[Closed] TUEs, WADA, Froome and Wiggo - what do people think?

I'd be interested to know if that's still true.

I remember Pedro Delgado testing positive for Probenecid in '88, which was apparently a recognised masking agent, but is there actually anything you can take these days that can specifically be used to mask a performance enhancer?

If masking via TUE is possible, common sense would suggest lots of people would be using TUEs, but as noted previously, the total number of TUEs issued to cyclists is pretty small (13 last year: http://www.uci.ch/clean-sport/therapeutic-use-exemptions/).

mikewsmith - Member

What is its performance enhancement?

Excellently mental dreams.

OK so, surely the real story here isn't about TUEs or Froome or any of that; it's about the way that all these athletes are required to constantly feed doping authorities enormous amounts of detail about their lives, and WADA can't be trusted to look after it.

Do WADA get access to the whole UKAD records system- the location tracking etc?

@mikesmith: from that Barry link above (seens as you obvs can't be bothered to click on it 😉 )

“The effects are noticeable very quickly. Tramadol made me feel euphoric, but it’s also very hard to focus. It kills the pain in your legs and you can push really hard.

“After I crashed in the Tour de France I was taking it, but I stopped after four days, because it allows you to push beyond your natural pain limit.”

@Northwind: I think one of the main problems (alluded to in the cyclingnews link above) is that the UCI only pursue cast iron cases that they know they can win. So anybody that just 'looks' a bit dodgy passport wise isn't necessarily pursued... I mean Lances comeback bloods were supposed to be dodgy enough for USADA to use as 'in' to bring him down (most of his tour wins being past the SOL) yet the UCI never raised a murmur. How could that even happen? Nothing!

I'd say that allows a doper to dope within limits (bandwidth doping you call it) and as long as it doesn't show a real spike (which makes missing tests suspicious, read Hamiltons book for more detail). This stops the obvious excesses of the past but a good responder could dope within the limits and get a sufficient advantage over others accordingly.

This coupled with I've picked up (rightly or wrongly) that testing isn't as all encompassing as you'd expect. A couple years ago there were reports from new-pros that they'd been tested all of three times in a year or something! The opportunity is there and only the threat of OOC testing is there to stop people...

Up thread people state they feel the image of cycling has changed. And it has, there's a lot energy been expended in this area. Unfortunately I don't think the reality quite matches the image.

Still, cycling looks like a WI tea party compared to this lot:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/37371735

I guess only a very specialised doctor could tell what can Asthma medication mask, I was only suggesting another point of view.
In any case, we won't know it until a few years.

Since a few years I watch cyling the same way my son watches WWE, I know it's not real, but I enjoy watching it anyway.

I think that Junky's sense of moral purpose and correctness would argue the opposite; that it can be legally right but morally wrong.

In terms of TUE i would say if someone has them occasionally- or proof of asthma its probably not to cheat. If you have 50 a year for every substance possible then you are cheating. Tax avoiders tend to be doing the later - everything possibly to avoid tax which is legal but immoral but it depends what you do. I am certain someone somewhere on a TUE or the heart drug they all stopped when it became illegal. They were cheating

I'm sorry but a bronchial dilator cannot dilate a non constricted bronchial.

Actually this isn't true. A healthy subject can be bronchodilated but this isn't easily measurable by normal spirometry. Airway resistance is reduced slightly but this is measured using a plethysmograph! I worked on bronchodilaing volunteers using beta agonists (salbutamol's grandchildren, actually including vilanterol and plenty of others that did not become medicines) for a long time. The performance benefits will be negligible because these are just resting changes not at threshold.

Urine levels for beta agonists are set, and adjusted for dehydration after a race. You really wouldn't want to take systemic doses for long term metabolic effects.

As for masking, there is very little reason for masking TUEs such as diuretics. Professional athletes will not be treated for blood pressure, as a rule. Same for anabolic steroids.

“The effects are noticeable very quickly. Tramadol made me feel euphoric, but it’s also very hard to focus. It kills the pain in your legs and you can push really hard.

[url= http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/team-sky-tue-controversy-why-one-medical-expert-has-real-concerns/ ]Jeroen Swart seems to be a little uppity about Wiggins.[/url] The "no-needle" bullshit in his book seems to be coming back to bite him.

It is not a first-line therapy and it certainly wouldn’t be something that I would be comfortable giving to a rider as a preventative medicine. So one of two things is going on: either they have prescribed it as a preventative medicine, which doesn’t sit well with me, or he had such serious symptoms that they were completely uncontrollable, and that just happened to happen coincidentally a couple of days before he contested a Grand Tour. And at different times of the season, because the Giro isn’t anywhere near pollen season and nobody suffers from dramatic allergies in the Giro.

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.

