Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

[Farmer Elvis]

Geez, I wondered how he could ride away from his opponents after having had a bad day prior.......

[vosadrian]

I have to wonder about the motivations and psychology behind something like this. Froome seems to have a lot of haters and I am not one of them. He seems to have changed his riding style to be more exciting to watch, but haters are gonna hate!

Anyway, some may not like him as a rider, but I doubt anyone would argue the guy is not stupid. He is very calculated in everything he says and does in a public forum. He is no hot head who does something in the heat of the moment without thinking. He is also probably the most drug tested rider in the Pro Peleton and has the most to lose by being caught with drugs. The drug he has failed a test on seems to be an easy one to detect, and has resulted in other rider penalties in the recent past. The question has to be asked.... given all the above, does anyone really think he would knowingly overdose on an asthma drug for performance enhancement? (especially given any performance benefit is questionable) It does not make much sense to me that he would. Seems more likely that it was either an accidental overdose, or a strange metabolism issue with his body.

[RonK]

Geez, I wondered how he could ride away from his opponents after having had a bad day prior.......

Oh, you mean like Floyd Landis did?

[Thoglette]

Seems more likely that it was either an accidental overdose, or a strange metabolism issue with his body.

Sorry Chris Froome, these days there's no benefit of the doubt when you fail a drug test

Yeah right, Chris Froome.

You were clutching that asthma inhaler just a bit too tightly during the Vuelta a Espana in September and double pumped when you only needed a single burst. Is that what we are supposed to think?

I mean, how were you to know that you were spraying your lungs with the drug Salbutamol that some claim enhances performance? You've only been monitoring your use of the drug for your entire career, right?

...., Froome's excellence might have once provided an aura of infallibility. Now it only fuels our suspicion about what fuelled him.

Tony Martin's pretty annoyed too
Chris Froome says failed drugs test ‘damaging’ but he followed protocol

“Not only the public but also I have immediately the impression that there is wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes, agreements are being made and ways are being sought as to how to get out of this case,” he said. “Do he and his team enjoy a special status?

[G@v]

Froome needs to convince a panel through a pharmacokinetic study/test that when he takes an allowed dosage it can produce an adverse result. Nobody has been able to provide proof of this previously. Leo Piepolli was the only rider to have gone over the allowed limit and get off (he had a medical cert to go over the limit).

Thinking now that Froome didn't do anything wrong, but rules are there and he'll most likely face the consequences.

From this interview with Dr. Tom Bassindale, an anti-doping expert and lecturer at the Biomolecular Sciences Research Center at the Sheffield Hallam University in England.

http://www.velonews.com/2017/12/news/an ... -up_453381

VN: So what’s your take on the one-day spike and results of Froome’s test?
DTB: One assumes he was tested before and after throughout the Vuelta, and only this one day he had a spike in readings. That wouldn’t suggest long-term abuse. That day he said he had a significant increase in dosage with the spray, within the rules. They will try to explain it along those lines. There are also the less-innocent uses, and those are all banned. The not-so-innocent explanation would be the use of a tablet on top of his inhaler. There are the innocent explanations and the not-so-innocent. Now it’s up to them to make their explanation seem plausible.

VN: Explain how Salbutamol works in its spray form?
DTB: The spray will have an almost immediate effect. It opens up the bronchial tubes and relaxes the muscles that block the breathing. The puffers will only get you back to a ‘normal’ function. They cannot open the airways in any additional way. There is no extra benefit for anyone who might not be asthmatic. If an asthmatic took a few extra puffs, they might feel some mild simulation. Like a jolt of caffeine. Beyond that, there are not much additional benefits to performance.

VN: And via the other methods, how does that affect an athlete?
DTB: With injections or tablets, you start getting some additional effects. You might see anabolic effects, such muscle-growing or fat-burning, similar to what Clenbuterol might do. That wouldn’t result from a couple of puffs. That would be a longer-term abuse with a higher level of it to get that anabolic effect, over weeks or even months.

I'm guessing the limit is imposed on Salbutamol for potential misuse via injections or tablets.

However rules are rules. Can't see Froome escaping this unfortunately and the damage has been done (to cycling and his reputation).

[trailgumby]

Interesting podcast here, including commentary from a doctor associated with Cycling Ireland.

