Chris Froome tests positive for Salbutamol

terrydel

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

It definitely will be since it's already been proven that therapeutic dosage + exercise + hydration will put some people over the limit WRT urinary output.

As the INRG piece above said.



However, the challenge for Froome will be, if he's telling the truth, replicating it exactly. He knows how much Ventolin he took, he may remember approximately when he took it, but he doesn't know how dehydrated he was, he can't quantify fatigue.

Surely its not about how much he took, rather how much he says he took, because thats the amount hes gonna have to try replicate this with?

Chips Lovell

Correct.

Macy0161

Yes, maximum he can claim to have taken is up to the limit allowed. He can't go over that, as that'd be admitting the offence.

Kaisr Sose

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

This is worth a read in its entirety, in terms of what happens next. Basically, if he's any hope of getting out of it, he needs to replicate the results, something which Ulissi didn't manage to do.

Froome’s route out of this is going to be based on submitting himself to PK tests proving, through a controlled PK study, that the abnormal result was the consequence of the use of the therapeutic dose by inhalation. This requires:

1. documentary proof it was inhaled and that the quantity was within the permitted therapeutic limit
2. a lab test to analyse urine samples that demonstrates inhaling a permitted amount generates concentrations in the urine samples above the permitted limits

Amalgamating the precedent cases it does look like athletes have been exonerated of deliberate doping but exceeding the threshold still results in a ban. If this applies to Froome then he’d be stripped of the Vuelta win (Nibali would “win” and joined by Ilnur Zakarin and Wilco Kelderman on the ex post podium) and Quick Step and Nelson Oliveira would get bumped up to bronze medals for the TTT and ITT at Bergen. But if Team Sky can come up with convincing notes from the Vuelta detailing his treatment and if a PK test can prove Froome has an unusual metabolism then he could be cleared in full.

Agree with that. Lots of sentences starting with “If”.

Very hard to replicate any scenario in a lab without knowing what the scenario you need to replicate is. Was he dehaydated? What was the temp? How tired was he? What was body stress level? What was his electrolyte levels? How much urine was passed? What was the flow? Etc etc How soon before test was the drug taken? What dosage? Any other factors?

Lots of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ never turn out to be anything other than ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’.
My thoughts are, they will (and have to) try to prove this happened randomly, but the theory/myth will be debunked!

Urindanger

ThisRegard

Wiggins's wife was not happy with Froome, calling him a slithering reptile on Facebook when the results broke insinuating there's a conspiracy to deflect to Wiggins to protect Froome's reputation. Doth she protest too much?

I am going to be sick,....Nothing in the news. If I was given to conspiracy theory I’d allege they’d thrown my boy under the bus on purpose to cover for this slithering reptile

RobFowl

And he can't take it all at once , needs to be as prescribed which is 2 puffs every 4 hours as needed usually.

Harrybelafonte

ThisRegard wrote: »

Wiggins's wife was not happy with Froome, calling him a slithering reptile on Facebook when the results broke insinuating there's a conspiracy to deflect to Wiggins to protect Froome's reputation. Doth she protest too much?

Wiggins has been quiet since he messed up his GB indoor rowing champs effort.

1bryan

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

Ulissi's offence was near identical. Same substance, same concentration.

Di Luca's case was completely different. He tested positive for EPO and, previously, CERA.

oops, I stand corrected

CantGetNoSleep

irishrover99 wrote: »

I agree that their would be more pressing matters but bad press is bad press.
Watching Sky Sports the other day when the story broke, the reporter Brian Sanson was clearly reading from a hymn sheet and i could see he didn't believe the excuse he was given.
Everything from eating too much food to being dehydrated was given as a reason for Froomes levels being too high.

Haven't been that impressed with BBC coverage of this either to be fair - seems to focus on not being performance enhancing and looking for reasons why he was over limit, rather than questioning how on earth he was double the limit or exploring what he is really up to

walshb

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

Haven't been that impressed with BBC coverage of this either to be fair - seems to focus on not being performance enhancing and looking for reasons why he was over limit, rather than questioning how on earth he was double the limit or exploring what he is really up to

I noticed that too.

