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I have not found a good summary covering this: does it really take such a long period to identify abnormalities in the biological passport? Was he just so infrequently tested so it took such a long period to identify the abnormal values or the abnormal values were only divergent by such a small amount between each test? Even if his results are nullfied for the period, I think everyone can agree it is probably not optimal to have a person who is not clean competing for such a long period
elllguapo-
The biological passport works by tracking a range of values over time and building up a profile of how those values vary. If, and I don't know if this is the case for Stannard or not, an athlete is doping when they join the biological passport, then the values will show elements of variance should the athlete then modify or even stop their doping regime. It would take a period of a year or more to be able to see that something has changed and the previous baseline values were, in fact, not a true baseline but distorted by doping.
It's a very effective tool, but it doesn't immediately show whether a rider has been taking banned substances or using methods, like blood transfusions, that are prohibited.
andyp
He was banned for using prohibited methods, but it was back dated, as the offences were from biological passport values in 2018/19. He's now accepted that ban, and has signed for Bahrain-Victorious with immediate effect, and will be riding the Tour of Britain next month.
Edit: I quit Twitter a while back, so have no idea if there is some additional polemica there.