He doesn't say he believes Wiggins is dirty but that the whole thing leaves him cold that it seems the drug shouldn't be covered by a TUE and Wiggins/Sky statements in the past contradict this leak.

http://www.stickybottle.com/coaching/medical-opinion-why-details-of-pros-leaked-tues-are-worrying/

mikesmith - blah, blah, blah

That's the spirit, keeps shifting the emphasis away from the point. Have you been studying the lance Armstrong fanboy 101? This is classic. Barry claims some Sky riders were using tramadol [i]every[/i] race. I can't tell you why, you'd need to ask Sky's doctors (I'd assume). Did you actually even bother to read the link?

The point is that proscribed medicines are being routinely used by cyclists (and sportspeople generally) out with their guidelines. See backinirelands and atlaz's links. Why is this happening? there are much more appropriate medicines out there (apparently).

One possibility is that it's not for the [i]stated[/i] use...

And worrying that Wiggins cort use would appear to mirror Rasmussens (and let's not forget this is what Lance got his backdated TUE for in '99!) use...

ETA: oh, there's that (cycling doctor banned from for doping) Geert Leinders name popping up again in Atlaz's link.... Funny that...

OK so here we go, pro's are using medication that is not on the list of banned stuff. Maybe they are in which case if it's a problem put it on the banned list.
The article is great, lots of some and people. If you have a problem with what people are doing name them, come out and shout it - who was using it, who was taking it. Again it's not on any banned list is it.....
Apart from the other stuff like Chris Froome going to the huge trouble of being born in Kenya to pretend to be from Kenya have you got anything more?

In the context of the other doping related scandals of recent years, it's a complete non-story. However, it does still bring up some interesting points.

In a climate of great reward for winning, and margins being incredibly small (Quintanas 1 min 23 margin at the vuelta being 0.0002% of the overall time!), it's entirely unsurprising that competitors and their teams will look for any and all marginal gains they can find within the rules. This will include supplements and other legal pharmaceuticals.

I find the issue of PEDs fascinating. To be included on the list, two of the following criteria must be met:

1) Enhances performance
2) Harmful to athlete health
3) violates the spirit of sport

Actually proving something enhances performance is near on impossible. (The few good studies on anabolic steroids for example suggest the only performance enhancing benefit would be pure power sports such as weight lifting) You can't do proper randomised control trials, so all evidence for true performance enhancing is based on opinion and supposition.

You could argue any pharmaceutical presents a risk to user - ibuprofen causes GI bleeding in a percentage of people if taken too long, but it's not banned? (And widely used by athletes on a regular/semi permanent basis!) Therapeutic use is a balance of benefit v risk, surely if there's no therapeutic indication then no drug should be used, as I can't think of a single side effect free drug.

As for spirit of the sport.... What differentiates someone taking analgesics to allow them to train longer and harder, or compete through their pain barrier than they naturally would, from someone taking steroids/EPO/growth hormone/whatever else to augment their training regime? Either way they're taking pharmaceutical agents to allow their body to perform beyond its natural capabilities.

Playing devil's advocate, I'm entirely convinced we'll never remove the cheats, they'll always try and we'll never catch them all. We'll also never be rid of those that push to the very limit of the law. The rewards are simply too great. Perhaps it wouldn't be the worst idea to make it a free-for-all... Use what you want, you know the risks involved and if you wish to accept them that's your call! At least then everyone would know how level (or otherwise) the playing field actually is.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/18/bradley-wiggins-world-anti-doping-agency-hackers-russian-leak

@mike: why do you insist on trying to obscure the point, I never accused Froome of [i]pretending[/i] to be Kenyan, I accused him of hacking an email account and therefore cheating his way into the UCI academy. Thus showing he is prepared to bend the rules in the pursuit of his aims. So please, stop making shit up. And, I don't know, maybe address the point for a change.

Thus showing he is prepared to bend the rules in the pursuit of his aims

What's the relevance of this statement to a discussion on TUEs?

Have you been studying the lance Armstrong fanboy 101?

Have you taken tramadol metalheart? What is its performance enhancement? For me it makes me want to curl up in a happy ball and sleep. It knocks you sideways but is a very effective pain killer. Kind of a last resort thing and you will be working harder to ride on it.

I wondered this when I first read that tramadol story. I often take the odd one when my dodgy back is playing up and I need a good night's sleep. I can't imagine trying to ride a bike on it, especially at high speed in a peleton. I wonder if that's why there are so many crashes these days?

Tramadol is hideous stuff, I took it for a cracked rib.

Made me very, very soporific then it made me violently ill.

Certainly not something I'd take if I was about to go & race....!

Well forgive me your punctuation left it open to a bit of interpretation

Froome has been proven to bend the rules to get what he wants (hacking emails, pretending to be Kenyan cycling Fed, etc). The guy has previous.

