Vinokourov out of the tour - from one crisis to another

[gdl_gdl]

The greatest race in the world faces another crisis......

Vinokourov

Cheers,

Gary

[Bnej]

You know, I suspected this was coming.

I mean, struggling to keep up, win time trial, struggle, stage win... no-one recovers that quickly.

[europa]

Vinokourov, you are a fool ... as is everyone else doping.

And cycling cops another black eye - I heard about it on the ABC which manages to remain very neutral, but you can hear the cycling critics gloating.

Let's analyse my feelings - there's disappointment, disappointment, disappoinment and, I'm probably a bit disppointed as well.

Richard

[tuco]

As Bnej stated, you could see it coming. Like the guy who had the claytons win last year, their both had an outstanding stage which appeared to surpass their ability and or injuries to win a stage.

[sogood]

Frigging stupid! Deserved whatever punishments there may be.

[europa]

Copied from a locked thread in General Discussion:

Hi everyone. I was quite shoked this morning when I woke and came across the news that Alexander Vinokourov has tested positive to blood doping, although that given the sports reputation the last few years, theres a part of me that is not that surprised. Its still upsetting, especially when Cadel Evans came second to the guy in question in the time trial. Im sure Cadel is over the moon!!
Anyway I just want to ask ( Im quite new to the sport so bear with me on this) what is the advantage of blood doping? So far I understand that its injecting someone elses compatable blood into you. But obviously the blood is enhanced somewhat. So why wouldnt the rider just take the performance enhancing drugs himself. Whats the advantage of injecting someone elses blood?

Would love to hear some feed back.

Thanks guys. Loving the TDF by the way!!

[europa]

Copied from the same thread:

Without doing a google search I thought it involved removing your own blood, removing all but the red blood cells (the oxygen carriers) and then injecting it back in at a later date. I could be wrong though.

I also thought that high altitude training effectively increased red blood cell count also.

[Kalgrm]

Doping is the practice of enhancing the blood's oxygen carrying capacity with your own red blood cells taken some time earlier. You train, remove blood, concentrate the cells a little and keep training. The continued training makes your body replace the lost cells and then when you need the boost, the cells are transfused back into your body. Suddenly, you can carry more oxygen and remove CO2 more efficiently until the red blood cells return to normal concentrations.

I'm not sure why it's considered dangerous, but it is certainly unethical.

Cheers,
Graeme

[europa]

Any idea on how long the effects last? Is it something you can do once to last the tour or do you have to do it on a stage by stage basis? Are the results instant ie, you do it the night before and next day you're the super Kazak?

Richard

[tuco]

The term blood doping originally meant literally doping with blood, i.e. the transfusion of RBCs. RBCs are uniquely suited to this process because they can be concentrated, frozen and later thawed with little loss of viability or activity. There are two possible types of transfusion: homologous and autologous. In a homologous transfusion, RBCs from a compatible donor are harvested, concentrated and then transfused into the athlete’s circulation prior to endurance competitions. In an autologous transfusion, the athlete's own RBCs are harvested well in advance of competition and then re-introduced before a critical event. For some time after the harvesting the athlete may be anemic.

Both types of transfusion can be dangerous because of the risk of infection and the potential toxicity of improperly stored blood. Homologous transfusions present the additional risks of communication of infectious diseases and the possibility of a transfusion reaction. From a logistical standpoint, either type of transfusion requires the athlete to surreptitiously transport frozen RBCs, thaw and re-infuse them in a non-clinical setting and then dispose of the medical paraphernalia.

RBC - red blood cells.

I bet the other riders on the team want to smack him about the head now the entire team has withdrawn.

[Kalgrm]

Any idea on how long the effects last?

According to this page, the absolute maximum would be 120 days, which is the "life span" of the RBCs. However, the stored RBCs would still be "dying" while they were being stored and their storage conditions are not ideal in that environment.

So, you get the maximum effect within 1 to 7 days of ingestion of the cells and it drops from there. I guess now would be the ideal time to be doping in the TdF if you're going to do it.

Cheers,
Graeme

[europa]

[i]Both types of transfusion can be dangerous because of the risk of infection and the potential toxicity of improperly stored blood.

Hmm, and the commentary team have been talking about one of his wounds being infected. Maybe the source wasn't the wound?

And it doesn't sound like something you can just suddenly decide to do - he didn't just send someone off to the local pusher to grab some dope, the bastard prepared for this. Oh okay, we all know it's more complicated than that, but this is planned and cold blooded.

Richard

[sogood]

bikeboy asked on another thread that got transplanted to this...

Anyway I just want to ask ( Im quite new to the sport so bear with me on this) what is the advantage of blood doping? So far I understand that its injecting someone elses compatable blood into you. But obviously the blood is enhanced somewhat. So why wouldnt the rider just take the performance enhancing drugs himself. Whats the advantage of injecting someone elses blood?

