Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE's)

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2016/09/russian-hackers-release-galen-rupp-shalane-flanagan-anti-doping-data/

One thing to note is that Alberto Salazar, in his open letter defending the practices of his Nike Oregon Project in response to the BBC/Pro Publica investigation, wrote that “Galen has only received two (his emphasis) TUEs in his running career since 2010.” Neither of these TUEs since 2010 were in the Fancy Bear data released, so either Fancy Bears does not have access to athletes’ complete anti-doping records or is not releasing all the information.
If anything, this hack is a good thing for Galen Rupp. In the past, he and coach Alberto Salazar have been accused of manipulating the TUE system, claims they have denied. Alberto Salazar has admitted that Galen had more TUEs than the Fancy Bears hackers released.

Interesting notes: Salazar lying that Rupp has more TUEs ? FancyBear does not release all TUEs at the moment ? FancyBear does not have access to all TUEs ?

Fancy Bear / Vlad. knowing that there's more damage with drip drip drip?

Mind games. They want to make prominent western athletes sweat

I'm willing to bet the house that if any prominent Jamaican sprinters or US swimmers have TUE's they're packing themselves.

 

[B_Ugli]

One thing that Lance Armstrong was very good at was controlling the PR and media message to his own agenda.

In fact that was the one thing he clung onto till the very last when Travis Tygart eventually called his bluff.

What's interesting is that 24 hours ago everyone was talking about the questions Dave Brailsford had to answer but after his interview on SKY News last night and Chris Froomes follow up he has successfully moved the agenda away from:

The unanswered questions Dave Brailsford still has to answer

to

The problems with the TUE system and Wada per se

 

[Benotti69]

One thing that Lance Armstrong was very good at was controlling the PR and media message to his own agenda.

In fact that was the one thing he clung onto till the very last when Travis Tygart eventually called his bluff.

What's interesting is that 24 hours ago everyone was talking about the questions Dave Brailsford had to answer but after his interview on SKY News last night and Chris Froomes follow up he has successfully moved the agenda away from:

The unanswered questions Dave Brailsford still has to answer

to

The problems with the TUE system and Wada per se

Skinner making his medical asthma history public kind put a spotlight back on Wiggins/Sky/Braislford.

But sports journalists in the majority get bored quickly. It will depend if Walsh takes being lied to personally and he might.

 

[B_Ugli]

One thing that Lance Armstrong was very good at was controlling the PR and media message to his own agenda.

In fact that was the one thing he clung onto till the very last when Travis Tygart eventually called his bluff.

What's interesting is that 24 hours ago everyone was talking about the questions Dave Brailsford had to answer but after his interview on SKY News last night and Chris Froomes follow up he has successfully moved the agenda away from:

The unanswered questions Dave Brailsford still has to answer

to

The problems with the TUE system and Wada per se

Skinner making his medical asthma history public kind put a spotlight back on Wiggins/Sky/Braislford.

But sports journalists in the majority get bored quickly. It will depend if Walsh takes being lied to personally and he might.

They do get bored but I hope they don't let him off the hook as it will be a massive opportunity missed to call him out. An opportunity they may not get again.

With LA so many journos were criticised for taking the info without question which I thought we had moved past.

 

[kielbasa]

There should be no exemptions of any kind. If you want to win professional races, stars have to align for you, then you must work at it, then you cross your fingers, otherwise SOL. Someone needs to send a message that sick people don't win professional sporting events.

 

[42x16ss]

There should be no exemptions of any kind. If you want to win professional races, stars have to align for you, then you must work at it, then you cross your fingers, otherwise SOL. Someone needs to send a message that sick people don't win professional sporting events.

So you're saying that people like Alex Dowsett and Team Norvo-Nordisk have no place in the sport at elite level?

 

[kielbasa]

There should be no exemptions of any kind. If you want to win professional races, stars have to align for you, then you must work at it, then you cross your fingers, otherwise SOL. Someone needs to send a message that sick people don't win professional sporting events.

So you're saying that people like Alex Dowsett and Team Norvo-Nordisk have no place in the sport at elite level?

Whiners and exemptions don't. I think you know what I meant.

 

[abc987]

Re: Re:

The other obvious question is, if the Sky TUEs are such a glaring abuse of the TUE system, why is everyone else not doing it? It's common sense to expect that lots of people would be helping themselves to some "legalised doping", but the UCI TUE web page records only 13 TUEs for 2015.

your approach is not productive, since the reasoning you're trying to imply has some serious faults. What you're trying to do is the same as asking, for instance:

if the twin towers were blown up by some saudi terrorists in planes why weren't their bodies found?

It doesn't matter if bodies were found. When you consider something, you look at the evidence for that something, not at what you expect to find but is missing. It's incorrect reasoning.

The same way, when you're trying to assess if Sky abused the TUE system, you look at the evidence of Sky doing that, not at what you think others would have done.

There is evidence of a plot carried out by saudi terrorists. And there is evidence of abuse of TUEs by Sky. The discussion ends here.

Clear?

No, I have to admit I don't really understand the point you are trying to make, and I don't think have understood the question I was asking.