By took we still don't really know when how much and what for, if it was in the evening to deal with crash injuries then probably not a bad idea. Low dose during a stage post crash probably the exception. Similar to a bunch of other pain killers. If it's a long term thing not good but again not against the rules.

Team Sky have admitted having "finishing bottles" in the past and have admitted to in-race tramadol usage. Given other teams have also admitted having tramadol laced bottles for the end of hard stages, it's not that unlikely that at some point (Michael Barry's experience is a little out of date) Team Sky did the same.

TBH, the TUE leak is ONLY interesting because of Wiggins previous assertions he never had injections related to cycling where clearly this was a lie. It doesn't indicate he's a doper (despite what confirmed dopers like Jaksche say) but it doesn't stop people starting to wonder what else he lied about. The Froome leak is a total non-event as he'd already copped for the TUEs.

The rates of "asthmatics" amongst elite atheletes simply are not believable

As pretty much everyone else has said the leak is pretty much just highlighting that TUEs are being used, so in that sense it's a non story to cycling buffs at least. For everyone else though it's a stain and the difference between that and 'proper' doping is just weasel words so in that sense it's quite damaging.

And I'd always assumed that Wiggins' "no needles" thing was a turn of phrase- IMO it'd be very surprising if he'd never had a needle stuck in him during his time with Sky or BC. Unfortunately for him clarifications look a lot like evasions at this point.

the great non sequitur that he guessed a password so he must take PEDS

Except what I said was he has shown that he is prepared to bend the rules when it suits him in the past. Its not illogical to think he [i]might [/i]have done it again since. You're making the (il)logical leap all by yourself.

Well forgive me your punctuation left it open to a bit of interpretation

For all those wondering why Sky have used tramadol I suggest you ask their ex-consultant Dr Geert Leinders. According to banned cyclist M Rasmussen he was very helpful in this area...

you are the one most affected by LA misdemeanours not us

But you all seem to think that cycling is now clean, etc. I seemed to have missed that particular memo. Cookson's son's links with SKY PT are not particularly reassuring either, looks like the IAAF nepotism thing to me... and we know that ended well!

The problem with Rasmussen is he's not that credible when it comes to talking about anything other than doping he witnessed. Got Hesjedal bang to rights but isn't the right person to talk to about contemporary riders as he isn't a rider any more.

Except what I said was he has shown that he is prepared to bend the rules when it suits him in the past. Its not illogical to think he might have done it again since. You're making the (il)logical leap all by yourself.

This is why you come across strangely in this thread. It's like saying that because someone once stole a packet of fruit gums, they "logically" would rob a bank. One thing does not lead to the other and it's a stupid argument to suggest it does and you are only doing it because there is no PROOF (it's a key word) that Froome is anything other than clean and mud slinging is all you've got left.

So Wiggins winning and UCI trying to cover up are linked in my mind.

The irony is, you may not be wrong about doping but your reasoning/proof is absolutely lacking.

And from what i hear, the KCA is a a shining example of democracy and open management of cycling.

Or not.
I'd "hack" their emails to get a decent ride (or any ride) elsewhere as well.

10 seconds of googling will show you how much dissatisfaction there is, and it's more along the lines of why Verbruggen and McQuaid were kicked out than the current minor grumbling and dissatisfaction with Cookson. Even the BCF disaster in the mid 90's looks like a minor blip.

Those of us who have followed professional cycling for a while are always going to find it hard to believe what we are told. Been lied to once too often. However, I do think that Wiggins was probably cleaner than Armstrong and Froome is probably cleaner than Wiggins. It's not much, but it will have to to.

And I'd always assumed that Wiggins' "no needles" thing was a turn of phrase- IMO it'd be very surprising if he'd never had a needle stuck in him during his time with Sky or BC. Unfortunately for him clarifications look a lot like evasions at this point.

Thing is, his "no needles" comment was pretty much unequivocal if you read it:

[b]I’ve never had an injection[/b], apart from I’ve had my vaccinations, and on occasion I’ve been put on a drip, when I’ve come down with diarrhoea or something or have been severely dehydrated.

so not really a "turn of phrase", not when it's expanded on with such specific detail as that.

His line now seems to be "Oh, no I didn't mean THOSE needles, yeah, I've used them, I just meant THESE OTHER needles, they're the ones I've not used." - if all he'd said previously was "I've kept the the UCI "no needles" rules" then fair enough, but to go into the level of detail of seemingly listing every type of occasion he's been punctured by a needle, while leaving some out, really is, being charitable, disappointing (for the poster boy of the post-Armstrong "clean" era), being less charitable, suspicious.

he has shown that he is prepared to bend the rules when it suits him in the past. Its not illogical to think he might have done it again since. You're making the (il)logical leap all by yourself

you all seem to think that cycling is now clean, etc. I seemed to have missed that particular memo.

