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Using Power to detect doping

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davidg said:
Some good stuff here guys.

Sounds great to just throw the comment out there, that it is the way to go, but the more you look at it, the more it seems to be a totally impractical approach to the problem.

I think the only merit it has is as an indicator along with other observed values like VAM to perhaps suggest who should be targetted. On this basis, the detection methods have to improve as the definitive ruling on whether a rider has doped.

For example, it is OK to have a rule that says you cannot use EPO, or blood dope, but can you have a rule that says your W/Kg cannot be 7 at FTP. Yes we know that currently that means the rider will (most certainly) have doped, but somewhere there could be someone who is genetically made that way.

you could say, just use the meters to get raw power data in a race, no baseline needed, and just use the info to point out those that have numbers way out of wack but even then they'd have to be tamper proof, if that's even possible, and therefor would probably be an expensive product that doesn't even exist at this point.

maybe some company out there should go to work on this. make a simple tamper resistant meter that would be cheap enough for widespread use.

i now admit that would point to people that are probably cheating. but you'd still have to have another way of proving it.

would it be worth it just for that?
 
Mar 19, 2009
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jackhammer111 said:
you could say, just use the meters to get raw power data in a race, no baseline needed, and just use the info to point out those that have numbers way out of wack but even then they'd have to be tamper proof, if that's even possible, and therefor would probably be an expensive product that doesn't even exist at this point.

maybe some company out there should go to work on this. make a simple tamper resistant meter that would be cheap enough for widespread use.

i now admit that would point to people that are probably cheating. but you'd still have to have another way of proving it.

would it be worth it just for that?

Statistically you could say which riders are doped just by looking at their undoped V02 maxes. If you see their undoped V02 maxes statistically its (Very EASY!) to tell if their jacked. Lance has a V02 max of 82, somebody with a weight at 72 kg and a V02 max of 82 would struggle just to hit 370 watts for FTP at their peak ( I know that nobody can get it to 380 with similar V02 maxes). Thats only 5.1 watts per kilo and highly unlikely they could get higher. Certainly not 40% higher than that. :)

Past Tour champs before epo with V02 maxes in the 90s (Lemond, Hinault, Fingon and even Indurain before the epo era all had undoped V02 maxes in the 88-94 range) couldnt get better than 5.7 watts per kilo.

Tracking power files is also important but the biggest one is catching them while their undoped and having them do the test.
 
May 9, 2009
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BigBoat said:
Lance has a V02 max of 82, somebody with a weight at 72 kg and a V02 max of 82 would struggle just to hit 370 watts for FTP at their peak...

82 according to...what/whom/when? Maybe we ought to wait until we have these fancy official baseline tests before quoting numbers. (a quick google search turns up 85 as the most common result for lance's vo2max, but who knows what it really is, right?)
 
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BigBoat said:
Statistically you could say which riders are doped just by looking at their undoped V02 maxes. If you see their undoped V02 maxes statistically its (Very EASY!) to tell if their jacked. Lance has a V02 max of 82, somebody with a weight at 72 kg and a V02 max of 82 would struggle just to hit 370 watts for FTP at their peak ( I know that nobody can get it to 380 with similar V02 maxes). Thats only 5.1 watts per kilo and highly unlikely they could get higher. Certainly not 40% higher than that. :)

Past Tour champs before epo with V02 maxes in the 90s (Lemond, Hinault, Fingon and even Indurain before the epo era all had undoped V02 maxes in the 88-94 range) couldnt get better than 5.7 watts per kilo.

Tracking power files is also important but the biggest one is catching them while their undoped and having them do the test.

So, you dissagree that the idea of putting all the riders through baseline testing has problems? Exactly how do you propose to do this. what labs, where, how often, how are you certain to get an undoped test, ect?


I know you love to talk about the wonders of vo2 max testing but you don't seem to want to talk about the practical aspects of it.

This would work great on a small number of riders, The idea of doing it with hundreds of riders seems like a nightmare.
Even if Greg paid for it.

I'm about convinced that the lack of discussion on this is a sign that people here believe this is an unworkable idea and there done talking about it.
 
Mar 19, 2009
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jackhammer111 said:
So, you dissagree that the idea of putting all the riders through baseline testing has problems? Exactly how do you propose to do this. what labs, where, how often, how are you certain to get an undoped test, ect?


I know you love to talk about the wonders of vo2 max testing but you don't seem to want to talk about the practical aspects of it.

This would work great on a small number of riders, The idea of doing it with hundreds of riders seems like a nightmare.
Even if Greg paid for it.

I'm about convinced that the lack of discussion on this is a sign that people here believe this is an unworkable idea and there done talking about it.

V02 max tests do not take long and their not a huge hassle apart from being brutal. Remember Lemond offered Lance to do a test after his press conference in Las Vegas and Lance turned him down.

