Hora - yes. Look at Alain Baxter. Lost his Olympic medal for an obvious simple error. He used Vicks. Uk vicks contains nothing banned, US does - one sniff and he lost his medal.
for inadvertant use you get a shorter ban
anyone got some US vicks?
You push your bike up hills. Need I say more?
So would you if they actually had hills in that there London
Adam.. Discussion usually involve people with knowledge and the ability to make arguments that are actually either factually correct or logical. Yours had neither attribute did it? Yes I really do have a lot to learn about discussions from you. Perhaps you could print something on this?
Your jokey putdown is in seriously poor taste and to defend it is really surprising IMHO. I think if you said this to someones partner /mother/daughter in public [ you said you would say it to their face]I suspect people won’t be having a quick chortle at your rapier like wit.
Not read through all the posts so apologies if this has already been covered, Alberto has put his +ve test down to food contamination, how would he know this, and how could he pinpoint what meal caused it?
I've developed HPLC cleaning methods for API's and the result that they are getting (if my maths is right) is 3 orders of magnitude (2 if we used a larger injection volume) below the range we would be looking at for direct injection.
Quantitation of 5 pg/ml in plasma is possible these days, pointless speculating without knowing more about their methodology though.
how would he know this, and how could he pinpoint what meal caused it?
These guys live a very controlled and recorded life. That meat would be the only thing not 'normal' the day before the +ve, compared to his diet for the rest of the three weeks.
Lame excuse really.
Proper excuses:
Frank Van den Broucke - it was for my dog.
Yvonne Kraft - I was giving my granny her medication and must have inhaled some by accident.
P.S Haven't both Schleck bros served a ban for doping ??
hels - Not that I can find out about it. Frank was implicated in something in 2008 but seems to have been cleared. There's a lot of talk but which top pro road cyclist doesn't have people talk about them doping?
[i]P.S Haven't both Schleck bros served a ban for doping ?? [/i]
No. There were allegations that the elder one Frank was involved in Operation Puerto and it's known that he was at one point connected with the good Dr Fuentes but nothing ever stuck and he was formally cleared of all allegations (he was never charged with anything).
Although their team manager is Bjarne Riis, a known doper during his career including when he won the Tour.
And the manager of the new team they've started is also a known doper.
Look at Alain Baxter
I know there is the miriad of arguments that a doper can be clever enough to fake accidental ingestion etc however if you really are innocent that is ****ed up isn't it?
I know it could be argued knowing or not that you will have even a small (TINY in his case probably with that product!) advantage over the other athletes but what if it coincided with the best form of your life?
****ed up on that count.
It seems as though doping is the norm in pro cycling, I think we should just accept it, maybe relax the testing, or allow a bit of leeway in the % of amounts found, that way we can just enjoy the racing.
Some of you seem to have ignored the fact that the amount of illegal substance found in Contadors sample would not be enough for him to have gained an advantage, or have been worth ingesting for any performance reason.
Its all very strange. Why would the worlds best stage racer take such a risk and ingest something that will get him banned , if it would have not benefited his performance?
Junkyard
...rapier like wit...
I see what you did there 🙂
It seems as though doping is the norm in pro cycling, I think we should just accept it, maybe relax the testing, or allow a bit of leeway in the % of amounts found, that way we can just enjoy the racing.
hmm, takes the shine off the racing for me though. cycling becomes an arms race, like F1 is now. it really is simple, no leeway.
I do appreciate how hard it must be to avoid accidental doping, but ffs they are pros, it's their job to know this stuff.
contamiinated food? entirely possible, but I thought that during the tour they had a fairly strict diet where they brought in all their own food?
having said all that, it does seem to be a guilty till proven innocent culture in cycling because everyone automatically expects you to dope.
deadlydarcy - Member
I see what you did there
What, missed the hyphen out? Common error of the uneducated classes. 🙄
[i]Not read through all the posts so apologies if this has already been covered, Alberto has put his +ve test down to food contamination, how would he know this, and how could he pinpoint what meal caused it? [/i]
Its probably less 'what meal', than 'a meal' - as per my original post on page 1.
