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Wiggins real reason for leaving Garmin

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Sep 26, 2009
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Galic Ho said:
The lawsuit part. Lance can't risk going to court against a great number of people, the evidence brought against him would tarnish his public image. The courts would look at all of it. Plenty of people would line up if given the chance. Note how most of his cases are settled out of court with binding no talk agreements. For example, the SCA case was a contract law dispute, not a liabel defamation case.

I'll agree with the omerta part. I don't expect that the balancing act from a clean rider...I only wanted to highlight that it goes a long way to improving credibility. I agree with the unsportsmanlike behaviour, but only if you don't have substantial grounds to believe a rider is doping. If you do, well thats up to the individual at hand to differentiate. As for the LeMond bit...WTF?

LeMond won the Tour three times and the world championship twice. Lance never beat LeMond, as far as I know they never raced. There was a tiny overlap in their careers. Greg has to mention his own specimen and history because it was soo good. Very few people can achieve what he did, albeit cleanly. How else can he make comparisons with power outputs, VO2ma etc, unless he has a relative idea on how to compare (which his achievements and limits are guide guidelines)? It makes sense to remind people what cyclists could achieve naturally in the 1980's before epo. Given this misinterpretation of LeMond, what do you think of Hinault who unashamedly sprouts his own glory? Bitter he got old? Or knew what he wanted and lived it?

Yes, it's tough for a current rider to name and shame for a number of reasons:

Even room-mates have sometimes evinced shock that a team-mate has been doping (don't be too cynical - why WOULD you want to let your "roomie" in on the secret - like the saying goes, when 3 people know a secret it isn't a secret any more..) While you might think someone who just ripped your legs off MUST be doping you don't know it for a fact and it would therefore be unethical to suggest it. If you have specific knowledge, the correct forum is to report it to the authorities for them to investigate, not blab to the Press possibly allowing a doper to realise they've been rumbled and cover their tracks, avoiding sanctions. (In a different environment - Money-Laundering - there is an offence called "tipping off" which is doing anything that informs a money-launderer that they are under suspicion - hopefully the analogy is clear.)

While the view in the peloton has apparently moved away from "omerta" and
tolerating doping as a pro norm towards disapproval, and an acceptance of criticism of, discovered dopers, I don't think airing suspicions publicly would be be so well accepted. I've seen what happens to an unpopular rider in road races - not overt "punishment", just a lack of "slack" (road narrowing - do I ease over a little and make space or hold my line? Self-talk: "Why do him a favour - he can brake and drop back a bit, he's not at major risk as long as he does." ) - with energy conservation being a major success factor, whether for domestiques or leaders this can add up - the magical effect of a World Champion or TdeF leader jersey in getting you to the head of the peloton easily is well-documented and this would be the inverse.

Fear of lawsuits - whether well-founded or not undoubtedly plays a part.

Fairness - I'd hate to think that anyone thought my one week to the next improvement of 2 minutes in a 10-mile TT with no equipment change etc was due to anything other than better pacing strategy, some warm-up effect due to arriving at the start later than usual (having ridden from the finish parking) and maybe better atmospheric conditions (true). If however, someone raised suspicions on a blog on the subject or just whispered it to anyone but me, I'd have a major sense of humour failure and I'm only a low-level amateur - my career doesn't depend on my cycling reputation.

Hopefully the Blood Profiling will go a long way to making these concerns an irrelevance. The key is for riders to believe that cheats will be detected, no false positives (that would be my constant nightmare as a pro because no-one would ever believe you) and for actions to be suitably tough. I also think the sanctions should be tightened up gradually. Two years allows for riders to potentially re-habilitate and still have a career and I think that's about right for now, but I'd like to see that moved up over time to 3, 4, 5 years and with extra sanctions for riders who supply doping products to others.

Another concern for the future is that, with betting on races possible, it might be attractive for unscrupulous gamblers to try to manipulate results by eliminating riders who've beaten their choice - controls in the anti-doping process have to be tight enough to prevent/detect this. General Classification in Grand Tours and track racing would seem to be the highest risk areas here. (Paranoid? There have been past scandals in boxing, football, cricket to name but three sports/games.)

