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Why was the secret kind of out in the past but not today?

I'd be very surprised if anything is happening at a team level in terms of breaking the rules. The teams seem to be mostly shifting focus to finding gains from sports science not doping science imo. You don't go any spend $1M on sports nutrition, staff, kitchen trucks etc if a $7 IV injection after the race can replace the same nutrients but is illegal.
 
I'd be very surprised if anything is happening at a team level in terms of breaking the rules. The teams seem to be mostly shifting focus to finding gains from sports science not doping science imo. You don't go any spend $1M on sports nutrition, staff, kitchen trucks etc if a $7 IV injection after the race can replace the same nutrients but is illegal.
Complements, not substitutes.
 
In the past while it was current there were rumblings about testosterone, EPO, AICAR etc but currently no one has an inkling about what Jumbo and others could be using to set these ridiculous times and performances? Or did I miss something? What’s the whispers about the actual name of the drugs or cocktail they are using?
There might’ve new stuff but the old stuff still works fine: microdosing EPO is very hard to detect and easily gets around the biopassport.

And then there’s lugworms ;) :)
 
There might’ve new stuff but the old stuff still works fine: microdosing EPO is very hard to detect and easily gets around the biopassport.

And then there’s lugworms ;) :)
Exactly...at a WADA symposium about a year ago, they said EPO microdosing is undetectable & presents a challenge in curtailing it's use. Now they've added growth hormone to the module of the ABP - so that along with anabolic steroids will be difficult to use & not test positive (I can't imagine anyone using anabolic steroids with their long glow times. Lol).


However, synthetic testosterone is undetectable without utilizing the CIR test, which is very expensive generally used only when an athlete breeches the 4-1 T/E ratio. I believe the normal ratio for a male is 1-1 with 2-1 being outliers. Decades ago the T/E ratio was 6-1 for suspicion of testosterone use. WADA lowered to 4-1 concluding this number would be sufficient evidence of exogenous testosterone use.

Good info from Matt Mosman, MS, on the EPO/testosterone cocktail use by dopers in endurance sports:

View: https://youtu.be/o5uNN8fwCQE?si=jlEQbfTx1WB-oj-X
 
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Exactly...at a WADA symposium about a year ago, they said EPO microdosing is undetectable & prevents a challenge in curtailing it's use. Now they've added growth hormone to the module of the ABP - so that along with anabolic steroids will be difficult to use & not test positive (I can't imagine anyone using anabolic steroids with their long glow times. Lol).


However, synthetic testosterone is undetectable without utilizing the CIR test, which is very expensive generally used only when an athlete breeches the 4-1 T/E ratio. I believe the normal ratio for a male is 1-1 with 2-1 being outliers. Decades ago the T/E ratio was 6-1 for suspicion of testosterone use. WADA lowered to 4-1 concluded this number would be sufficient evidence of exogenous testosterone use.

Good info from Matt Mosman, MS, on the EPO/testosterone cocktail use by dopers in endurance sports:

View: https://youtu.be/o5uNN8fwCQE?si=jlEQbfTx1WB-oj-X
Great info, thanks!
 
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Complements, not substitutes.
I simply don't see evidence of that. The biggest anti-doping stories in cycling right now are Quintana & Lopez dealings with people not in their team. The MPCC teams do still have far too many doping cases, but I think that's more about the correlation that MPCC teams are lower budget / more traditional approach to the sport and the teams knowledge gap in sports science simply means the risk/reward for a rider to dope independently of their teams dr for gains is higher, but even MPCC teams I don't think have any systemic doping programmes, despite the number of doping cases. They seem again, to be private doping cases never extending to the teams medical staff.
 
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I'd expect the teams that already have the most support infrastructure and money, such as Visma, UAE & Ineos, to closely monitor and advice if not outright run the entire doping programs in-house. That should also minimise the risk of positives.

Like you, I also think some other teams have more of a don't ask, don't tell policy.
 
