Contador Suspended

Jawgap

He ate a steak that may be contaminated with clenbuterol - which means there are other steaks out there similarly contaminated - and quite probably other animals from whom steaks have been cut who have been similarly treated......has anyone thought to call the Food Safety Authority?????:)

Chips Lovell

Science of Sport is worth reading, especially this bit:

The report by Dr de Boer goes on to describe when the positive tests occurred (on page 7 of the report). Basically, Contador is tested on six consecutive days - July 19th to July 24th. The tests on the 19th and 20th find no trace of clenbuterol. On the 21st, the level is 50 pg/ml, it falls to 20 pg/ml on the 22nd, and then none is found on either the 23rd or 24th. Based on these findings, and the half-life of clenbuterol, it is concluded that the clenbuterol was administered (either deliberately or via food) after the 20th.

Dr de Boer's ultimate conclusion is that the level is so low as to offer no performance enhancement, and fits with the explanation that contamination by the ingestion of meat is "extremely likely". At this point, it's worth nothing that the report was commissioned by Andy Ramos, acting as Alberto Contador's attorney. That doesn't discredit the argument, of course, but it's not entirely independent either - you can detect the bias as you read the report (we've had this debate over expert testimony before on this site!). Ultimately, though, if the science is accurate, then the bias in how it is interpreted is largely irrelevant, and I don't know enough of the pharmacology to really dig into that aspect, unfortunately.

Going by that I'd say that if he's guilty, he messed up with a blood bag that still had traces of it in the blood and if he's innocent, the contaminated food is the likely explanation.

Back to work now...

fishfoodie

leftism wrote: »

+1

You make a very good point. It cannot be coincidental that 2 riders from 2 of the worlds top teams test positive for this within 6 months of each other. I think the food contamination story is null and void due to the recent case involving Fuyu Li. The low levels of the drug, and the type of drug found would simply suggest to me that the teams are refining their methods, switching to drugs with an extremely fast halflife (4 days for clenbuterol)....

I was at a talk recently given by an Australian doctor very high up in WADA and he was saying that the sensitivity levels in these tests are statistically verified in order to make absolutely sure that false positives are not detected. In other words, WADA reduce the sensitivity of their own tests in order to assure no innocent athletes get burned. WADA's own accepted standard is 1:10,000 for a false positive (in blood doping).

Now i'm not sure what the ratio is for steroid abuse but you can be sure that if Contador was above the limit set by WADA, then he's either guilty or one of the unluckiest men ever to step on a bike....

Well he's obviously extremely unlucky, because he managed to be the only person on the team who ate the dodgy steak, who was tested, so there was no possibility of confirming that the steak was contaminated, by confirming that other riders had the same contamination. :rolleyes:

RobFowl

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/riis-believes-in-contadors-innocence

Riis believes in Contador's innocence

amacachi

ednwireland wrote: »

what no wink smiley ?
really your shocked that a proffesional sportsman possibly doped (not i didnt say cyclist - i think that most profesional sports are affected by this problem)

I thought the sarcasm would be obvious.
Also I'd love to know when he found out, I wonder how long it took him to narrow down the cause to a steak he ate from Spain. :pac:

Chips Lovell

fishfoodie wrote: »

Well he's obviously extremely unlucky, because he managed to be the only person on the team who ate the dodgy steak, who was tested, so there was no possibility of confirming that the steak was contaminated, by confirming that other riders had the same contamination. :rolleyes:

The other riders on the team may not have been tested with the same frequency. Contador was in yellow.

TinyExplosions

el tonto wrote: »

The other riders on the team may not have been tested with the same frequency. Contador was in yellow.

Surely Vino must have been? I know it's all supposition, but it would be interesting if we could find out who else was tested that day from Astana (I'm assuming no one, as they'd be suspended too by now)

ajk24

press conference on eurosport now

TinyExplosions

Lemond shocked by Contador positive

RobFowl

el tonto wrote: »

Science of Sport is worth reading, especially this bit:



Going by that I'd say that if he's guilty, he messed up with a blood bag that still had traces of it in the blood and if he's innocent, the contaminated food is the likely explanation.

Back to work now...