As far as numbers, you really dont need to extend it down to far in line... Like the potential top 50 riders. Either that or they should legalize doping... Because these "rabid" doping controls which steal from the poor and jack off the rich are getting old. The average rider and the average fan dont give a CRAP about power and physiology. Thats normal.
 
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BigBoat said:
Because these "rabid" doping controls which steal from the poor and jack off the rich are getting old.

what do you mean?
 
Apr 20, 2009
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davidg said:
but can you have a rule that says your W/Kg cannot be 7 at FTP.... ....but somewhere there could be someone who is genetically made that way.

Not a chance. Not even fully "jacked" is 7w/kg ftp(1 HOUR POWER) possible.

Now I disagree with almost everything bigboat spews, and am surprised he is not involved in at least a few libel cases - nonetheless, I agree from everything I've looked at and researched that somewhere right around his 5.7(maybe a bit higher)wkg number for TRUE FTP is the very upper end for freaks/outliers, clean.
6.0 or above and you AINT doing it on pancakes and pellegrino.
 
Apr 8, 2009
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Returnofthewolf said:
Not a chance. Not even fully "jacked" is 7w/kg ftp(1 HOUR POWER) possible.

Now I disagree with almost everything bigboat spews, and am surprised he is not involved in at least a few libel cases - nonetheless, I agree from everything I've looked at and researched that somewhere right around his 5.7(maybe a bit higher)wkg number for TRUE FTP is the very upper end for freaks/outliers, clean.
6.0 or above and you AINT doing it on pancakes and pellegrino.

You missed my point, 7 is an arbitrary figure just as the 50% haemocrit is. Pick 5.7 if it makes you feel better. Now, someone comes along with 5.71. Can you convincingly say he doped. suspicious yes, 100% certain no.
If he shows epo over a certain limit can you say he has doped - yes, without a doubt because the test has shown it.
 
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davidg said:
You missed my point, 7 is an arbitrary figure just as the 50% haemocrit is. Pick 5.7 if it makes you feel better. Now, someone comes along with 5.71. Can you convincingly say he doped. suspicious yes, 100% certain no.
If he shows epo over a certain limit can you say he has doped - yes, without a doubt because the test has shown it.

great, i see on an indivual basis charting power points out cheats. fine.
is lemond's idea workable?

go back and read some of my questions a couple of pages ago and help me answer them.

how to we make somthing like that work when you talking hundreds of riders.

address the nuts and bolts of it.
 
davidg said:
You missed my point, 7 is an arbitrary figure just as the 50% haemocrit is. Pick 5.7 if it makes you feel better. Now, someone comes along with 5.71. Can you convincingly say he doped. suspicious yes, 100% certain no.

But the 50% limit was not arbitrary. If I remember right it was chosen because it is about two standard deviations above the mean in the general population. The endurance athlete population should have a distribution shifted left by some amount, so the chance of a natural 50%+ is even lower than it is in the general population.

Combine several pieces of similar statistical data, especially if you can find data that is weakly correlated, and a good circumstantial case should be possible.
 
Apr 8, 2009
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jackhammer111 said:
great, i see on an indivual basis charting power points out cheats. fine.
is lemond's idea workable?

go back and read some of my questions a couple of pages ago and help me answer them.

how to we make somthing like that work when you talking hundreds of riders.

address the nuts and bolts of it.

If you read my original post you should be able to draw the conclusion that I don't think it is workable at all. I am certainly not advocating individual power charts, dont know how you got there?

My view is that Lemond is spruiking an idea that sounds great in a speech, but has virtually no chance of being practical.
 
Apr 8, 2009
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BroDeal said:
But the 50% limit was not arbitrary. If I remember right it was chosen because it is about two standard deviations above the mean in the general population. The endurance athlete population should have a distribution shifted left by some amount, so the chance of a natural 50%+ is even lower than it is in the general population.

Combine several pieces of simiarl statistical data, especially if you can find data that is weakly correlated, and a good circustantial case should be possible.

Using a mean as a basis for a definitive test will always be open to debate. And I do not know for sure that it is impossible to have a haemocrit above 50% without doping. If it is possible then it is not conclusive evidence of doping.

You are still missing the point.
If you have a rule that says, "you cannot have synthetic epo in your system" then it is up to the athlete to ensure that. The fact that there is a testing protocol with an allowance gives some leeway towards the athlete.

This is totally different to a rule that says you cannot have a W/Kg above X unless the value is so high as to definitively exclude any 'normal' person. This is the reason that the original ruling on 50% haemo only prevented the rider from riding 'for their own safety'. In other words, it could not be used as evidence by itself that the rider had doped, even though it was assumed that they had.

As has been seen so often, any test whether it be sports or in a civil court, that uses circumstantial evidence, only ever benefits one party. - the lawyers.
 