I simply don't see evidence of that. The biggest anti-doping stories in cycling right now are Quintana & Lopez dealings with people not in their team. The MPCC teams do still have far too many doping cases, but I think that's more about the correlation that MPCC teams are lower budget / more traditional approach to the sport and the teams knowledge gap in sports science simply means the risk/reward for a rider to dope independently of their teams dr for gains is higher, but even MPCC teams I don't think have any systemic doping programmes, despite the number of doping cases. They seem again, to be private doping cases never extending to the teams medical staff.

How does Quintana possibly doing blood transfusions on an MPCC team which were not picked up on any UCI test exclude blood doping anywhere else?

Is there an actual coherent argument somewhere that from a certain level of sports science ® , doping becomes ineffective/not needed?
 
How does Quintana possibly doing blood transfusions on an MPCC team which were not picked up on any UCI test exclude blood doping anywhere else?

Is there an actual coherent argument somewhere that from a certain level of sports science ® , doping becomes ineffective/not needed?
Samhocking's conjecture: Somehow the sports science at some point turns in to a substitute for doping instead of a complement, but why that is is left unsaid.
 
Well none of us know the figures exactly so it's assumption. The only real trend we can see is that since WADA anti-doping entered cycling and Armstrong's demise, the Tour de France peloton traditionally contained around 40% of 'proven dopers' ie they got caught, banned but came back into the peloton as was normal. Today there is almost no rider in a Tour de France peloton with such history and doping violations have dropped off a cliff anyway, so even if they could return to Tour de France there are almost no riders at that level to return from a ban anymore. This trend strongly coincides with bio passport and anti-doping taken out of the hands of NADOs and UCI and internationalised through WADA. Coinciding with this trend is the massive investment teams are making into supporting riders and sports science. Just look at amateur TT for evidence that even at club level speeds are still increasing, records continually broken even in your local TT and RR.
 
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Well none of us know the figures exactly so it's assumption. The only real trend we can see is that since WADA anti-doping entered cycling and Armstrong's demise, the Tour de France peloton traditionally contained around 40% of 'proven dopers' ie they got caught, banned but came back into the peloton as was normal. Today there is almost no rider in a Tour de France peloton with such history and doping violations have dropped off a cliff anyway, so even if they could return to Tour de France there are almost no riders at that level to return from a ban anymore. This trend strongly coincides with bio passport and anti-doping taken out of the hands of NADOs and UCI and internationalised through WADA. Coinciding with this trend is the massive investment teams are making into supporting riders and sports science. Just look at amateur TT for evidence that even at club level speeds are still increasing, records continually broken even in your local TT and RR.
The decrease in the number of positives coincided greatly with the replacement of independent testers with the UCI taking back control of testing, creating a conflict of interest that was not there previously.

The other thing it coincides with is lawyers poking holes in the efficacy of securing suspensions on the biopassport and for other supplements or masking agents, such as with cases like Kreuziger and Impey. The biopassport may come back stronger and more effective for it, but it has gone through a period of abject weakness.

Almost all of the highest profile names to get into hot water in the last decade or so have been the result of either police investigations like López or where the UCI kicks an own goal leaking its own bad news story to the press prematurely, like Froome.
 
I'd be very surprised if anything is happening at a team level in terms of breaking the rules. The teams seem to be mostly shifting focus to finding gains from sports science not doping science imo. You don't go any spend $1M on sports nutrition, staff, kitchen trucks etc if a $7 IV injection after the race can replace the same nutrients but is illegal.
The teams have been "shifting to sports science and not doping" since way back in the early aughts when some guy said rice cakes were better than doping.
Do you believe that?
Also, of course you're going to spend a million dollar marketing campaign to promote nutrition over doping. The return on investment is enormous.
 
The decrease in the number of positives coincided greatly with the replacement of independent testers with the UCI taking back control of testing, creating a conflict of interest that was not there previously.

The other thing it coincides with is lawyers poking holes in the efficacy of securing suspensions on the biopassport and for other supplements or masking agents, such as with cases like Kreuziger and Impey. The biopassport may come back stronger and more effective for it, but it has gone through a period of abject weakness.

