Is anyone genuinely surprised? A team can ride on the front tour after tour, preventing any other team attacking and they are all on Weetabix and water.

No, the fanboy defence seems to be that –

1) Sky pay shedloads more money than anyone else,

2) that the domestiques would die for Froome and

3) that they aren’t really domestiques. If they didn’t ride for Sky they’d be team leaders in any other team. (Despite that nobody ever heard of them pre-Sky and that they’ve never won anything in their own right.)

So, it really is Weetabix, after all. 😆

@kcr: lance got popped for a banned substance. They magicked up a retrospective TUE in explanation. The UCI said, brilliant, thus truly is the Tour of redemption! I’ll give you a clue, they lied about it.

Now, why would Lance Armstrong, Jorcke whathisface and David Millar (convicted dopers one and all) all take something that was really bad for them if they didn’t need to that had absolutely no benefit to them?

Naw, I really can’t think why…..

Asking Brailsford & Wiggins about the TUE is barking up the wrong tree entirely – they probably aren’t even aware of how esoteric a drug triamcinolone is. I asked a GP who specialises in athsma about it and she said ‘I had to look it up as it’s only ever given in hospital to really sick patients’.

I’m not saying that there’s no good medical reason for prescribing the drug (nor is my GP friend – she admits that she’s no expert on elite athlete physiology) but in order to have any credibility Sky need to address why this treatment was used instead of other less dodgy ones.

As mentioned above, we need to take Millar’s and Jaksche’s testimony with a pinch of salt. They’re not specific about which corticosteriods they took and in what dosage. A couple of self-reported and subjective reports are not enough basis on which to assess the effects of a drug.

@kcr: lance got popped for a banned substance. They magicked up a retrospective TUE in explanation. The UCI said, brilliant, thus truly is the Tour of redemption! I’ll give you a clue, they lied about it.

I’d be very surprised if anyone here doesn’t know about that episode (and it wasn’t actually the point of the article you linked to) but what, specifically, does it reveal about the Wiggins situation?

Now, why would Lance Armstrong, Jorcke whathisface and David Millar (convicted dopers one and all) all take something that was really bad for them if they didn’t need to that had absolutely no benefit to them?
Naw, I really can’t think why…..

I didn’t suggest it had no benefit to them. I’m genuinely interested in what the benefit was, because I haven’t seen anyone explain the mechanism of advantage. EPO increases the oxygen carrying content of your blood, so your muscles work better and you can increase the power output. Anabolic steroids allow athletes to increase muscle mass and improve recovery.
For both of those drugs, there is a plausible mechanism to produce an advantage (I know there’s some debate about the real effects of anabolics).
What does Triamcinolone do to improve performance, and how does it do it?

Ahhhhh, i’ve just had the same conversation with my neighbour that i did Almost 10 Years ago, He gave me Armstrongs book back then and after a page and a half i’d read enough self satisfying drivel and gave him it back a Month later pretending i’d read it.

He’s just handed me Wiggo’s book urging me to read it. Of course he’s making the same claims now about Wiggo that he had years earlier about Armstrong, in fact i’m pretty sure he thinks Armstrong still did nothing wrong?

The only valid question i could muster to him was? “Where can i get some corticosteroid”
I’ve been trying to shift this last few llb in weight ALL Summer! And if that can nobble it in 3 days AND make me quicker, Well who am i to complain.

Does anyone have any science based evidence for how Triamcinolone would enhance performance?

So just before you are contesting that for the win, is your asthma so badly flaring up that you need to have an intramuscular injection of a potent corticosteroid?

That doesn’t make [sense]…I stand to be corrected, and maybe the guy was lying in bed coughing and spluttering and sneezing, and needed this just before the Giro and just before the Tour, and then went on to win the Tour. It seemed unlikely. And then you are using it to prevent a flare-up.

But the benefits of corticosteroids are documented. Not only in peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts that have demonstrated statistically-significant performance enhancing effects of corticosteroids in endurance sport. But you have also got the testimony from a large number of riders, ex professionals. David Millar’s testimony in his book. Laurent Fignon when he got diagnosed with cancer. Armstrong admitted to the use of corticosteroids. There are probably dozens of others if you went hunting for them.

