Contador Suspended

Diarmuid

funny

Diarmuid

niceonetom wrote: »

Are IVs of any type banned except for medical necessity?

Yes. M2.2

RobFowl

niceonetom wrote: »

I have a question:
Are IVs of any type banned except for medical necessity? A saline drip is not unheard of for rehydration in certain circumstances and, hey, it gets hot in July. Would that be permitted under doping regulations if LA or AC could produce some medico willing to say they administered a necessary saline drip?

It's just about creating enough doubt to provide wiggle room.

Yes intravenous infusion is prohibited under section M2.2 of the Wada list unless it is a medical emergency. Rehydrating with the aid of an infusion would not be permitted out side of a hospital setting. Basically to get an IV you need to be bad enough to be in hospital.

M2. CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL MANIPULATION
1. Tampering, or attempting to tamper, in order to alter the integrity and
validity of Samples collected during Doping Controls is prohibited. These
include but are not limited to catheterisation, urine substitution and/or
alteration.
2. Intravenous infusion is prohibited. In an acute medical situation where this
method is deemed necessary, a retroactive Therapeutic Use Exemption will
be required.

niceonetom

Thanks for the info Diarmuid and Rob. I'd seen the "rehydration with saline" defence posited somewhere in the American blogosphere - apparently a quick drip is very common for half-time rehydration in American football in the south where big guys in full body armour have to stand out in the sun in September in Texas for hours on end. Good to know that's not allowed over here as it would make the test entirely useless.

victorcarrera

RobFowl wrote: »

Yes intravenous infusion is prohibited under section M2.2 of the Wada list unless it is a medical emergency. Rehydrating with the aid of an infusion would not be permitted out side of a hospital setting. Basically to get an IV you need to be bad enough to be in hospital.

M2. CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL MANIPULATION
1. Tampering, or attempting to tamper, in order to alter the integrity and
validity of Samples collected during Doping Controls is prohibited. These
include but are not limited to catheterisation, urine substitution and/or
alteration.
2. Intravenous infusion is prohibited. In an acute medical situation where this
method is deemed necessary, a retroactive Therapeutic Use Exemption will
be required.

I have donated blood and had a few IV's in hospital. They leave very obvious marks on the skin.
So why don't the testers check for this also at control and report any irregularities.

Chips Lovell

victorcarrera wrote: »

I have donated blood and had a few IV's in hospital. They leave very obvious marks on the skin.
So why don't the testers check for this also at control and report any irregularities.

You get your soigneur to go the the chemist and buy concealer.

Junior

el tonto wrote: »

You get your soigneur to go the the chemist and buy concealer.

Or wear black socks..

Lumen

Titanium portacath FTW!

Murph100

Could be the final nail in the coffin for Berties defence lawyers :

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/plasticizer-test-supported-by-authorities

Junior

Murph100 wrote: »

Could be the final nail in the coffin for Berties defence lawyers :

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/plasticizer-test-supported-by-authorities

Not really it's just the same thing Howman said last week

Fender76

So, given the minute quantities that were actually detected.. how much of an advantage would this have actually given Contador...?

Chips Lovell

Fender76 wrote: »

So, given the minute quantities that were actually detected.. how much of an advantage would this have actually given Contador...?

This isn't really the issue. The way this is moving is that evidence is pointing to him having had a blood transfusion on the rest day and that new blood contained traces of Clenbuterol, which he'd been taking at the time the blood was drawn.

mcgratheoin

Cheers for the info on IV drips guys, wasn't aware of that. My reading of the situation so far is as follows.

Contador has tested positive for Clenbuterol - there is no way out of this so he faces a ban (although he'll keep plugging the steak story).
The plasticiser test is not fully accredited in anti-doping circles, but would be accepted as evidence in a courtroom (think Marion Jones never failing a drugs test).
Therefore, Contador will receive his ban for Clenbuterol, and no punishment for any alleged blood transfusion. If he accepts his ban then that's the end of it, if he brings it to the CAS then the plasticisers get wheeled out and it all gets very very messy.

To my mind, the whole plasticiser issue is essentially a threat to prevent any appeal by Contador. this is the only reason I can see for the release of this information, given that it would surely be smarter to get the test quietly accredited by WADA and then rolled out over the entire peleton.

On a side issue, the steak story is really growing legs now. If the chef really had receipts, then surely Astana would have been all over this way before now. Gotta love the chef saying he wasn't allowed near the kitchen in the hotel so he prepared the meals on the bus. BTW, did I miss the reference that the chef makes to -
"I feel more relaxed about the affair now because the president of the UCI has said there is no case to answer" -
or is he just pulling a NickDrake paraphrasing trick?