Will cycling (or any other sport) ever be doping-free? I doubt it. There will always be someone ready to tell an impressionable athlete that "they can't detect this" and people who come up with genuine ways to bypass controls. The key thing is to reduce their window of opportunity - out of competition testing, research, blood profiling - and introduce uncertainty, if the fear of getting caught outweighs the potential rewards human nature will kick in. Sadly I think there will always be occasional positives, but hopefully they will reduce in volume over time due to a genuine fall in doping.

On a different note, I get cynical over certain riders/performances but I hold my peace because I don't KNOW. Remember that sometimes the human body CAN surpass "known" physical limits e.g. women lifting cars off their kids under stress, soldiers continuing to fight despite serious injury, free divers going below the depth (I think 60 metres, but could be wrong) when accepted physics suggests their lungs would collapse under pressure as air in their lungs at 1 Atm pressure compresses, The Dutch guy who ran a marathon distance in the arctic circle in sandals and shorts only (-25c...) when accepted science had his body shutting down in 15-20mins, airmen falling great heights (10,00 feet?) without working parachutes albeit into soft snow, and surviving. On a lower level, maybe some superlative "out of their skin" performances are simply examples of this phenomenon.
 
Galic Ho said:
Did you read a word I typed? Did you understand the underlying logic? Why post articles that demonstrate the mentality of cycling soo well? Wiggins is upset about Cofidis being sent home. A handfull of riders ruining the tour. It just as likely he's upset the dopers were lazy and were caught, hence why I typed what I did. But nice try, whingeing after the matter really proves beyond a shadow of a doubt you really hate doping. In fact one line of thinking I considered indicates that perhaps this is what spurred Wiggins recent success...can't beat em, so join em. Oh and he is now light years ahead of where he was at Cofidis...he was ordinary then.

Also I stated earlier I have a well versed understanding of the law. If a rider comes out and does what I suggested they won't be sued. I only stated they needed to suggest and question (won't get you sued successfully otherwise L'Equippe would be out of business and LeMond/Walsh/Kimmage would never comment). It comes down to the definition of the vocabulary used, saying "you are" is not the same as "it may be." A concrete statement such as "LA is doping and a fraud" whould land you in trouble, but raising a question or two to uncover suspicious behaviour....that just annoys people who are dirty.

To FoxxyBrown1111, Cunego and Gerdemann should be added to the French. Thanks.

I remember Paula Radcliffe(British distance runner) protesting against EPO cheats a few years ago at Worlds, then she develops from a being good runner into one of the greatest, fastest female athletes ever just by changing distance. What am I supposed to think of this, that she is clean but breaking world records for fun and easliy beating doped up athletes.

I do prefer riders who speak out against doping but I feel a lot of lesser riders are scared of what might hapeen to them, they will say things to people close to themselves but will not make public announcements as it does look like poor sportsmanship. Look at Filippo Simeoni, he wasnt even accusing riders, just one doctor. When you go to an actual race and see the relationships between many riders, you can also see why they are reticent to say anything. It could also mean implicating their own team-mates/leader so that wouldnt be very smart either.
 

Dr. Maserati

BANNED
Jun 19, 2009
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Old Roadie said:
Yes, it's tough for a current rider to name and shame for a number of reasons:

While the view in the peloton has apparently moved away from "omerta" and
tolerating doping as a pro norm towards disapproval, and an acceptance of criticism of, discovered dopers, I don't think airing suspicions publicly would be be so well accepted. I've seen what happens to an unpopular rider in road races - not overt "punishment", just a lack of "slack" (road narrowing - do I ease over a little and make space or hold my line? Self-talk: "Why do him a favour - he can brake and drop back a bit, he's not at major risk as long as he does." ) - with energy conservation being a major success factor, whether for domestiques or leaders this can add up - the magical effect of a World Champion or TdeF leader jersey in getting you to the head of the peloton easily is well-documented and this would be the inverse.