The use of corticosteroids as a performance-enhancer in cycling is, from an anecdotal perspective, is very well founded and from a performance perspective in science in competition, definitely evidence is there.
So you are taking a long-acting corticosteroid just before a Grand Tour, and the chances are you can gain a performance benefit out of it.

Michael Rasmussen talked about applying for a TUE to get this injection. He said that Geert Leinders did exactly that for them. He would apply for a TUE for some arbitrary illness, and then inject them with exactly the same substance, Triamcinolone acetonide, just before a Grand Tour.

If they were doing that as a doping practice, now you have Wiggins doing it for his asthma in exactly the same manner and circumstances. It doesn’t look good.
http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/team-sky-tue-controversy-why-one-medical-expert-has-real-concerns/

Others seem to be supporting his view and I guess you could look up those scientific manuscripts, or someone who knows where to look and has medical experience could comment on them. Would be of interest since we get how EPO works but not so clear on what this stuff does apart from David Millar’s description of it.

Interestingly the same Dr has worked with Froome and seen his TUEs and said that it all looks good for him, there’s nothing there to be concerned about. Says he’s genuine.

If they were doing that as a doping practice, now you have Wiggins doing it for his asthma in exactly the same manner and circumstances. It doesn’t look good.

Especially when said Geert Leinders was employed by Sky Procycling as consultant ‘duty race doctor’. If you don’t want to be associated with doping doctors the best way really is to not employ them.

@jameso: Swart is the guy Froome used for his physiology testing last year who has a paper currently in peer review regarding it so he is not exactly impartial (and has a significant personal investment as a result). Not to say that he is wrong either, even I have maintained that Froome is not exposed personally over this as both his TUEs were already disclosed. It was a surprise to find out that these were his only ones!

Fancy Bears- awesome name. Do they also have a gang? 😆

Since the year dot, pro cyclists have always had asthma, the treatment tends to improve breathing. The fact is TUE or not, Wiggins (and other team riders perhaps?)took an injection to treat asthma, not used a puffer, obviously. The fact is its a PE medicine when used in this manner and he took it pre- major Tours. And still people are trying to find a way to show his innocence. Get used to the fact that cycling teams twist bend and break rules as in fact do all other sportsmen and women. Eddie Merckx, Hinault, not forgetting of course the only clean US rider Greg Lemond (who used to take Iron injections) right through to date have all cheated, bent or broken rules to win.

Blimey, you’ll be flamed from here to Mont Venteux coming on here with a common sense view of your own, what your supposed to do is legitimately fight the guilty party’s corner stating that without evidence and having provided a TV interview “In Colour” that the afore mentioned tour winner and day stage classics winner oh and Olympic gold medalist has transparency and was levelling out the playing field because he felt poorly and felt disadvantaged.

…but not so clear on what this stuff does…

That’s what puzzles me. I read Swart’s interview a few days ago, and he refers to “peer reviewed”, “statistically significant”, “definitely evidence is there”, but never actually states what it does!

“So you are taking a long-acting corticosteroid just before a Grand Tour, and the chances are you can gain a performance benefit out of it.” is a rather woollly statement from a sports scientist. I don’t set much store by his “anecdotal evidence” because riders have famously ingested all sorts of stuff, and not necessarily in a particularly controlled or evidence based manner.

There were three medical experts (to be fair, not sports scientists) quoted in the Telegraph as saying they couldn’t imagine how it would enhance performance. They didn’t rule out performance enhancement, but couldn’t see a mechanism for that.

I’m not an avid fan of road riding and have never really followed ‘tours’ or road comps, I checked out the Lance Armstrong thing, didn’t he have testicular cancer? I would guess drugs for that might probably be required, but whatever, he appeared after much negative press to be a bad guy. So here comes our guy he’s really cool he doesn’t take drugs and he speaks French, wow.. Hero roadie, to be proud of and I must admit I quite liked the guy and he has a sense of humour, but now? Another cheating roadie back in the bin with the rest of them.

Now as for the whole drug enhancing thing, I competed at the very top level once upon a time when it was you, that’s it, no trainers, no sports psychologist, no nutricianists, masseurs and the rest of the army of latter day sporting support staff that seem to travel everywhere backing up certainly the Olympic sport I was involved in.