If he is 100% certain he hasn't dope'd then it must have come through a meal/drink.
Maybe I'm a little biased, I don't think he's done anything wrong. Trace elements from antibiotics can be found in milk, so why is it impossible for elements to be carried in the food?
Amounts so small that they couldn't be considered performance enhancing, don't stand near me when I've got the ventolin out, you might just inhale some.
I wouldn't be surprised if Spanish farmers are pumping their cattle full of whatever's good for them...
For me Contador is a sencere and honest guy, if he's made the announcement it's because he believes he's innocent and is helping the authorities. If he gets a ban he'll be distraught. Not like other pro [s]dopers[/s] riders who simply accept the punishment, they know they've done wrong, have been caught and take it on the chin.
Suerte Alberto.
If this stuff is out of the system in 24-36 hours, how was it in the cow still when it was killed? Are farmers that daft that they think they'll get a growth spurt (or whatever you feed it to cows for) in the last day of a cow's life? I know there are physiological differences between cows and people BTW.
[i]If this stuff is out of the system in 24-36 hours, how was it in the cow still when it was killed? Are farmers that daft that they think they'll get a growth spurt (or whatever you feed it to cows for) in the last day of a cow's life? I know there are physiological differences between cows and people BTW. [/i]
if you'd been fed something every day of your life...
Suerte Alberto.
....sauté Alberto surely?
[url= http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/71/7/1875.pdf ]Have a quick read of this atlaz. Veal/withdrawal/consumers.[/url]Not sure what you are referencing from, but this was the first listing on Google for me. 😀
....sauté Alberto surely?
No, definately [i]suerte[/i]. 😉
thought you had stopped the insults Adam? Given your first post you are in NO position to talk about education are you 🙄
DD it went right over his head why did you let the cat out ?
There's an interesting [url= http://theinnerring.blogspot.com/2010/09/wada-code-on-positive-tests.html ]Inner Ring post on WADA rules[/url] - which I think I agree with. Even if it is proven to be contaminated meat (which seems unlikley to me as no other astana riders tested positive for it), he still gets stripped of his results and a ban, which he can seek to reduce.
You can't have half measures with stuff like this, there is either a banned substance present in their sample or there isn't - it doesn't matter how it got there or how much of it there is.
I don't think he'll burn for this though - the ASO like him so will try to protect him.
donsimon - I can't be arsed to read the lot of it. What does it tell me other than cows are different to people? Oh, and that it seems feeding CB to cattle is not good for them or us. Surely it's banned which means that Alberto was astoundingly unlucky for the team to buy beef from the wrong people. In terms of the rest of the team, I thought only Vinokourov was tested and conveniently had eaten the hotel's beef and therefore didn't eat the doped cow.
Well if you can't be bothered reading and educating yourself, I can't be ar5ed wasting more time with your uneducated opinions.
Well I have a day job to do and reading pages and pages of scientific paper to find out a fact that I'll have little use for beyond a bike forum thread (even if I do understand it), seems a bit of a waste of my time. Maybe if YOU understand it you'd care to explain what it's actually telling us. Or not.
donSimon - Cows dosed at 10 mcg per kg - "roidshop" suggests Average Dose: Men 100-140 mcg/day, or maybe 1mcg/kg for a bodybuilder (I dunno, maybe less for this purported usage ?)
I do like the idea of blood-doping being involved - maybe it gets into blood cells & then leaches out during storage or something, or the levels were undetectable by ACs doctor and assumed to be nil ?
pjt201 - well thats the end of Homeopathy for cyclists then....
😆sauté Alberto
a joke?
from hora?!
hels - Member
pjt201 - well thats the end of Homeopathy for cyclists then....
Well, seeing as I've yet to see any scientific evidence that homeopathy is anything other than a placebo I'm not too concerned. Also I haven't seen a homeopathic remedy containing EPO or HGH yet!