Fear of lawsuits - whether well-founded or not undoubtedly plays a part.

phenomenon.

Great post - I agree with your sentiments that even team-mates may have suspicions of riders who are doping but do not know for sure. Like most systems you are either in 'the club' or you are on the outside looking in.

The doping products have evolved over the last 20 years but so to has the way doping athletes 'prepare'. Since 98 and Festina we have seen riders go to great lengths to hide their doping regime - flying to differrent countries or like Kohl have your manager involved.

I like the argument that in their public sentiments the peloton has moved away from 'tolerating' doping to 'disapproval'.

Also - you raise an excellent point that is often lost to posters who may not have raced and that is the ability of the peloton to screw over any rider for any infraction or indiscretion.
 
Mar 20, 2009
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pmcg76 said:
I remember Paula Radcliffe(British distance runner) protesting against EPO cheats a few years ago at Worlds, then she develops from a being good runner into one of the greatest, fastest female athletes ever just by changing distance. What am I supposed to think of this, that she is clean but breaking world records for fun and easliy beating doped up athletes.

er .... she was world junior x-country champion, world senior x-country champion, beaten by the chinese in the 1990s and denied championship wins by her tactical naivite (she lacked the kick to win slow races). She was always a winner in fast road races. She was the first racer of that calibre to step up early in her career and - let's be honest - women's marathoning wasn't all that competitive at the time. To say she won for fun is stretching it - in London one year she literally shat herself (on TV - thanks BBC). Her performances are no better than Beryl Burton's were, since this is a cycling forum.

I take your point, but you picked the wrong example.

If she'd been 12 minutes back from a great Spanish champion in the London marathon for several years on the trot, then suddenly smashed everyone 7 years on the trot then maybe I'd have my doubts ........
 
Old Roadie said:
...

Hopefully the Blood Profiling will go a long way to making these concerns an irrelevance. The key is for riders to believe that cheats will be detected, no false positives (that would be my constant nightmare as a pro because no-one would ever believe you) and for actions to be suitably tough.
That's why the the maximum tollerable values are so high. this has been described by Krebs in this forum. Actually that's one of the problems with the current system. So many riders can microdose and blood dope to certain extent, as long as you don't over do it you are fine.

I also think the sanctions should be tightened up gradually. Two years allows for riders to potentially re-habilitate and still have a career and I think that's about right for now, but I'd like to see that moved up over time to 3, 4, 5 years and with extra sanctions for riders who supply doping products to others.

Will cycling (or any other sport) ever be doping-free? I doubt it. There will always be someone ready to tell an impressionable athlete that "they can't detect this" and people who come up with genuine ways to bypass controls. The key thing is to reduce their window of opportunity - out of competition testing, research, blood profiling - and introduce uncertainty, if the fear of getting caught outweighs the potential rewards human nature will kick in. Sadly I think there will always be occasional positives, but hopefully they will reduce in volume over time due to a genuine fall in doping.
+1. I like this assessment. Not until then we can hope for something better.


...Remember that sometimes the human body CAN surpass "known" physical limits e.g. women lifting cars off their kids under stress, soldiers continuing to fight despite serious injury, free divers going below the depth (I think 60 metres, but could be wrong) when accepted physics suggests their lungs would collapse under pressure as air in their lungs at 1 Atm pressure compresses, The Dutch guy who ran a marathon distance in the arctic circle in sandals and shorts only (-25c...) when accepted science had his body shutting down in 15-20mins, airmen falling great heights (10,00 feet?) without working parachutes albeit into soft snow, and surviving. On a lower level, maybe some superlative "out of their skin" performances are simply examples of this phenomenon.
How many times can a person do that? I agree that a person can do extreme things under a lot of stress but can they keep duplicating this stress and keep doing it over three weeks? And repeat it the following year? or for 7 years?

Finally, welcome to the forum.
Are you related to pro racing or was related to pro-racing?
 