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/12/cycling ... tive-mean/

[AUbicycles]

An explanation is blood doping and when the inhaler is used and abused legally during training leading to high levels, if blood is then taken but is persisting longer tgan expected or there is simply a timing mistake, it can explain a sudden appearance and elevation of levels. There are a few details worth scrutinising but people are trying to understand how the levels can be so high.... and fair enough, froome has been caught and the evidence is stacked against him so it is hard to presume innocence.

There are also questions about the process and role of the UCI protecting their elite rider.... has happened before.


But that Froome has changed is riding style to be more exciting, preposterous.

[biker jk]

Another interesting point is that we only found out that Froome had asthma when he was seen taking a puff at the Criterion du Dauphine in 2014. His book published just before the Dauphine made no mention that he was asthmatic and had apparently been using an inhaler since a teenager. Very odd that asthma had never been mentioned before 2014.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/06/12/di ... sthma-now/

[fat and old]

I have to wonder about the motivations and psychology behind something like this. Froome seems to have a lot of haters and I am not one of them. He seems to have changed his riding style to be more exciting to watch, but haters are gonna hate!

Anyway, some may not like him as a rider, but I doubt anyone would argue the guy is not stupid. He is very calculated in everything he says and does in a public forum. He is no hot head who does something in the heat of the moment without thinking. He is also probably the most drug tested rider in the Pro Peleton and has the most to lose by being caught with drugs. The drug he has failed a test on seems to be an easy one to detect, and has resulted in other rider penalties in the recent past. The question has to be asked.... given all the above, does anyone really think he would knowingly overdose on an asthma drug for performance enhancement? (especially given any performance benefit is questionable) It does not make much sense to me that he would. Seems more likely that it was either an accidental overdose, or a strange metabolism issue with his body.

Five years too late, Armstrong's been done.

Ohhh, you're talking about Froomay.

[Chuck]

but haters are gonna hate!

An interesting turn of phrase to use in this discussion. The guy who popularized the saying found himself in a not too different situation as Froome is in now and it turned out that the "haters" weren't haters at all they were just right

[Alex Simmons/RST]

This is not a simple case of a positive doping control for a prohibited substance.

It's an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for a specified substance which has special meaning under WADA code. As such there is a way to go before a ruling on possible anti-doping rule violation (ADRV).

There are specific rules and processes that apply and these need to be allowed to play out accordingly. It's not a new process, it's been in place for a while now. One of those rules has already been broken by someone in the anti-doping chain and that is not helpful.

If you want to understand this process, have a read of this threaded twitter post which goes through it very nicely:
https://twitter.com/lukascph/status/941353550180945920

The upshot is that such specified substance AAFs are not black and white but rather are shades of grey. In this case it's a pretty dark grey but there are still potentially legitimate reasons for the AAF that will not result in an ADRV (anyone doing at least a cursory read of the scientific literature on this will know why).

Of course it may still result in an ADRV.

We are at present in the realms of possibilities and probabilities.

In terms of the process, the burden of proof now passes to Froome to demonstrate why an ADRV should not apply, and that requires a lot of detailed work over a long time and there is no specific timeframe.

This will be a drawn out process. those looking for a quick kill will be disappointed. It's going to dominate the news cycle where ever Froome goes.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

For those interested in the scientific, just look at how variable the urine reading is for salbutamol is after a 1600 microgram intake (WADA permitted daily limit) for 12 subjects after exercise and dehydration.

A quarter of the subject's tests for exercise and exercise+dehydration returned readings above the WADA AAF limit. But also note how widely variable the individual results are.



I'm not defending Froome, just pointing out the difficulty involved and that it's shades of grey. To draw a firmer conclusion will require much more data on Froome's own metabolism of salbutamol.

[MichaelB]

Hi Alex, have read quite a few post/discussions etc, and understood most of them, and accept it’s not that simple.

But what I can’t quite get my head around and get a decent explanation for is the maximum allowable doasge requires a HUGE amount of puffs (in the order of 32 iirc) to just get to the maximum dosage (aside of what is left in the urine) in 24 hours, and this just borders on the ridiculous.

If you needed that many puffs, surely, continuing to compete is more of a life threatening condition ?

At the end of the day, all of the protests, marketing spin etc is trying to ‘prove’ they did nothing illegal, and once again shows that they are really pushing the limits of common sense and credibility despite being a “100% clean team”.

