What happened to the no-start rule?

[FKLance]

hi, my first post! i have followed pro cycling all my life, I race as an amateur in Europe.

I have absolutely no respect for Valverde and his Vuelta win.

Didn't the UCI have a rule that forbid a rider to start a race while he's connected to a doping investigation? the "no-start rule"?

Is the UCI completely powerless? how is it that he's allowed to race?

 

[ak-zaaf]

It's from 2006, let it go.
Do you think they stopped testing him during the investigation?

Valverde won the Vuelta. So a great rider won a great race to add to his great palmares. Live with it.

 

[Mongol_Waaijer]

Do you think they stopped testing him during the investigation?.

It was bags of blood with his name on that they found during the Fuentes investigation.

There is still no test for autologous blood transfusion.

Logically - there is nothing to stop Valverde continuing to enhance his performance using this method, as long as he stays within the parameters set by the Bio Passport, which the recent values posted by Armstrong have shown to be remarkably generous.

 

[Race Radio]

hi, my first post! i have followed pro cycling all my life, I race as an amateur in Europe.

I have absolutely no respect for Valverde and his Vuelta win.

Didn't the UCI have a rule that forbid a rider to start a race while he's connected to a doping investigation? the "no-start rule"?

Is the UCI completely powerless? how is it that he's allowed to race?

Some may chose to celebrate riders who choose to lie and delay the inevitable but I agree with you, Valverde is a doper. The UCI has a history of ignoring it's own rules, do not count on them to enforce anything.

 

[fatandfast]

The answer to your question is yes they have a rule. Like everybody else responded they didn't follow it so Valverde is the winner.He rode a good race and had lots of press asking him about what loomed ahead. If he wins at worlds the feds will be under further pressure to bend their rules.Things are always so strange, one guy gets caught with a needle in his *** and goes on to champion the anti doping cause.Even after winning a TT his win isn't questioned although he is repeat offender? Another gets caught with a needle in his *** and states he may want to go into team management and all hell brakes loose. The UCI is useless. In the US you have to pay 10s of thousands to the UCI for pro status and then the races are by invitation so if you are a small team you can't race anyway but they bend over to help some dope filled team from Kazistan. It's a mafia.

 

[TheDude]

Best as I can tell the rule is not "do not dope" it is be careful how you dope so that you can stay within parameters, i.e. do not dope too much. They want to avoid another Tom Simpson. Valverde is very good at playing by these rules.

 

[usedtobefast]

Best as I can tell the rule is not "do not dope" it is be careful how you dope so that you can stay within parameters, i.e. do not dope too much. They want to avoid another Tom Simpson. Valverde is very good at playing by these rules.

manage thy profile is the way. if the rules allow it, you are not doing your job if you do not rebalance your values within the prescribed limits.

 

[Ripper]

Some may chose to celebrate riders who choose to lie and delay the inevitable but I agree with you, Valverde is a doper. The UCI has a history of ignoring it's own rules, do not count on them to enforce anything.

I agree 189.76% About the UCI, and V-P. I can smell the steaming vat of rat vomit, aka v-p's doping, right now!

 

[biker jk]

It's from 2006, let it go.
Do you think they stopped testing him during the investigation?

Valverde won the Vuelta. So a great rider won a great race to add to his great palmares. Live with it.

That's comedy gold. I'm still laughing as I write.

 

[auscyclefan94]

It's from 2006, let it go.
Do you think they stopped testing him during the investigation?

Valverde won the Vuelta. So a great rider won a great race to add to his great palmares. Live with it.

live with a cheat winning. i don't think so.

 

[unsheath]

It's from 2006, let it go.
Do you think they stopped testing him during the investigation?

Valverde won the Vuelta. So a great rider won a great race to add to his great palmares. Live with it.

Great philosophy you have there. Sweep things under the carpet. Is that how you live your life too?? Pretend things never happened?

 

[BroDeal]

It's from 2006, let it go.

Actually I think that Valverde's blood may have been from an even earlier year than 2006, maybe even 2003 or 2004 when he was racing for Kelme. Is that not one of the reasons that Valverde was initially cleared: That the blood was from a much earlier time?

I like how some people assume that Evans must be clean and is doing his best to hold his own against all these dopers. He raced for Mapei and nearly won the Giro in 2002.

 

[biker jk]

Actually I think that Valverde's blood may have been from an even earlier year than 2006, maybe even 2003 or 2004 when he was racing for Kelme. Is that not one of the reasons that Valverde was initially cleared: That the blood was from a much earlier time?

I like how some people assume that Evans must be clean and is doing his best to hold his own against all these dopers. He raced for Mapei and nearly won the Giro in 2002.

Yeah, Cadel "nearly won the Giro in 2002" by finishing 14th, 16 min and 25 sec behind the winner after blowing up.

 

[blaxland]

It's from 2006, let it go.
Do you think they stopped testing him during the investigation?