I am simply asking why there are not many more athletes using TUEs, if the TUE system can be misused to gain a legal performance advantage.

So if you really want to use a convoluted 9-11 analogy that is actually relevant to the point I was making, you might say "If it's so easy for terrorists to destroy a major landmark with aeroplanes, why isn't every terrorist doing it?" And of course, the answer is that after the 9-11 attacks, a whole host of changes were made which make it very difficult to repeat that atrocity (much stricter airport security, air marshalls, passenger profiling, etc, etc). If none of those preventative measures had been introduced, we would indeed expect to see passenger aircraft used as weapons on a regular basis.

In the case of TUEs, however, there aren't really any special hurdles to overcome, and the process is pretty accessible to any professional cyclist. So why are there so few TUEs? Perhaps professional cycling is indeed full of virtuous individuals who would never seek to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors, or perhaps most people are a bit slow on the uptake, and only a clever few have realised they can get a legal performance boost, or perhaps the TUE system simply isn't a very effective mechanism for performance enhancement...

 

[abc987]

Many national doping agencies are allowed to issue TUE themselves....

I noticed on the UCI website that TUEs may be issued by national anti doping agencies, and these will be accepted by the UCI. However it wasn't clear to me if the total on the UCI site was all TUEs or only TUEs issued directly by the UCI. Does anyone have a definitive answer to this?

This is a very good spot. Based on the wording of the website I think that they are only talking about TUEs that are actually granted by the UCI, not all TUEs accepted.

I read the UCI TUE web page again, and I think I understand the situation more clearly. All athletes in the registered testing pool (RTP) have to get their TUEs through the UCI.

The RTP selection criteria and the full list of athletes are here:
http://www.uci.ch/clean-sport/international-registered-testing-pool-uci-rtp/
For road, the RTP selection criteria includes "professional men" and "top ranked women", and looking at the UK road riders, all the prominent men seem to be included.

So I think the 13 TUEs for 2015 is the total number of TUEs issued for all the athletes in the RTP, and there appears to be 1206 RTP athletes across all cycling disciplines. There are an unknown number of TUEs issued by national anti-doping agencies for athletes outside the RTP.

I'm still a bit surprised that there are so few TUEs for this group, even just for legitimate medical treatment.

 

[Franklin]

Extremely low... I'm having a hard time believing that.

You'd think that crashes and respiratory issues would keep that list longer. And that's just cases which are warranted in my book.

 

[Nomad]

Interesting paper on TUEs:

Int J Drug Policy. 2013 Nov;24(6):579-88. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2013.03.007. Epub 2013 Apr 9.

Between medical treatment and performance enhancement: an investigation of how elite athletes experience Therapeutic Use Exemptions.

Overbye M1, Wagner U2.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23582632

 

[King Boonen]

Many national doping agencies are allowed to issue TUE themselves....

I noticed on the UCI website that TUEs may be issued by national anti doping agencies, and these will be accepted by the UCI. However it wasn't clear to me if the total on the UCI site was all TUEs or only TUEs issued directly by the UCI. Does anyone have a definitive answer to this?

This is a very good spot. Based on the wording of the website I think that they are only talking about TUEs that are actually granted by the UCI, not all TUEs accepted.

I read the UCI TUE web page again, and I think I understand the situation more clearly. All athletes in the registered testing pool (RTP) have to get their TUEs through the UCI.

The RTP selection criteria and the full list of athletes are here:
http://www.uci.ch/clean-sport/international-registered-testing-pool-uci-rtp/
For road, the RTP selection criteria includes "professional men" and "top ranked women", and looking at the UK road riders, all the prominent men seem to be included.

So I think the 13 TUEs for 2015 is the total number of TUEs issued for all the athletes in the RTP, and there appears to be 1206 RTP athletes across all cycling disciplines. There are an unknown number of TUEs issued by national anti-doping agencies for athletes outside the RTP.

I'm still a bit surprised that there are so few TUEs for this group, even just for legitimate medical treatment.

I'm not sure that's right. From the regulations:

4.4.3 A Rider who is an International-Level Rider must apply to the UCI for a TUE.

4.4.3.1 Where the Rider already has a TUE granted by his/her National Anti-Doping Organization for the substance or method in question, if that TUE meets the criteria set out in Section 4.0 of the UCI TUE Regulations, then the UCI shall recognize it. ...

So there is a clear provision for riders to go to a NADO for a TUE. What I think the UCI TUE rules are actually saying is that the UCI has final say on TUEs for international riders and that NADOs deal with non-international riders and the UCI recognise their decisions.

That's what this bit says to me:

5.1 UCI ADR Article 4.4 specifies (a) the authority of the UCI to make TUE decisions in respect of Riders who are International-Level Riders or for participation in an International Event; (b) how TUE decisions granted by National Anti-Doping Organizations should be recognized and respected by the UCI; and (c) when TUE decisions issued by the UCI may be reviewed and/or appealed.
5.2 The list of Riders who are International-Level Riders included in UCI’s Registered Testing Pool and therefore required to obtain a TUE from the UCI is published on the UCI Website.
UCI ADR Article 4.4.2 specifies the authority of a National Anti-Doping Organization to make TUE decisions in respect of Riders who are not International-Level Riders and the manner in which the UCI will recognize these TUEs.