As much as I disliked Froome, I accept that he has talent despite being tarnished by Sky’s antics and ethics, but now, don’t even have that any more.

Hope he gets done like he should be, regardless.

[biker jk]

For those interested in the scientific, just look at how variable the urine reading is for salbutamol is after a 1600 microgram intake (WADA permitted daily limit) for 12 subjects after exercise and dehydration.

A quarter of the subject's tests for exercise and exercise+dehydration returned readings above the WADA AAF limit. But also note how widely variable the individual results are.



I'm not defending Froome, just pointing out the difficulty involved and that it's shades of grey. To draw a firmer conclusion will require much more data on Froome's own metabolism of salbutamol.

The test conducted on Froome would have also checked the urine for dehydration.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/viewtopic. ... 1#p2212761

[biker jk]

A nice summary of the Froome Salbutamol case.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/viewtopic. ... 9#p2212759

[Alex Simmons/RST]

For those interested in the scientific, just look at how variable the urine reading is for salbutamol is after a 1600 microgram intake (WADA permitted daily limit) for 12 subjects after exercise and dehydration.

A quarter of the subject's tests for exercise and exercise+dehydration returned readings above the WADA AAF limit. But also note how widely variable the individual results are.



I'm not defending Froome, just pointing out the difficulty involved and that it's shades of grey. To draw a firmer conclusion will require much more data on Froome's own metabolism of salbutamol.

The test conducted on Froome would have also checked the urine for dehydration.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/viewtopic. ... 1#p2212761

They would have checked for specific gravity of the sample, not level of dehydration.

Obviously dehydration is one main cause of higher SG in a healthy adult, even so that's not to say the SG limit for viable test sample won't have significant impacts on the concentration of a particular metabolite in the sample. As we can see from some PK studies, the results of samples are wildly variable even among a fairly homogeneous group of individuals.

The Clinic unfortunately suffers from the classic logical fallacy of picking evidence to suit a narrative, rather than examining all the relevant evidence to then draw a valid conclusion. Sometimes that conclusion is "we can't say with any certainty".

But I am not an expert in these PK matters which is why rather than speculating and wishing for an outcome that suits my individual bias I would prefer the experts do the assessment with due care and scientific rigour. Given that there are also issues of process, then it also needs to be conducted with due legal process and rigour as well, and given someone in the anti-doping chain of evidence must have broken the rules that does not fill me with as much confidence as the scientific side of things.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Hi Alex, have read quite a few post/discussions etc, and understood most of them, and accept it’s not that simple.

But what I can’t quite get my head around and get a decent explanation for is the maximum allowable doasge requires a HUGE amount of puffs (in the order of 32 iirc) to just get to the maximum dosage (aside of what is left in the urine) in 24 hours, and this just borders on the ridiculous.

If you needed that many puffs, surely, continuing to compete is more of a life threatening condition ?

Oh I agree, the early indications strongly suggest a non-therapeutic dosage as do anecdotal reports from asthmatics. But early (and incomplete) indications and anecdotes are just that and are not scientifically rigorous. I think we need to be careful in coming to such conclusions based on our limited understanding of all the relevant factors involved.

As much as I disliked Froome, I accept that he has talent despite being tarnished by Sky’s antics and ethics, but now, don’t even have that any more.

Hope he gets done like he should be, regardless.

And when someone has a clear bias it can be difficult to see past that and assess things based on their actual merit. That's human nature and pretty normal - and is what sets quality scientific process apart. And it is also because of the large trust deficit that exists with the sport. Set against that background, your view is understandable.

There are sports people I like, some I dislike and vast majority I have no strong views on.

I hope the process is done correctly and validly and the right outcome is reached on that basis. It's the validity of process I'm more interested in assessing.

Pro cycling is a bit like a sausage. Many of us love to consume it but would rather not know how it is made.

[MichaelB]

Froome sausage - now there is something that I’m not keen on tasting !!! Hahahha

[G@v]

Latest news from French newspaper Le Monde (reading from discussions on the cyclingnews forum that biker jk linked to previously) - is that Froome took 3 puffs of his inhaler on his Doctor’s advice after the Vuelta stage and before the urine test.

