[Closed] Ethically speaking: EPO vs altitude training...

EPO allows you to have more red blood cells that you could ever achieve naturally and is therefore considered cheating

In totality all training is designed to imnprove your function above and beyond what you would get without training and th eline as to what is and is not ok is best left to someoen more infomred than I am

is supect it has something to do with the training at altitude being "natural" but I am not sure

at least for altitude training you are TRAINING at altitude.

what about hypoxic tents?

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but surely that is pretty much cheating. good job it's only dirty foreigners doing it...

oh hang on...

[b]Bradley Wiggins @bradwiggins

Sleeping in my tent tonight after nearly a kilo of wife’s beetroot soup, you know what comes next[/b]

I'm not sure you are comparing apples with apples there:

http://sciencenordic.com/altitude-training-little-more-placebo

ha ha ha. but that study shows that it DOES work. even if the performance increase is due to psychological effects...

Chemical enhancement is different to controlling atmospheric factors.

There, that was easy

Sleeping in my tent tonight after nearly a kilo of wife’s beetroot soup, you know what comes next

minging beetroot farts and divorce proceedings?

Yes you're right, altitude training is just like taking EPO. In the same way going to bed with your wife is just like seeing a prostitute.

Sleeping in my tent tonight after nearly a kilo of wife’s beetroot soup

In the same way going to bed with your wife is just like seeing a prostitute.

It's all just a matter of what some official body says is ok. To me adding anything in tablet form is artificial eg vitamins. After all they can be got from real food. If they can't then its wrong. I would also argue the case for a diet that isn't the one the human body isn't designed for. ie vegetarian.
Nope, its all codswallop and irrelevant to me going out on my bike.

but surely that is pretty much cheating

Yes you're right, altitude training is just like taking EPO. In the same way going to bed with your wife is just like seeing a prostitute.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour at all - just wondering where the line should be drawn... surely that has to be done to sort out the whole sorry mess.

My understanding is that EPO was used in part to help riders train harder, not just during races, same as people use altitude training

The thing about EPO is you can do it any time. Training at altitude to increase your blood cells is hard to do during a grand tour.

In the same way going to bed with your wife is just like seeing a prostitute.

Don't think I'll be mentioning this to the OH....

It's all just a matter of what some official body says is ok. To me adding anything in tablet form is artificial eg vitamins. After all they can be got from real food. If they can't then its wrong.

There are inevitably shades of grey just as there are in medicine (where some chemicals are deemed to be safe for public retail distribution and uncontrolled consumption, and others are controlled by prescription). A handful of riders vocally refuse to take even vitamins

But I think it's easy to see a difference between training in an idealised air-pressure and injecting a chemical blood booster

When Robert Millar was around he used to wonder what the difference was between riders doping and the riders who went somewhere exotic, and far away from the out-of-season dope-testers, like South America.
Especially when he would bump into the [i]altitude-training[/i] riders in a supermarket in Belgium. Do they not have food shops in Bolivia?

Riding your bike and eating well also changes your body and makes you faster so it must be cheating. Maybe all racers should be forced to sit on the sofa all day and eat pies...

I'd be up for that actually...

There's a difference between something you DO to make yourself quicker and something you TAKE to make yourself quicker.

The former requires effort and action, the latter less so.

I would also argue the case for a diet that isn't the one the human body isn't designed for. ie [b]vegetarian.[/b]

Go on then, argue away...

I always thought that energy gels were cheating and didn't see the point. Mates used to use them in half marathons, along with gallons of Lucozade etc while I would gallantly go without and if nothing else take a moral victory over them. Then I tried one halfway round a half marathon and couldn't believe the difference it made.

If using EPO or something else gives you that much of an edge then I can understand (not excuse or accept) why pros would do it. It would be especially difficult if you abstained while others didn't.

Back on topic I agree that there are shades of grey, however in general:

chemical and things like blood transfusions = cheating
altitude training = fine

I think you've misunderstood how EPO was being used by Lance et al.

During the 'training' phase, blood was extracted and stored for future transfusion during the 'competition' phase.

EPO was used in this phase to aid recovery help the body replace the lost blood cells - but its a natural hormone, so not really 'detectable' as a banned substance in itself.