Cycling is cleaner than it has ever been. It is not clean
I have seen no [compelling*] evidence to implicate sky or Froome unlike say Astana and Nibbles - the later merely by association.

* there will always be some mud and TUE and rumour due to cyclings legacy

The problem with Rasmussen is he's not that credible when it comes to talking about anything other than doping he witnessed.

He doesn't have to be, he establishes a method, how its done. Its the similarities and the facilitators of doping that sets the alarm bells off.

This is why you come across strangely in this thread. It's like saying that because someone once stole a packet of fruit gums, they "logically" would rob a bank. One thing does not lead to the other and it's a stupid argument to suggest it does and you are only doing it because there is no PROOF (it's a key word) that Froome is anything other than clean and mud slinging is all you've got left.

But I'm not arguing thats the reason why I think Froome is on the sauce, I'm saying he's dodgy and revels in it as part of his book. I actually kinda think Froome is a troll (and he's bloody good at it too). Pretty early on I said I wasn't trying to provide you (collectively) with proof. For starters most of you are koolaid drinking fanboys, remember? 😉

Obviously if there was cast iron proof Froome would be banned. So we can drop that bullshit right now. [i]That[/i] is LA fanboy 101: never tested positive, etc., etc., etc.

As stated earlier on I can't see how Froome tranisitioned from domestique about to get canned to 2nd in the Vuelta. In '12 he was the best climber [b]and[/b] 3rd best TTer in the Tour FFS! That [i]alone[/i] should set alarm bells ringing. In the bad old days you had climbers and you had TTers and never the twain met... until EPO, all of a sudden, 'fat boys' dropping pure climbers...
How did Froome lose weight but not power? His bilharzia that happened to reappear conveninently at the same time every year but despite a chronic condition he still manages to crush at the Tour. Personally I don't buy it.

Another reason you come off a bit weird.

Thanks! 😉

You have them linked in your mind because of an accident of timing and therefore you believe it's a solid gold bit of proof. It isn't.

No, what I have linked in my mind is this:

1) the UCI, the regulatory body charged with ensuring no cheating/doping, defending LA against all evidence to the contrary and trying to shut down any discussion.

and

ii) SKY, etc, cycling is clean now... How can it possibly be if the UCI are sheilding the dopers? how many blood passport prosecutions have taken place to date? none, thats how many. Not even Lance!

and Wiggins went from moaning about doping to moaning about people who moaned about doping... I can't forget his love-in with Lance either, the man was [i]starstruck[/i] the year he came fourth after Lance. And his bollocks about one day learning he could climb at the Giro, you what? Both Wiggins and Froome have tapped into something to get that thin yet maintain power. I have my suspicions as to what that is, can you guess?

As previously stated, I'm not going to even try and provide 'proof'. If you come to a different rationalisation then fine. But it doesn't add up for me.

@roverpig: by necessity Wiggins has to be cleaner than Armstrong, the bandwidth thing. I don't think Froome is cleaner, but I do think he's smarter. The (lack of) TUE thing alone would prove that.

Interesting that wiggins TUE for steriods are all before grand tours he one?

I read a point from a Doctor that 1) he would never use that mediction as a preventative and 2) that if someone was so ill as to need that drug then they had no business racing.

I think in general TUEs are very much overused and are often to cover if not doping practices that are certainly straying into grey areas

how many blood passport prosecutions have taken place to date? none, thats how many.

Maybe do a _tiny_ bit more research, as one google search and the first hit gives me 14 names of cyclists suspended based on the biological passport

Do you always debate like this?

This isn't debating...

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/biological-passport-nowhere-near-effective-137331

that wiggins TUE for steriods are all before grand tours he one?

edit tre as when a fact ids brought up that there have been no prosecutions you then say its not effective - moving the goalposts surely you know of the sky rider done under it[sort of but i am sure that is how you would spin it]

Maybe do a _tiny_ bit more research, as one google search and the first hit gives me 14 names of cyclists suspended based on the biological passport

Ha, ha, yeah mebbe I should've checked that one 😳

You're right, I buggered that one up... Apologies.

Suspensions or prosecutions, though... 😆

@junkyard:

"If you’re a cheat, you're a cheat, you're not half a cheat. You wouldn't say, 'I'll cheat here but I'm not going to cheat over there; I'll cheat on a Monday but not on a Tuesday.'

Re your edit: see the link I posted to above your post - its designed to catch the obvious doping (but allows the bandwidth). And its great to wave and go look we're all clean now.

Oh and this sky rider?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/sergio-henao-cleared-by-uci-over-biological-passport-case/

In the same manner that you claim the fanboys are ignoring evidence you are seeing fault in everyone and everything.

Is every pro rider clean? No of course not.

Is every pro rider taking banned substances? Again, no. Or perhaps more accurately, so unlikely that the answer is basically "no".