Aug 5, 2009
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Galic Ho said:
The lawsuit part. Lance can't risk going to court against a great number of people, the evidence brought against him would tarnish his public image. The courts would look at all of it. Plenty of people would line up if given the chance. Note how most of his cases are settled out of court with binding no talk agreements. For example, the SCA case was a contract law dispute, not a liabel defamation case.

I'll agree with the omerta part. I don't expect that the balancing act from a clean rider...I only wanted to highlight that it goes a long way to improving credibility. I agree with the unsportsmanlike behaviour, but only if you don't have substantial grounds to believe a rider is doping. If you do, well thats up to the individual at hand to differentiate. As for the LeMond bit...WTF?

LeMond won the Tour three times and the world championship twice. Lance never beat LeMond, as far as I know they never raced. There was a tiny overlap in their careers. Greg has to mention his own specimen and history because it was soo good. Very few people can achieve what he did, albeit cleanly. How else can he make comparisons with power outputs, VO2ma etc, unless he has a relative idea on how to compare (which his achievements and limits are guide guidelines)? It makes sense to remind people what cyclists could achieve naturally in the 1980's before epo. Given this misinterpretation of LeMond, what do you think of Hinault who unashamedly sprouts his own glory? Bitter he got old? Or knew what he wanted and lived it?
lawsuits - At this point in LA's career he is insulated from exposure by the precedent he has set, going to war with anyone who suggests that he doped. He is most likely protected by non disclosure agreements for anyone who would know anything, they could blow the whistle but it would bankrupt them. he is also protected by the basic psychology of a criminal conspiracy... everyone involved is breaking the law and faces punishment for their actions. if someone knows of something he did, he knows what dirt they did. thus everyone stays silent.

While a rider telling WADA about any doping activities he witnessed and this leading to investigation and sanction would be good for the sport, a rider telling the press/public "the other guys cheated to win" only sounds like sour grapes. it may improve his credibility in your eyes, but i assure you that it wouldn't go over well with other pros or most of the public. whether it is true or not, it sounds like an excuse. which leads to lemond. He accuses riders without evidence, the only basis of his attack is 'i wasn't that fast, so you can't be' his comparisons of power output and vo2max were discredited almost immediately as being sloppy guesswork at best. If he had specific evidence, for instance about riders of his generation, then he could bring it to light. but accusing riders without evidence comes off as jealousy and bitterness.
 
Aug 12, 2009
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Old Roadie said:
Hopefully the Blood Profiling will go a long way to making these concerns an irrelevance. The key is for riders to believe that cheats will be detected, no false positives (that would be my constant nightmare as a pro because no-one would ever believe you) and for actions to be suitably tough. I also think the sanctions should be tightened up gradually. Two years allows for riders to potentially re-habilitate and still have a career and I think that's about right for now, but I'd like to see that moved up over time to 3, 4, 5 years and with extra sanctions for riders who supply doping products to others.

You made a lot of good points. Rehabilitation though doesn't happen in any way, shape or form. Omerta seems to be ringing through the hallways of the UCI. Boonen should be receiving it for his coke addiction. We get a promise from Quickstep he'll be helped. I'll wait for the next positive. Vino, Basso, rehabilitated? No, just quiet. Sounds like that omerta thing I've read about. Kohl sadly is the closest I've seen to rehabilitated, because he spilt all the beans. He knew the ruse was up. Millar is the poster child for the UCI's version of rehabilitation.

Another concern for the future is that, with betting on races possible, it might be attractive for unscrupulous gamblers to try to manipulate results by eliminating riders who've beaten their choice - controls in the anti-doping process have to be tight enough to prevent/detect this. General Classification in Grand Tours and track racing would seem to be the highest risk areas here. (Paranoid? There have been past scandals in boxing, football, cricket to name but three sports/games.)