During the competition phase, blood was put back into the body before 'big days' to give the rider a boost of blood cells - this could be detected in one of two ways:

i) high haemocrit levels (an unnaturally high number of blood cells, with a test level pegged at 50%, if you fail that, you're suspended from competing for two weeks, but its not actually a test fail, as in theory it could happen naturally)

ii) an unnatural balance of old and young red blood cells - too many young ones, then you suspect EPO is making the body produce additional cells, too many old ones and you suspect blood transfusion.

The genius of the Ferarri approach, was to use small doses of EPO to produce young red cells, to mask the old red cells from the transfusion. Essentially the EPO itself was not high enough to give a performance boost, just to mask the performance boost from the blood transfusion.

which leaves you with a really high haemocrit level, that if you get tested would result in a short suspension, but if you thin the blood with saline just before the test then you're in the clear.

Of course, more recently, there's alternative tests to pick this up, like the detection of plasticisers in the blood (Contador) and the ability to identify synthetic EPO (the retests of some of armstrongs old samples, that would not hold up as a failed test in themselves)

Yes you're right, altitude training is just like taking EPO. In the same way going to bed with your wife is just like seeing a prostitute.

so it different, and in some ways may be better? Is that what you're saying?

Energy gels are food. They provide energy that the body uses, like any other food, and we need food. Drugs are not food, they alter how the body works.

so it different, and in some ways may be better? Is that what you're saying?

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I always though it was interesting that the altitude simulation centre was in Manchester ;-)funny that.

In the same way going to bed with your wife is just like seeing a prostitute.

My wife is a prostitute. So where do I stand? 😕

it isn't a question of ethics its a question of rules - any sport is defined by its rules. If a particular drug is outwith the rules its cheating, if a particular exercise is within the rules its not. It could be the other way around all drugs allowed - all exercise prohibited - the outcome, if the rules were adhered to would be just as fair but by making those changes you'd be defining a different sport. If you break the rules you break the game.

I would also argue the case for a diet that isn't the one the human body isn't designed for. ie vegetarian.

I'll follow this one with interest. 😀

My wife is a prostitute. So where do I stand?

on the naughty step if she reads this 🙂

Drugs are not food, they alter how the body works

Testing past samples for rhuEPO would be an interesting eye-opener. I've said before, but will go over it again, EPO is a recombinant human protein (not a chemical). It is produced by bacteria that have had the human gene that codes for EPO spliced into their DNA.

The interesting thing is, that this splicing means that when the bacteria make the protein, they add on an extra cysteine amino acid, to the EPO that is made. So there is a subtle difference between real human EPO and the drug. There are some modern assays that can detect this cysteine residue, but they aren't, to my knowledge, commercialized yet. Other assays can just measure total EPO levels, which should be pretty low as well. Total EPO assays will struggle to detect the pulsed low dosing strategy (which from a Clinical Pharmacology perspective is pretty smart, actually).

I gave blood a couple of weeks ago. A shot of EPO would not go amiss to reconstitute my red blood cells. Harvesting platelets for donation using a booster drug has also been proposed.

TurnerGuy - Member

so it different, and in some ways may be better? Is that what you're saying?

It's expensive, illegal, may result in a long and bitter court battle, but on the other hand you might get to the end faster, and you can recover and be ready to go again a bit sooner.

My wife is a prostitute. So where do I stand?

My wife is a prostitute. So where do I stand

at the corner of the bed and watch.

Funny, I've seen debates like this on a couple of other forums recently.

IMO to decide what is unethical and what is not you need to think about why certain things are banned. Look at the WADA website and read [url= http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/WADP-The-Code/WADA_Anti-Doping_CODE_2009_EN.pdf ]the WADA code[/url]. Under "Purpose" it states:
"To protect the Athletes' fundamental right to participate in
doping-free sport and thus promote health, fairness and
equality for Athletes worldwide"

The key things are health, fairness and equality in that order. Basically anything that has the potential to affect an athletes health is right out, and after that the questions about what's fair and what's not come in.

If someone gets EPO dosages wrong there is a significant chance of them dying in their sleep.

If someone gets their altitude training wrong then they might have a bit of a headache.

I don't really see how hypoxic tents can be considered to be unethical, as they only cost about as much as a top-end bike, but apparently they are considered to be so in Norway and Italy.

Do you think there would be a market for a beer called EPO, I was thinking of targeting cyclists.

So taking iron rich foods won't alter how the body works?

Er, I don't think so? It'll help it do what it already wants to do. Now I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that systems in the body require raw materials (ie food) to carry out their functions. Drugs alter the systems themselves.

Is that a reasonable analogy?