EDIT - Oh and the likelihood of any homeopathic remedy containing even a single molecule of the "active" ingredient is so minute it wouldn't matter anyway - not sure they can test for water "memory" yet...
The article may support Alberto's story of contaminated cattle carrying the clembuterol from animal to man. As the meat was bought in Spain and outside the regular team supply source and probably not checked. His argument/excuse is therefore feasible. I'm not saying this is fact, just feasible.
The dosage required to induce these anabolic effects
in the metabolism of livestock is 5 to 10 times higher
than those dosages used for therapeutic treatments of
bronchial diseases (Miller et al., 1988). Such a use of
clenbuterol in veal calves led to residue accumulation
in all tissues great enough to have potential pharmacological
effects on consumers if no withdrawal
period was observed (Meyer and Rinke, 1991). We
report here on the results of studies with a moderately
long-term, orally administered @-agonist, clenbuterol,
concerning effects on lipid metabolism, milk production,
pharmacokinetics, and residues in cows.
I can't be bothered reading Miller et al., 1988 or Meyer and Rinke, 1991 as I'm too busy posting on other threads, draw your own conclusions. 😀
don - typed an edit/addition to what I wrote above but timed-out
agreed, if a cow was fed doses that big you might well generate reservoirs in tissue & fat. then again, if I was a farmer and knew it would be there,I wouldn't waste further expensive doses once the time for slaughter approached (presumably the drug already on board would be still exerting effects, plus I also don't want to get caught using naughty drugs or I might get a ban from competitive farming 😉 )
I still like the blood-doping idea as a possible - maybe [s]ACs[/s] a truly guilty rider's docs would assume it was gone because they didn't know that labs could get as low as 400x below "the limit". I guess their own analytical equipment (if they had it at all) wouldn't be state of the art ?
Those are the doses required in livestock to be of any benefit in growth levels and it does say that the residual levels are only evident without a weaning off period. In commercial farming a mistake? lazy?
I'm not sure the offenders equipment wouldn't be state of the art. Aren't security firms always playing catch up with the crims?
Also the lack of negative samples on the days preceding the negative test would suggest that there was nothing present in the blood prior to the negative test. The Clembuterol was introduced after the previous test. To risk introducing a drug which is very easily traced during one of the most tested sporting events does strike me as a little odd. Even as a short term benefit a half life of up to 36hrs doesn't seem logical as it would be present during testing periods and the possibility of being tested is high...
"To risk introducing a drug which is very easily traced"
clearly, yeah, but what if your own equipment says "undetectable" when harvesting the blood and you didn't know the lab had a new process (as with synthetic epo, for example)
(I'm sure their expertise in the actual doping & physiology is ahead of the labs ability to test - after all the labs have to be reactive to what new things these people start to use - but not sure their equipment would be)
Fair enough, that's a possibility.
I'm trying to look on the bright side, I think I'll be quite disillusioned if he's guilty. The little I know of him, he's an enthusiastic cyclist, he's a winner, he works hard and IMO is honest.
I know cyclists who are guilty, and now serving bans, cyclists who were accused but never found guilty and clean cyclists. I know it's not science, but I think you can get a feeling from the way a person is which camp they fall in, and for me Alberto is not guilty.
I also I know a lot of young and aspiring cyclists who look upon people like Alberto as heroes.
I have also seen the money side of cycling and am not so stupid not to realise that there is a huge amount of money and pressure to make that money.
suggestion to sort out doping in sport- harsh but fair
lifetime ban
stripped of all career titles
repay career earnings including to sponsors.
i don't buy this i took it by accident mullarkey. if you are a high level pro it is the responsibility of that pro to check what goes in their gobs.
if he's made the announcement it's because he believes he's innocent
i think every cyclist without fail who has failed a test, starts off with a denial and rebuttal. then slowly things unravel. then a few years after retiring they may confess.
apart from David Millar who confessed, having never failed a test.
Why would the worlds best stage racer take such a risk and ingest something that will get him banned
or kill him.