The truth then lays somewhere between these two extremes and is slightly complicated by the fact that new substances get added to the banned list at regular intervals - a case in point is Maria Sharapova earlier this year with Meldonium. It is quite likely that many riders are taking substances that have a beneficial effect but which aren't yet banned because there's no valid (one that would withstand a legal challenge) test for them. To a large degree the testers can only find what they search for, see the BALCO story.

According to Wikipedia (usual caveats apply) Froome's bilharzia has only returned once in 2012 after his initial diagnosis in 2010, hardly every year is it?

Similarly, losing weight without losing power (or perhaps more correctly not losing the same percentage of power as weight lost), easily done. In fact so easy I've done it and I'm trying to remember when I last took any medication banned or otherwise.

You come across as one of those people for whom no amount of proof of honesty is good enough. It doesn't do you any favours.

The truth then lays somewhere between these two extremes

I'd agree with that. I take your point about appearances. I was getting pissed off at posters picking up on minor points and ignoring the main ones to and try (IMO) deflect. Believe it or not I actually wanted to believe in Wiggins, however the more I read the less happy I was to do so.

According to Wikipedia (usual caveats apply) Froome's bilharzia has only returned once in 2012 after his initial diagnosis in 2010, hardly every year is it?

I thought he claimed three years. But in truth I cant be arsed going back through stuff from 3-4 years ago just to argue the toss. I still think its an all to convenient 'excuse'.

You come across as one of those people for whom no amount of proof of honesty is good enough. It doesn't do you any favours.

Fair point. It would be nice to have some faith in the UCI though, because without that it [i]all[/i] falls flat. Like all governing bodies there is no real incentive to prosecute and drag your sport through the mud if you can keep the lid on things and pay lip service.

Sorry, just found this:

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/cycling/tom-english-they-could-have-afforded-any-doctor-but-they-went-for-one-who-was-involved-in-one-of-the-many-scandals-that-have-dogged-this-sport-1-2426229

From 2012... If you were wondering why I've been banging on about Leinders a lot on this.

Well 2010/11, 2012 [i]&[/i] 2013 Froome was been treated for Bilharzia:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/07/news/tour-notebook-stage-15-froome-battles-parasite-media-cars-expelled_230162

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/other-sports/chris-froome-his-ambitions-bradley-wiggins-and-winning-the-tour-de-france-8637316.html

Fairly interesting article...

http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/jaksche-on-skys-tue-controversy-we-used-the-same-excuse-in-my-era/

Interesting and insightful discussion on the [url= http://www.the-spokesmen.com/wordpress/ ]The spokemen podcast[/url] regarding the "TUE" controversy, Chris Garrison, sometime poster on STW (you may know her if you frequented the singlespeed events a few years ago) raises a few good points regarding the use of the TUE exemption for corticosteroid steroid use during the race season/timetable. The discussion starts about 14mins into the podcast.

Isn't the reality that the only people who know what happened here are Wiggins and whichever Sky doctor prescribed the treatment and obtained the TUE plus whoever approved the TUE at UCI level? Medical confidentiality would mean that the rest of the team, including the management, and potentially even the other doctors on the team wouldn't know there was a TUE let alone whether it was valid.

The only reason we know about these particular ones is that WADA's data was compromised illegally by - allegedly - Russian hackers apparently aiming to deflect attention from their own systematic doping regime on the 'everyone's guilty' model.

If WADA believes that the TUE system is being abused or even open to abuse, they should do something about it because right now it rests on the ethics of the medic and rider concerned. If you use the Wiggins TUEs as an example, the only people who really know the details are the rider and the doctor and whoever approved the TUE at the UCI level, which presumably is supposed to be the ethical check.

There could have been systematic abuse of the system, there could have been an error of judgement, there could have been perfectly valid medical reasons for the TUE. No-one here knows which of those things happened and the opinions of other medics and ex-riders are just opinions - they have their own baggage and axes to grind.

The reality must be that the TUE was signed off by the UCI, in which case if you think Bradley Wiggins was effectively cheating then, you need to ask the question of why the UCI agreed that this was an appropriate treatment. They could have said no and, you'd hope, that they'd have a policy of caution where there's a possibility of cheating.

So I guess my question would be, if the TUE was applied for on dubious grounds, why did the UCI approve it? Surely without a convincing medical case, they wouldn't have allowed it to go through.

ps: my girlfriend had a corticosteroid injection this year and Strava proves that it did nothing to do improve her performance 😉

http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/jaksche-on-skys-tue-controversy-we-used-the-same-excuse-in-my-era/

Yeh goodun. So sky have lied various times, as has wiggo. They were bound to push the boundaries though (i.e. cheat); a new british team and they had a british rider to win the tour with. Of course they'd play every trick in the book.

