Doping

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Amateur microdoses with EPO, passes passport test...

Oh-oh!

The passport is a longitudinal system, so it builds a picture over time. Which means you can still use EPO, but you need to use it all year round and only micro dose with it. You also must have been using it from the start of being on the passport system. It's not infallible but it does mean you have to be very, very committed to beat it.

Or use it when at altitude?

2015 called...

How does that help? I think it's not a simple measure of hematocrit for the passport, they're measuring reticulocytes (young RBCs) and stuff that indicates excess newly formed RBC compared to normal as well as the chemicals that prompt the body to make them and the ratio between new and old RBCs so if a rider has all new RBCs it's going to look well dodgy, regardless of altitude.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/questions-answers/athlete-biological-passport#item-436

Altitude does the same thing. It boosts epo production in the body.

That's the benefit of going to altitude, it's naturally doing what your banned from doing.

Therefore going to altitude would or could be used as a cover while micro dosing for any anomalies.

I've read the article properly now, and I'd say the way he went about it doesn't stand up to scientific analysis. We (and he) has no idea if he actually took EPO, given that he bought it online from an unspecified source and it wasn't legit. It could've been saline solution for all he knows, and the gains he claimed he saw could've come from a combination of the placebo effect and his modified training regime.

For the passport to be properly effective, it requires a duration longer than a few months. Look at the case of Jonathan Tiernan-Locke, it took over a year of him being regularly tested to confirm that he'd been doping when he joined the passport programme.

Altitude does the same thing. It boosts epo production in the body

Yeah but differently to how chemicals will boost it. Which is what the blood work detects.

Right okay. I haven't read the full bio passport testing protocol.

@andyp it says in the article he had the epo he bought tested.

Me either.

This study seems to indicate there is provision for dealing with athletes that have higher EPO scores due to recent altitude training, so I guess they know the thresholds for certain types of EPO production stimulus.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12969814

That study shoes altitude does mess with bio passport markers, indicating altitude could be used as a cover for microdosing.

Oh a case of "science" reporting then ;)

Yes, but it also states "appropriate allowance should be made" which means they're aware of the altitude training effect and can cater for it. So, there's probably some threshold for EPO due to altitude and another from exo EPO.

The point of the passport though is that it's tests done over time, so you'd have to justify all your increased EPO values by being at altitude before all the tests - that's gotta be hard to do, given pros are tested randomly.

Not saying it's impossible but bio passport has to make it more risky and expensive which is about as good a deterrent as you can get.

The article does say he had the drugs tested to make sure they were what they were supposed to be.

I'm sure I remember from the Armstrong days the talk of 'synthetic' EPO. Does this not suggest that the dodgy type can be detected as synthetic rather than naturally produced via altitude training? Or has it all got a bit sneakier nowadays?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-sky-accused-of-violating-uci-no-needles-policy-with-iv-recovery/

Maybe that's where Josh E learnt how to take IV then?!

FFS.

Sky are a bit holier than thou. In the end they'll be found out doing EPO, LSD, MDMA and other bits'n'bobs that'll earn them a record Scrabble score and eternal infamy.

They were holier than though. They're gutter dwellers and have been for some time.
Brailsford egomaniac with the PR skills of United airlines.

Once again, no actual proof of wrongdoing, just another anonymous source saying Sky might have used a now prohibited recovery method when it was allowed. For all this digging, there's still been no actual evidence of an anti-doping violation.

no actual evidence of an anti-doping violation

this is why I still like to see Valverde race, and will not boo Sky either until there's proof.

Andy: Don't shoot the messenger!
It's all a bit vague but then it's a report that evidence has been submitted so it's too early to say there's no proof.
And, Sky don't need to have actually cheated for it to look bad, that's the rod they have made for their own back.
As long as Froome isn't implicated I don't really mind.

Oh please, Valverde had a DNA test that proved his blood was in the doctor's fridge. Good enough to convict him of murder or rape but not evidence of doping? What did he do, send it to Fuentes as some macabre valentine's gift?

he did his time.

Ah, I thought you were saying there was no evidence in the past, rather than now. This is why I am in favour of life time bans for first offences, otherwise the suspicion never goes away and there's never a clean start.