Mar 11, 2009
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It all sounds very convoluted to me. Consider a rider’s VO2 max, their FTP, then factor in their anaerobic threshold, conditions during testing, conditions during competition, advances in technology (training, bikes, supplements) etc. etc. and it all becomes a big mess. How about we just get back to the basics?

Fit all bikes with a dynamo lights system. The brighter your light, the more watts you are producing (literally) and hey presto you’ve got a big flashing light above your head (not literally) saying “Look at me, I’m doping”. Alternatively being able to see the road and not ride off the side of a cliff could also be an incentive to ride harder, be brighter and therefore put out more wattage. There would also be the logistical nightmare of holding all races at night. Also this system would clearly advantage the “fast” men while those in the “grupetto” may not find their way back to their respective hotels…. Now I’m poking holes in my own solution.

022d1f164825b022400x400.gif


Still if we combine the dynamo lights system (power) with Cecil Stinkbottom the 3rd's pioneering VO2 max test using a stationary bike, a gas bottle, a big clock, some tubing, a couple of flasks and a chef’s hat we may, through the course of gathering relevant data, also bring back some nostalgia to the sport.

carnegieinstituteofwashingt.jpg


I’m sorry if I have contributed absolutely nothing to this discussion.

Note: I don’t think Cedric pioneered the VO2 max test as I may have indicated.
 
Mar 19, 2009
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davidg said:
You missed my point, 7 is an arbitrary figure just as the 50% haemocrit is. Pick 5.7 if it makes you feel better. Now, someone comes along with 5.71. Can you convincingly say he doped. suspicious yes, 100% certain no.
If he shows epo over a certain limit can you say he has doped - yes, without a doubt because the test has shown it.

I think Evans and the rest of top 10 last year had 5.7 based on the Alpe D'Huez and other climbs. They sure as hell were not clean. Not with millions of dollars to be made. :) Sastre had over 6 for the final TT and the Alpe.
There are not many guys racing today with even 5.2 undoped. Basso probably can get 5.5 or so. Just take a look at how Floyd Landis (that Tour winner from 2006) is riding right now in the USA.

Lance and "Contadope" will be at 6.5 no bloody kidding. :}
 
Mar 19, 2009
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jackhammer111 said:
what do you mean?

Few riders can be sure to beat the passport with autologous blood doping. It takes big money and connections and so the "rabid controls" favor wealthy or simply lucky riders on good management.

There is a special technique that allows one to freeze their own blood in a storage solution that minimizes cell death so the values on their passport will be normal without having to use tiny amounts of epo to normalize their rectics. The poor souls that have been positive for epo were trying to make their passports look normal by stimulating red cell production (normal young red cells in the blood). When they blood dope for a given length of time (transfusions) their red cell production shuts down because their crit is so high the body senses it needs no more.

Does everyone understand what I'm saying?
 
BigBoat said:
Does everyone understand what I'm saying?

Yes, completely. Not sure why others don't. This might help. It's an excerpt from the wiki on Tyler Hamilton:

The positive sample at the Olympics, and the positive test at the Vuelta were not the only indications that Hamilton was manipulating his hematocrit level. In April 2004 his blood was found to have a high ratio of hemoglobin to reticulocytes (young red blood cells), indicative of EPO or blood doping. His score was 132.9; a clean athlete would score 90. The UCI suspends a rider if the score exceeds 133.

Thus, by freezing the extracted blood at a certain temp the reticulocytes remain in a phase that appears to be young. This allows one to re-infuse this blood, and not have the reticulocyte ratio count seem abnormally high, like Hamilton's was.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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davidg said:
Using a mean as a basis for a definitive test will always be open to debate. And I do not know for sure that it is impossible to have a haemocrit above 50% without doping.

In one study with over 300 tests on TdF riders between 1981-1986, no rider had a hematocrit above 48%. EPO was not being used then, but blood transfusions may have been used as the US Olympic team and no doubt others were experimenting with its use pre-1984. Regardless, based on pre-EPO data, it does seem impossible to have a hematocrit above 50% without some form of enhancement.
 
Apr 8, 2009
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elapid said:
In one study with over 300 tests on TdF riders between 1981-1986, no rider had a hematocrit above 48%. EPO was not being used then, but blood transfusions may have been used as the US Olympic team and no doubt others were experimenting with its use pre-1984. Regardless, based on pre-EPO data, it does seem impossible to have a hematocrit above 50% without some form of enhancement.
"impossible to have a hematocrit above 50%"

Thanks for the info, although I do think this is a bit of a sweeping statement to make in the context of establishing confirmation of doping. What is the impact on altitude (living at) or other environmental factors?
 