So the list of UCI issued TUEs is just that, only the ones they have issued.

 

[Tienus]

Just before the world championship cyclocross two favourites tweet a doping test form to show they have no TUE.
https://twitter.com/thijszonneveld/status/823622749717430276
Zonneveld thinks its because van Aert and his mysterious knee problems. They might try to get him to show his.

 

[vedrafjord]

Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil 2009-2013, Astana 2014-2016) admits cortisone use throughout his career on the back of fraudulent TUEs: https://www.lc.nl/sport/Lieuwe-Westra-biecht-gebruik-cortisonen-op-23137654.html

(some quotes Google translated):

"In my first professional year it became clear to me that with only hard training no victories were achieved. If you wanted to join the big boys, you had to look up the limits of the permissible.

"The medical certificate I received often with a feigned injury, for example an inflammation in the knee. It paid off years to fend an injury to the knee. According to the rider's book, I had been suffering from knee problems for years. This enabled me to start a course of cortisone at important peak times in the season.

"I am happy today that my professional career started in 2009. Had I made the switch from the amateurs before, the temptation would have been too strong for me. My hand would have grabbed to epo or a variant of it.

"Every rider of name provided a medical certificate for classics and other big competitions.

"I think the team management did not want to know what was going on in those years: they could not be called on. Although they often knew it, of course, but we did not talk about it openly. We had to perform and it did not matter to them, as long as we were not caught. Ignorance is bliss.

"I think I can tell the story about the cortisone injections open, because I do not feel that I really did something wrong. Almost everyone from my generation worked on peak times in this way."

Nothing vastly surprising at this stage, especially considering it's Vacansoleil and Astana, but another data point nonetheless.

 

[Craigee]

Shouldn't be any TUE's. If you're crook you can't win anyway and it's even worse for your future well being to race whilst ill.

Oh Hold it a minute. Everyone thinks it's perfectly fine to ask for and to use a TUE and win the hardest sporting event in the world the Tour De France. Amazing drugs that can do that for you, but of course they're not crook to start with and are just cheating.

World Sport really has a lot to improve on if they want to get anywhere close to clean and have people believe they're doing something about doping. But they don't as long as they make it legal to take drugs for an event.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Ha, and on the same day Astana brings out a statement just yet that they are "shocked and surprised" by Westra's use of Cortisons and might sue him because he signed the anti-doping statement.

What a scam team it still is. And what a low blow as well, not only am I 100% sure Astana knew this already. But they also go after a dude who's already lost everything due to depressions and betrayal by family/friends

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Ha, and on the same day Astana brings out a statement just yet that they are "shocked and surprised" by Westra's use of Cortisons and might sue him because he signed the anti-doping statement.

What a scam team it still is. And what a low blow as well, not only am I 100% sure Astana knew this already. But they also go after a dude who's already lost everything due to depressions and betrayal by family/friends

What the story?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Shouldn't be any TUE's.

I'm an athlete. I'm ill. I need a banned drug. Do I risk my health and refuse or accept a four year ban for doping? Death or disgrace, which?

 

[Blanco]

Re:

Ha, and on the same day Astana brings out a statement just yet that they are "shocked and surprised" by Westra's use of Cortisons and might sue him because he signed the anti-doping statement.

What a scam team it still is. And what a low blow as well, not only am I 100% sure Astana knew this already. But they also go after a dude who's already lost everything due to depressions and betrayal by family/friends

And you expected they will confirm his story?

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Shouldn't be any TUE's.

I'm an athlete. I'm ill. I need a banned drug. Do I risk my health and refuse or accept a four year ban for doping? Death or disgrace, which?

I'm more of the opinion that TUE's are ok to a point. If you need a TUE you then can't race for say a week. I'm sorry but there are times athlete's need TUEs for one reason or another. An injury in which they end up in the hospital with broken bones, or an illness. They are needed for real health reasons.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

No Blanco. I expected them to ignore it all together. But apparently they are as arrogant as US Postal in the old days

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Re: Re:

Shouldn't be any TUE's.

I'm an athlete. I'm ill. I need a banned drug. Do I risk my health and refuse or accept a four year ban for doping? Death or disgrace, which?

Personally, I'd take the drug and not test positive

 

[ColonelKidneyBeans]

Re: Re:

Shouldn't be any TUE's.

I'm an athlete. I'm ill. I need a banned drug. Do I risk my health and refuse or accept a four year ban for doping? Death or disgrace, which?

Maybe take the drug but do not compete, do you go to work when you are ill?

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Shouldn't be any TUE's.

I'm an athlete. I'm ill. I need a banned drug. Do I risk my health and refuse or accept a four year ban for doping? Death or disgrace, which?

Take your meds, stay in bed and post on cycling related forums.....

 

[hazaran]

I thought Astana was a member of the MPC whatever and riders are tested for healthy cortisol levels, making cortisone abuse difficult?