Doping

Every time there's a scandal, there's a peer of the realm or a knight or dame right at the head of it.

Oh, not quite always, though.

Forget it.. I'll just watch fucking newsnight on catch up! 👆

Newsnight presenter: He's a fucking cheat, just say it
Rasmussen: Lets be clear about this, when you say cheat do you mean Bradley or the whole of UK Cycling, Track & Field
Newsnight: presenter: Just say it, he's a fucking cheat

Ha - Rasmussen never plays along with journalists in the interviews I’ve heard.

Landis’ take on this is interesting:

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He doesn’t sound bitter at all, does he?

Landis is a strange one alright. Whereas Hamilton seemed happy to tell his story and walk away, Landis and Rasmussen don’t want to let it go.

They’re getting to feed their egos at the moment but hopefully they’ll vanish again soon.

You can understand their bitterness in a sense - both had Tour de France victories taken away from them, whilst many of their contemporaries are still feted. But do we really need their opinion on cycling now? It’s over 10 years since either of them truly turned a pedal in anger, and they definitely belong to cycling’s murky past rather than its slightly opaque present.

Slightly opaque?

By comparison all that's happened in 10 years is that the UCI have moved the goalposts to permit a degree of cheating that saw Landis penalised and stripped of his title.

Perfectly justified to explain their perspectives on it given the hypocrisy that's coming out.

Dont forget to add Tiernan-Locke to the opaque present bitter lists.

The biological passport has had a massive impact on the sport in the past ten years. Oxygen vector doping is all but a thing of the past at WT level, which is why today’s doping ‘scandals’ are predominantly to do with the misuse of minor steroids and anti-inflammatorys rather than ghetto style blood transfusions and widespread EPO use.

There will always be cheating in sport, but cycling has made huge strides in cleaning up its act in the past ten years.

Ok, but we still have a situation where a tour winner has been found to have (ab)used the TUE system to legally use steroids, the medical records which would explain or justify this mysteriously evaporating, and the medical personnel refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

It might not be EPO in the back of the bus but ultimately it's the same behaviour, just wrapped in that very peculiar British definition of 'fair play when it suits us.'

It all stinks and I really hoped Wiggins would come out with a "I didn't cross an ethical line" by way of defence.

legally use steroids

Was their use actually legal though? What of this statement about TUEs for preventative medicating? What's the difference between a code of practice and a misuse of 'legal' drugs? What's the point of a code if it's not breaking the rules to fake TUEs?

Absolutely agree, it's cheating.

Was their use actually legal though?

Yes, according the tribunal all the people in the game of bicycle agreed ahead of time would have the final say on the matter.

What of this statement about TUEs for preventative medicating?

The brown inhaler is often referred to as the "preventer", to distinguish it from the blue "reliever". There's no distinction in the WADA code between prevention and relief, both are valid medical interventions given the right circumstances. It's considered best practice in inflammatory conditions to use prevention in preference to waiting for the inflammation to occur and then treating it with relieving drugs.

Asthma attacks can leave scarring which can make future attacks worse.

Relying solely on relievers is medically frowned upon.

Kinda interested on what the mainstream media is discussing and what the (non cycling) masses are seeing

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2018/03/06/despite-doping-scandal-cycling-still-not-a-real-sport-2/

We're not talking about common brown inhalers this is some heavy duty weight loss shit, I mean, asthma medication :)

"The Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method in question is needed to treat an acute or chronic medical condition, such that the Athlete would experience a significant impairment to health if the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method were to be withheld (ISTUE Article 4.1(a))."

Maybe. Seems to be very selective use of this treatment.

"The Therapeutic Use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method is highly unlikely to produce any additional enhancement of performance beyond what might be anticipated by a return to the Athlete’s normal state of health following the treatment of the acute or chronic medical condition (ISTUE Article 4.1 (b))."

Err.

"There is no reasonable Therapeutic alternative to the Use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method (ISTUE Article 4.1(c))."

Really?

"The necessity for the Use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method is not due, wholly or in part, to prior Use(without a TUE) of a substance or method that was prohibited at the time of such Use (ISTUE Article 4.1 d)."