It's pure and simple, blood doping is aimed to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the rider's blood, thereby enhancing performance. The more O2 carried per unit of blood, the later the onset of O2 debt and improving endurance. So the technique is to somehow increase this carriage capacity by increasing the amount of haemoglobin (contained within red blood cells) either by re-infusion of one's own blood/red cells or other compatible donor (as alleged in Vino's case). The other common technique is the use of EPO, a hormone that stimulates the production of RBC. The end result being an increase in the haematocrit of the blood (% cell). A more legit technique is to live on high altitudes where the air is thin, thereby stimulating body's natural EPO and push up the haematocrit (possible reason why Rassmussen likes to live in Mexico although one should verify if his home there is at altitude eg. Mexico City). Out of these, the performance enhancing effect from blood infusion is immediate while EPO and high altitude stimulation will take time as they are dependent on body's natural RBC production to kick in.

Out on the horizon, there are now man made blood compatible O2 carrying agents that have been developed for medical applications. These don't involve cells and can be directly infused and float in the recipient's plasma. I haven't read any caught cases yet but these may also be out of dope police's net until they specifically test for them. As many of these new medical products are being developed in the US (largest medical market in the world), it's no surprise there are clouds surrounding some of the US athletes who have associations to the biotech industry.

The down side of blood doping is death. When haematocrit is elevated, the viscosity of the blood is also proportionally increased, resulting in sluggish blood flow and potential clotting. When the haematocrit isn't controlled properly by the doper and gets further increased by dehydration during the competition, the dope recipient may suffer from stroke and heart attacks and die under the physical stresses of racing.

[Kalgrm]

..... the dope recipient may suffer from stroke and heart attacks .....

.... making him the recipient dope!

[uMP2k]

..... Oh, I give up....

[sogood]

According to this page, the absolute maximum would be 120 days, which is the "life span" of the RBCs. However, the stored RBCs would still be "dying" while they were being stored and their storage conditions are not ideal in that environment.

So, you get the maximum effect within 1 to 7 days of ingestion of the cells and it drops from there. I guess now would be the ideal time to be doping in the TdF if you're going to do it.

120 days is the natural life cycle of a RBC from the day it gets released from the blood marrow. So within one's circulating blood, there's a mix of RBC at various stages of its life cycle. So when they are reinfused, these will continue its attrition. Further, due to the high haematocrit induced with blood infusion, the body's natural RBC production would be slowed (unless the doper is also on EPO injections). So the beneficial effect from these infusions are relatively short lived.

As alleged in Vino's case, the foreign RBC was identified to be from a compatible donor. Through various known and established cell marker identification techniques, the error rate is effectively zero. I think Vino is finished for good. This is also the reason why dopers likes to use one's own blood, collected at a much earlier time point. With your own cells, apart from the haematocrit anomaly, it's essentially unprovable that you've doped. Hence the stipulation for an upper limit on athletes' haematocrit on testing. Vino was really dumb!

[toolonglegs]

just a pity for Cadel who could of been on the podium in the TT.

[toolonglegs]

At least Petachi has been cleared!

[Bnej]

The depressing part is it's the exceptional performances and comebacks that are most likely to be associated with doping.

Don't think I'll ever get why you'd want to win that way, but then I haven't ever wanted to win something more than I wanted to participate.

[Womble]

Is it possible for Vino to have done this on his own or would he require help form a doctor or his team? I would have thought the amountof tie a rider is not with somebody from their team during thr tour is minimal.

[toolonglegs]

[europa]

In something like the tour, I don't think it's possible to do this sort of stuff without help. The sanctions for any doping offence should include the team officials - Vino gets caught? The team officials wear the ban as well. NOT the team itself, but the men. How far into the team you take that, I don't know, but you can't tell the team manager on the ground didn't know about this and he'll be free to move onto the next sucker.

Richard

[sogood]

Is it possible for Vino to have done this on his own or would he require help form a doctor or his team? I would have thought the amountof tie a rider is not with somebody from their team during thr tour is minimal.

Fat chance that he could have done it on his own. Given his use of a donor, he is not too bright up there. As a minimum, he needed a donor accomplice.

In any case, you need at least someone who is familiar with the use of needles, blood bags, storage techniques, infusion lines, risk managements etc to supervise the whole procedure.

I often wondered, why don't the doping police just check for needle marks on these people? For blood transfusions, you really need a big 14G needle. It's hard to hide these needle marks.

[Halfanewb]

aw man how disappointing is that?

I feel for Cadel who has put in a stellar effort on the tour so far. I am assuming he will get the credit for the stage but its not the same as winning on the day and getting to stand on the podium in front of the tv viewers across the world.

[moosterbounce]

After not being able to race last year due to his missing team, you would think there was some knowledge here...tonight should be interesting to hear what Phil says about it all.

It does remove a few threats to Cadel though doesn't it? Kloden was gaining and is a good ITT. But no-one wants to win when you don't have any opponents left (unless it is a demo derby!! Moo shows her country roots)