The Froome Files, test data only thread

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Would also seem to be a rookie error putting such straps on in such a way that they would slip down thereby not be able to record HR. And then not replacing straps in order to get said HR seems negligent and amateurish. Then with such an important test for the world to see and analyze might be construed as deceptive.

this.

but the negligence is hardly surprising seeing how they took that 2007 fax at face value, overlooking hard-to-overlook errors such as the mismatch of BMI and weight.

This job had amateurism written all over it.

Come on Sniper. Such innuendo.

The strap did not slip down, it simply stopped working.

And as for the final point: Any aspect of the GSK lab or staff that you specifically feel were amateurish? World class lab and utmost precision from their staff. It should be held up as a standard.

A bike on wind trainer is world class? Using a over copied fax as source data?

I would agree that might be good but world Class is a stretch. Look at Gesink"s set up compared to GSK. Worlds apart. And using a fax as core data? C'Mon?!!

 

[sniper]

It just sums up Team Sky.
Be it wrt Henao, or wrt Froome's power files, or wrt Kimmage at the TdF.
Always creating expectations of transparency, then not delivering or pulling out.

It was not clear exactly what testing was completed, but it could reveal such parameters as Froome’s VO2 max and his maximum heart-rate
http://www.velonews.com/2015/08/news/froome-undergoes-testing-to-quiet-doubters_381586#Dwd7UhZBP1d9SVby.99

Froome's maximum heart rate has been reported to be 174, although the researchers did not note the maximum in their report.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/five-key-points-of-chris-froomes-physiological-data/

bummer.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re:

thanks for expanding, that's fair enough.
However, i don't think anybody suspects Froome to have had a motor during the tests.
The suspicions of motorization clearly concerned his 2013 Ventoux climb.
And so the interesting thing would have been to be able to compare his max HR from the tests (no motor) with his HR from the leaked Ventoux file (suspected motor).

I'm not saying it would have been easy or straightforward to draw any conclusions from that comparison.
But it would at the very least have been interesting and potentially relevant.

Easy one to assess. The sub maximal test data did not experience the same loss of HR signal and that data was published.

The heart rate data published was at a high enough workload to correspond with data published from the field. There was no anomaly.

The only missing data is his max HR which from the sub maximal data can be inferred with relative accuracy.

 

[thehog]

Re:

It just smacks a bit of everything Sky do.
Be it wrt Henao, or wrt Froome's power files.
Always creating expectations of transparency, then not delivering.

It was not clear exactly what testing was completed, but it could reveal such parameters as Froome’s VO2 max and his maximum heart-rate
http://www.velonews.com/2015/08/news/froome-undergoes-testing-to-quiet-doubters_381586#Dwd7UhZBP1d9SVby.99

Froome's maximum heart rate has been reported to be 174, although the researchers did not note the maximum in their report.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/five-key-points-of-chris-froomes-physiological-data/

bummer.

I guess no one checked the batteries on the HR strap before the test?

Bummer indeed.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re: Re:

thanks for expanding, that's fair enough.
However, i don't think anybody suspects Froome to have had a motor during the tests.

It was asked in this very thread in case you'd forgotten:
viewtopic.php?p=1999609#p1999609

At the time I pointed out the issue with impact of efficiency measure but I had also forgotten they were recording power at both the ergometer and at the crank arm - so any extra power due to an external power supply such as an internal motor would have shown up at the ergo and not at the crank arm. It didn't.

The suspicions of motorization clearly concerned his 2013 Ventoux climb.
And so the interesting thing would have been to be able to compare his max HR from the tests (no motor) with his HR from the leaked Ventoux file (suspected motor).

I'm not saying it would have been easy or straightforward to draw any conclusions from that comparison.
But it would at the very least have been interesting and potentially relevant.

Finding a motor would be interesting.

Not sure the HR data tells us much of interest (for all the physiological reasons that make it difficult to infer much at all from it).