The full report

http://www.velonation.com/Photos/Photo-Album/mmid/614/mediaid/574.aspx

Does sound like an accidental ingestion TBH

TinyExplosions

RobFowl wrote: »

The full report

http://www.velonation.com/Photos/Photo-Album/mmid/614/mediaid/574.aspx

Does sound like an accidental ingestion TBH

Well, it would if it was Contador's people that paid you to produce the report... it's not exactly free from bias (though I am leaning more towards accidental ingestion too)

kyeev

50 picograms is 0.00000000005 of a gram while 400 times higher is 20 nanaograms, 0.00000002 of a gram. Food contamination my ar*e. Contador's doper/doctor got it wrong, and underestimated the sensitivity of the test. Remember, the 50 picograms is what was found in probably 1 ml of blood, and you have 5 litres of the stuff, so we're talking about 5000 x 50 picograms floating round his body. Who knows what the therapeutic dose is? You should have got it out of your system faster, Alberto. He's always been suspicious in my mind. Remember the 2006 Tour de France where his team had to withdraw en masse from before it began? I bet Alberto and a few of his mates had been on the sauce a little too long and they were afraid of a positive test. Anyone who climbs like him in the mountains, un-attackable, has to be on something. I am very disappointed AGAIN...

DirkVoodoo

No no no. Just when I fall out of love with football, I don't need my brief affair with cycling to end. Alberto, my hero, how could you?

At least the Ryder Cup is starting this weekend, Tiger is my kind of cheat!

damoz

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

No no no. Just when I fall out of love with football, I don't need my brief affair with cycling to end. Alberto, my hero, how could you?

At least the Ryder Cup is starting this weekend, Tiger is my kind of cheat!

you mean the women or his links to alledged PED usage?

EDIT - inserted alledged to avoid TW legal team from arriving at my door !

ednwireland

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Lemond shocked by Contador positive

the same lemond that said that contadors power output wasnt possible naturally, or is he just shocked he was caught :rolleyes:

kyeev wrote: »

I am very disappointed AGAIN...

prepare for a life of disappointment if your are going to continue watching cycling

Chips Lovell

Things we need to know:

1. Were all the tests done at the same lab, or at least at labs capable of detecting the same minute concentrations? If so, it strenghtens his defence that it would make no sense to take such a tiny amount of the drug.

2. Does Clenbuterol survive in blood bags. (RobFowl?) If so, should his blood profile be looked at more closely.

fishfoodie

kyeev wrote: »

50 picograms is 0.00000000005 of a gram while 400 times higher is 20 nanaograms, 0.00000002 of a gram. Food contamination my ar*e. Contador's doper/doctor got it wrong, and underestimated the sensitivity of the test. Remember, the 50 picograms is what was found in probably 1 ml of blood, and you have 5 litres of the stuff, so we're talking about 5000 x 50 picograms floating round his body. Who knows what the therapeutic dose is? You should have got it out of your system faster, Alberto. He's always been suspicious in my mind. Remember the 2006 Tour de France where his team had to withdraw en masse from before it began? I bet Alberto and a few of his mates had been on the sauce a little too long and they were afraid of a positive test. Anyone who climbs like him in the mountains, un-attackable, has to be on something. I am very disappointed AGAIN...

Add to which this was the level in his blood stream who knows how long after the initial 'contamination'.

DirkVoodoo

damoz wrote: »

you mean the women or his links to alledged PED usage?

EDIT - inserted alledged to avoid TW legal team from arriving at my door !

The women of course, he keeps his cheating outside of the sport.

levitronix

Never would of thought clenbuterole would do any good for cyclists especially for alberto .. its a very popular drug right now in ireland in the gym for the get ripped effect !! because it comes in tablet form and doesnt have to be injected in your back side

damoz

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

The women of course, he keeps his cheating outside of the sport.

Alledgedly

Back OT - id love to see how many other team members were tested on those 6 days the sportscience blog refers to. Surely he wasnt the only one to eat said steak?

RobFowl

el tonto wrote: »

Things we need to know:

1. Were all the tests done at the same lab, or at least at labs capable of detecting the same minute concentrations? If so, it strenghtens his defence that it would make no sense to take such a tiny amount of the drug.

2. Does Clenbuterol survive in blood bags. (RobFowl?) If so, should his blood profile be looked at more closely.

Contador's were all done in the lab in Cologne AFAIK
and
Yes

Inquitus

Just when I thought the sport was getting cleaned up now I find even the Tour Cows are on drugs.

ednwireland

Inquitus wrote: »

Just when I thought the sport was getting cleaned up now I find even the Tour Cows are on drugs.

how do you think they run so fast when the tour goes past them

Jawgap

From a Teagasc Research Paper:-

"Serious incidences of poisoning occurred due to very high levels of the beta-agonist clenbuterol in beef and veal liver in Spain and France,

respectively (Martinez-Navarro, 1990; Pulce et al., 1991). A study carried out by the European Consumers Associations in 1994 on retail-purchased liver in all countries within the EU found residue-positive samples at high numbers in some countries: Spain 36%, Belgium 23%, France 13%, The Netherlands 10% (Remy and Debeuckelaere, 1994)."

He should've eaten Irish beef - 1,181 samples tested in 2009 for beta-agonists, no failures. The failure rate for Europe was about 0.6% of bovines tested.