Mar 18, 2009
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davidg said:
"impossible to have a hematocrit above 50%"

Thanks for the info, although I do think this is a bit of a sweeping statement to make in the context of establishing confirmation of doping. What is the impact on altitude (living at) or other environmental factors?

OK, impossible may be a stretch! Altitude will increase your hematocrit by 3-4% maximum (and transiently), an altitude tent may be 1-2% if you are lucky. Nothing else other than doping increases your hematocrit as far as I know. Riding a GT will decrease your hematocrit to the level of being borderline anemic.
 
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BigBoat said:
Few riders can be sure to beat the passport with autologous blood doping. It takes big money and connections and so the "rabid controls" favor wealthy or simply lucky riders on good management.

There is a special technique that allows one to freeze their own blood in a storage solution that minimizes cell death so the values on their passport will be normal without having to use tiny amounts of epo to normalize their rectics. The poor souls that have been positive for epo were trying to make their passports look normal by stimulating red cell production (normal young red cells in the blood). When they blood dope for a given length of time (transfusions) their red cell production shuts down because their crit is so high the body senses it needs no more.

Does everyone understand what I'm saying?

about the blood yes.

i'd imagine there's riders on most teams that could afford it.

i've heard it said the the benifit from taking on blood happens about 48 hours after taking it onboard. what are the next days like if you don't keep doing it?
 
Mar 19, 2009
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I dont believe the top riders are "leaving it in" for longer than 12 hours. Too risky, They "take some out" before bed and either drain it off into a like a coke can to dump down the toilet or into a blood bag and into the fridge at 4 degrees for later, along with a couple of aspirin as an antiplatelet before bed to minimize clot risk. They might leave a crit of low 50s then hemodilute back down to their "normal" of 41% in the morning with regular saline and albumin, pentaspan. desmopressin, etc to keep it in for the controls. Then take on more blood right before an important stage. Extra red cells start working almost immediately and stress is minimal with just a little 400cc "refill" of packed red cells plasma spun off. They could transfuse plasma too to keep it down.

Its crit that matters jack, you'd be lucky to finish a grand tour clean with this happening. Nobody would be top 10 places without the above described. Totally clean you'd never ever be top 50 and probably just a DNF.
 
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Not sure if you have the expert on this thread or even on the message board or not but,,,,,I know this guy who thinks he knows everything he is a mod / member of another message board. Maybe we should ask him to run the numbers and let us know if these wattage numbers will give any insight to who is doped.
 
jackhammer111 said:
I've heard it said the the benifit from taking on blood happens about 48 hours after taking it onboard. what are the next days like if you don't keep doing it?

It was Kohl who said that. And we know you don't believe him. So...

Only so much blood can literally be drained off, which is why dilution, plasma expanders, PFCEs and HBOCs, and stuff we don't even know about. are used, as BigB noted. To simply fill/drain/fill/drain day and night to yo-yo between 42 and 52 HCT would be incredibly stressful on the body, and very risky.

I'm not sure, but I think BroDeal lives around 5,800' and has a hematocrit of about 51. Maybe he'll come on and verify.

The only time mine was taken I lived at sea level, and it was about 42 if I recall. So like Kohl, I'd be a much better candidate for doping than poor BroDeal! ;)
 
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BigBoat said:
I dont believe the top riders are "leaving it in" for longer than 12 hours. Too risky, They "take some out" before bed and either drain it off into a like a coke can to dump down the toilet or into a blood bag and into the fridge at 4 degrees for later, along with a couple of aspirin as an antiplatelet before bed to minimize clot risk. They might leave a crit of low 50s then hemodilute back down to their "normal" of 41% in the morning with regular saline and albumin, pentaspan. desmopressin, etc to keep it in for the controls. Then take on more blood right before an important stage. Extra red cells start working almost immediately and stress is minimal with just a little 400cc "refill" of packed red cells plasma spun off. They could transfuse plasma too to keep it down.

Its crit that matters jack, you'd be lucky to finish a grand tour clean with this happening. Nobody would be top 10 places without the above described. Totally clean you'd never ever be top 50 and probably just a DNF.

that's just insane.

i've know a couple of heroine addicts in my times and i've seen what daily needles sticks for years at time look like. they didn't have to show their arms and legs all the time and still ran out of places to hide needle scars.

these guy go around in shorts and short sleeve shirts on most of the time. there's seen by and endless stream of people collected blood and urine.

someone sticking themselves as many times as you're talking about would be busted hard by the first person to catch them without enough clothes on.

what about when they crash and end up in a hospital. are you saying the doctors are all bought off to not say what they'd see if someone had as many sticks as your talking about?

you need to write a sci fi horror novel and quit pretending your talking about reality.

i admit, the science in your science fiction is damned good.
but the fiction part of it needs to stay a little more plausible than draining blood into coke cans, how many times in the tour?
 

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