I hope not. Beating scandals almost tore world cricket apart after the Salim Malak, Azarhudin and Cronje sagas. But there is already evidence this has been happening for a long time. Remember Hincapie and the HRT ***** after the stage 14 Ivanov win. That type of attitude, the "I deserve this, they owe me" mentality is wrong and more than plants a seed of doubt that racing could be staged for a desirable result. However it is very hard to do when someone who has the ability to say no and ride hard defies the "preferred order."

pmcg76 said:
I remember Paula Radcliffe(British distance runner) protesting against EPO cheats a few years ago at Worlds, then she develops from a being good runner into one of the greatest, fastest female athletes ever just by changing distance. What am I supposed to think of this, that she is clean but breaking world records for fun and easliy beating doped up athletes.

Remember Athens Olympic marathon. She was human there. Chrissie Wellington won her first Ironman Triathlon at 37 years of age. She has been undefeated since. Some people are naturals. Others raise eye brows. The Chinese in the 1990's, haha. Nobody has touched their records. Weren't they all coached by the turtle blood guy? Or was he Korean? I like watching the mens 5K and 10K events, but I can't see how guys like Bekele run soo fast undoped.

pataphysician said:
While a rider telling WADA about any doping activities he witnessed and this leading to investigation and sanction would be good for the sport, a rider telling the press/public "the other guys cheated to win" only sounds like sour grapes. it may improve his credibility in your eyes, but i assure you that it wouldn't go over well with other pros or most of the public. whether it is true or not, it sounds like an excuse. which leads to lemond. He accuses riders without evidence, the only basis of his attack is 'i wasn't that fast, so you can't be' his comparisons of power output and vo2max were discredited almost immediately as being sloppy guesswork at best. If he had specific evidence, for instance about riders of his generation, then he could bring it to light. but accusing riders without evidence comes off as jealousy and bitterness.

Agree with the first part. Fanboys would hate it and parts of the peloton would be ****ed. But if you are naturally better than most of them whilst they are doped...well you could afford to laugh in their faces (not many can). The LeMond Contador Verbier claim. I thought it was ridiculous to begin with. The Ex-Festina coach's math was way off. Contador riding with a VO2 max @ 99.5ml/kg/min! The top 7 guys would have been over 90...no chance of that. The math and dynamics were all over the shop. He was just asking a question, nothing more. I don't think it was the fastest climb in tour history as claimed. Pantani can take that shonky honour. I think VAM is mostly $h1t and is only used because nothing else is reliable enough. There are too many variables. LeMond was using his column at Lemonde to remind people to be wary. He just used the wrong mathematical model.

Individual boimetrics and physiological data is the way to go. Blood passport but with some changes. Sadly as Old Roadie hinted the penalties are too lenient. What I would like to see is the high parameters for a penalty/reprimand/suspension lowered. Race Radio gave a link to a discussion by Michael Ashenden who had some great ideas:

http://siab.org.au/what-is-blood-passport/passport-explanation.php

I've worked with statistics. The Bayesian approach is better than what the UCI currently uses, a general rule of thumb. The Bayesian approach tailors the statistics to one's own results. It sets out a very clear idea of what is normal for your body. It would not allow a rider with a low 40 haematocrit score to go anywhere near the 50 cutoff as it is unnatural for their specific specimen (same with haemoglobin and reticulyote percentages). Take the off-score limit of 133. It's too high. Should be more like 110 or 115. Other sports bodies use 126. LA had scores in the high 80's, mid 90's and then one a few weeks before the tour of 113. Not ordinary! The high limits are mostly there to allow people freedom to dope and not be sanctioned. Take the epo test, the cutoff is a score of 60 (I think). You can have recombinant epo in your urine but be under the number. The lab knows the samples owner is dirty but they are legally clean because of the cutoff. Landis pulled that one in his court case. 14 other riders had synthetic traces in their samples that tour, he was the only one sanctioned and said it was wrong...was it fair? No, but the rules state what you can get away with.