To put Contador's result in context 50 picograms is about 40,000 times less than the limit of detection used in most food labs - depending on the kinetics of the substance, it's quite possible he ate beef that was "fine" but still had sufficient clenbuterol present to contaminate him.....

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mcgratheoin

fishfoodie wrote: »

Add to which this was the level in his blood stream who knows how long after the initial 'contamination'.

He was clean the previous day though, so doesn't look like the tail end of dope leaving his system.

DirkVoodoo

There was a study done on the effectiveness of beta-2 agonists as performance enhancers and it said that other side effects limited the benefits of the bronchodilation.

Maybe he needs a better doctor if he was cheating, but at such low amounts and with dubious performance enhancing qualities, the Contador we saw in the tour was probably riding within his own natural ability....I hope.

Chips Lovell

The fact that the first positive was on a rest day is interesting. I'd really love to see a detailed analysis of his blood profiles from the same time (if blood tests were done).

Jawgap

el tonto wrote: »

Things we need to know:

1. Were all the tests done at the same lab, or at least at labs capable of detecting the same minute concentrations? If so, it strenghtens his defence that it would make no sense to take such a tiny amount of the drug.

I think the usual practice with the labs is to develop / refine the method and then not tell anyone (except obviously the authorities) - they keep testing away with the new method, then announce a raft of results, as well as the fact that they've been using a better method, in one go.

That explains the delay in letting Contador know about the positive and why there suddenly seems to be a lot of activity - There will probably be more announcements, and not just in cycling.

NickDrake

I can't understand why people are shocked by this.

This guy was involved in Operation Pureto and beat Cancellara last year in the Tour TT.

It is good news for cycling to finally catch this man.

I came on here during the Tour and got slatted for my beliefs on Contador.

I wasn't wrong, was I? Yet again. Just want to point that out to a few of you who dug into me last June/July.

During the rest day of course and after the Tourmalet.

Trying a legal excuse with the food contamination.

mookie2007

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

No no no. Just when I fall out of love with football, I don't need my brief affair with cycling to end. Alberto, my hero, how could you?

At least the Ryder Cup is starting this weekend, Tiger is my kind of cheat!

Brilliant:D

Regarding Contador - its very very very disappointing. The sport is down in the gutter again and will be for years. How depressing just when it was getting back up on its feet Contador breaks its legs. Most sports are bigger than any teams or individuals but cycling is one of few sports where the stars are as big as the sport & when they go down they drag the entire sport with them.

I always had my suspicions though. Andy must be bulling at this stage. What losing by 30 odd seconds after Contador attacking on a mechanical when Schleck had the yellow jersey & now he finds out that Contador is a junkie.

To wipe it out i think anyone caught should have to do jail time.


Anyway Rant over.

NickDrake

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

There was a study done on the effectiveness of beta-2 agonists as performance enhancers and it said that other side effects limited the benefits of the bronchodilation.

Maybe he needs a better doctor if he was cheating, but at such low amounts and with dubious performance enhancing qualities, the Contador we saw in the tour was probably riding within his own natural ability....I hope.

Natural ability? You gotta be kidding me. You are as deluded as the bankers.

Furthermore as it was the rest day and after the Tourmalet, a nice top up may have had it from earlier extraction in the off season

cormpat

Is Clenbuterol the same stuff as Angel Dust?

RobFowl

mookie2007 wrote: »

Andy must be bulling at this stage.

He wasn't too concerned when his brother paid Dr Fuentes 10k for "training advice" :rolleyes:

Chips Lovell

NickDrake wrote: »

I came on here during the Tour and got slatted for my beliefs on Contador.

I wasn't wrong, was I? Yet again. Just want to point that out to a few of you who dug into me last June/July.

During the rest day of course and after the Tourmalet.

Trying a legal excuse with the food contamination.

You didn't get slated for your views. You got slated for saying the same thing over and over again, during a discussion about the race itself, bringing up stuff pretty much everyone knew about already.

concussion

mcgratheoin wrote: »

He was clean the previous day though, so doesn't look like the tail end of dope leaving his system.

This certainly strengthens the accidental ingestion defence.

RobFowl

cormpat wrote: »

Is Clenbuterol the same stuff as Angel Dust?

No. it's not even similar.

Clenbuterol is primarily a Beta-Agonist while Angle dust is an NMDA receptor antagonist.

NickDrake

mcgratheoin wrote: »

He was clean the previous day though, so doesn't look like the tail end of dope leaving his system.

Top up. The new blood?

niceonetom

There are a couple of other things I'd like to know:

Can anyone point to a genuinely plausible source of contamination? Not hypothetical, but something really concrete. If Berto could produce a jar of vitamins that has somehow came to have clenbuterol in it, it would strengthen his case. I'm thinking of that skier a few years ago who was eventually able to demonstrate that a nasal inhaler he used regularly in the UK has a slightly different formula/ingredient list (sabutimol?) in Switzerland and could reasonably be argued to be the source of his positive test.