[url= http://www.ergogenics.org/165.html ]here[/url]
1. Substance found no matter how small he's guilty simple.
2. I just cannot see where the big debate is going with this.
3. Ban him.
I did feel sorry for him on his video interview though.
What will UCI do? Introduce Tour De France meals on wheels for the riders? Could be done but the costs?
We just have to rely on WADA to keep introducing tests with high True positives and negatives.
If he is innocent I really feel sorry for the guy. If he is guilty then he should be banned. How to prove it is another project for WADA.
All this is reported on the day Cancellara/ Millar/ Martin enjoy great success. Who grabbed the headlines? It's all politics/mind****.
Interesting story from Velonews:
Summary is a German journalist reckons it's a blood transfusion and that the UCI are engaged in a coverup. There's holes in the journo's story though so it's hardly damning but it certainly stacks up worse for Contador.
I'm going to stick my head above the parapet here. Sick of the 'Lance must have been cheating' yet its Contador that has potentially two issues hushed over then.
jeez, hora - that's a pretty extreme stance. sure you've thought this through? (I mean, you're a father now, no longer a wild young dude on the edge)
watch your back, man
Hora, a nice post from [url= http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/ ]Bike Snob NYC here[/url] on the issue, and Lemond's 'thoughts'.
Lemonds original comments in Cycling News are [url= http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lemond-shocked-by-contador-positive ]here.[/url]
Am I the only one who thinks he's a fruitcake?
Lemond must have been peppered in the head in that shooting accident.
Isn't it funny how a cancer survivor is allowed to have comments, attacked and aspersions levelled at him throughout his career since his survival over his achievements and no one thinks 'leave off him ffs he hasnt had a positive test so what is your mental problem'?
His critics range from caught-cheats (liers and frauds) to mental cases like Lemond who is bitter huh.
Yet Contador here 'oh no, dont sully the mans name or achievements',
**** right off.
that bike snob page is excellent !
Don't be so naive Hora.
Ah yes, Lance has been ingesting Space Age chemicals beyond any testers ken.
I imagine the Martians come down and deliver his drugs for him in a big shiny saucer.
Don't piss on another mans achievements.
Greg Lemond never misses a chance to get the boot in at Armstrong does he... Tosser.
I'm inclined to give Contador the benefit of the doubt on this though, it doesn't make any sense why you'd pass earlier drugs test then fail one, taken on a rest day, for TINY (trillionths of a gram) quantities of an easily detectable drug.
Problem is that the drug is on the banned list anyway, there's no minimum limit or anything so it's still a positive test. Even with technicalities like food contamination, he should still (in theory) be banned. The only people to benefit from this are going to be the lawyers on both sides, cyclings name is being dragged through the mud again. 🙁
Another thumbs up for the bikesnob page - if WADA/UCI read that they'd probably stop probing this particular case...
I'm inclined to give Contador the benefit of the doubt on this though, it doesn't make any sense why you'd pass earlier drugs test then fail one, taken on a rest day, for TINY (trillionths of a gram) quantities of an easily detectable drug.Problem is that the drug is on the banned list anyway, there's no minimum limit or anything so it's still a positive test. Even with technicalities like food contamination, he should still (in theory) be banned. The only people to benefit from this are going to be the lawyers on both sides, cyclings name is being dragged through the mud again.
Agree on that with you.
This is a good example of why there shouldn't be a zero limit on blood alcohol for driving.
LeMond is far from being a fruitcake re' Armstrong and he'll be vindicated one day
BikeSnob 😆
[img] 
[/img]
Not me, guv - sorryI'm inclined to give Contador the benefit of the doubt on this though
If I was the prized asset of a million-dollar sporting venture and at a critical point in that whole process, someone would be making very bloody sure that I ate exactly the right foods, prepared and sourced under strict controls in order to avoid anything like this happening
If my team had a strong tendency towards paranoia they might also imagine that someone from outside the team might "spike" me with a bit of something on a day when I might get tested, never mind the possibility of food poisoning from eating meat that some geezer has brought with him from Spain that day
(unless it was in a cool box - with the "medical" supplies? 😉 )
[i]LeMond is far from being a fruitcake re' Armstrong and he'll be vindicated one day [/i]
Lemond has lots of axes to grind re Armstrong and he just comes across as a slightly bitter, jealous person. Backed up by the fallings out with Trek, LA and various others over the years, in fact Trek had to issue legal proceedings at one point as they handled both Trek and Lemond bikes and the bickering was having negative effects on everyone.