So my question how is it different? On the one hand you could take a performance enhancing drug, but that’s wrong, on the other you have an army of support staff, telling you exactly what to eat, to tune your muscles, psyche your brain and whatever else they all do.

It’s equally wrong and I’m with the hackers here, their performance enhancement got them banned, ours didn’t so we got loads of medals – it’s ****ed

Now as for the whole drug enhancing thing, I competed at the very top level once upon a time when it was you, that’s it, no trainers, no sports psychologist, no nutricianists, masseurs and the rest of the army of latter day sporting support staff that seem to travel everywhere backing up certainly the Olympic sport I was involved in.

You competed in the 1800s? Obviously it depends on the sport but drugs and sport go together like… well… professional sports and lies. Always have done, cycling is just one of the more visible examples but there’s hardly a sport where performance enhancements that are banned aren’t used.

It’s equally wrong and I’m with the hackers here, their performance enhancement got them banned, ours didn’t so we got loads of medals – it’s ****ed

unfortunately that’s the bullshit they want to have put out there. Even a team-sanctioned doping programme is nowhere near as serious as a state security apparatus sponsored and managed doping programme. Wiggins bending the rules is not the same as the FSB throwing the rulebook in the bin and returning to the Soviet Bloc doping system. They’re not even close.

@Atlaz
You are right they are not even close in direct comparison. I do think it shows the breadth of the problem though.

On another note, wait until the French sports press get stuck into this, I imagine they will cry foul very loudly

Question

Who’s diagnosing the conditions and prescribing the meds?

Sympathetic team doctors or completely impartial outsiders?

not so clear on what this stuff does apart from David Millar’s description of it.

And as has been pointed out, he’s hardly impartial on Wiggins.

a rather woollly statement from a sports scientist.

It’s all a bit vague and woolly.

Does the substance actually give a performance benefit? Did Wiggo take it with that in mind? Who suggested he take it? Would inhalers really have been a better option, or would it have been a bit awkward fumbling for one in his jersey pocket halfway up Alp d’Huez?

We don’t know. Maybe Wiggo doesn’t even really know?

Question

Who’s diagnosing the conditions and prescribing the meds?

Sympathetic team doctors or completely impartial outsiders?

The way it’s been described, it was a combination of a team doctor seeking advice from an independent specialist after being approached by the rider for help with a medical condition. And then the recommendation was approved by the UCI?

One of the reasons that the process isn’t as transparent as people would seem to want it to be is medical confidentiality. Just as you have the right for your GP not to tell your employer, friends, the press, the police, Fred next door about your medical conditions, complaints and history, doctors are duty bound not to disclose medical details without the rider’s permission.

Hence, I guess, why Brailsford talked about changing team Sky’s TUE policy so that riders have to consent to the disclosure of TUEs. I guess, in theory at least, it’s possible that the only people on the team to know about the Wiggins TUE would be the medicall staff and Wiggins himself.

In Wiggins case if he was suffereing with asthma, he would have been at a dissadvantage to others because he would have had narrowing of his small airways and thickening of his small airways with inflammatory cells and mucous which would have reduced his VO2 max and thus his peak output. Alternatives such as taking a ‘puffer’ is either a short acting drug to open the airways (salbutamol) which is a banned substance (unless on a TUE I assume) as it increases muscles and reduces fat as side effects, or a corticosteroid inhaler (a preventer puffer) which reduced the inflammatory cells in the airway.

As to advantages, I assume people abused corticosteroids to

1. Increase the blood glucose levels. Corticosteroids are stimulate a process called gluconeogenesis. This allows the body to produce glucose from non sugar sources. It’s a mechanism to keep you alive in cases of extreme starvation. In normal patients after corticosteroid injections this side effect can mean that a higher glucose level has to be combated with a higher Insulin level (to keep the glucose level in the normal range) and can lead to pancreatic exhaustion and diabetes (an insufficiency of Insulin). Which is bad news.

2. They would reduce inflammation. Speed recovery? Not sure – you’d feel less stiff the next day, but the repair processes wold be hampered and would lead to weakness overtime. Long term muscle atrophy and weakness occur. You might get a somewhat similar effect from taking a non steroidal anti inflammatory (like Ibuprofen) in terms of feeling better the next day. Triamcinolone is one of the weakest corticosteroid injections (we use a similar strength one called depo-medrone for treating allergies in cats and dogs).

