BroDeal said:
I understand your poiint, and in practical terms I don't see any other way to validate a passport-like system. I just wonder about what the real numbers would be like. I can envision fifty riders being singled out for funky blood number but only five testing positive.
I would be willing to bet that Pellizotti's numbers are extreme enough that his defense will sound like FLandis denying the benefits of testosterone, so the only result of the passport will be to eliminate such extremes.
I am sure that the Passport itself can be used after three years. I bet if the unveil the results to the public a lot of bad things would be known like a gradually decreasing hematocrit levels over time. Other things that need to be taken into account are as follows:
1- Even if 60-80% of the riders are doping it would be almost practically impossible to be doping all year round, so enough baseline can be built with the same dirty riders. Even if they are not tested that much during the offseason, you have enough riders enrolled in the program that you can combine the results of the offseason.
2- Gosh with three years of data there are so many combinations of cross plots that you can make with the profiles that the probabilities of catching a cheat can be narrowed down dramatically. Hec, at this point there could be a case that they can choose and pick who they want to nail. I am not saying that it would be obvious but think about the amount of data that they already have. Besides by now they might have criteria for identifying clean riders from three years back.
Honestly I think there is some bad blood between the Giro organizers and the UCI by now. Or they just want to sacrifice a medium to big fish every now and then to show the world that the system works.
So No. I don't think they need a specific study from clean athletes to create a baseline, because by now they must have it.