Valverde Banned - now can someone DNA test bag 'AC' please?

[Martin318is]

Yep but thats the point. This discussion only exists because he hasn't actually had his DNA compared. Would a non-match have cleared ALL suspicion?

 

[Publicus]

Sure there is a point, clearing yourself of suspicion. Lots of people agree to DNA tests to clear themselves or aid an investigation, even when there's no evidence against them. The police actually uses the technique in investigations with large pools of suspects and DNA. They ask everyone for DNA, and almost everyone agrees. The actual culprit is normally one of the very few or sometimes the only one who refuses. I won't say that him being guilty is the only possible explanation, but it's the most obvious. In particular it's the most obvious explanation for why his "principled" refusal lasts only as long as the investigation.

He was cleared of involvement before the judge ruled no further testing, right?

And exercising your rights under the law is not proof of anything other than that one has exercised his or her right. It is a fine point for some to understand, but the onus is not on the potentially accused, but the potential prosecutor. Here the latter declined to move forward. I suspect if there wad more evidence to suggest he was a client, he would have found himself under greater scrutiny which may have warranted submitting to a DNA test.

 

[Publicus]

Well you can be sure the spanish themselves wont do anything to catch Contador, if Contador gets popped then it will be done by someone else. Im pretty sure Contador don't want to give DNA sample to say, italians and CONI.

It's not like he hasn't raced in Italy since Operation Puerto.

 

[Publicus]

Yep but thats the point. This discussion only exists because he hasn't actually had his DNA compared. Would a non-match have cleared ALL suspicion?

Of his involvement with Operation Puerto. His climbing would have still raised future eyebrows.

 

[Cerberus]

He was cleared of involvement before the judge ruled no further testing, right?

Him and Valverde.

And exercising your rights under the law is not proof of anything other than that one has exercised his or her right. It is a fine point for some to understand, but the onus is not on the potentially accused, but the potential prosecutor. Here the latter declined to move forward. I suspect if there wad more evidence to suggest he was a client, he would have found himself under greater scrutiny which may have warranted submitting to a DNA test.

Now you just sound like BPC. This is a message board not a court of law. Legally refusing to easily prove you innocence is not proof of anything. Logically it's highly suspicious behaviour, even if it's not legally admissible. I must say I don't remember you insisting so stringently on only courtroom admissible evidence being used to cast suspicion on LA.

 

[delbified]

There is not much evidence against him and certainly far less than against Colom.

believe what you will. Professor Antoine Vayer, the pre-eminent expert in the field, declared Contador's ascent of Verbier in 2009 TdF impossibly quick within the limits of human physiology. that's the magic of pro cycling though isn't it? riders doing the impossible

 

[Publicus]

Him and Valverde.


Now you just sound like BPC. This is a message board not a court of law. Legally refusing to easily prove you innocence is not proof of anything. Logically it's highly suspicious behaviour, even if it's not legally admissible. I must say I don't remember you insisting so stringently on only courtroom admissible evidence being used to cast suspicion on LA.

Ouch. We were discussing why AC (or anyone else) would not agree to a DNA test. You suggested that (and I'm paraphrasing here) that if he had nothing to hide, no reason not comply with the alleged request. I spelled out why exercising his rights wasn't proof of anything other than exercising his rights. All of which, I suspect was going to occur outside of the bounds of this forum.

As for the snide comment about evidence regarding Lance, I don't think you've seen me cast aspersions on him beyond the 6 samples from 1999. I mainly address disconnects between things that he and his cohorts say and then subsequently try to spin away from. I try to not get too far ahead of what is actually known or has actually been said in my discussions about individuals, since there is so much that we cannot possibly know unless we have first hand knowledge.

Final point, I'm not offering any more of a defense of AC than I would of Armstrong on this particular point. I'm approaching this based on my professional training more than anything and this is not in any way an indication that I've concluded that AC is either clean or doping.

 

[Publicus]

believe what you will. Professor Antoine Vayer, the pre-eminent expert in the field, declared Contador's ascent of Verbier in 2009 TdF impossibly quick within the limits of human physiology. that's the magic of pro cycling though isn't it? riders doing the impossible

I remember all of that vividly. I also remember that those calculations were more akin to back of the envelope stuff. Certainly don't doubt that there are questions about his performances (which I referenced earlier than a non-match would not have erased all or most doubts about his performances), but as the cyclingnews article notes, there were some questions about the validity of Vayer's initial calculations.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contadors-climbing-credibility-questioned

Cyclingnews spoke with exercise physiologist Andrew Coggan to get a handle on whether or not the estimates were accurate. Coggan speculated that Vayer's calculations were off. He explained that estimating Contador's power based on his time, and then estimating his VO2 from that estimated power could be full of error.