There are some fairly obvious possible reasons for the apparently misleading or contradictory comments Wiggins has made:
a) A desire to avoid getting involved in a controversy about TUEs and needles. It's obvious that Wiggins would have opened up a whole messy can of worms if he'd openly discussed his use of TUE injections, so it was easier just to say "I've never had injections".
b) Protecting your competitive advantage. If the allergy treatment helps you perform better, you don't want to disclose that potential treatment to other riders who haven't cottoned on to it.
c) Avoiding disclosure of a potential weakness to competitors. If Wiggins genuinely suffered from performance reducing allergy problems, he wouldn't want other riders to know about that.

I think Wiggins was using the TUEs as a [b]legal[/b] performance enhancement.
What I [b]don't[/b] know is whether he genuinely had actively debilitating allergy problems that justified the treatment, whether he used the treatment as a preventative measure for potential allergy problems, or whether he had no allergy issues and was just using the treatment for performance enhancement.
No-one outside of Wiggins, his doctor and his team know the answer to that one.

I don't see that proof of illegality has been provided yet. Wiggins has submitted a TUE, and UKAD/UCI have assessed that application and approved it. [b]If[/b] it is demonstrated that TUEs are being granted without the presence of a valid medical condition, I think there's a serious case to be made for examining the actions of the doctors submitting the TUEs and how the authorities are assessing and approving these TUEs.

Dr Jeroen Swart has been quoted today, questioning the use of Triamcinolone as a treatment for Wiggins:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cycling/2016/09/19/a-bunch-of-hypocrites-team-sky-attacked-after-sir-bradley-wiggin/
Why, if Swart thinks this treatment is so obviously dodgy, are the UKAD/UCI doctors coming to a different conclusion and approving the TUE?

The other interesting question is simply why everyone's not at it? If, as Joerg Jaksche claims in the link posted previously, this is an old doping trick, why were there only 13 TUEs granted by the UCI last year?
http://www.uci.ch/clean-sport/therapeutic-use-exemptions/
It would be common sense to expect that everyone would be availing themselves of a helping TUE if it's an easy way of getting a legal performance enhancement.

I'm a bit surprised by the total of only 13 TUEs for 2015, and would have guessed there would be more simply to cover bona fide non-controversial medical conditions. Does anyone know if the 13 TUEs on the UCI website represents all TUEs, or just the total number [b]directly approved[/b] by the UCI? They mention on the same page that TUEs approved by national anti-doping agencies are automatically approved by the UCI, and don't require a further application to the UCI. I couldn't work out whether "Number of TUEs annually granted by the UCI" includes these NADO TUEs or not.

UKAD/UCI have assessed that application and approved it.

Of course they're gonna approve it; it's british team sky and brad wiggins in a "new" era of the sport.

It seems obvious it was taken for performance enhancing benefits and nothing else.

Indeed, an in depth explanation from a Doctor on Newsnight. Not good for Wiggy despite being officially legal. 😥

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/pursuit-of-tour-de-france-glory-costs-team-sky-their-idealism/

It seems obvious it was taken for performance enhancing benefits and nothing else.

The problem is it's not that simple. You'd be better saying "It feels likely" as there's only insinuation but, as before, it's not a good thing for Wiggins who has preached from the book of clean cycling and no needles to suddenly have "some needles" as okay. The fact that several people have said that his allergies couldn't have been bad at the giro seems to damn him but that's mostly in absence of any concrete info from his or the team's doctor at the time.

Also, Jaksche is a scumbag who is suddenly relevant again as he's got something to say about Wiggins. Still making money from doping.

Also, Jaksche is a scumbag who is suddenly relevant again as he's got something to say about Wiggins. Still making money from doping.

True, but better a scumbag telling it how it is than the omertà. Who knows, when all this plays out you might be classing other people in the same category....

a) A desire to avoid getting involved in a controversy about TUEs and needles. It's obvious that Wiggins would have opened up a whole messy can of worms if he'd openly discussed his use of TUE injections, so it was easier just to say "I've never had injections".

Easier then but it's a mess now for all involved. Agree with what you're saying. I'm late to all this, but [url= http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/team-sky-tue-controversy-why-one-medical-expert-has-real-concerns/ ]read this this lunchtime[/url]

[i]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.[/i]

No real suprise tbh. Grey areas that just get murkier the more we're told about it.

Playing devil's advocate, is it possible that Sky's "no needles" policy refers to the routine use of injections for recovery treatment by some other teams?

Maybe Wiggins didn't consider a one-off injection for a legitimate health problem (let's assume he did have an allergy) to be a breach of that policy?

ps: my girlfriend had a corticosteroid injection this year and Strava proves that it did nothing to do improve her performance

a bloke in my bike club spent an evening on a nebuliser for asthma, the day before the final club 10 of the year, last year. he went 40 seconds faster than he had done all year, and cost me a trophy.

cheat 🙂

Playing devil's advocate, is it possible that Sky's "no needles" policy refers to the routine use of injections for recovery treatment by some other teams?