But for those that seem to care about it or be interested, all of the HR data from the lactate threshold tests was collected /reported, it was only the VO2max test for which the HR signal was lost. No one seems to have suggested the complete HR data is not consistent with the "leaked" climbing data.

I have addressed this question before as well.

The power meter data from the Ventoux video would have been recorded from a stages unit. As such, any motor used to drive the crank axle or a rim or any other known method of motorised doping would not have contributed to the power reading from the Stages. i.e the Stages would have demonstrated a lower power output than required to perform the work of climbing at the rate recorded. As it did not, there can clearly be no motor.

This simple point seems to be lost in the hysteria surrounding HR values.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re: Re:

What actually was "the stuff that matters" that was recorded?

You know, the scientific stuff like "he just lost the fat" - lol! :razz:

Oh, and the 2007 fax, that proved "he just lost the fat" :surprised:

the Fax is of course the real elephant in the room.
you didn't have to look long at it to see it was a fraud, forged, faked, fabricated.
yet still there are people taking this whole exercise seriously, as opposed to going after Froome, Cound and Moore for insulting and defrauding both the scientific and cycling community with that Fax.
As for Swart, the way he dismissed all the obvious issues with Fax, for me that was a big red flag.

Agreed, the fax is Froome's jiffy bag, no one knows how it came about. Swart is no dummy, not including it in his final report made sense otherwise the ridicule scale would have went off the charts. Even more so after the "he just lost the fat" quote which is now etched in stone.

It's makes you wonder how bright, seemingly intelligent people are willing to accept that paltry looking fax as the real deal. I guess that's why tertiary educated people drink diet sodas believing that is it good for them? Who's knows?

The fax is genuine or the scientists at the Lausanne lab (not part of the UCI sniper ) are in on a conspiracy. And I have no reason to believe that they would conspire to defraud as there is no motive for them to do so.

 

[sniper]

again, you're dismissing it out of hand instead of addressing the issues.
weird.
not something a scientist would do.

maybe try seeing it as a blind review.
regardless of who wrote it, we check for errors and, in this day and age, we even check for plagiarism and other signs of fraud.
you clearly didn't check for errors or signs of fraud, and you still refuse to.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re: Re:

Would also seem to be a rookie error putting such straps on in such a way that they would slip down thereby not be able to record HR. And then not replacing straps in order to get said HR seems negligent and amateurish. Then with such an important test for the world to see and analyze might be construed as deceptive.

this.

but the negligence is hardly surprising seeing how they took that 2007 fax at face value, overlooking hard-to-overlook errors such as the mismatch of BMI and weight.

This job had amateurism written all over it.

Come on Sniper. Such innuendo.

The strap did not slip down, it simply stopped working.

And as for the final point: Any aspect of the GSK lab or staff that you specifically feel were amateurish? World class lab and utmost precision from their staff. It should be held up as a standard.

A bike on wind trainer is world class? Using a over copied fax as source data?

I would agree that might be good but world Class is a stretch. Look at Gesink"s set up compared to GSK. Worlds apart. And using a fax as core data? C'Mon?!!

Your ignorance is astounding.

Wind trainer? The Computrainer Lab edition is a widely used and accurate ergometer that allows you to utilise the athlete's own bicycle. Especially when that has unique aspects such as the ovalised chainrings that would not be factored into an ergometer that requires independent setup. Additional factors such as replicating the position with absolute precision, width of bars, type of saddle etc. all make using a Computrainer the method of choice in laboratory testing.

Which aspect of Gessink's testing would you consider superior to the lab at GSK? World's apart??? I see no aspect that could be considered superior in any way.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re:

again, you're dismissing it out of hand instead of addressing the issues.
weird.
not something a scientist would do.

maybe try seeing it as a blind review.
regardless of who wrote it, we check for errors and, in this day and age, we even check for plagiarism and other signs of fraud.
you clearly didn't check for errors or signs of fraud, and you still refuse to.

I have been in contact with the scientists at the Lausanne Lab. Short of going there and checking their files there is no way to confirm or refute the veracity of the fax. In your wisdom, can you suggest the appropriate method?

