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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
elllguapo
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