This criteria he might actually meet.

I'm going to pop my two cents in here because why not. I get that Sky might not have done anything wrong technically and that they only took advantage of every dubious option available to them, but it's all really disappointing isn't it. They fucked themselves by claiming from the outset that they would be clean, which everyone took to mean in that spirit not merely according to the rules.

When Wiggins won the Tour and then in the Olympics it was such a great moment. It's disingenuous to suggest that his reputation ought not to be tarnished. I'm gutted for him but he's a silly sausage. Everyone was asking the question, it was a central issue, and cycling needed to believe in the possibility of moving beyond doping. They even had that journo guy whose name escapes me to stay with the team so that they could demonstrate their approach. Did they tell him about the use of TUEs? I bet not.

I appreciate I'm not adding much to the conversation but it's a shitty outcome.

ISTUE Article 4.1

ISTUE is guidance for the TUEC. They know what the guidance says, because that's their job, and they still granted the TUE. Since you haven't seen the medical history Sir Brad submitted to the TUEC, you're just guessing at whether they gave him an easy ride.

One thing I hadn't understood until the last couple of days is that no TUE is needed for use of triamcinolone acetonide outside of competition. If the drug has the claimed performance enhancing properties, I find that amazing. A couple of other thoughts:

• The anonymous source refers to other Sky riders using triamcinolone in 2012 outside of competition. I wonder who they were? It's hard to imagine Froome wasn't one of them.
  
• Landis is arguing that Wiggins was only able to become lean enough to win the tour through use of triamcinolone. If true, was he using when he finished fourth in 2009 at Garmin? In addition, Wiggins looked incredibly lean through the whole 2012 season, winning Paris Nice, Romandie and the Dauphine before the Tour. All those races predate the TUE / use of triamcinolone in competition.
  
• I question the accounts of riders like Millar as to the performance enhancing properties of triamcinolone. He was using it in concert with EPO, and other drugs. How can you identify what performance enhancement is attributable to which drug? Perhaps there is a major synergistic effect?
  
  

The known facts are:

• Wiggins had a medical history of allergies and asthma.
  
• Wiggins legitimately applied for and received a TUE for prophylactic use of a drug.
  
• Wiggins has a record of performing exceptionally in stage races when not using this drug as a prophylactic.
  
• There are no research studies that demonstrate this drug has a performance enhancing effect. In fact, contra the opinion of some known former dopers, doctors have suggested the drug used in isolation is likely to be detrimental to performance.
  
  

Who stands to benefit by feeding the controversy, and obscuring these facts from the public narrative? I certainly noticed that this report was released by the DCMS select committee at the same time as the Leveson inquiry was shelved.

you're just guessing

Yep, but so is everyone else and it's Wiggo and Sky that look like cheats, not me.

Is there nothing else that will do the same job as the TUE substance and is the performance gain from it not more than he would've had without his "illness"?

There are no research studies that demonstrate this drug has a performance enhancing effect. In fact, contra the opinion of some known former dopers, doctors have suggested the drug used in isolation is likely to be detrimental to performance.

Surely there would be a massive queue of elite athletes taking PEDs who would like to be studied

Wiggins had a medical history of allergies and asthma.

In which case was this drug used at other times in his life/career?

Wiggins legitimately applied for and received a TUE for prophylactic use of a drug.

Legit? Questionable but as tester says, not provable.

Wiggins has a record of performing exceptionally in stage races when not using this drug as a prophylactic.

His 4th place? He finished 71st in the Giro and then lost 6kg before the Tour.

2008: TUEs for salbutamol, formoterol and budesonide to treat asthma.
2011, 2012, 2013: Triamcinolone injections to treat hay-fever (why this drug, why not before other races?)

There are no research studies that demonstrate this drug has a performance enhancing effect. In fact, contra the opinion of some known former dopers, doctors have suggested the drug used in isolation is likely to be detrimental to performance.

Weight loss = performance enhancement.

Paul Kimmage has said he's thinking about covering the Tour.

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