3. We see an effect in animals where you get a change in position of fat. Yo get less in the legs and more in the abdomen. Overall weight gain, but i could see how having less weight in the legs might improve leg speed.

He would have been very easy to confirm asthma by looking at his VO2 readings and power output, he would have spent half his life connected to those machines in training. Being exposed to allergens and pollution cycling a bike his life, it would be reasonable to expect asthma in pro cyclists to be something of an occupational disease with risk exposure being higher than average.

Woo, we’re succeeding
<posted from my new dacha in Sochi>

Thanks milfordvet, useful to get some science, even from an animal perspective.
Enhancing your spare tyre doesn’t sound that useful!

On another note, wait until the French sports press get stuck into this, I imagine they will cry foul very loudly

They already have. They’re no worse than the British press regarding this.

…… and this is why road cycling will never be a sport that i could get excited about….

everyone is dancing on a wire when it comes to the meds/drugs.

you could argue that those with asthma should just get on with it without any “puffer” drugs as they, too, are performance enhancing.

Alternatives such as taking a ‘puffer’ is either a short acting drug to open the airways (salbutamol) which is a banned substance (unless on a TUE I assume)

From the Wada website:

All beta-2 agonists, including all optical isomers, e.g. d- and l- where relevant, are prohibited.

Except:

Inhaled salbutamol (maximum 1600 micrograms over 24 hours);
Inhaled formoterol (maximum delivered dose 54 micrograms over 24 hours); and
Inhaled salmeterol in accordance with the manufacturers’ recommended therapeutic regimen.

I seem to recall Froome with an inhaler during a stage in one race.

atlaz – Member

You competed in the 1800s? Obviously it depends on the sport but drugs and sport go together like… well… professional sports and lies. Always have done, cycling is just one of the more visible examples but there’s hardly a sport where performance enhancements that are banned aren’t used.

Yes, well it feels like it some times, but no they were not present, not in my day more likely the opposite, performance degrading drugs were probably more commonplace

It’s equally wrong and I’m with the hackers here, their performance enhancement got them banned, ours didn’t so we got loads of medals – it’s ****ed

unfortunately that’s the bullshit they want to have put out there. Even a team-sanctioned doping programme is nowhere near as serious as a state security apparatus sponsored and managed doping programme. Wiggins bending the rules is not the same as the FSB throwing the rulebook in the bin and returning to the Soviet Bloc doping system. They’re not even close.

So the state sponsored funding derived from moron tax and lavished on the sport system how many millions is it? Not necessarily on the likes of Wiggins, but in all other high level sports. How can other nations compete with that level of finance. In my day the Olympics was an amateur affair. Then as to road and track cycle sport, compare their budget to how say Steve Peat was funded and rewarded, what drugs did he use, other than adrenalin and where’s his knighthood?

Did you pay attention to how the Russian scheme was organised. Parallel labs run by the FSB, threats of violence, blackmail, people in hiding and several suspicious deaths.

Lottery funding and a few TUEs is hardly the same thing unless you’re suggesting mystic meg is orchestrating the whole thing

Wiggins has asthma so can have asthma drugs to help him breathe. Seem fair.

I’m a bit fat, so can I have drugs to reduce my weight and help me climb?

TUEs for acute conditions seems fair, but for chronic conditions? I’m not so sure. It’s a bit like saying “these are the world’s finest athletes – proved they get their asthma drugs. Without them they’re still pretty good, but not quite so good…”

However rules are rules and I guess you either break them or you don’t.

So you’re now equating all the lottery funded sporting programmes doing things totally legally with the Russian state sponsored doping, and you think the hackers are on the side of the good guys?

Well whatever your arguments I have to say I’m just disappointed I guess, I really did think he was clean and Sky had cleaned things up, clearly I was wrong along with millions of others who will also be disappointed.

Asthma can kill you, particularly when brought on by exertion.

and you think the hackers are on the side of the good guys?

And what about the UCI, which side are they on? Because I’m honestly not sure…

Plus, this isn’t good guys/bad guys it bad guys and ****-ing seriously bad guys 😉

igm – Member
However rules are rules and I guess you either break them or you don’t.