Hand on heart I believe Froome to be a clean and honest man riding fair and square and within the rules.

Whatever happened here is odd and needs real explaining, He can try explain it...

I honestly do not believe that he intended to cheat and break the rules for enhancement.

1bryan

walshb wrote: »

the rules.

if we've learned anything from sky saga after sky saga these past couple of years is that rules can be bent well out of shape to the benefit of rider performance and, by extention, their teams.

check_six

1bryan wrote: »

if we've learned anything from sky saga after sky saga these past couple of years is that rules can be bent well out of shape to the benefit of rider performance and, by extention, their teams.

The nike athletics camp run by Salazar in the US took a keen interest in the edges of the rules too. They would dose their athletes up to just below the maximum level permitted for various products and physiological measures and then get a team of medics in to sign off on any necessary forms to get a TUE and thus 'proving' that the athlete was 'ill' enough to be treated in this manner.

Inside the word of the rules, but phenomenally unethical.

Weepsie

walshb wrote: »

I noticed that too.

Hand on heart I believe Froome to be a clean and honest man riding fair and square and within the rules.

He was twice over the limit, therefore was not within the rules.

CantGetNoSleep

Weepsie wrote: »

He was twice over the limit, therefore was not within the rules.

Not even really within the rules if you consider what a therapeutic use exemption is supposed to be used for. It isn't a legal form of performance enhancement - it is for a substance that is performance enhancing but there is some strong medical reason allowing it to be used in this specific instance.

It is far too much of a coincidence that Froome and Wiggins were struck down with such terrible illnesses that they needed normally banned medicines just before or during some of the most difficult races in the world, and on so many occasions, yet managed to recover miraculously and go on and win them.

Chips Lovell

Salbutamol isn't banned per se. And it doesn't require a TUE. All that's banned is a dosage beyond a certain level.

fishfoodie

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

Salbutamol isn't banned per se. And it doesn't require a TUE. All that's banned is a dosage beyond a certain level.

As far as I know; Salbutamol previously did require a TUE, but it was ubiquitous in Sport, & the performance benefits weren't clear (at normal usage limits) , so WADA removed the requirement for a TUE, & instead put the limit in place.

As others have pointed out, the residual levels in his pee, mean that he must have been huffing from his inhaler practically hourly, including while he was asleep.

Macy0161

Macy0161 wrote:

I find them pretty balanced in general - way more balanced than the Bespoke podcast the BBC do (although haven't listened to their one on this issue to be fair to them).

Listened to the BBC bespoke podcast on the way home. OJ and the other fella pretty balanced, but hayles not so much imo.

MPFGLB

Macy0161 wrote: »

Listened to the BBC bespoke podcast on the way home. OJ and the other fella pretty balanced, but hayles not so much imo.

Have you a link please?

Is that Rob Hayles ? Great friend of Wiggo ?

I have been thinking about this and reading and the more I read the more strange I find it that he could have that amount in his urine by mistake

As Nibali says he too suffers from asthama ...he didnt over dose and was riding th same race in the same conditions
As were alot of other top athletes who also have asthma

What is strange about SKY is their 2 GT winners have such terrible asthama that they had to take drugs at importnat moments in races but also that they could lose so much weight so quickly and maintain such power given how skinny and tall they are and also climb so well ...over and over again

As one pro said this week " I hate competing against sick guys "

Keeks

https://www.facebook.com/iongottlich/posts/1507286462724727

Weepsie

.Mod note - please stick to the facts at hand, and what we know. The general rules on doping discussion still apply. This is a specific case so any mention of blood bags can stop now

Thinking about it today I remember in one of the vuelta threads here during the race a few of us picked up on Contador using an inhaler. TV didn't pick up Froome doing likewise that I saw

wheelo01

I don't have asthma, but I told my GP of my overuse of air while scuba diving, and he prescribed an asthma inhaler to be taken just before every dive, my underwater time improved greatly (also there was experience regulating my consumption), so I don't know what to think of the Froome thing.
I have tried it before cycling, and I feel about the next ten/fifteen minutes after taking it, my usage of oxygen is much improved, more controlled breathing, but that may be down to me actually thinking about it as much as the inhaler.