Valverde won the Vuelta. So a great rider won a great race to add to his great palmares. Live with it.

should i live with a doper winning one off the best bike races in the world....if i had it my way he would be suspended....but agreed he is a great rider if you read his palmares......

 

[soOpOSMthanks!]

Great philosophy you have there. Sweep things under the carpet. Is that how you live your life too?? Pretend things never happened?

i can ask you the same thing. is holding past events that may or may not be true against a person and constantly bringing it up and rehashing on it, and using it against a person a great philosophy?

just saying...

so maybe he did dope, years ago. currently, until proven otherwise, he won the vuelta clean. i can live with a person who has been accused of previously having doped and won something of the vuelta's scale.

 

[Martinello]

Actually I think that Valverde's blood may have been from an even earlier year than 2006, maybe even 2003 or 2004 when he was racing for Kelme. Is that not one of the reasons that Valverde was initially cleared: That the blood was from a much earlier time?

.

It wouldn't make any sense to store blood for several years as the shelf life of a SAGM erythrocyte suspension is way lower than that.

In clinical practice in Europe that maximum shelf life of a SAGM is 30-40 days. Storing blood for longer than that introduces 2 problems:

1) increased hemolysis in the stored blood. This reduces the amount of viable RBCs and increases the free haemoglobin. Haemoglobin is potentially nephotoxic and also a nitric oxide scavenger, so infusing 400cc's of free haemoglobin could have severe consequences, especially in a critically ill patient.

2) Decreased RBC life post-transfusion. Quality of the RBCs decrease with storage time. A relatively fresh bag of RBCs would probably have a 24h post transfusion survival of 80-85% whereas the survival of older RBCs could be in the 70'ies.

Although Fuentes blood bank looked dirty and below good clinical standards, and the story from Marzano indicating infusion with contaminated blood, I seriously doubt that he would store and infuse blood years past its' expiration date.

 

[Race Radio]

i can ask you the same thing. is holding past events that may or may not be true against a person and constantly bringing it up and rehashing on it, and using it against a person a great philosophy?

just saying...

so maybe he did dope, years ago. currently, until proven otherwise, he won the vuelta clean. i can live with a person who has been accused of previously having doped and won something of the vuelta's scale.

Valverde was more then accused of doping. They found a bag of his blood in Fuentes Fridge. His involvement in OP has been common knowledge, however he has lied and delayed in order to keep racing.

In your opinion what is the statue of limitations on doping? If you get away with it for 3 years that means you are in the clear?

 

[Izoard]

Irony

I seem to recall a comment like this may have been posted before, so my apologies if it has ...

Does anyone else find it ironic that, if Valverde had served a ban back when he was heavily implicated in OP, he would be racing again, just like Basso? And now there is evidently hard proof that he doped, not just rumour (that is if you trust the CONI ... I cannot see any reason not to at this point), which makes it all the more difficult to ignore this issue.

Back to the original question, I think Bro said it when he noted that the UCI does not consistently apply their own rules

 

[BroDeal]

It wouldn't make any sense to store blood for several years as the shelf life of a SAGM erythrocyte suspension is way lower than that.

In clinical practice in Europe that maximum shelf life of a SAGM is 30-40 days. Storing blood for longer than that introduces 2 problems:

...

I was under the impression that some of Fuentes' "blood" was frozen RBCs.

A quick google shows the term "frozen blood" being used in all sorts of articles about the affair, but I am not convinced it is not a translation error. I seem to recall Fuentes' notes about Ullrich showing he was reinfused with both blood and frozen RBCs before the 2006 Giro.

 

[elapid]

It wouldn't make any sense to store blood for several years as the shelf life of a SAGM erythrocyte suspension is way lower than that.

In clinical practice in Europe that maximum shelf life of a SAGM is 30-40 days. Storing blood for longer than that introduces 2 problems:

1) increased hemolysis in the stored blood. This reduces the amount of viable RBCs and increases the free haemoglobin. Haemoglobin is potentially nephotoxic and also a nitric oxide scavenger, so infusing 400cc's of free haemoglobin could have severe consequences, especially in a critically ill patient.

2) Decreased RBC life post-transfusion. Quality of the RBCs decrease with storage time. A relatively fresh bag of RBCs would probably have a 24h post transfusion survival of 80-85% whereas the survival of older RBCs could be in the 70'ies.

Although Fuentes blood bank looked dirty and below good clinical standards, and the story from Marzano indicating infusion with contaminated blood, I seriously doubt that he would store and infuse blood years past its' expiration date.

While everything you say is correct, from a doping perspective this is difficult and hence why storage times are longer than recommended for medical purposes. Riders cannot make a donation 4 weeks before the TdF because they will be racing the Giro or preparing for the Dauphine. As I understand it, riders will typically donate their blood in the off-season for use in the following season. I am not sure what decreased red blood cell life span has on performance when cyclists are usually microdosing specifically before the big stages (mountain, TT). In regards to the health aspects of free Hb, I doubt most athletes that dope are too concerned about the potential implications to their health.

 

[usedtobefast]

sometimes the whole doping question reminds me of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein