathematical relationship between the level of the marker and the extent of the illness. This is important. On the other hand, it is difficult to date the beginnings of the cancer because it’s a cancer that grows very fast. A range? Between two years and three months for this cancer. Less than a month is just not possible.”
Comparable to anabolic steroids, beta-hCG stimulates muscle growth, increases training capacity, stimulates levels of aggression, and pushes back the fatigue threshold. The abused of beta-hCG was identified in 1983 and has been detectable through urine analysis since 1987. Its use was prohibited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Cycling Union (UCI) in 1988. That year, a report produced by Professor Raymond Brooks revealed hCG was being used by top British sports people. Though it was then on the list of banned products, it was not systematically tested for because no official threshold was established for a positive result. It was also the case that beta-hCG was not looked for unless it was known the testosterone level was already elevated.
“At that time [the 1980s],” says Jacques de Ceaurriz, director of the French national laboratory for drug testing at Chatenay-Malabry, “there was not an established threshold and I don’t know if beta-hCG was being detected. What I do know is that at this time [1996], testing for beta-hCG was operational and systematic. But there is a difference between the intention to look for a banned substance and the reality. For an analysis to be valid, it must go through two stages: first, the banned product must be measure and analyzed in the laboratory; second, the conclusions must be reported and acted upon. Perhaps the second point was not carried out. Moreover, the relevant body knew full well that his [Armstrong’s] beta-hCG levels were not brought to light. The case caused profound embarrassment.”
Implicit in De Ceaurriz’s observation is the possibility that Armstrong’s elevated beta-hCG level was picked up in the test but perhaps was not acted upon by UCI. De Ceaurriz knows he understates the case when he speaks of the embarrassment caused. Inside the medical commission of the UCI, there was ample reason for panic. What would happen if Lance Armstrong employed attorneys to investigate the case, figured out why his elevated levels of beta-hCG had not shown up in drug tests, and then sought compensation from the governing body? This was a failure of doping control that could have cost him his life. Armstrong, however, was clam about the failure of the drug tests to detect his cancer in its early stages. In responses to questions on this subject, he explained in a January 1997 interview with the French daily newspaper Le Monde that he knew beta-hCG was looked for in doping controls.
“I would like to know what my level was at the time of the control,” he said in a reference to his drug test after the Grand Prix Suisse in August, six weeks before his cancer was detected “It it’s true the UCI keeps all the results, it should be possible to know where my cancer was at that time.” Asked by the American journalist James Startt about the failure of the doping controls to identify his elevated beta-hCG levels, Armstrong regretted this had happened. But there was not public explanation, either from the rider or the authorities, as to why the system had failed.
In 1996 the French laboratory Chatenay-Malabry was under the direction of Jean-Pierre Lafarge. Interviewed by Le Monde on November 24, 1996, Lafarge was categorical on the question of beta-hCG. “Testing for this substance was systemic. The cases were rare, probably lower than one case in ten thousand. In Lance Armstrong’s cases, it is surprising that no trace of the illness was detected during the controls.” The analysis of the drug controls at the Grand Prix Suisse in August 1996 was carried out by an IOC-approved laboratory at Cologne. Its director, Wilhelm Schanzer, told Le Monde that his “laboratory had the capacity to find hCG.” At the time, the Cologne laboratory detected slight abnormality in Armstrong’s testosterone analysis but did not think the deviation suspicious enough to take it further. Results sent by the laboratory to the UCI showed Armstrong’s test was negative.
The only official reaction from UCI to the apparent contradiction of hCG not showing up in drug tests came from Anne-Laure Masson in an interview with Le Monde. Masson was then medical coordinator of the world governing body. “I’m perplexed because if the level of hCG was also high, Lance Armstrong should have tested positive, in principle. For now, it is inexplicable.”
- Apr 13, 2010
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- 10,480
red_flanders said:Actually a witch hunt implies the object of the pursuit is a non-existent fantastical entity. With magic powers.
That sounds like LA to me. Winning 7 tours straight while being clean clearly requires magic powers... and as it still wouldn't add up probably also requires you're a non-existent fantastical entity...
- Sep 15, 2010
- 1,086
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Marty Jemison & Prentice Steffen
The Fight:
In 2001 Steffen told Irish reporter David Walsh that in 1996 U.S. Postal riders Jemison and Tyler Hamilton had approached him during the Tour of Switzerland looking for information about illegal doping products. Steffen said he reported the incident to then-director Mark Gorski, and at the end of that year his contract with the team was not renewed.
(Full Story)
Interview:
Marty notes like many others who have worked for Lance Armstrong that it brought him to a new level. "I rode harder for Lance than I thought I was capable." One such race that Marty enjoyed most during his career was the 1999 Tour of Luxembourg where he did exactly that. "Little was ever mentioned about this race but I really enjoyed the last day of the Tour of Luxembourg when Lance won G.C. Lance had our team line up leading the peloton into a narrow, 14-16 percent climb. Tyler and myself went over the top with L.A. in our wheel and the two of us proceeded with a 60km time trial with six riders in tow. Frankie was in the break and won the stage. This was Armstrong's first victory after cancer... I liked riding hard."