Fender76

el tonto wrote: »

This isn't really the issue. The way this is moving is that evidence is pointing to him having had a blood transfusion on the rest day and that new blood contained traces of Clenbuterol, which he'd been taking at the time the blood was drawn.

Ah ok... I see... probably a stupid question but are blood transfusions illegal in cycling...?

Chips Lovell

Fender76 wrote: »

Ah ok... I see... probably a stupid question but are blood transfusions illegal in cycling...?

Very illegal. Provide the same kind of performance enhancement as EPO, i.e. boosting the number of red blood cells.

Junior

Fender76 wrote: »

Ah ok... I see... probably a stupid question but are blood transfusions illegal in cycling...?

Yes.

Lumen

mcgratheoin wrote: »

To my mind, the whole plasticiser issue is essentially a threat to prevent any appeal by Contador.

On what basis could he appeal? Strict liability applies so he cannot be anything but guilty regardless of the source of the Clenbuterol.

100Suns

Apologies if this is going back over ground which has been covered, but the steak defence is confusing me a little.

Based on what I've read, the half life of Clenbuterol is extremely short, and on that basis it clears the system fairly quickly. This would imply that if you were illegally dosing cattle it would need to be administered in a large dose relatively shortly before going to the factory to be detected in the human food chain?

Administering Clenbuterol to cattle is (a) illegal (b) entails a cost on a low margin product (the bovine) and (c) raises ethical issues for the farmer/agri-multinational regarding the food chain. On this basis, it would appear to be very risky/stupid/pointless for the producer to administer banned substances to cattle in the weeks before sending them to the factory.

Clarification would be welcomed

TinyExplosions

100Suns wrote: »

Apologies if this is going back over ground which has been covered, but the steak defence is confusing me a little.

Based on what I've read, the half life of Clenbuterol is extremely short, and on that basis it clears the system fairly quickly. This would imply that if you were illegally dosing cattle it would need to be administered in a large dose relatively shortly before going to the factory to be detected in the human food chain?

Administering Clenbuterol to cattle is (a) illegal (b) entails a cost on a low margin product (the bovine) and (c) raises ethical issues for the farmer/agri-multinational regarding the food chain. On this basis, it would appear to be very risky/stupid/pointless for the producer to administer banned substances to cattle in the weeks before sending them to the factory.

Clarification would be welcomed

It's been mentioned before that is is possible for there to be enough Clenbuterol in a 250g steak that falls below the minimum allowed level, but would still give a concentration similar to Contador's. AFAIK it's not entirely illegal to give it to Cattle, just not right before slaughter

-can't find the links to back the above up, but it is there somewhere!

thebouldwhacker

Afaik the main effect epo would have on bovine is that it would be harder to catch them for slaughter:pac:

DirkVoodoo

PDF fact sheet nabbed from elsewhere.

It still seems unlikely that in 2010 he would have suffered food contamination outside of China.

100Suns

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

PDF fact sheet nabbed from elsewhere.

It still seems unlikely that in 2010 he would have suffered food contamination outside of China.

Maybe someone will dig up a receipt from the local chinese take away where the team enjoyed an appetiser while waiting for the exhausted chef to fire up the barbeque in the back of the camper.:rolleyes:

sy

Has anybody come up with the fact that he might just have had a bad saddle sore and, as they reputedly did in days of yore, put a raw steak in his shorts :eek:

irishmotorist

sy wrote: »

Has anybody come up with the fact that he might just have had a bad saddle sore and, as they reputedly did in days of yore, put a raw steak in his shorts :eek:

And he's too embarrassed to admit it so he made up some ridiculous story that would make it look like he doped?

L'Enfer du Nord

Over the past 15 years there have been 7 Tour de France winners, Contador would be the fifth to be sanctioned for/admitted to drug use. I still follow pro-racing but its a bit of a joke. Especially grand tours – Vacansoleil are signing a drug cheat just to get into a grand tour ( http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ricco-signs-with-vacansoleil ). It should be the other way around, teams that sign ‘convicted’ cheats should be excluded from races.

I remember reading this result earlier in the year and thinking what a joke –

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/giro-del-trentino-2-1/stage-2/results

Would the tour be any cleaner if it had national teams and excluded any rider who had ever tested positive?

At the moment as far as I can see there is less doping, i.e. the same proportion of rides are doping but they are doing it less.

crumliniano

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

It should be the other way around, teams that sign ‘convicted’ cheats should be excluded from races.

