[Closed] Armitstead and these missed tests...

Ok just working from the facts here.
First test massive cock up on the testers behalf. They didn't do their job correctly. CAS accepted it and ruled that

I understand the first test, she was in her Hotel room when the tester turned up but had her phone on silent out of respect for her room mate so missed his call. Not a massive cock up, actually yes, a massive cock up by her. But they did their job correctly, you could be forgiven for saying she swerved a test that day...

I understand the first test, she was in her Hotel room when the tester turned up but had her phone on silent out of respect for her room mate so missed his call. Not a massive cock up, actually yes, a massive cock up by her. But they did their job correctly, you could be forgiven for saying she swerved a test that day...

Not really. Athlete's aren't under any obligation to leave their phone on. The finding was apparently that the tester didn't do enough to locate her according to UKAD protocols. Though we'll have to await the publication of the CAS Reasoned Decision as I don't believe the discrepancy between what they did do what they should have done is clear at present.

When I started this thread I really wasn't pointing a finger of doping suspicion at Armitstead. It really was more out of incredulity that she could have put herself in this situation at such a critical time in her career.

metalheart - Member

If Lizzie wasn't British (say she was Spanish for instance) would you accept things as readily then? Because if she was Russian.... Well

I couldn't give a crap that she's british. Or that she's a cyclist- road cycling's boring. I mean, I only know about all this because it's in the news and we're talking about it, and that's only happened because she's british... But it doesn't make any difference to me thinking "this is obvious bullshit"

I love that hiring lawyers to defend yourself, and winning, is seen as suspicious 😆

If missed tests were announced at the time they could be explained/contested there and then rather than wait until the possibility of a third missed test.

You can contest it at the time, she just didn't, it was her choice.

You can contest it at the time, she just didn't, it was her choice.

Well... she says she did, UKAD says she didn't 😕

@dragon - yes but the point I'm making that you either missed or ignored is that the missed test isn't made public. Doing so would "focus" the mind of the athlete not to miss another one.

Imagine if, in football, the issuing of yellow cards weren't public and also stuck with a player for a year. Then a player suddenly gets sent off at their third yellow card because no-one knew about the first two.

dragon - Member

You can contest it at the time, she just didn't, it was her choice.

Which is perfectly reasonable; having an issue with one test isn't a major issue so it's easy to see why you might let it slide rather than incurring significant costs, distracting yourself from your training, etc. Then, when circumstances changed, she acted on those new circumstances. It doens't, or shouldn't, affect the big picture- strike, succesful appeal.

TBH I'm not sure it would make a difference, surely the thought of being banned should be enough.

I love that hiring lawyers to defend yourself, and winning, is seen as suspicious

Nope, it's that her cycling federation took legal advice independently then 'shared' this with her that's suspicious.

Not that there's a possible conflict of interest what with BC funding being dependent on the medal haul (or otherwise) or anything and Lizzie being a central pillar in achieving this. Oh no. Nothing to see here, move along now please....

Is going round in circles a bit this thread!

Though if I were Lizzie and I was having probably the biggest year of my career, what with Rio coming up, being World Champ, defending my World Cup title, etc. And I had two silly strikes against my name that I believed I wasn't to blame for, knowing that one more and I'd be suspended with a real risk of a 4 year ban... I think I'd have pro-actively challenged that first whereabouts failure before it became a big problem!

You'd also think that when she met with BC to put together a plan to deal with the issue of her being on two strikes (as she says she did in her statement) that one of the first actions would have been to challenge that first strike.

It's just really baffling how it was allowed to get this far.

BC might have been feeling a bit guilty that the guy they assigned to help her had left and no one had told her.

My understanding is that tests 2 and 3 hinged on inconsistent data being input and he was supposed to spot this.

But what sort of shit system allows input of inconsistent data, let alone penalises you for the mistake ?

They might indeed chris, but I'd also imagine they were shitting themselves at losing a prized asset (and by extension possibly their jobs).

I think I'd have pro-actively challenged that first whereabouts failure before it became a big problem!

She says she did contest it immediately, but UKAD rejected her case and stood by it's officer. It's only after the crucial third case that she got a lawyer in and went to CAS. With hindsight she should have gone to CAS earlier, but it isn't cheap.

If Lizzie wasn't British (say she was Spanish for instance) would you accept things as readily then? Because if she was Russian.... Well

We know that Russia had (has?) a state-sponsored doping programme, so why wouldn't we regard Russian athletes with more suspicion?

It's just really baffling how it was allowed to get this far.

Indeed. Did you watch the interview with her I posted up there?

Seems like she might have been having a hard time personally, which may explain (but not excuse) some of the oversights.

There's a reasoned decision to come from CAS apparently.

British Cycling in "Supporting Female Cyclist" shocker !

She met with BC to put an action plan in place after the second failure in order to avoid this situation arising (according to her statement.) So assume that would have been end of last year. One of those actions seems to have been assigning some chap to double check her Whereabouts entries (who stopped doing this a few weeks back and is now being blamed for this it seems.) I just wonder why they didn't decide to also challenge the first failure at that meeting? Would have seemed an obvious thing to do and would have reduced the risk considerably.