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Would also seem to be a rookie error putting such straps on in such a way that they would slip down thereby not be able to record HR. And then not replacing straps in order to get said HR seems negligent and amateurish. Then with such an important test for the world to see and analyze might be construed as deceptive.

this.

but the negligence is hardly surprising seeing how they took that 2007 fax at face value, overlooking hard-to-overlook errors such as the mismatch of BMI and weight.

This job had amateurism written all over it.

Come on Sniper. Such innuendo.

The strap did not slip down, it simply stopped working.

And as for the final point: Any aspect of the GSK lab or staff that you specifically feel were amateurish? World class lab and utmost precision from their staff. It should be held up as a standard.

We agreed on twitter that Matt Furber should not have been one of the investigators, as he is also working for UKAD.
Not to mention that Dave B. referred to them as 'good guys' whom he knew already from their time at EIS.
And of course, little surprisingly, after the 'independent' testing was done, GSK and Froome announced further professional collaboration for the year 2016.

Basically this was in-house testing.
Whereas The Call was for independent testing.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...there is no way to confirm or refute the veracity of the fax.

Yet you took it at face value.

In your wisdom, can you suggest the appropriate method?

You're saying there isn't an original anywhere for you to look at?

And what 'method' are you talking about?
Plain vision suffices.
There was weird copy-paste marks all over the fax. The weight was out of line with the BMI, the fat percentage was unreal for a trained cyclist. (And yes he was trained when he did the tests)
If you'd care, you'd look for the evidence (posted earlier in this trhead), then either address it bit by bit, or forward the issues to the relevant authorities.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

again, you're dismissing it out of hand instead of addressing the issues.
weird.
not something a scientist would do.

maybe try seeing it as a blind review.
regardless of who wrote it, we check for errors and, in this day and age, we even check for plagiarism and other signs of fraud.
you clearly didn't check for errors or signs of fraud, and you still refuse to.

I have been in contact with the scientists at the Lausanne Lab. Short of going there and checking their files there is no way to confirm or refute the veracity of the fax. In your wisdom, can you suggest the appropriate method?

More to the point the fax never should have been considered; any reasonably sane scientist would have looked at it, seen the basic errors and would have concluded "inconclusive, cannot be used". Instead it became the smoking gun and concluding evidence of "he just lost the fat"; which was most unscientific.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re: Re:

Would also seem to be a rookie error putting such straps on in such a way that they would slip down thereby not be able to record HR. And then not replacing straps in order to get said HR seems negligent and amateurish. Then with such an important test for the world to see and analyze might be construed as deceptive.

this.

but the negligence is hardly surprising seeing how they took that 2007 fax at face value, overlooking hard-to-overlook errors such as the mismatch of BMI and weight.

This job had amateurism written all over it.

Come on Sniper. Such innuendo.

The strap did not slip down, it simply stopped working.

And as for the final point: Any aspect of the GSK lab or staff that you specifically feel were amateurish? World class lab and utmost precision from their staff. It should be held up as a standard.

We agreed on twitter that Matt Furber should not have been one of the investigators, as he is also working for UKAD.
Not to mention that Dave B. referred to them as 'good guys' whom he knew already from their time at EIS.
And of course, little surprisingly, after the 'independent' testing was done, GSK and Froome announced further professional collaboration for the year 2016.

Basically this was in-house testing.
Whereas The Call was for independent testing.

UKAD does not test Froome and so Matt Furber has no method to influence the outcome of any doping controls conducted on Froome. That has no relevance to independence. Independent meant not orchestrated by his team and conducted and observed by individuals who are not involved with Team Sky.

The "collaboration" you speak of is further use of scientific testing to provide insights into his physiological characteristics. There is nothing that makes that any less "independent" than it was before.