"The problem is that there is enough 'slop' in the calculations that I don't think you can really say one way or another what is or isn't possible without use of drugs."

"What seems different is not one rider, but the climb itself ... In addition to uncertainties regarding the exact length and gradient of the climb [Vayer says it was 8.6km, the Tour guide says 8.8km -ed] and whether or not there might have been any wind, I think he has significantly overestimated Contador's power," said Coggan.

Vayer may have failed to take into account that air is less dense at altitude and also incorrectly estimated Contador's aerodynamic drag, for instance.

"Taking everything into consideration, I'd say that a more reasonable estimate of Contador's power during that ascent is about 450 W, which would require a sustained VO2 of 'only' 80 mL/kg/min. That is still quite high, but not so high that you can definitively state that it can only be achieved via doping."

 

[Cerberus]

Ouch. We were discussing why AC (or anyone else) would not agree to a DNA test. You suggested that (and I'm paraphrasing here) that if he had nothing to hide, no reason not comply with the alleged request. I spelled out why exercising his rights wasn't proof of anything other than exercising his rights. All of which, I suspect was going to occur outside of the bounds of this forum.

Your paraphrasing isn't quite accurate . I very clearly said that there could be other explanations, but that guilt was the most obvious. I'm not sure what lead you to believe I was talking about legal proof rather than logical evidence. That being said if you understood me to be talking about legal proof then I understand you response. His refusal is not legal proof, it's is simply suspicious in a non-legal sense.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

believe what you will. Professor Antoine Vayer, the pre-eminent expert in the field, declared Contador's ascent of Verbier in 2009 TdF impossibly quick within the limits of human physiology. that's the magic of pro cycling though isn't it? riders doing the impossible

I'm not sure Vayer is the "pre-eminent expert in the field" (what field, by the way?), but if anyone knows about doping, Vayer would know. The guy trained Festina.

Riders aren't doing the impossible. With the right "assistance" anything's possible. Better cycling through chemistry.

 

[Publicus]

Your paraphrasing isn't quite accurate . I very clearly said that there could be other explanations, but that guilt was the most obvious. I'm not sure what lead you to believe I was talking about legal proof rather than logical evidence. That being said if you understood me to be talking about legal proof then I understand you response. His refusal is not legal proof, it's is simply suspicious in a non-legal sense.

The fact that you are talking about guilt is part of it. But also, that's what I was talking about when I said I know why most people would refuse to give DNA under the circumstances (as I understand them). So I bear some responsibility for reading more into your response than was apparently warranted.

 

[BroDeal]

Valverde Banned by DNA matching Puerto blood with a rider. Now can someone DNA test bag labelled 'AC' with a Tour de France winner with the name Alberto Contador please?

The blood most likely belongs to Angel Casero, and he is retired.

 

[Runitout]

I wasn't aware there was an AC blood bag. Is there a link to that somewhere?

I have no doubt that AC on the Liberty Seguros schedule referred to Contador, but that's a different thing to having a blood bag - not least because the doping schedule with AC's name on it was not clear as to whether or not AC was to be given anything.

Of course they should have tested all of the bags taken in Puerto. They should also have followed the leads to football and tennis players. They won't, for the same reasons.

This piecemeal sanction rubbish is like slow torture - waiting for the dominoes to slowly fall. We need to be catching teams, not riders. At present, I'm more interested in the transfusion equipment used by the Astana team last Tour.

(btw - Seven names, eight riders. Which rider used a separate program?)

 

[M Sport]

Valverde Banned by DNA matching Puerto blood with a rider. Now can someone DNA test bag labelled 'AC' with a Tour de France winner with the name Alberto Contador please?

There is more chance of that bag being a football players than a cyclists.

Contador, Davis etc were cleared after initial suspicion because their names were on a results sheet in Fuentes possession and phone taps had revealed Contador's name was also mentioned in relation to a race result by another rider (client of Fuentes).