She says she did contest it immediately, but UKAD rejected her case and stood by it's officer.

Again... UKAD says she did [b]not[/b] contest it at the time. This is contrary to her statement.

I really think it's appalling how so many think it's ok to condemn someone on such scanty evidence and sensational headlines. This is her whole career being steadily destroyed by a bunch of keyboard warriors. I think she's such an inspirational athlete yet everyone seems so keen to drag her down.
I'd hate to be a public figure, the population seem hell bent on destroying anything at all special just to make themselves feel better about their own mediocrity.

I think its appalling that a professional that relies on us to ride a bike for a living can miss something as simple as a drugs test.

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No matter what anyone says or how she is tested from now on some people will treat her like a cheat.
Those same people have no idea who else is on 2 strikes.

Where are you going to be every day for the next year Trimix? Don't forget to update us every time your plans change.
Want to nip out for a spot of lunch with a friend? make sure you fill in a form first.
Tough gig if you ask me.

Worth noting other athletes have queried why she didn't challenge the 1st strike earlier, it isn't just keyboard warriors.

it's ok to condemn someone on such scanty evidence and sensational headlines.

Well it was enough for UKAD to start proceedings, so the authorities thought it was iffy. As it is CAS threw it out, but it isn't scant evidence. The wherabouts system is essential to reduce drug taking, it wasn't invented just to make athletes lives harder. All ex-dopers have said the biggest prevention is out of competition testing, and this is part of that system.

Id imagine there is quite a big file on this which the qualified people will be looking at rather than couple of sentences on the internet.

Well it was enough for UKAD to start proceedings, so the authorities thought it was iffy.

No matter what anyone says or how she is tested from now on some people will treat her like a cheat.

Suspect most of those people probably were of that frame of mind with regards to most professional cyclists (or athletes in general) before this news came out. Only thing now is that they have an incident to hang that on.

Id imagine there is quite a big file on this which the qualified people will be looking at rather than couple of sentences on the internet.

Indeed. It seems even UKAD aren't convinced and are awaiting an explanation in the CAS Reasoned Decision.

She couldnt be bothered to update her whereabouts but could be bothered to use lawyers to clear her to compete with CAS

Some ineptitude in her whereabouts thing, some serious facepalm in choosing her wording for the statement. BC and their funding means there's a conflict there so should be kept out of the process.
If it was someone from another country I wouldn't have read 9 pages and probably wouldn't have commented either way.
On balance of probability I reckon she's probably clean, but hey believing any cyclist after a fulsome history drug cheats is a bit of a leap of faith. But I'm sure there are plenty of clean riders about and some of them are winning stuff.

Want to know my whereabouts all year:
If my career depended on it,
If my public reputation depended on it,
If my competitors respect depended on it,
If my sponsors money depended on it.............it would be easy and it would be done without fail.

It is not that hard to do on your own. If I needed help doing it I would get the help needed.

Failure to do these simple things in an environment of cheats will naturally raise suspicion. Especially if its covered up / or repeated.

[quote=metalheart ]No, but I acknowledge the possibility that she might be which all you fanboy koolaid drinkers seem to think is impossible.

It's kind of already been done, but I did really enjoy the combination of strawman and ad-hom in a single sentence.

mikewsmith sums up the attitude of some here quite neatly with that pic - it seems she's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. Apparently it's dodgy that she didn't challenge the first one at the time. Yet apparently it's also dodgy that she used lawyers at CAS to get her off now.

No, I don't think there is no chance she is on the juice. However I also don't think there is any evidence that she is, hence to me she is just as clean as she was before and just as clean as every other rider. Of course there have to be rules to avoid people deliberately missing tests and these have to be applied rigidly - which is what has happened here, with CAS ruling that she isn't guilty of an offence. However at that point it seems reasonable to look at the nuances of the reasons for the misses and this is where I'm personally immediately striking off the October one as being totally irrelevant - have any of those condemning her actually considered whether that "miss" is any evidence at all of her being on the juice?

BTW where has this thing about the room number which some are now mentioning come from? I'm not seeing any mention of that in any of the main reports, the only place apart from here I've seen it come up is that dodgy indy opinion piece. My understanding is that there's no requirement to provide a room number, that it's not routinely something other athletes do, and that it's standard procedure for a tester to ask reception for the room number.

[quote=D0NK ]IMO that points more towards innocent ineptitude. She got a no show for incident 1, it costs money to lawyer up and she didn't intend to miss any others so she let it be, if she was doping and may have to "play the system" at a later time I'd expect her to immediately try to get that incident revoked.

Exactly my thoughts on that - her failure to chase it up at the time points more to her being innocent than guilty. Unless of course it's all a double bluff?

Can I just summarise where I am on this?

Test 1: she was exactly where she said she would be and available for testing, nobody ever knocked on her door, through no fault of hers the tester failed to make sufficient effort to contact her

Test 2: post/out of season, no benefit to her in doping then - though nobody actually attempted to test her anyway and she got a strike for a failure to update the system properly which appears to have been picked up post event?