So Lemond never ever doped despite being the 3-times winner of the Tour (86, 89 and 90), a period where everyone was doped up on all sorts, testing was sporadic and ineffective and cover ups were rife. Read Willy Voets book and any number of others to back this up.
Yet Lance, one of the most tested athlets in the world in a period where cycling was exposed and (started to be) cleaned up was doped up. Riiiiggght. Innocent until proven guilty and at the moment, any court in the world would find Armstrong innocent of any doping charge.
Sorry but Greg Lemond is biased, bitter, jealous and insecure, trying desperately to claw his way back into the limelight after LA stole all his thunder. He's right about Contador, the situation doesn't make any sense as I said earlier but yet again he has to open his big mouth and have a dig about Armstrong... Not very helpful really.
...LeMond is far from being a fruitcake
shocking editing there Vinny
As I said, LeMond will be vindicated
Yet Lance, one of the most tested athlets in the world
This is bollox and is no indication. Look to the number of USA track and field athlete now known to have cheated but who never failed a test. The US drug cheat docs were one step ahead of the testers all the way
Unfortunately for Armstrong you cannot prove a negative
However the evidence while circumstantial or hearsay and thus not proof in court is enough that I am convinced he was and is a systematic drug cheat.
how many of his team mates ar now known to have cheated? Evidecne of systematic cheating. Plenty more as well.
shocking editing there Vinny
Surely is.
What's your take on it though iDave- with your background, did you see much evidence of how pervasive it was?
How about hes innocent if hes never tested positive?
What a shitty way to have to live your life. Imagine at work people said 'your probably a fraud and one day we'll prove it if we find evidence'.
Imagine what it must do to your soul.
To fight and survive a life-threatening disease and comeback stronger yet everyone throws punches at you.
Lemond is an idiot. So does he admit to have won his Tours clean then? Outside the time limits to be stripped of his wins now isn't he?
Hora - look at teh evidence with open eyes - its very obvious what the truth is.
What? About Martians? Yes, I've seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So those were real alien space craft they used in the movie?
You are insightful indeed.
Those pesky aliens. What next? The moon is made of cheese?
If hes guilty wheres the positive tests? Why do people hate him so much?
Wouldn't evidence be like err... a failed test? Apart from the steroidal cream incident I can't think of one that is bang to rights, and that was explained presumably to the UCI's satisfaction if not TJs.
Contador has just been unlucky I'd say, just going by the amount that's been found. Isn't it not even over the limit anyway? In which case why does it even make a story?
Just this morning there was a news article supposedly linking household chemicals with cancer.. how could anyone reliably keep themselves 100% unadulterated without living/training in a bubble? Isn't that the idea of a limit?
[i]Contador has just been unlucky I'd say, just going by the amount that's been found. Isn't it not even over the limit anyway? In which case why does it even make a story?[/i]
You're getting confused about the "limit"
Found in the body there is NO limit for clenbuterol. If it's there, in any amount whatsoever, it's a failed test. Contador has tested positive.
However the amount that was found (50 [b]trillionths[/b] of a gram) is 400 times lower than the limit that WADA set for the lab to show it has the test and for it to become an accredited lab.
TJ and Lemond read the National enquirer. FACT.
LeMond does manage to come over as a total bellend just about any time he sticks his head over the parapet. I find it pretty wearing that everytime there's any kind of drug-related story about cycling, up pops Greg to remind us all that he thinks Lance was doping.
