Giro d’Italia – Stage 14 winner Santambrogio fails EPO test

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/cycling-giro-stage-winner-santambrogio-fails-epo-test-145051584.html

Well, obviously not….

They’ll always be cheats….

The cleaner it is, the greater advantage comes to one who risks drug use. Which has to mean penulties should be made more severe.

There’ll always be duplicate threads 😉

There’s some new EPO test being used which may explain the current round of positives.

This was slightly in reference to the other thread about Froomes improvements from no-where to podium and the doubts and the “cycling has cleaned up it’s act”….

Then i go to check some of the Criterium results and bang…. another one….

The worst part is… it’s killing the enjoyment of watching the events to find out 6 weeks later that the bloke you were sitting there thinking “Wow… that’s impressive fella…” was only impressive because of EPO…

So the next event begins and someone makes an attack it sort of kills the enjoyment as you’re thinking “yeah right”.

The UCI need a plan… and soon.

The UCI need a plan… and soon.

New president might help…

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/about/article/bc20130604-about-bc-news-Brian-Cookson-announces-candidacy-for-UCI-Presidency-0

If someone came to me now and told me I’d lose my job – a job I’d worked my balls off all my life to achieve – and that I’d never get another job, unless I took EPO… I’d take EPO.

It’s naive to think that they can stamp it out.

Anywho, EPO isn’t a ‘bad drug’, it improves the body and makes it more efficient.

I don’t see these guys as villains, they’re just ordinary, vulnerable human beings doing what they need to do to protect their livelihoods.

I agree to an extent with what shibb says.

The Secret vRace by Tyler Hamilton gives a pretty good insight into the mindset and pressures.

At least cycling is facing up to the problem, really hope the Fuentes blood bags are saved and we find out what sports don’t actually care about drug cheats.

Until they bring in lifebans for riders, team directors involved then it will carry on forever.
So why have they not brought in lifebans for those involved? because lots of people are involved, and the sport isn’t ready for that.

Its getting there, as soon as we lose some of the tainted individuals from the sport and that idiot McQuaid is disposed, it’ll get a whole lot better.

but then again, ‘you don’t ride the Tour on mineral water alone’, and if thats what we want to see, maybe we need a field full of fueled up riders.

http://xkcd.com/1173/

I don’t see these guys as villains, they’re just ordinary, vulnerable human beings doing what they need to do to protect their livelihoods.

So how do you see the guys that choose not to dope? 🙄

Anywho, EPO isn’t a ‘bad drug’, it improves the body and makes it more efficient.

Err I hope you’re trolling, if not maybe have a think about many of the young fit athletes that died in their sleep.

As for Santambrogio, I hope it was just being led astray by Di Luca rather than it being a Vini-Fantini team issue. Either it sucks but hey he got caught at least.

They couldn’t go for life bans evens if they wanted to. Cycling is an olympic sport and the UCI is signed up to the wada code.

The Secret vRace by Tyler Hamilton gives a pretty good insight into the mindset and pressures.

Agreed, read this book last week, brilliant read and a great insight.

Yeah, EPO has some pretty bad effects, I think mainly thickening the blood, which has caused some deaths in sleep. Was it the Pantani book, which said the team would schedule to get up in the middle of the night to do some time on the turbo, to make sure the blood was pumping round the body, as well as having alarms triggered by low heart rates which would require another turbo session.

Err I hope you’re trolling, if not maybe have a think about many of the young fit athletes that died in their sleep.

Very lazy post Fuzzy! If you can point me in the direction of deaths caused by EPO, that would be great. And when I say caused, I’ll need to see proof that EPO actually caused it. But you won’t find that, you’ll find a load of articles about 7 cyclists dying in a 1-year period. But even that won’t do, because there was no proof that those cyclists took EPO.

The Froome thing is interesting. For me the fact that Vaughters tried very hard to sign him for Garmin is at least one indicator that he could be clean.

That’s the legacy that dopers have left behind though – we, perfectly reasonably given history, find it impossible to confidently believe that all the top performeers are clean. That’s not to say that they’re not but who’d put their house on it?

Very lazy post Fuzzy! If you can point me in the direction of deaths caused by EPO, that would be great. And when I say caused, I’ll need to see proof that EPO actually caused it. But you won’t find that, you’ll find a load of articles about 7 cyclists dying in a 1-year period. But even that won’t do, because there was no proof that those cyclists took EPO.

Well it seems the teams believed there was a link, and took steps to avoid the consequences.

When the drugs in sport ban came in, it was very much about protecting the athletes health. It does seem to muddy the waters somewhat drawing an arbitrary line as to what is allowed and what is considered cheating.

Shibboleth – lack of ‘proof’ doesn’t prove something’s incorrect though. I don’t need to bang my head repeatedly against a wall to prove it’s going to hurt even though I’ve never done it before myself.

You’re right of course, it hasn’t been proved but we all know it happened as do the people involved at the time. You can of course choose to ignore because your own requirements of proof aren’t met.

I personally think 4 years bans with lifetime ban for second time.

The problem with bans is that it does little to discourage people.

If you could 100% guarantee that dopers would be caught, no one would dope. The tests are the critical factor.

Then comes the culture. Bans will never really work while the teams escape censure. Historically, the teams often led people to dope (countless stories about neo-pros getting explained what ‘being professional’ meant) and then cut them loose if caught.

The culture is the real issue and that’s where the UCI were so ineffective, turning a blind eye to it. If the culture has genuinely changed, along with better testing (though cynically, the former may follow the latter…) then that’s what leads to less doping though there will always be exceptions.