Finally to clear it up, a rider can only come out to the press and say "hey something is wrong" when they have strong evidence. Responding to rumours when questioned is okay. Happened in 2007 with Rasmussen (French riders saying he didn't belong after Vino was booted). In all likelyhood when a rider has evidence of doping (hard to prove when you are not participating) I'd recommend the path of Manzano, go to the feds, fuzz, guardia civil or whoever has policing authority. Then once they're finished go to the press, because a lot of info never gets out. A nice organised gendarmere raid or two of team hotels during next years tour would be awesome, might help blow the myth McQuaid has weaved about clean tours. Setting the cat amongst the pigeons. Sadly most of the big doping busts are the result of police work and not the authorities attributed with running the respective sports. They know and do next to nothing.
 
Aug 9, 2009
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Galic Ho said:
A nice organised gendarmere raid or two of team hotels during next years tour would be awesome, might help blow the myth McQuaid has weaved about clean tours. Setting the cat amongst the pigeons. Sadly most of the big doping busts are the result of police work and not the authorities attributed with running the respective sports. They know and do next to nothing.

True, but the gendarmes need to be told what to look for. It's pretty clear that you'll find nothing in any team official or rider's room, maybe not even in the same hotel after Kohl's statements. You effectively have to search everyone that checks into every hotel in the town to see who has something in a chill-box. Then take DNA from what's in the box and match it up to the skinny fellas having dinner down the road. Not easy eh? That's where the passport comes in - take anyone with unusual values and have them tailed on the second rest day - one will be be stupid enough to go to go and get their cells without looking over their shoulder, then you lock them in a cell until they spill the beans.
 
Oct 22, 2009
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pmcg76 said:
I remember Paula Radcliffe(British distance runner) protesting against EPO cheats a few years ago at Worlds, then she develops from a being good runner into one of the greatest, fastest female athletes ever just by changing distance. What am I supposed to think of this, that she is clean but breaking world records for fun and easliy beating doped up athletes.
keen_but_slow said:
I take your point, but you picked the wrong example.

If she'd been 12 minutes back from a great Spanish champion in the London marathon for several years on the trot, then suddenly smashed everyone 7 years on the trot then maybe I'd have my doubts ........
Like pmcg I can't help seeing a link between Radcliffe and Wiggins. Keen_but_slow - you should have a closer look at her achievements pre and post 2001: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Radcliffe

Radcliffe: a brilliant natural talent in her own field (cross-country), but never quite up to the mark in the more lucrative, higher-profile branch of the sport (track and road athletics). Knows she's being beaten by dopers, and makes a pretty loud public stand against them. Hits 28, and realises that time's running out if she wants to make big bucks, but also that the dopers haven't gone away... time to make that beat them/join them decision.

Wiggins: substitute track cycling for cross-country, and GTs for track and road athletics.

The sad reality is that it's just very hard not to suspect athletes who suddenly take a great leap forward at such a late stage in their careers - particularly in an aerobic-based endurance sport. Yes - even if they're British.

Note that I admire both Radcliffe and Wiggins - heck, I've got Mr W's autograph on my wall. All they've really done is try to level up the playing field by doing the same kind of stuff as the athletes who kept beating them.
 
dopingectomy said:
in the example shown here
http://www.doping.chuv.ch/en/lad_ho...ns-laboratoire-passeport-passeport-hemato.htm
I do not find the values so high.

Maximum tolerable values at 156 g/L for haemoglobin and 100 for OFF-score for a rider that has baseline values apparently around 140 g/L and 80 do not let a large margin for doping.
Yes they are high:

LANCE ARMSTRONG NUMBERS:
mektronic said:
His reticulocytes also follow trends for preparation and racing. You can do a z-score on the retics but the graph essentially looks the same:

f_untium_284270e.jpg


ANOTHER PLOT:
Cobber said:
OK, just entered all of LA's blood values from the past year into a spreadsheet and graphed it. Shaded in blue is the normal range (85-95) for OFF-score. Anyone want to bet that LA got transfused immediately before the TdF? Based on how quickly it dropped after 6/16/09, if he was tested a week earlier he may have been above the 133 cutoff. Seems ironic to me that these values were posted by LA as evidence that he doesn't dope...