If Berto decided to go with the tainted meat strategy he'd have to explain why he alone among his team and indeed the entire carnivorous population of the peloton managed to test positive.

I'm not if this would have a serious bearing on WADA or UCI case but it would be important in the court of public opinion.
I look forward to seeing how the pseudo legal system of the UCI works when confronted with two such similar cases as Berto and Li. As I understand it, Li was essentially thrown under the bus by RS. He took it for the team because fighting his case would have been a truly disastrous way to introduce the lastest LA vehicle to the world's media. Now, Berto, charged with nearly identical wrongdoing will fight it, and must surely have the resources to find any weakness in the case against him or the bureaucracy that brings it.

Who'll come to his support? Bjarne? Is Berto now, as Lance was in the early 2000s, too big to fail? Will the powers that be prefer play this out as catching the biggest cheat ever caught in the sport (and that's what he'd be) or play it as they have before and limit damage to the sport (and its governing bodies) as a whole?

Lastly, what's going on with the federal investigation stateside? Releasing this info during WC week is fishy - but then again, no one will be talking about whatever depositions were given there yesterday now, will they.

NickDrake

This thing about in being in food is a lame legal excuse.

It came from other blood for god sake.

TinyExplosions

Maths folk... you may be able to correct me here, but isn't 50 picograms 40 times under the 2ng Minimum Required Performance Level, not 400 as the press release says?

0.000 000 000 05 x 40 = 0.000 000 002 = 2ng
0.000 000 000 05 x 400 = 0.000 000 02 = more than 2ng?

So they're fundamentally off by a factor of 10?

Jawgap

cormpat wrote: »

Is Clenbuterol the same stuff as Angel Dust?

Yes - in agriculture Clenbuterol is known as Angel Dust.

and

No - In narcotics Angel Dust refers to PCP which as RobFowl pointed out is an NMDA receptor antagonist.

It's the same name but means different things in different contexts.......

actually I wonder what happens is you give PCP to a cow.......

leftism

Puts this picture into context: Maybe Andy really was celebrating like he'd won the tour! He probably saw Bertie munching away on a big sirloin steak in Pau the day before and put two and two together....

NickDrake

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Maths folk... you may be able to correct me here, but isn't 50 picograms 40 times under the 2ng Minimum Required Performance Level, not 400 as the press release says?

0.000 000 000 05 x 40 = 0.000 000 002 = 2ng
0.000 000 000 05 x 400 = 0.000 000 02 = more than 2ng?

So they're fundamentally off by a factor of 10?

I cannot understand people trying to defend him here. What was it doing in his system??

Drug cheats are years ahead in cocktails etc and we don't know what they might be taking or putting back in.

The meat is a LEGAL defence only.

mcgratheoin

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Maths folk... you may be able to correct me here,

No correction necessary - the factor of difference is 40, not 400.

NickDrake

No way he took this during the Tour. No way. It came from stored blood.

Jawgap

niceonetom wrote: »

There are a couple of other things I'd like to know:

Can anyone point to a genuinely plausible source of contamination?

Yep - meat! Food testing for beta-agonists only goes as far as 2 micro-grams/g.

Clenbuterol is a legimitate drug and can be prescribed by vets.

Just because he shared a meal with a group doesn't mean all their steaks (if they all had steaks) came from the same animal or even herd - likewise the cut of the steak and the fat / muscle content may be important at the miniscule levels they are talking about.

Chips Lovell

NickDrake wrote: »

No way he took this during the Tour. No way. It came from stored blood.

It makes no sense to take it in that small an amount mid-Tour. Either the blood bag or contaminated meat.

NickDrake

Jawgap wrote: »

Yep - meat! Food testing for beta-agonists only goes as far as 2 micro-grams/g.

Clenbuterol is a legimitate drug and can be prescribed by vets.

Just because he shared a meal with a group doesn't mean all their steaks (if they all had steaks) came from the same animal or even herd - likewise the cut of the steak and the fat / muscle content may be important at the miniscule levels they are talking about.

Ah lads. COME ON. Ye are hardly believing the meat defence.

How gullible are ye? Ye are hilarious

NickDrake

el tonto wrote: »

It makes no sense to take it in that small an amount mid-Tour. Either the blood bag or contaminated meat.

Blood bag. Not meat

Chips Lovell

NickDrake wrote: »

Ah lads. COME ON. Ye are hardly believing the meat defence.

How gullible are ye? Ye are hilarious

Why do you think it is impossible? There are documented cases of meat being contaminated with clenbuterol.