And while they're at it they should ban outed cheats from ever holding coaching or management roles - I'm thinking Rijs, Zabel and god knows how many others.

RobFowl

crumliniano wrote: »

And while they're at it they should ban outed cheats from ever holding coaching or management roles - I'm thinking Rijs, Zabel and god knows how many others.

The likes of Vaughters and others tends to suggest otherwise.
Zabel was considered one of the cleanest riders of his generation.
It would be practically impossible to exclude all ex-dopers.
What we need is a new beginning and possibly this would include an amnesty for all who confess....
The likes of Millar et al suggest it's not a lost cause.

concussion

spyderski wrote: »

Agree, unfortunately. "Angel Dust" (AKA clenbuterol) is now almost impossible to use in beef production in the EU. (probably as stringent testing as cycling), so he had to ingest it from somewhere else.

I'm just back from Portugal and there were plenty of restaurants advertising South American beef!

Jawgap wrote: »

Somebody grab a handful of his hair - that'll tell us

I'll see your hair testing and raise you retinal tissue analysis
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/background/clenbute.htm

fishfoodie

thebouldwhacker wrote: »

Afaik the main effect epo would have on bovine is that it would be harder to catch them for slaughter:pac:

Still makes me laugh....

spyderski

TinyExplosions wrote: »

It's been mentioned before that is is possible for there to be enough Clenbuterol in a 250g steak that falls below the minimum allowed level, but would still give a concentration similar to Contador's. AFAIK it's not entirely illegal to give it to Cattle, just not right before slaughter

-can't find the links to back the above up, but it is there somewhere!

Clenbuterol is also known as "Angel Dust". It is highly illegal to give it to cattle at any stage - several farmers went to jail for this here in the late 90's (Its obviously more serious than banking fraud bringing the state to the edge of bankruptcy, but thats another thread). It would be impossible to get away with giving it to cattle in ireland today, but many other EU countries still have a problem with it. But eating a steak certainly doesn't leave traces of plastics in your blood, wherever the steak is from.

fishfoodie

spyderski wrote: »

Clenbuterol is also known as "Angel Dust". It is highly illegal to give it to cattle at any stage - several farmers went to jail for this here in the late 90's (Its obviously more serious than banking fraud bringing the state to the edge of bankruptcy, but thats another thread). It would be impossible to get away with giving it to cattle in ireland today, but many other EU countries still have a problem with it. But eating a steak certainly doesn't leave traces of plastics in your blood, wherever the steak is from.

The Clenbuterol is irrelevant really.

It's beautifully ironic that AC will get a ban for testing positive for a substance, at a level that was physiologically irrelevant for performance. But because there is no legal level of the substance, means he can be banned.

The plasticizer was probably only detected, because when the lab saw the Clenbuterol, they wondered how they got a measurement of such an odd level, in between two clean tests. The numbers didn't add up; & that's why AC is now going to get added to the Roll of Shame !

As a case, this will tell us far more about the way the UCI plans on operating, than how professional cycling operates.

TinyExplosions

spyderski wrote: »

Clenbuterol is also known as "Angel Dust". It is highly illegal to give it to cattle at any stage - several farmers went to jail for this here in the late 90's (Its obviously more serious than banking fraud bringing the state to the edge of bankruptcy, but thats another thread). It would be impossible to get away with giving it to cattle in ireland today, but many other EU countries still have a problem with it. But eating a steak certainly doesn't leave traces of plastics in your blood, wherever the steak is from.

My bad, I thought it was used to delay labour in Cattle amongst other things

stuf

spyderski wrote: »

Clenbuterol is also known as "Angel Dust". It is highly illegal to give it to cattle at any stage - several farmers went to jail for this here in the late 90's (Its obviously more serious than banking fraud bringing the state to the edge of bankruptcy, but thats another thread). It would be impossible to get away with giving it to cattle in ireland today, but many other EU countries still have a problem with it. But eating a steak certainly doesn't leave traces of plastics in your blood, wherever the steak is from.

Clenbuterol is quite different from Angel Dust (PCP)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clenbuterol

Junior

stuf wrote: »

Clenbuterol is quite different from Angel Dust (PCP)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clenbuterol

It is but the 'street name' for Clenbuterol in the cattle industry was Angel Dust.

mgmt

7 more spanish riders up for doping.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/502391/seven-more-spanish-cyclists-under-investigation-for-doping.html

I wonder who they will be. Big names?

BTW how difficult is it to do autologous blood doping. Would you need medical supervision or could you do it yourself?