(Full Story)
from Donkey to Racehorse:
2000 Paris-Roubaix - Marty Jemison in the break (Video)
IMO Marty is nothing more than a minor bit player elevated.
The Fight:
In 2001 Steffen told Irish reporter David Walsh that in 1996 U.S. Postal riders Jemison and Tyler Hamilton had approached him during the Tour of Switzerland looking for information about illegal doping products. Steffen said he reported the incident to then-director Mark Gorski, and at the end of that year his contract with the team was not renewed.
(Full Story)
Interview:
Marty notes like many others who have worked for Lance Armstrong that it brought him to a new level. "I rode harder for Lance than I thought I was capable." One such race that Marty enjoyed most during his career was the 1999 Tour of Luxembourg where he did exactly that. "Little was ever mentioned about this race but I really enjoyed the last day of the Tour of Luxembourg when Lance won G.C. Lance had our team line up leading the peloton into a narrow, 14-16 percent climb. Tyler and myself went over the top with L.A. in our wheel and the two of us proceeded with a 60km time trial with six riders in tow. Frankie was in the break and won the stage. This was Armstrong's first victory after cancer... I liked riding hard."
(Full Story)
from Donkey to Racehorse:
2000 Paris-Roubaix - Marty Jemison in the break (Video)
IMO Marty is nothing more than a minor bit player elevated.
- Sep 15, 2010
- 1,086
- 3
- 9,985
Drug Use Said to Concern LeMond : Attorney Claims Dutch Team Wanted Cyclist to Try Testosterone
July 25, 1989 | RANDY HARVEY | Times Staff Writer
Already beset by injuries and illness, Greg LeMond was further distressed last year because he feared his team, PDM of the Netherlands, would try to improve his lagging performances by tricking him into using a banned drug, the American cyclist's attorney said Monday.
Although LeMond's break with PDM, the sport's dominant team, was primarily the result of a financial dispute, Ron Stanko of Reading, Pa., said the cyclist was believed to be out of the contract before this year because of his philosophical differences with the team's officials regarding banned substances.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-07-25/sports/sp-95_1_greg-lemond
July 25, 1989 | RANDY HARVEY | Times Staff Writer
Already beset by injuries and illness, Greg LeMond was further distressed last year because he feared his team, PDM of the Netherlands, would try to improve his lagging performances by tricking him into using a banned drug, the American cyclist's attorney said Monday.
Although LeMond's break with PDM, the sport's dominant team, was primarily the result of a financial dispute, Ron Stanko of Reading, Pa., said the cyclist was believed to be out of the contract before this year because of his philosophical differences with the team's officials regarding banned substances.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-07-25/sports/sp-95_1_greg-lemond
- Aug 18, 2012
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KayLow said:
The urinary test for steroid's that they were using at that time was to test the testosterone : epitestosterone ratio, this is the test that Floyd failed with a ratio of 11: 1 (4 : 1 is the limit now, it was a more lenient 6 : 1 at the time Lance developed cancer).
That ratio should have been distorted months before his cancer was diagnosed regardless of how effective the hCG testing was at that point.
Briant_Gumble said:
From memory (don't shoot me if I'm wrong) the IOC T/E ratio limit is still 6:1, would be interesting to see which athletes at the Olympics were above 4:1.
- May 27, 2012
- 6,458
- 0
- 0
Race Radio said:
Good ole Cycling Forums...a place where you could really express yourself as colorfully as you wanted. EDIT: after reading that thread, I see that they now have a word filter. When I originally started that thread, there was no filter, and my language was there in all of its profane glory. Too bad that.
I'm just happy that my ode to him comes up so high on the list as it sounds like there will be a lot of Armstrong fanboys googling his name soon. (as 99% of Armstrong's fans have no idea that anyone but Lance ever rode a race) He always was and will be a complete ****weasel.
Briant_Gumble said:
Not sure this is true. The standard protocols for high hCG result include a test for testicular cancer. The high T/E ratio protocols do not, and I have never heard that abnormally high T/E ratios are a common marker for testicular cancer. I am not saying this is wrong, but I have never heard this.
- Aug 18, 2012
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- 0
- 0
KayLow said:
It's more of a vague marker than a test but it stands to reason and logic that his ratio should have been distorted if his untainted urine was meeting the tests.
From a quick google search this article touches on it:
http://cavalierfc.tumblr.com/
If you understand my point, whilst a cancer patient is not going to get their cancer diagnosed from a T: E, if someone who unknowingly had the cancer submitted their urine for testing multiple times whilst they still had the cancer then it should have shown up that things were distorted.
LauraLyn
BANNED
- Jul 13, 2012
- 594
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the big ring said:
Without a safe place, the truth cannot come out.
For so many people it is now safe to say what they know and how they really feel about Lance Armstrong. The more that do this, the more others will also feel comfortable to say what they know and how they feel.
UCI and USA Cycling are still too threatening for most riders and those involved in cycling.
- Aug 18, 2012
- 1,171
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Stueyy said:
Nah, I'm pretty sure it was 4:1 at the last Olympics although a 1:1 ratio occurs naturally so there's still scope for abuse.
http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/end_steroids_aug_04.pdf
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