Maybe Wiggins didn't consider a one-off injection for a legitimate health problem (let's assume he did have an allergy) to be a breach of that policy?

Sadly, rather than saying nothing in his book or keeping it vague he got pretty specific. Can't be surprised at the result.

Having read that Cycling Tips piece now, Wiggins does have some questions to answer.

So now we know what Froome really meant when he said his 2013 TdF win would "stand the test of time" then?

😉

Wiggins answered the questions.

He lied. 🙁

Wiggins doesn't really give a **** though. He's got his money, he's retired and the UCI/Wada/UKAD are unlikely to find anything dodgy in his urine to get him banned as the TUEs were with their knowledge.

Simple solution, treat asthma as a disability, move it to Paralympics with it's own category, allow as much treatment as you want then, in or out of comp.

Simple solution, treat asthma as a disability, move it to Paralympics with it's own category, allow as much treatment as you want then, in or out of comp.

You've seen the stats for elite athletes with asthma right? The simpler answer is for the TUE system to be irreproachably ethical and regulated. It's all very well saying that athletes shouldn't be allowed TUEs at all, but what if - in an extreme case - their health is at risk through not being allowed access to a particular medicine?

They are still people. They still have a right to medical confidentiality and appropriate treatment. If there's a problem with the system that's allegedly allowing some athletes to use TUEs to their advantage with the connivance of doctors, WADA needs to fix the system properly.

If people trusted the system and WADA, we wouldn't be having this discussion because if a TUE application wasn't genuine and justified, it wouldn't be approved. Maybe I'm naive, but I'd hope that would be the case.

You've seen the stats for elite athletes with asthma right? The simpler answer is for the TUE system to be irreproachably ethical and regulated. It's all very well saying that athletes shouldn't be allowed TUEs at all, but what if - in an extreme case - their health is at risk through not being allowed access to a particular medicine?

What I'm saying is is they're not really all that Elite if doing it makes them sick. If the meds are necessary for their health, by all means take them, but withdraw from competition and wait 6 months before re-entry after any traces of the meds stop showing on [i][u][s]daily[/s] weekly[/i][/u] blood tests.

I think what smells here is if Wiggins or Sky say no needles that shouldn't come with some clause or poor memory excuses, it's either 'none' or 'some' right?
From that article,

[i]Wiggins himself in his autobiography said he had only ever received an injection for an immunisation and some drips. You are not likely to forget an intramuscular injection before every major Grand Tour that you have competed in for the win.

..The latter is a synthetic corticosteroid used to treat allergies and was used by Wiggins prior to his Tour de France campaigns in 2011 and 2012, and his Giro d’Italia ride in 2013.

Given that Wiggins’ autobiography My Time stated that he had not received injections and given that Team Sky stated in the past that it would send a rider home rather than give them TUEs when ill, the information has led to plenty of debate. Had Wiggins been truthful? Had the team stayed true to its claim that it was ethical and transparent?

And, not least, should we be concerned that injected corticosteroids have known performance-enhancing benefits?[/i]

A genuine one-off shouldn't really need disclosing really I agree, but if the team is so perfectly clean maybe it should have been.

This point that a rider appears to have used a legal yet P-E TUE medication right before each of 3 grand tours .. OK it's not illegal but it hardly looks like totally clean riding either.

A genuine one-off shouldn't really need disclosing really I agree, but if the team is so perfectly clean maybe it should have been.

What you're missing is medical confidentiality. Riders can agree to disclose TUEs like Froome did, but forcing riders or doctors to disclose personal medical conditions as a prerequisite to getting treatment puts them in a potentially awful position.

What if a rider needed treatment for a sexually transmitted disease or some sort of mental health issue, why should he or she have to disclose that to the world in general?

What you really need is not a public TUE system, but one that is properly regulated by WADA and the medics involved so there's real scrutiny of scenarios where a potentially performance-enhancing medicine is asked for.

Has this made it onto the thread yet?

[url= http://road.cc/content/news/205271-drug-used-bradley-wiggins-should-be-banned-%E2%80%93-david-millar ]Millar commenting on the use of triamcinolone[/url]

Has this made it onto the thread yet?

No. Thought about it though.... 😆

First Swart, now Millar. Are sky getting ready to through Wiggins under the bus?

Thought the bit about weight loss and seeming power increase was interesting (given what else I've posted re this earlier).

First Swart, now Millar. Are sky getting ready to through Wiggins under the bus?

Millar and Wiggins have an on/off history of bitterness and acrimony. Millar slammed Wiggins after he left Garmin to go to Sky. I'm not sure that the two halves of your statement are connected causally. Are they supposed to be?