Chips Lovell

Heh (via BikeSnobNYC):

manafana

i dont buy the whole french meat was awful, when standard is by far better than that of spainish beef.

Junior

Another nail in the coffin of the beef defense

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5948/Astana-insider-claims-that-Contador-underwent-a-transfusion-prior-to-the-Tour-de-France.aspx

Chips Lovell

Jesus, that could be big.

DirkVoodoo

Oh Alberto, it's not looking good is it? Why oh why?

Junior

It could be, but its slightly confusing, is the rider saying he had blood taken or blood replaced after the Dauphine ? Because the half life of Clenbuterol is quick enough.

Chips Lovell

I read it as him saying he had the blood drawn after the the Dauphine.

niceonetom

I remember watching Braijovic (sp?) and Bertie duke it out on l'Alpe d'Huez in teh Dauphiné and thinking I had never seen Alberto attack so hard and so repeatedly and still not be able to shed a rider on a climb like. I was nearly screaming "doper" at the telly, though I was talking about the RS rider at the time. Make of that what you will.

My bet is that Alberto was properly rattled by that inability to go solo of the front on that climb and that forced him into some drastic weight loss regime - something I don't think he's struggled with in the past. The blood doping, well if he did it this year I'd feel safe assuming he's been doing it consistently (albeit with smaller bags) since Liberty Seguros.

Junior wrote: »

... the half life of Clenbuterol is quick enough.

It's probably broken down by the body - I suppose that's not going to happen in a baggy in a fridge.

The other thing to bare in mind is the mind bogglingly minute amout of clen we're talking about here. Fatcyclist made the point best:

The sample Contador tested positive with had a tiny amount of Clenbuterol in it: 50 picograms (trillionths of a gram). To get a sense of how much that is, I googled “picture a trillion” and found a page that is very helpful: it helps you visualize a trillion by showing what a trillion dollars would look like if you stacked $100 bills on pallettes. Here’s the (ahem) money shot (to get perspective of how big this would be, note that the tiny figure in the bottom left is a man):

So fifty trillionths would be if you took one of those $100 bills from that ginormous array of pallettes of stacks of $100 bills, and made change for $50.

It's clear that doping is still going on. Even the staunchest anti-doping campaigner has to take a moment to be slightly in awe of the dedication and deviousness of those who can routinely beat tests that are this powerful and unblinkingly proclaim themselves clean to anyone who asks. The combination of medical trickery and out-and-out psychopathy is amazing.

Hermy

niceonetom wrote: »

Even the staunchest anti-doping campaigner has to take a moment to be slightly in awe of the dedication and deviousness of those who can routinely beat tests that are this powerful and unblinkingly proclaim themselves clean to anyone who asks.

Deviousness should not inspire awe.

niceonetom

Hermy wrote: »

Deviousness should not inspire awe.

I don't think "awe" implies admiration - it certainly doesn't in this case. Watching someone do something very difficult very well can inspire awe whether you approve of the ethics of what they're doing or not.

NickDrake

Junior wrote: »

Another nail in the coffin of the beef defense

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5948/Astana-insider-claims-that-Contador-underwent-a-transfusion-prior-to-the-Tour-de-France.aspx

Great stuff. This is great for cycling as it shows what is still going on and they are not getting away with it. I wonder who it is though?

furiousox

Taken from bbc.co.uk

Italian cycling legend Mario Cipollini says Alberto Contador is innocent until proven guilty and denies the sport has a serious doping problem.
"Contador has always been a champion of clean cycling and I hope he remains that way," Cipollini said. "We want cycling to be clean and we want cyclists who ride with guts and passion up the mountains and against the clock.
"But it's a very delicate situation and I hope he clears things up: not for me but for the fans and the authorities.
"If he can do that he could emerge even cleaner than before, and it would mean the sport wouldn't lose such an enormous talent."

fishfoodie

NickDrake wrote: »

Great stuff. This is great for cycling as it shows what is still going on and they are not getting away with it. I wonder who it is though?

It might be like the way the Feds finally started getting at the Mafia.

When you act, you grab 10 or 20 guys & put serious charges against them; then wait till the weakest one cracks & offer him a pass in exchange for testifying against the others.

We now hear there are 7-10 ? riders all testing positive & facing bans; & potentially criminal charges. It just takes one to crack !

Diarmuid

Alberto is following the "Floyd Approach" to the bitter end

TinyExplosions

Clenbuterol and hyroid hormone T3 [Triiodothyronine] to lose weight eh... wonder where I can get me some of that -it'd guarantee a good showing in next years club league if I dropped a few stone...