UCI Warning Letters

[DirtyWorks]

Just for reference, a couple of posts brought to light a common tactic at the UCI. The UCI sends warning letters out for riders who graze the limit on doping tests. It's not a positive though!

Here's some to get started.

-Hamilton got a warning letter from the UCI right around Liege one year, while he was at Phonak (same year he was busted at the Vuelta, iirc). (Thanks Velocity!)

-Leipheimer when he was at Gerolsteiner (Thanks Velocity!)

-Armstrong at 2001 TdS, Dauphine Libere 2002. Thanks to someone at the UCI, Wonderboy got special instruction from a Swiss lab about the nature of the tests performed. The information's could only use is to beat the test.

These facts has been hanging around for years now. Any others?

The scale and scope of the practice at the UCI would be very interesting reading for cycling fans.

 

[Frosty]

Didnt the Tour send letters out to some riders in 2008 saying that their pre-race tests showed they might have some sort of illness?

Ah, here we go

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/346564/doping-back-in-tour-de-france-headlines.html

Don't think we were ever told who they were although people tried to guess. Didnt one official say at the end of the tour that the people contacted ended up having disappointing results, or very normal results?

 

[DirtyWorks]

Didnt the Tour send letters out to some riders in 2008 saying that their pre-race tests showed they might have some sort of illness?

Ah, here we go

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/346564/doping-back-in-tour-de-france-headlines.html

Don't think we were ever told who they were although people tried to guess. Didnt one official say at the end of the tour that the people contacted ended up having disappointing results, or very normal results?

Nice!

That makes 13 not positives, positives.

 

[Frosty]

Maybe but the article does say that the AFLD did not have access to the biological passport and some people sent letters might have naturally high haematocrit for instance.

 

[Merckx index]

I'm not sure these cases are comparable to the TdS allegations. Tyler received a warning about his off-score, which at that time was the predecessor of the biopassport. Likewise, the 2008 letter was about blood values. Generally speaking, blood values aren't used to sanction riders. True, they finally made a case against Pellizotti, but it took a long time. They are used more often as warnings, IOW, riders are supposed to be told about suspicious values, that's the way the system works.

The EPO test is different, at least now. It's judged either positive or negative, and a negative value, even if borderline, is not supposed to require notification of the rider. I will say that before the urine test was used in 2001, the way of detecting EPO involved both blood and urine, and maybe at that time it was considered more of an early warning system than a full-fledged test. If that is the case, then riders might be notified. But once the urine EPO test was developed, I don't believe it was treated in that way. There would be no reason nor justification to notify riders of their results unless they had an A sample positive. That would certainly be the case in 2002, and I think also in 2001.

If someone here knows differently, I would be interested to hear, but generally that's a key difference between a doping test and the passport. While the recent trend has been to use the passport and other changes in physiological parameters, so that doping can be detected without necessarily detecting the substance or even knowing what it is, a downside remains that these parameters can be affected by disease and environmental factors. Thus the need to tiptoe carefully, warning riders first rather than concluding that they must have been doping. Whereas when you have a test for a substance, it's hard to argue against it, barring a false positive. Many factors might cause your HT or reticulocyte count to fluctuate, but if you have synthetic EPO in your urine it had to come from doping. Hence the strict positive/negative distinction.

 

[D-Queued]

I'm not sure these cases are comparable to the TdS allegations. Tyler received a warning about his off-score, which at that time was the predecessor of the biopassport. Likewise, the 2008 letter was about blood values. Generally speaking, blood values aren't used to sanction riders. True, they finally made a case against Pellizotti, but it took a long time. They are used more as warnings, IOW, riders are supposed to be told about suspicious values, that's the way the system works.

The EPO test is different, at least now. It's judged either positive or negative, and a negative value, even if borderline, is not supposed to require notification of the rider. I will say that before the urine test was used in 2001, the way of detecting EPO involved both blood and urine, and maybe at that time it was considered more of an early warning system than a full-fledged test. If that is the case, then riders might be notified. But once the urine EPO test was developed, I don't believe it was treated in that way. Riders were not notified of their results unless they had an A sample positive. That would certainly be the case in 2002, and I think also in 2001.

If someone here knows differently, I would be interested to hear, but I believe that's the way it worked.

Apparently, for at least one lab and for the doper of the day, there was a note on the sample jar requesting that the "@ROUNDDOWN(EPO_Test,0)" function be applied when recording the test result.

Dave.

 

[DirtyWorks]

I'm not sure these cases are comparable to the TdS allegations. Tyler received a warning about his off-score, which at that time was the predecessor of the biopassport. Likewise, the 2008 letter was about blood values. Generally speaking, blood values aren't used to sanction riders. True, they finally made a case against Pellizotti, but it took a long time. They are used more as warnings, IOW, riders are supposed to be told about suspicious values, that's the way the system works.

The EPO test is different, at least now. It's judged either positive or negative, and a negative value, even if borderline, is not supposed to require notification of the rider. I will say that before the urine test was used in 2001, the way of detecting EPO involved both blood and urine, and maybe at that time it was considered more of an early warning system than a full-fledged test. If that is the case, then riders might be notified. But once the urine EPO test was developed, I don't believe it was treated in that way. Riders were not notified of their results unless they had an A sample positive. That would certainly be the case in 2002, and I think also in 2001.

If someone here knows differently, I would be interested to hear, but I believe that's the way it worked.

I understand and respect that there is a process. I would call the fact riders are getting warning letters about blood values damning clues that said rider is doping regardless of the process. The consequences of the opinion casts a wide net, for sure! But cycling at that level is exactly that dirty.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Apparently, for at least one lab and for the doper of the day, there was a note on the sample jar requesting that the "@ROUNDDOWN(EPO_Test,0)" function be applied when recording the test result.

Dave.

Spreadsheet humor. That's a first for me.

 

[egtalbot]

The EPO test is different, at least now. It's judged either positive or negative, and a negative value, even if borderline, is not supposed to require notification of the rider. I will say that before the urine test was used in 2001, the way of detecting EPO involved both blood and urine, and maybe at that time it was considered more of an early warning system than a full-fledged test. If that is the case, then riders might be notified. But once the urine EPO test was developed, I don't believe it was treated in that way. There would be no reason nor justification to notify riders of their results unless they had an A sample positive. That would certainly be the case in 2002, and I think also in 2001.

I don't remember exactly when the single test became sufficient, either, but you're exactly right about the way it used to be. The situation was that they wanted to get the test out before the 2000 Olympics, but they didn't feel they had the science to back up either of the tests as standalone tests. But they felt that two positive tests would pass muster. I believe the urine test could catch EPO use as far back as several weeks, while the blood test could only catch it within a week or less. But the blood test was considered more reliable. There were multiple athletes - most notably a female 2001 world champion distance runner whose name escapes me - who tested positive on the urine test and negative on the blood test.