There was never a suggestion that the bag labeled AC was Contador's. Well not a reliable one anyway. Sort of makes sense when every other bag being linked to a rider used a coded name, not their initials.

 

[wattage]

(btw - Seven names, eight riders. Which rider used a separate program?)

I would think LA was on Ferrari program..then again AC probably didn't want any part of Bruyneels program at last years Tour. He should have had his own program as well. Bruyneel source would have ditched AC's blood as soon as he would have had the chance.

 

[issoisso]

The blood most likely belongs to Angel Casero, and he is retired.

At the start of the investigation, before the higher ups shut it all down, the Guardia Civil was being quite....well....civil. Sharing what they had with the public.

This is from document 31, one of those they shared:

En el reverso del documento 31 se localizan unas anotaciones manuscritas con el título “INDIVIDUALIZACIÓN” en el que se identifican a distintos corredores del equipo LIBERTY-SEGUROS WÜRTH por sus iniciales: R. H. (Roberto HERAS), M. S. (Marcos SERRANO), J. B. (Joseba BELOKI), I. G. (Igor GONZÁLEZ), A. V. (Ángel VICIOSO), J. J. (Jorg JAKSCHE), A. D. (Alan DAVIS), L. (sin identificar), A. C. (Alberto CONTADOR) .

Not Casero

 

[lightandlongshadows]

He was cleared of involvement before the judge ruled no further testing, right?

And exercising your rights under the law is not proof of anything other than that one has exercised his or her right. It is a fine point for some to understand, but the onus is not on the potentially accused, but the potential prosecutor. Here the latter declined to move forward. I suspect if there wad more evidence to suggest he was a client, he would have found himself under greater scrutiny which may have warranted submitting to a DNA test.

And exercising your rights under the law is not proof of anything other than that one has exercised his or her right. It is a fine point for some to understand, but the onus is not on the potentially accused, but the potential prosecutor.

According to anglo-saxon law based on the magna carta, according to latin law it's the inverse as I understand it.

 

[Runitout]

At the start of the investigation, before the higher ups shut it all down, the Guardia Civil was being quite....well....civil. Sharing what they had with the public.

This is from document 31, one of those they shared:

Not Casero

Isso, I'm interested, but my Spanish is not the best:

I was under the impression that the first document you linked to related to a doping program, but not blood bags. It's important because from my understanding, linked against AC (whoever that was, but almost certainly Contador) were words to the effect of "same as JJ or nothing".

Now was it nothing or something? If there were blood bags with AC on them then his goose would be cooked. But until today I had never heard that there were blood bags with AC on them. Is that the case or have people fudged things over time? Not that I think Contador or anyone else is clean - I would just like to clarify the evidence against him.

 

[Michielveedeebee]

Same reason most people would refuse one.

EDIT: I see Moose set the record straight (something I didn't know).

why would they refuse?

 

[Michielveedeebee]

believe what you will. Professor Antoine Vayer, the pre-eminent expert in the field, declared Contador's ascent of Verbier in 2009 TdF impossibly quick within the limits of human physiology. that's the magic of pro cycling though isn't it? riders doing the impossible

yes indeed, and he forgot to include aerodynamics in his calculations. That says enough. As for the whole VO2 max thing, it's overrated

 

[Wheels Go Round and Round]

Valverde Banned by DNA matching Puerto blood with a rider. Now can someone DNA test bag labelled 'AC' with a Tour de France winner with the name Alberto Contador please?

this is one I would like to see.........no one that small can time trial like that on the flats............

 

[Wheels Go Round and Round]

This is great idea - test them all and then we can be sure that no tainted riders are still not sanctioned. And while they're at it - extend the bans from 2 years to 10 (at least) - then they'll effectively never race again. All Valverde's "victories" since 2004 should be considered suspect and be cancelled out.

problem is: the guy who is second or third is probably a doper too......... so you take the vicotory away from one doper to give to another doper..........

classic

 

[Wheels Go Round and Round]

We're talking about the man that climbs like the Chicken and time trials like Spartacus.

dead on observation

 

[Ferrari]

When asked if A.C referred to Alberto Contador, Jorg Jaksche (J.J) responded "That would at least be a reasonable assumption".

 

[Runitout]

When asked if A.C referred to Alberto Contador, Jorg Jaksche (J.J) responded "That would at least be a reasonable assumption".

It's only logical. But is there a blood bag with AC on it? I had never heard that before.