The trouble is, knowing that Armstrong's surpassed LeMond's achievements in the Tour, and in terms of becoming America's best known cyclist, it ends up coming across as if he's bitter at that, and if he's not, he can't 'prove a negative' any more than Armstrong can. At the end of the day, it seems to me as if LeMond is diminishing both their achievements.
I think the far bigger issue in relation to cycling related doping is why, when it's glaringly obvious that there's a culture of doping that involves team management, why the relevant cycling authorities continue to treat this as if doping is an individual choice. It seems to me that if they really want to curtail doping, then they need to put far more pressure on the teams, and ensure that there are meaningful consequences for a team if one or more of their riders are caught doping during the year.
Brassneck / Hora
there is plenty of evidence if you want to look
Non of it is proof. However to me the build up of evidence is enough to be sure he was.
Admitted systematic doping by numerous team mates. Sworn testimony from previous teammate. Several retrospective drugs tests, his own admissions that he used compounds that were not tested for but are now banned. .......The list goes on.
given that he swore that there was no systematic doping in his team but we now know that there was how credible is he?- his sidekick guilty FFS
Bury your head in the sand if you want But I believe he is a systematic doper and I don't believe anyone has ever won the tour without.
<i>i don't buy this i took it by accident mullarkey. if you are a high level pro it is the responsibility of that pro to check what goes in their gobs. </i>
What, like a King with a body-double who tries their food for poison; and they would then have to test the BD before the Rider can have any? FFS
Sworn testimony from previous teammate
Who was that by the way? Is this the person who was a cheat, a lier and dragged the name of the Tour through the courts?
used compounds that were not tested for but are now banned.
But they weren't illegal then so I don't understand why hes bad?
Non of it is proof.
There you go. So its heresay and accusing an innocent man. Nice.
Would you accuse your neighbour of being a drunk driver? On the probability that he holds a driving licence and likes a glass of wine on a Friday night?
Its not all hearsay tho some is. Some is circumstantial and its more than one person with sworn testimony.
You don't want to believe then its up to you
Anyone who has told what we now know to be lies ( over the doping of his teammates who he defended and who were clearly systematically doping which he must have known) has no credibility
Do you think its fair to attack a mans reputation when hes innocent?
I think its perfectly reasonable to point at the doubts inconsistencies and outright lies.
I don't believe he is innocent.
Don't you marvel at his obvious willpower, his success or his ability to survive and then to go on and inspire other cancer suffers?
Even if he was high as a kite on drugs (lets face it I doubt contador has always been 100% clean) - he still beat all the comers didn't he?
You're entitled to your opinion TJ in the same way that Lemond is entitled to his but frankly, posting it on every thread about doping is just as wearing as Lemond popping his head above the parapet every time the subject comes up. I respect your [b]opinion[/b] and your entitlement to discuss it but you're not discussing, you're just saying it over and over (on a thread that is, in theory, about another cyclist entirely).
There is no FACT in what you are saying, there are suppositions, circumstances, coincidence, rumour, lies and half truths.
Give it a rest.
In addition (has he has said)- after the nasty chemo treatment 'why would he put more chemicals into his body'?
He has to be very careful what he eats, etc as remission CAN happen.
Do you think he'd put his future health at risk for a bicycle race? He has been to deaths door.
I really don't like it when people kick down someones achievement. Just returning from cancer that had spread to his brain, bones and testicles then back upto the highest competitive physical sport.
Could we do it? I doubt we'd ride abike much again (if at all) if you or me survived what he did.
Hats off to the man. I have enormous respect for him.
Say he was using drugs after all. I DONT CARE. His drive, survival and campaigning mark him out as a true man to me.
Fair enough crazy legs but I could say the same about your defence of him
the continual repeating of "the most tested athlete" which is just bobbins
I was not the one to bring up Armstrong on this thread. There is plenty of evidence that he is a dope cheat and its a fact he has lied about doping in his team
Edit: I should have left it after " don't be naive Hora" tho - in that you are right. Instead I let Hora bait me into replying
So you concede defeat?