The worst part is… it’s killing the enjoyment of watching the events to find out 6 weeks later that the bloke you were sitting there thinking “Wow… that’s impressive fella…” was only impressive because of EPO…

In the past, you thought someone was clean and found out years later they weren’t.

As others have said, rather than the Italian labs testing, this lot of tests were done by a lab in Cologne at the forefront of new EPO tests which probably explains why both Vini riders got caught.

As for Santambrogio, I hope it was just being led astray by Di Luca rather than it being a Vini-Fantini team issue. Either it sucks but hey he got caught at least.

David Millar said the whole peloton knew that Vini had dopers onboard. Question is if any of the peloton dare come forward and name other names. Interested to see if the Vini team manager can hide behind having this rider forced on him by a sponsor like he did with Di Luca. Given this is their biggest show of the year, I have a feeling Vini have been prepared to overlook things a bit to get results but I can’t imagine they’d organise it themselves given how strict the Italians are with this sort of thing.

You probably wouldn’t find any proven link between EPO use and mortality in a tiny number of elite athletes, especially as its use and dosage aren’t exactly publicly acknowledged, let alone thoroughly studied.

However, the side-effect profile and mortality associated with clinical use of EPO is well documented, and even though this involves an older, sicker group of patients, there is no reason to believe that younger, fitter people would be entirely immune to these effects, especially as we don’t know anything about the dosage to which they were subjected.

It’s a very good drug for achieving the aims of the doping riders, but to suggest there isn’t a downside must be wrong.

Is there any clinical proof that EPO improves athletic performance?

‘you don’t ride the Tour on mineral water alone’,

Bollcks. Not at you ) but to that quote that gets trotted out, it came from a doper in the first place. You can, 99% of riders just can’t ride it as fast, some winners couldn’t win anymore and the teams may not be so together or reliable, and maybe the big-bucks sponsors couldn’t accept that.
There’s plenty of pro roadies and other endurance riders who manage to do big days for weeks on end, clean, sometimes without teams or any other kind of support. Pro road racing is just a dysfunctional mess, that’s all. It’s a shame. Drugs have been there since the start but it seems to be a cultural thing. There will be cheats in all kinds of racing, human nature says that some people will compromise their integrity for money, fame, ego etc. There’s a lot of racers that did/do great things on the bike while doped, they always were/will be great riders, but the doping undermines everything they ever worked for imo.

So how do you see the guys that choose not to dope?

Proper legends and often unsung heroes of the peleton. If you ever wore a grand tour jersey and raced clean, you’re a better man than most of the so called greats of road racing.

Good point. You’ll never have proof, for obvious reasons. Plenty of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence over the last 15 years or so suggests there’s a fair chance that it can improve performance even at elite level. I’d imagine the dosage necessary to make gains would be the key thing.

Imagine if it was just one hell of a placebo…

Proper legends and often unsung heroes of the peleton.

Thank you!

from what I’ve read, and the comments coming from team managers about the two Vini Fantini riders, there is a change of attitude in cycling towards those who dope.

they seem to be being berated for doing it.
what would be nice is if all the riders in the Giro who had suspected and gossiped about the Vini Fantini riders being on something, had been a bit more open and vocal about it. but I guess they would then run the risk of saying something libelous.

Err I hope you’re trolling

This is shibboleth, you have to ask?

jameso – Member
Pro road racing is just a dysfunctional mess, that’s all.

Pffftt, other sports have just as much drug use it’s just not being tackled (IMO). If not why is cycling so ‘special’?

Pffftt, other sports have just as much drug use it’s just not being tackled (IMO). If not why is cycling so ‘special’?

Elaborate.

cycling made a mistake in trying to catch cheats, try football. do as little as you can get away with and then have no doping problem.

cycling made a mistake in trying to catch cheats, try football. do as little as you can get away with and then have no doping problem.

And tennis

And motor racing

Allegedly

Pffftt, other sports have just as much drug use it’s just not being tackled (IMO). If not why is cycling so ‘special’?

Sure, doesn’t change the fact cycle racing at that level is a mess though. It’s good that they’re trying clean the mess up and maybe it’s less of a mess than it was. But there’s obviously still doping and corruption to be cleaned up.

weeksy – Member

“Pffftt, other sports have just as much drug use it’s just not being tackled (IMO). If not why is cycling so ‘special’?”

Elaborate.

Really? Pretty simple. I think other sports have comparable drug use but the culture is complete coverup.

If that’s not the case then why does cycling have this problem?

about the drugs in sport thing in general.

Ask yourself a few questions,

Why do professional sports exist?

If you think, they exist to entertain and to advertise, they are not about competition as such. Competition is only a means to an end.

Is doping a problem?

If the reason for pro sport is to entertain and no one cares then no. If the audience start to have a problem with doping then the sport has a problem and needs to clean up.

Look at cycling, the audience in SOME countries have an issue, i suspect that in some countries the entertainment value is all that matters.

Look at football, i may be convinced that doping is riff, but i suspect the average footy fan doesn’t actually care. They watch it as entertainment. Look at WWC style wrestling, everyone believes it is fake but it is not really about sport but about entertainment.

Really? Pretty simple. I think other sports have comparable drug use but the culture is complete coverup.

If that’s not the case then why does cycling have this problem?

Which sports and what makes you think that’s the case ?

they exist to entertain and to advertise, they are not about competition as such. Competition is only a means to an end.

I like to think of it the other way round. advertising and entertainment are enablers of sport and competition.

I like to think of it the other way round. advertising and entertainment are enablers of sport and competition.

why is the yellow jersey yellow? why is the pink jersey pink, read the history of cycling and come back to me.