Courtesy of Google Translate:

Froome's entourage let out information in the Times that Dr. MacLeod reportedly told the Vuelta Red Jersey to take three breaths of Ventolin after the stage and before the doping control. A strange advice to a rider who, that evening in his post-race interview, was not coughing and said he was "back [himself] after a " much better day " than the day before.

https://translate.googleusercontent.com ... 16656.html

[MichaelB]

Yep, doctor, please report to the dive team. It’s your turn !!

[vosadrian]

But that Froome has changed is riding style to be more exciting, preposterous.

How so? I am not a fan of the Sky train control of the race, but I have seen some very different racing from Froome over the last 2 years than before that. I was watching the stage from last year TDF live and started viewing just as Froome attacked on the descent and won the stage. I did not believe it was real footage from the race it seemed so unlikely. Over the last couple of years we have seen him attack at unexpected times and mostly not up ascents. He has kept his opponents guessing. We have seen him ride ascents his own way while others attack each other (which may not be your cup of tea). He is doing things differently recently and it makes the race more exciting to watch. The Sky train is still there most of the time... but not all the time like it was. Even then, the Sky train is probably not anything an individual rider could change... and is something that will happen to any protected rider at Sky.

My original point was not that Froome should not be penalised if he did indeed get advantage even if accidental. My point was that if he did get advantage it must have been accidental. Surely no person with a small degree of intelligence could have expected to knowingly break rules using a substance that is easily tested at a time he was guaranteed to be tested and not get caught. Nobody has more to lose getting caught than him, and he was pretty much guaranteed to get caught. Many here imply he did it intentionally to get an advantage and I just can't see how that makes any sense. Could he be that stupid? There are some Pros that may be that stupid, but he does not seem that stupid.

As to pushing the limits of the rules... Not sure how to think on that one. In many sports, competitors push every limit to the max and try to find loop holes to get around limits.... like F1 for one. I am sure most riders are using legal supplements like energy gels etc. The line is blurred between legal and illegal supplements. Someone will one day find a new dietary supplement that has benefits nobody else knows about, and then at some point it will be made illegal, or everyone will start doing it legally. Should the person who worked it out get an advantage for their skills in working it out in the first place. I am not sure where to draw the line on that.

[biker jk]

Yep, doctor, please report to the dive team. It’s your turn !!

Perhaps the UCI will have to throw its anti-doping chaperones under the bus given they allowed Froome to take puffs of his inhaler after the stage and before testing.

[MichaelB]

Yep, doctor, please report to the dive team. It’s your turn !!

Perhaps the UCI will have to throw its anti-doping chaperones under the bus given they allowed Froome to take puffs of his inhaler after the stage and before testing.

The excuses are being readied !!!

[Thoglette]

"Better get a lawyer son, better get a real good one"

Less flippantly

According to the Daily Mail and the Times, Froome has appointed London-based lawyer Mike Morgan, whose list of previous clients in cycling include Lizzie Deignan, Sergio Henao, Alberto Contador and Johan Bruyneel. Morgan was named sports lawyer of the year at the 2017 Who's Who Legal Awards

[AUbicycles]

How so? I am not a fan of the Sky train control of the race, but I have seen some very different racing from Froome over the last 2 years than before that. I was watching the stage from last year TDF live and started viewing just as Froome attacked on the descent and won the stage. I did not believe it was real footage from the race it seemed so unlikely. Over the last couple of years we have seen him attack at unexpected times and mostly not up ascents. He has kept his opponents guessing. We have seen him ride ascents his own way while others attack each other (which may not be your cup of tea). He is doing things differently recently and it makes the race more exciting to watch. The Sky train is still there most of the time... but not all the time like it was. Even then, the Sky train is probably not anything an individual rider could change... and is something that will happen to any protected rider at Sky.

I still disagree, not with the above but the previous comment on changing the riding style to be more exciting. With the strong Sky Train I view Froome as a very protected rider where his team mates are almost always on-hand to immediately close down any challenges and his own moves are very calculated. It is part of tactics but I don't see team sky and Froomey taking the same risks in racing which others contenders are forced to, to have a chance. Of course it is part of the game, but for me it has been far less compelling to watch.

And worst still, the shadow of the 'tainted sport' and my naive wish to watch professional cycling where all the competitors are fair sports.