2qnab02.jpg



WIGGINGS NUMBERS: Not as telling as Armtrong’s numbers but still suspicious.

Cobber said:
OK... as requested by Escarabajo. Once again, normal ranges shaded blue. The values were "estimated" from the graphs posted earlier (and on the website I quoted), so they will not be 100% accurate. (but they will be close! ;))

1oodpu.jpg


Explanation from our good friend Cobblestones. I am no expert but his reasoning makes sense to me.
Cobblestones said:
Did we ever get an explanation for the following?

During the Giro, Wiggins's off score took a dive from 85 to 65 and his hemoglobin from 15 to somewhat above 13 g/dl.

During the TdF, the Sion value shows an increase over the Limoges value from 85 to almost 100 for the off score and from 14 to somewhat over 15 g/dl for hemoglobin. Between Sion and Ventoux, he then showed a similar drop as during the Giro with almost -20 on the off score and not quite -2 g/dl for the hemoglobin.

However, due to the aforementioned +jump of the Sion values, the overall decrease in off score and hemoglobin throughout the TdF is practically negligible, compared to the large overall decrease he experienced in the Giro.

The blood data also reflect Wiggins's results in the third weeks of the Giro and TdF. I would argue that the different blood parameter curves are the reason for the difference in performance. Now, what is the reason for the different curves?


Cobblestones said:
Finally, I'm pleased to see that what I wrote about Wiggins's passport values on the previous page (Htc and off score going up during the TdF at least once, and never drop significantly below the Monaco levels) has been labeled 'suspicious' for a certain other rider by a Danish scientist.


Cobblestones said:
I don't think LA's and Wiggins's curves look all that different. Wiggins started the Giro with 85 off score and 15 g/dl. In the end he had 65 and somewhat above 13. He then started the TdF with almost 95 and 15, went up to just below 100, and ended on the Ventoux barely below 85 and 14. In other words, his off score jumped from 65 to almost 100 in the few weeks from end of May to mid July. Armstrong's went from maybe 70 to around 110. A similar argument could be made for the Hb.

The most telling point is when you compare Giro vs TdF for one and the same rider. You see that both Wiggins and LA have a pretty steady TdF curve, while their Giro curves look like something dropping off a cliff. I don't think comparing smaller details between curves is very useful because who knows when the data were taken with respect to the transfusions, and anyway the two riders might follow somewhat different schedules in the first place. Maybe one of them got tested right before and then only a week or so after the transfusion while the other got tested the day after which would make stick the result out more.

ETA: ha, I wrote my post before Cobber put his plot up. I think the plot shows it better than my explanation. Let me try to say it in a different way. I think Wiggins got juiced up between the third and second last point on the graph. The transfusion had the effect of elevating the last two point on each curve. If you move them both down by 10-20% (where they would be without the extra pint) both ends of the curves would be a nice replica of the Giro part.

You can find good information here: http://siab.org.au/what-is-blood-passport/passport-explanation.php

I did not want to bring Lance Armstrong info into this thread but I wanted to make a point.
 
Mar 12, 2009
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Sorry to dig up this old thread, but some interesting reading....

Added the quotes.

gooner said:
And why should we assume Wiggins doped?

At the end of the day, there is no basis, allegation or rumour against him. End of. Plus like I said many times before he has been outspoken against doping more than most.

AS: Some have said that Wiggins' values are also suspicious. Do you agree with that?

JM: He hasn't published as many values, but his values are not following a pattern that you would expect from a physiological point of view.

AS: When a rider publishes his results, in a way, he's saying he must be clean because he's being transparent. So, in your opinion, he should be able to withstand some criticism.

JM: Correct.

AS: So if I were to come to you with Wiggins' numbers, you would say the same thing? Suspicious?

JM: I have seen no exact values, but the pattern on the graph I have seen does not follow the expected pattern.
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/armstrongs-bio-passport-critic-speaks

This was after his -09 4th place.