As already said, this is the actual nub of the situation. As far as we know at the moment, Wiggins/Sky acted within the current rules.

Their handling of things since the leak could have been better, and Brailsford is vaguely making all the right noises about the future (while – at least from the short clip I saw on the BBC this morning – trying to avoid talking about the past).

I guess your sense of anger/disappointment/resignation depends on your ethical rather than ‘legal’ viewpoint.

Personally, I was always pretty clear that whatever they said, Sky were obviously going to do everything they could within the rules to gain any advantage and sometimes that’s something to be applauded (compare with F1 designers who are lauded for spotting and exploiting loopholes), and sometimes something to be concerned about. With the current situation, I’m disappointed in their public responses but equally would love some hard and fast evidence (not ex-dopers subjective opinions) about the actual benefits or otherwise of the substances involved.

Asthma can kill you, particularly when brought on by exertion.

Then if you suffer that badly maybe don’t ride 2500+ miles around France in three weeks?

breatheeasy – Member

Asthma can kill you, particularly when brought on by exertion.

Then if you suffer that badly maybe don’t ride 2500+ miles around France in three weeks?

Well that’s easy for you to say with your username.

It was his job though.

So surely the logical way to remove doubt is to only have 100% impartial doctors or medical professionals treat and diagnose any conditions that require a TUE. It’s absolutely not outwith the realms of possibility that a team doctor is not impartial, is open to influence and pressure and could provide a false diagnosis and recommended treatment

So surely the logical way to remove doubt is to only have 100% impartial doctors or medical professionals treat and diagnose any conditions that require a TUE. It’s absolutely not outwith the realms of possibility that a team doctor is not impartial, is open to influence and pressure and could provide a false diagnosis and recommended treatment

In an ideal world, all medics are impartial, it’s part of medical ethics, their prime directive is the health of the patient, no? The world’s not perfect, but what it really comes down to, if you think the system currently sucks and allows corrupt medics to twist it, is basically that WADA and the UCI should reform it so that it’s beyond reproach.

It’s appalling that, as far as I can tell, neither has come out in support of the robustness of their own system. Pat Mcquaid is even daft enough to infer that Wiggins was cheating a system that he was in charge of ffs. Instead they’ve left the teams and the athletes to carry the can both for their fallible online security and the doubts raised about the TUE system which they are responsible for.

People are reading Chris Frome’s statement as a veiled crack at Wiggins, but actually it seems more like a call for WADA and the UCI to take some bloody responsibility for their own regulations and the potential that they could be abused.

People seem more obsessed with somehow proving that Team Sky is bent than actually looking at the whole picture.

Apparently TUE applications in tennis are processed anonymously so the panel never knows who the athlete actually is. That seems like a pretty good idea if you’re concerned about selective approval.

Non story 🙄

I’ve watched Bradley and Dave interviews ..

I’m a GP, up to date docs haven’t used Triamcinolone for allergies for 15 years or more.

This stinks… May be not wiggo, but unimpressed by the docs.

In an ideal world, all medics are impartial, it’s part of medical ethics

Sky/BC can talk up the ‘marginal gains’ thing if it’s just nice fluffy stuff such as a team bus, taking your pillow with you, special wheels/bike etc. – when the marginal gains are potentially what medication could we possibly get away with I don’t think they can stand up and say that out loud so it makes the excuses maybe a little more convoluted.

The ‘enables me to compete on a level playing field’ type excuse – wasn’t that almost everyones excuse in the past why they ‘had’ to do the nasty stuff.

But in the end of the day, it’s all legit, if the UCI say it’s okay to take then its okay. Any issues with that really should be posted to the UCI/WADA rather than directed at Wiggins/Sky. Just another example of not flying too close to the sun ain’t it?

I’m a GP, up to date docs haven’t used Triamcinolone for allergies for 15 years or more.

Actually, thats an interesting thing – if you move from mainstream GP-ism into sport science/team doctoring do you have to keep up to date? Obviously I’d like to think you’d have to keep yourself versed in latest practices etc. but do you fall back to your tried and tested remedies (as long as they aren’t on the banned list) from many moons ago?