Swart is Froomes 'independent' tester. Froome and Wiggins have previous.
Millar has previous (and his sister Fran is Sky PR).
If Walsh joins in I'd say someone's card was marked....
So, no, no casual connection. Merely wild speculation which is all part of my weirdness I guess... 😕

And it should be throw obvs.... 😳

What if a rider needed treatment for a sexually transmitted disease or some sort of mental health issue, why should he or she have to disclose that to the world in general?

Also, Froome doesn't have any TUE for his bilharzia treatments so not all medication requires a TUE. What STI drug would trigger?

BadlyWiredDog - Member

What if a rider needed treatment for a sexually transmitted disease or some sort of mental health issue, why should he or she have to disclose that to the world in general?

In theory, it's not to the world in general, just to the authorities. In practice, well.

[url= https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/sep/20/sam-quek-fancy-bears-wada-hacking-scandal-hockey-gold-team-gb ]https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/sep/20/sam-quek-fancy-bears-wada-hacking-scandal-hockey-gold-team-gb[/url]

In theory, it's not to the world in general, just to the authorities. In practice, well.

The authorities already know. They have to approve the TUE.

Ah so you were talking about public disclosures? **** that, that's a line that shouldn't be crossed. It's bad enough that WADA can't be trusted to look after info.

Triamcinolone is a catabloic anti-inflammatory corticosteroid, its main use is intra-articular to resolve joint inflammation, or systemically as a long acting potent anti-inflammatory for severe allergic conditions. It is only performance enhancing in the sense of resolving disease, not like an anabolic steroid which may have performance enhancing effects such as muscle development, increased red blood cells (although the evidence for these outside of explosive sports is tenuous). TUEs are used to allow an individual to be treated for a specific condition, and not to then test positive on a random routine tests. If the drug is prohibited during a competition then the withdrawal period for that drug has to be observed, unless special circumstances exist eg local anesthetic to suture a wound mid competition.

Or at least this is how it works in equine sport, where we frequently use TUEs due to the welfare requirement to treat the horse. This is different to a drug on the banned list (never to be used as no real need except performance enhancing), or drugs which have no rational use in a competition other than cheating (tranquiliser in dressage horses) which would not get a TUE. We only use triamcinolone intra-articularly, for equine asthma we follow human guidelines and use injectable dexamethasone, oral prednisolone or inhaled fluticasone.

So TUEs not really an issue in my work, kind of understand why similar human athletes might need treating to keep them on the road.

dickyhepburn, David Millar's take on it [url= http://road.cc/content/news/205271-drug-used-bradley-wiggins-should-be-banned-%E2%80%93-david-millar ]here[/url] is different. Plenty of people are saying how effective corticosteroids are -
http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/team-sky-tue-controversy-why-one-medical-expert-has-real-concerns/ -

[i]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.[/i]

I've quoted that article twice in this thread so I realise I'm basing my opinions on something that is just a few other people's take on it all but there looks like enough credibility and experience among them for me to be interested to know what Wiggins or Sky's response might be. tbh I hadn't realised there were PEDs that were notably effective that you could get a TUE for, thought TUEs covered things that may trigger a test fail for trace substances etc but not of real performance significance.

dickyhepburn, David Millar's take on it [url= http://road.cc/content/news/205271-drug-used-bradley-wiggins-should-be-banned-%E2%80%93-david-millar ]here[/url] is different. Plenty of people are saying how effective corticosteroids are -
http://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/team-sky-tue-controversy-why-one-medical-expert-has-real-concerns/ -

[i]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.[/i]

I've quoted that article twice in this thread so I realise I'm basing my opinions on something that is just a few other people's take on it all but there looks like enough credibility and experience among them for me to be interested to know what Wiggins or Sky's response might be. tbh I hadn't realised there were effective PEDs that you could get a TUE for, thought TUEs covered things that may trigger a test fail for trace substances etc but not of real performance significance.

Swart claims corticosteroids are proven performance enhancers, but doesn't explain how in that article. The Telegraph quoted 3 medical experts who couldn't understand how the drug that Wiggins used would enhance performance; it's a catabolic steroid that [b]reduces[/b] muscle mass.

Remember that Millar also happened to be dosed up on testosterone and EPO. Perhaps that might have something to do with the amazing effects he observed...

Well, I guess it must be on the banned list for [i]some[/i] reason..... 🙄

Corticosteroids do have effects on central nervous system. Kind of "steroid euphoria", insomnia is common...For instance patients taking systemic courses of steroids for asthma/COPD exacerbation are advised to take them in the morning for this reason. Although it's not like taking proper CNS stimulants as amphetamines, I suppose is one of the reasons why they are banned.

I'd put money on not everything being disclosed by the hackers just yet. Imagine there are brown envelopes being couriered to Russia to keep it quiet.

you can imagine anything you like

The reality is it is doe to stop us discussing the state sponsored systematic doping down by the russians which will make everything pale into insignificance