I'ms sure you would be able to find a connection that somehow invalidates any laboratory anywhere in the known universe.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re: Re:

Would also seem to be a rookie error putting such straps on in such a way that they would slip down thereby not be able to record HR. And then not replacing straps in order to get said HR seems negligent and amateurish. Then with such an important test for the world to see and analyze might be construed as deceptive.

this.

but the negligence is hardly surprising seeing how they took that 2007 fax at face value, overlooking hard-to-overlook errors such as the mismatch of BMI and weight.

This job had amateurism written all over it.

Come on Sniper. Such innuendo.

The strap did not slip down, it simply stopped working.

And as for the final point: Any aspect of the GSK lab or staff that you specifically feel were amateurish? World class lab and utmost precision from their staff. It should be held up as a standard.

We agreed on twitter that Matt Furber should not have been one of the investigators, as he is also working for UKAD.
Not to mention that Dave B. referred to them as 'good guys' whom he knew already from their time at EIS.
And of course, little surprisingly, after the 'independent' testing was done, GSK and Froome announced further professional collaboration for the year 2016.

Basically this was in-house testing.
Whereas The Call was for independent testing.

UKAD does not test Froome and so Matt Furber has no method to influence the outcome of any doping controls conducted on Froome. That has no relevance to independence. Independent meant not orchestrated by his team and conducted and observed by individuals who are not involved with Team Sky.

The "collaboration" you speak of is further use of scientific testing to provide insights into his physiological characteristics. There is nothing that makes that any less "independent" than it was before.

I'ms sure you would be able to find a connection that somehow invalidates any laboratory anywhere in the known universe.

I think the key point that needs to be addressed is that physiological testing does not confirm or refute the use of prohibited substances.

You need specific evidence relating to those and all these vague circumstantial bits of evidence only serve to muddy the water.

One thing we did clarify with the testing is that the performances we have seen in the races are within the limits of normal human abilities. Which puts to rest all these inferences that a performance was "mutant" or otherwise.

Once again, whether it was done cleanly or not is not established by the climbing rate or the physiological testing. Neither will answer that question.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
Independent meant not orchestrated by his team and conducted and observed by individuals who are not involved with Team Sky.

That's you lowering the standards of independent testing. In this day and age, we should increase the standards. Not lower them.

Independent testing would have been:
"Several sets of independent lab tests carried out through a season by an independent tester or testing body with no links to Team Sky, British Cycling or a national federation".
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/will-independent-testing-work-for-chris-froome/
This was not met.

The "collaboration" you speak of is further use of scientific testing to provide insights into his physiological characteristics. There is nothing that makes that any less "independent" than it was before.

this is more lowering of standards imo.

I'm sure you would be able to find a connection that somehow invalidates any laboratory anywhere in the known universe.

strawman.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
I think the key point that needs to be addressed is that physiological testing does not confirm or refute the use of prohibited substances.

You need specific evidence relating to those and all these vague circumstantial bits of evidence only serve to muddy the water.

One thing we did clarify with the testing is that the performances we have seen in the races are within the limits of normal human abilities. Which puts to rest all these inferences that a performance was "mutant" or otherwise.

Once again, whether it was done cleanly or not is not established by the climbing rate or the physiological testing. Neither will answer that question.

Of course.
We need at least two or more data points for one variable, so that we can start comparing.

That's why The Call was for multiple tests to be carried out throughout the season. Not one isolated test.
(see the quote in my previous post)

That's why the dodgy Fax (of which apparently there is no original) was quickly muffled into the Esquire article.

That's why the missing max HR was such a pity.

And that's, in the end, why I said this job had "amateurism" written all over it.

 

[Jeroen Swart]

Re: Re:

...
I think the key point that needs to be addressed is that physiological testing does not confirm or refute the use of prohibited substances.

You need specific evidence relating to those and all these vague circumstantial bits of evidence only serve to muddy the water.

One thing we did clarify with the testing is that the performances we have seen in the races are within the limits of normal human abilities. Which puts to rest all these inferences that a performance was "mutant" or otherwise.

Once again, whether it was done cleanly or not is not established by the climbing rate or the physiological testing. Neither will answer that question.