Test 3: she may or may not have a valid reason/excuse, though not one that I'm buying based upon evidence given, that seems a fair strike

So me personal feeling is that she has one real strike for one real missed test - something which it seems has happened to most athletes, because they're not all as organised as trimix.

No, I don't think there is no chance she is on the juice. However I also don't think there is any evidence that she is, hence to me she is just as clean as she was before and just as clean as every other rider.

This for me too.

As for this incident. I just see it as a calamitous series of events, seemingly all badly managed, that could have been avoided, but that she will now unfortunately always be associated with. And that for those understandably cynical types, casts a shadow over her achievements.

Test 1

I don't think the info is out there currently to understand what happened here fully. Need to wait for CAS to publish.

post/out of season, no benefit to her in doping then

Seriously? The benefits to doping out of season is huge. Train harder, longer, recover quicker, etc.

Actually I'm not organised, but my wife is 🙂

I think its appalling that a professional that relies on us to ride a bike for a living can miss something as simple as a drugs test.

[quote=mrblobby ]Seriously? The benefits to doping out of season is huge. Train harder, longer, recover quicker, etc.

I get that, but the point is that it was immediately after the end of the season (hence "post season") and she was partying, not training. Though as mentioned, they didn't attempt to test her anyway - so she's being penalised for an administrative error in a period when the testers weren't interested (I'm assuming they focus their tests rather than just doing them randomly, and they didn't see much point in testing her then). If it had been December or January my attitude would be somewhat different.

At least that is my understanding based mainly on EA's statement - though given the date of the discrepancy (I'm not going to call it a test, because it wasn't) her statement seems entirely plausible.

I know it might seem obvious, but if she was truly organised enough to be successfully doping, she would not have missed the tests in the first place. I strongly suspect that those who are cheating are going to be better at maintaining their whereabouts - and hence changing them as needed during a "glowing" (never hear it called that at work!) than those who are not.

Nothing to see here....

I know it might seem obvious, but if she was truly organised enough...

To say she's probably just not very organised is most likely doing her a massive disservice given that she's organised her life and training (self coached) sufficiently to be the best in the world at what she does.

To say she's probably just not very organised is most likely doing her a massive disservice given that she's organised her life and training (self coached) sufficiently to be the best in the world at what she does.

And how do you reconcile that with supposedly not being organised enough to meet dope testing requirements?

What I meant was that I don't think she's up there at the top of the organisational tree. "Self coached" can mean a lot of things. Given her obvious talent, I can't comment on her discipline - riding lots and racing more is a valid training strategy 😉 . But my point still stands. I think that if one is cheating one would need to be more meticulous.

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And how do you reconcile that with supposedly not being organised enough to meet dope testing requirements?

I think the point of those seeing smoke and assuming fire is that she isn't disorganised at all, simply deliberately avoiding tests. Though I'd then come back to that October discrepancy, which would appear far, far more likely to be a failure of organisation than a deliberate attempt to avoid the testers whilst partying.

Two mistakes, one admin, one under the duress of a family issue. Mrs Pondo would be very happy indeed if that was the limit of my annual admin screw ups.

Mrs Ransos would say the same about me. Thing is, I'm not a professional athlete who would lose his entire career through three mistakes.

Thing is, I'm not a professional athlete who would lose his entire career through three mistakes.

Why are we still talking about this* - the powers that be have made their decision. To keep going over and over the same ground for days is doing nothing more than dragging her name through the mud when - as far as I'm aware and no one has alleged otherwise - other than two "properly" missed tests, there doesn't seem to be any genuine rumours about her performance.

Loads of athletes in loads of sports are on two strikes. Not hearing their names being bandied about and reputations tarnished.

She's always been up there with the best, and her main rival has been out of action the last year or so - of course she's getting the best results of her life.

*Yes, I know the irony!

[quote=ransos ]Thing is, I'm not a professional athlete who would lose his entire career through three mistakes.

But what if you were?

I reckon I can cover this one. Despite probably not having huge amounts of natural talent, I had enough and enough dedication to compete and win at a fairly elite level. All self coached and organised enough to manage training to achieve that. Allowing for differences in circumstances I probably wasn't much worse at organising my training than EA. Yet a complete organisational disaster otherwise, I've ended up getting fined for late tax returns amongst other things (thank god they told me I no longer had to do those). I managed to make my way to races with all the right kit most of the time, but not without lots of stress before and my team-mates could comment on my pre-race organisational panic. If I had been good enough to be on the drug testing programme then I'm sure I'd have ended up with a ban for 3 strikes unless I got outside help.

If I had been good enough to be on the drug testing programme then I'm sure I'd have ended up with a ban for 3 strikes unless I got outside help.

Which, as I understand it, is what the top pros do. I believe Mark Cavendish fired his assistant over a single missed test. But compare and contrast his response with Armitstead:
[i]"It was my mistake. I was with a film crew for the BBC and Giro d'Italia on Mount Etna. It was a simple, genuine administrative error. Of course I totally understand the importance of testing in sport. I was tested by the UCI [cycling's world governing body] a couple of weeks before that and twice in the fortnight after and had around 60 tests in all last year. It's part of the job and it's my job to make sure I don't miss another."[/i]