Almost all of the highest profile names to get into hot water in the last decade or so have been the result of either police investigations like López or where the UCI kicks an own goal leaking its own bad news story to the press prematurely, like Froome.
UCI haven't taken back control of antidoping at all. RM &ITP is entirely out of UCI's hands ever since WADA and it switched from IOC. NADO and UCI. The process is entirely international now.
 
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The teams have been "shifting to sports science and not doping" since way back in the early aughts when some guy said rice cakes were better than doping.
Do you believe that?
Also, of course you're going to spend a million dollar marketing campaign to promote nutrition over doping. The return on investment is enormous.
Just look at the crap on Armstrong's & Pantani's dining table and lack of staff beyond a Dr to know how much top level cycling has changed. Jumbo & Ineos have a small town of people supporting them today, Armstrong had a Dr not even part of the team and a swanny, that was the entirety of his sports science department for 3 weeks!
 
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Just look at the crap on Armstrong's & Pantani's dining table and lack of staff beyond a Dr to know how much top level cycling has changed. Jumbo & Ineos have a small town of people supporting them today, Armstrong had a Dr not even part of the team and a swanny, that was the entirety of his sports science department for 3 weeks!
I don’t think you’re being consistent here: you’re saying that cycling has changed dramatically since decades ago in the increased professionalism of “sports science” (non-doping) aspect of pro cycling, but somehow don’t think there has been a concurrent increase in the professionalism of doping in pro cycling. You could be right, but the logic for why you believe it’s true doesn’t make sense.

Just an aside (not just to you, but in general), it’s strange folks use “sports science” to mean non-doping when in fact the application of new developments in medical treatments to use as PEDs (and the study of those new developments by anti-doping organizations) is big-time science.
 
Just an aside (not just to you, but in general), it’s strange folks use “sports science” to mean non-doping when in fact the application of new developments in medical treatments to use as PEDs (and the study of those new developments by anti-doping organizations) is big-time science.
Indeed. Which is why I say that "sport science" is a complement to doping, not a substitute.
 
I don’t think you’re being consistent here: you’re saying that cycling has changed dramatically since decades ago in the increased professionalism of “sports science” (non-doping) aspect of pro cycling, but somehow don’t think there has been a concurrent increase in the professionalism of doping in pro cycling. You could be right, but the logic for why you believe it’s true doesn’t make sense.

Just an aside (not just to you, but in general), it’s strange folks use “sports science” to mean non-doping when in fact the application of new developments in medical treatments to use as PEDs (and the study of those new developments by anti-doping organizations) is big-time science.
Indeed. Which is why I say that "sport science" is a complement to doping, not a substitute.
It can complement today, of course, but it's important to remember that a big part of doping in cycling historically was about recovery, remaining competitive long-enough through the season to earn a worthwhile living and not fall apart physically during 3 weeks racing or 6 days on the track. It had nothing to do with performance enhancement to win races directly. Transfusions, hormones, recup infusions, steroid balancing etc was because riders were basically left to their own devices, teams didn't spend money on sports science and the science itself was flawed or missing nay experts they could employ anyway. Had they understood it, they would have had staff practicing it, yet they didn't, they didn't have to because the riders and teams used doping to replace what lacked in the body to be competitive and so only a doping science and anti-doping evasion effort has historically been the pursuit of pro cycling teams and that seemed to be across the entire peloton, as I'm sure the 40% of proven dopers racing through history didn't represent every doper in a Tour de France peloton so probably more like double that imo around 80% of the peloton.

If were saying nothing much has changed, are you claiming perhaps 40-80% of the peloton is doping because it's not possible to race without it? All evidence of those caught seems to be rather crude doping such epo, blood, steroids, passport fails.

As for police raids this hasn't changed, there probably wasn't much difference between Festina and Arkéa in the legal sense, but the fact Arkea probably didn't need 900 vials of doping products in the hotel room suggests even doping teams have turned it right down, only 3 riders and an external privately hired Dr seem to be linked for example
 
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