My personal opinion of the Pro cycling game (and the amateur game has been infected too, from under age to senior) is that it is full of cheats, very similar to athletics in the 80's, 90's, and onwards. I think the dopers will always be a half step ahead of the testers, there will be people caught now and then, but they are the unlucky ones, from them the pharma guys see how the testers are heading, they head the other.

An argument has previously been made in athletics that you should have a with and without competition, but the problem becomes who do the sponsors follow and how can the testers ensure that the competitors are in the right group.

That being said, Apart from this years tour, I have enjoyed learning about the tactics of team cycling for the last 2/3 years I have been interested, they are quite complex - as most of you are racers, you will know. Team SKY domination of the last few years is not good, there are too many clouds hanging over their heads.

walshb

Weepsie wrote: »

He was twice over the limit, therefore was not within the rules.

That so far seems to be true. I meant he has not deliberately or intentionally tried to cheat the system or his fellow riders. Whether or not he explains this satisfactorily to the authorities remains to be seen..

pelevin

A few interesting articles in The Guardian. Conclusion of this one https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/dec/15/team-sky-chris-froome-public-salbutamol-inhalation-cycling

"Others could be forgiven for concluding that, despite all Team Sky’s achievements in a tumultuous few years, the sport would now be a better place without them: without their “marginal gains”, without their pretentious corporate culture, without the outsize budget that inflates riders’ salaries and distorts competition, without their race-suffocating tactics, and without the miasma of doubt and innuendo that has settled over them and which no fresh breeze seems able to dispel. Perhaps their job is done."

Weepsie

walshb wrote: »

That so far seems to be true. I meant he has not deliberately or intentionally tried to cheat the system or his fellow riders. Whether or not he explains this satisfactorily to the authorities remains to be seen..

Intention can not, and should not matter. He was over the limit, they've set a precedent with riders already mentioned in the thread for the very same thing, who had similar stories.

ThisRegard

walshb wrote: »

That so far seems to be true. I meant he has not deliberately or intentionally tried to cheat the system or his fellow riders. .

You know this how? What's your logic as to how this happened accidentally and therefore went way over the limit?

pelevin

Initially I thought it was maybe some kind of cock-up but now I think it all looks dirtier regarding the reality of it the more one thinks of it. That degree of being over an apparently already high limit is just so huge that any kind of accidental explanation looks very flimsy. I've no idea of the underworld of chemical cocktails in sport & what could be the reality but I feel it certainly raises very considerably the justified question-marks over his whole weird career of a nobody to best in the world practically overnight in his mid 20s, and the crazy manner he could race at his best - like his mad legs spinning at an insane rate back in 2013 whilst still seated and leaving the rest for dust.

Pa8301

I think a big question that needs to be asked Froome, the UCI and Sky is; Has it happened before?
Bear in mind that this may well not have come out if the Guardian and Le Monde hadn't reported it and there was no onus on the UCI to make it public.
Also bear in mind Froomes behaviour from the day he found out about the adverse finding. He was acting like nothing had happened. He finishes third in the world championship TT then goes to the far east for some lucrative criteriums. He then announces his intention to ride the Giro, despite the fact that on the face if it he must be fearing a ban that will rule him out of riding there. Maybe he was acting like nothing happened because he expected nothing to happen.
It's also interesting that in the midst of this, Cookson came out with his plea for Sky and Wiggins to have their reputations restored after the whole jiffy bag fiasco.

Maybe I'm just being cynical!

Weepsie

Pat McQuaid has weighed in, saying it's a disaster.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/42367974

Pots and Kettles come to mind