The Official Doping Post

[AUbicycles]

This is the official Doping Post.
Because of the media coveage this is a massive topic this year and in this forum we are splitting posts/topics about the racing events (ie. non doping discussion) and Blood Doping discussion from one another.


Wikipedia:Blood_doping
The first resource with all of the info you need to know about the technicalities.


So, let the questions and discussions continue in this post:

• My newest info is that the Law courts just won the right to get blood doping evidence from Jan Ulrich's residence in Switzerland even though Ulrich attempted an injunction.

• German Public Channels ARD and ZDF coverage was stopped after T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz was found positive (in the A test).

• Alexander Vinokourov won stage 13 (time trial) and has tested positive. Both of these riders face a two year ban and forfeit 1 years income, for Sinkewitz that is 500,00 Euro.

• Many of the major sponsors of affected teams have publically questioned their continued sponsorship... a number of sponsors will review their sponsorship at the end of the tour.

[europa]

If you dope, you're a cheat and have no respect from me.

If you dope and lie about it (hello Flandis), you are less than worm like.

If you dope but stick up your hand and admit to it, you sort of rehabilitate yourself. Yes, I'm thinking of Millar, though like any cheat, he will be forever suspect. He is far more honourable than those who cheat and try to pretend they haven't.

There is a !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! feeling sorry for Vino on the tele at the moment - that idiot needs to wake up to himself. He's currently attacking the anti-doping system. This is the major problem with cycling at the moment.

If you dope, you are CHEAT and deserve no respect.

Richard

[Hotdog]

Do you mean Matt Rendall? He really went off on one just now, but he did make some decent points about the ineffectiveness of the current anti-doping system. He was managing to get the host looking pretty nervous by outspokenly claiming both Rasmussen and Contador were involved in doping, and explaining what they had done to get away with it.

[GordonR]

I don't really know much about doping apart from what I see on TV coverage but I don't understand how they cannot put a stop to it...can't they just ban the entire team for an individual breaking the rules...? This would give a lot of impetus for teams to self-regulate. It would also throw a massive amount of peer pressure on individuals within each team not to dope...unless they're all doping of course...

[europa]

Do you mean Matt Rendall? He really went off on one just now, but he did make some decent points about the ineffectiveness of the current anti-doping system. He was managing to get the host looking pretty nervous by outspokenly claiming both Rasmussen and Contador were involved in doping, and explaining what they had done to get away with it.

Maybe. It was happening in the background for me. Maybe I misheard it. Dammit, I should have been giving it more attention shouldn't I. I hate cheats, moral and actual.

Richard
I should be in bed shouldn't I

[europa]

I don't really know much about doping apart from what I see on TV coverage but I don't understand how they cannot put a stop to it...can't they just ban the entire team for an individual breaking the rules...? This would give a lot of impetus for teams to self-regulate. It would also throw a massive amount of peer pressure on individuals within each team not to dope...unless they're all doping of course...

In an ideal world, you'd be right Gordon. Sadly, doping has been with cycling and probably every other sport since time immemorial. The difference now is the effectiveness of the dope. When all that was available was caffeine and speed and stuff like that, there was little advantage. The advent of steroids and EPO led to drugs that could take the talented rider and turn him into a superman. Sadly, by the time this happened, the taking of all sorts of drugs had become a fairly standard part of sporting life. Yes, it happened everywhere, not just in cycling. In aiming for 'clean' sport, we are probably trying to achieve something that has never been achieved before. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try for it - I for one believe that any athlete should compete on the strengths of his genes and his own personal efforts ... so where do we go once we master genetic engineering?

One route is to be cynical and allow science to do whatever it can.

A better route is to tell science to achieve the best it can from a human animal without changing it. Fine tuning training and achieving a better understanding of the human animal is a far more honourable form of scientific research than finding drugs, etc that artificially improve the base animal.

Richard

[MichaelB]

...can't they just ban the entire team for an individual breaking the rules...? This would give a lot of impetus for teams to self-regulate. .

My belief is that if you are in a team, a single person couldn't be doping and no-body else knows nothing. Defies credibility.

Mind you, that doesn't mean they are all guily.

Then again, another team bites the dust this morning - Cofidis is gone...

[Mulger bill]

A link off a link on the BBC site had Italians - at least those polled - something like 21% in favour of unrestrained doping

Shaun

sorry the reference is weak