Of course.
We need at least two or more data points for one variable, so that we can start comparing.

That's why the dodgy Fax (of which apparently there is no original) was quickly muffled into the Esquire article.

That's why the missing max HR was such a pity.

That's why Sky not sharing Froome's pre-2011 power files with Grappe was such a pity.

This post is not really making much sense.

There are HR data for every second of the test for the sub maximal data set.

HR is linearly related to power. You don't need to be a scientist to work out max HR.

The question is what that would tell you. Nothing of relevance, that's what.

There is nothing to support a claim that there is no original to the fax. I addressed this in an earlier post above. You need to respond to that if you want to address this point. Standards and all...

 

[sniper]

...
More to the point the fax never should have been considered; any reasonably sane scientist would have looked at it, seen the basic errors and would have concluded "inconclusive, cannot be used". Instead it became the smoking gun and concluding evidence of "he just lost the fat"; which was most unscientific.

indeed.

And still nobody is making even the faintest of attempts to corroborate the Fax's veracity.
They just 'trust' it was legit.

Scientific red flags.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

...
I think the key point that needs to be addressed is that physiological testing does not confirm or refute the use of prohibited substances.

You need specific evidence relating to those and all these vague circumstantial bits of evidence only serve to muddy the water.

One thing we did clarify with the testing is that the performances we have seen in the races are within the limits of normal human abilities. Which puts to rest all these inferences that a performance was "mutant" or otherwise.

Once again, whether it was done cleanly or not is not established by the climbing rate or the physiological testing. Neither will answer that question.

Of course.
We need at least two or more data points for one variable, so that we can start comparing.

That's why The Call was for multiple tests to be carried out throughout the season. Not one isolated test.
(see the quote in my previous post)

That's why the dodgy Fax (of which apparently there is no original) was quickly muffled into the Esquire article.

That's why the missing max HR was such a pity.

And that's, in the end, why I said this job had "amateurism" written all over it.

You're not listening to Jeroen, are you? And to publicly call someone's professional work amateur is quite low. Especially since it was nothing of the sort.

John Swanson

 

[thehog]

Re:

...
More to the point the fax never should have been considered; any reasonably sane scientist would have looked at it, seen the basic errors and would have concluded "inconclusive, cannot be used". Instead it became the smoking gun and concluding evidence of "he just lost the fat"; which was most unscientific.

indeed.

And still nobody is making even the faintest of attempts to corroborate the Fax's veracity.
They just 'trust' it was legit.

Scientific red flags.

It should have tossed from the beginning. The test subjects wife found the magical, odd looking fax and it became the holy grail. I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading when the final punchline was "he just lost the fat".

It's like we didn't learn anything from Coyle/Armstrong, instead we just repeated it, this time in a major publication of Esquire, actually Coyle/Armstrong published their fraud in Vanity Fair, so we are not far off here.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
You're not listening to Jeroen, are you? And to publicly call someone's professional work amateur is quite low. Especially since it was nothing of the sort.

John Swanson

Science is cool, John.

But the fax makes a mockery of it.

Have you even seen the evidence or did you just chime in to toss Jeroen a life line? If the latter, fair enough. If the former, feel free to PM me.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

...
You're not listening to Jeroen, are you? And to publicly call someone's professional work amateur is quite low. Especially since it was nothing of the sort.

John Swanson

Science is cool, John.

But the fax makes a mockery of it.

Have you even seen the evidence or did you just chime in to toss Jeroen a life line? If the latter, fair enough. If the former, feel free to PM me.

You and Hog are piling on accusations which completely ignore the reality of what happened. Don't like the fax? Disregard it. Now go back and read through the description of the testing, who was involved, and what their relationships are. There's a lot of good explanations there.

Things like saying that the testing was bogus because the hooked up a bike to a wind trainer are, quite frankly, ignorant. Instead, you could have asked about the test setup. How was power measured? What equipment was used? How did you calibrate? <--- Pssst. That was the type of info that made Coyle's paper so embarrassing.

Personally, I think it's always wise to challenge the methods, analysis and conclusions in a paper. You have access to the author, which is very rare. Why don't you make good use of it? To start, do you have a copy of the paper? Maybe arrange to get one if you can. I bet Dr. Swart would provide one.

I'd also ignore the magazine (Esquire?) article. Anything in that article is the responsibility of the editor. While it might not contain any factual errors, the article could never be as complete as the paper it's reporting.

John Swanson

 

[thehog]

Which is why the 2007 data did not appear in the final report but it was too late by then, the "he just lost the fat" horse had already bolted from the stable.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Which is why the 2007 data did not appear in the final report but it was too late by then, the "he just lost the fat" was already out of the bag.

This is how I see it. It's not often you get access to athlete's of Froome's caliber. To be able to study and collect data would probably be very interesting to someone like Dr. Swart. So, he goes and collects the data of interest and gets a basket full of it, too. Misses one set of HR data from one test, but pffft. Who cares, it's not very relevant because it can be inferred from the other HR data.

Now comes the analysis. Aaaand yup. The numbers say that Froome has a big engine. Some folks in another lab (here comes that infamous fax) send their previous data, which is consistent with the data you've taken. When asked in an interview, the response is "The engine was always there. He just lost the fat." because that is exactly what the numbers say. Remember this was stated in an interview, not claimed in any publication. It's an opinion based on the data at hand.

Now here's what was left mostly unsaid because it is pure speculation and would be wildly inappropriate. Where did that engine come from? Could very well be drugs and lots of them. How was the weight lost? Could be dodgy as hell. The Lausanne data might be tough to verify (how accurate is it?) because it wasn't published. As per my post above, there would be no way to challenge the methods, analysis or conclusions. And by the way, who cares? Because I bet that Dr. Swart was way more interested in the data set he acquired than any paper that came out of it.

Banging on about bad science, amateurishness, bias, and all the other nonsense is way off the mark.

What would have been *really* interesting is if Froome's numbers came up short. You know like 60 Watts short. One could infer that motors are involved. Bottom line is that neither Dr. Swart or anyone involved with the testing ever believed you could tell whether Froome dopes or not by doing these tests. They were interested for wholly different reasons.

John Swanson

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
You and Hog are piling on accusations which completely ignore the reality of what happened. Don't like the fax? Disregard it. Now go back and read through the description of the testing, who was involved, and what their relationships are. There's a lot of good explanations there.

Things like saying that the testing was bogus because the hooked up a bike to a wind trainer are, quite frankly, ignorant. Instead, you could have asked about the test setup. How was power measured? What equipment was used? How did you calibrate? <--- Pssst. That was the type of info that made Coyle's paper so embarrassing.

Personally, I think it's always wise to challenge the methods, analysis and conclusions in a paper. You have access to the author, which is very rare. Why don't you make good use of it? To start, do you have a copy of the paper? Maybe arrange to get one if you can. I bet Dr. Swart would provide one.

I'd also ignore the magazine (Esquire?) article. Anything in that article is the responsibility of the editor. While it might not contain any factual errors, the article could never be as complete as the paper it's reporting.

John Swanson

This is well taken John, but I can assure you I have no interest in the paper, and I have never shown any interest in it either, to my knowledge. (Mind: I very much appreciate the fact that experts like you and Andy Coggan and Alex Simmons do have a genuine interest in it. Just not me.)

As Swart has explained multiple times, the paper doesn't provide any insights into the doping question, which, quite frankly is the only question that interests me.

Anything else in that paper is above my paygrade.

The only reason why this thread was revitalized in the past days is because a few posters chimed in claiming max HR is irrelevant and immaterial, and that only people with no understanding of physiology would show an interest in HR measurements.
All of which, in all honesty, are bizar things to say, seeing how the entire peloton is hooked up on heart rate monitors both in training and in competition, and seeing how there was an ongoing discussion (no, not just among anonymous wankers, but also among renowned physiology experts) about Froome's heart rate on Mont Ventoux.