MinnMan

It is hardly a strong argument. His numbers bounce around in a range that is normal for him. And the density of data are not enough to show that the increase in the latter half of the Vuelta is a statistically robust trend. Looking at all the data over time, the numbers bounce around quite a bit and there are no analytical error bars. Further, I'm not aware of any evidence that hemoglobin numbers generally diminish throughout a stage race. And one of the commenters on that page make a good point, that varying degrees of hydration/dehydration can influence those numbers.

I"m not a blind adherent to the proposition that Horner was clean - I definitely have my doubts, but those data don't make a persuasive case otherwise.

merlinextraligh

Hemoglobin numbers do generally decrease during a stage race because plasma volume increases.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18773375

It would be intersting to compare Horner's Vuelta data to his own data for other grand tours

ahsposo 

A storm in a tea-pot.

This sport stresses.

MinnMan

Yeah, that's true. We should probably spend our time thinking about all those terrible doping scandals in pro football. Wait, revelations of doping in pro football hardly ever happen I guess that means that pretty much nobody in football dopes, huh?

gsteinb

What relevance does football have to a cycling forum and a sport overseen by an entirely different testing agency? Bonus question: what kind of misleading argument are using?

MinnMan

ummm, sarcasm?

gsteinb

No.

Jed19

Maybe Horner winning the Vuelta at 41 is just too good to be true, and the professional cycling community understands this. Otherwise, how come he can't find a team (not even a continental team) to sign him after winning a grand tour?

Something is fishy/rotten here.

gsteinb

Cyclingnews: There has been a lot of stuff on Twitter you may or may not have been aware of over the last few weeks. A lot of it speculation, a lot of it unfair but one of the points was the claim you are a redacted name, number 15 in the USADA report. Do you know anything about that?

Horner: No I don’t know anything about that. I’d have to read up on it or something.

Cyclingnews: I can give you the quote very quickly as I know you’re pressed for time. It’s in Levi Leipheimer’s affidavit, and it says…

Horner: Daniel, Daniel, I’m getting ready to drive right now. So there’s nothing I’m going to know on that. You’ll have to get hold of me another time because I’m on the phone and they’re going to give me a ticket if I’m driving with it on the phone.

Cyclingnews: Can I just ask one last question?

Horner: I’m driving with the phone and I’m going to get a ticket.

An hour later, Cyclingnews called Horner for a second time:

Horner: I’m busy right now. We’ll have to try another time. Thanks.

Cyclingnews: Are you free later on this evening?

Horner: No. I’ve just got home from doing the Tour of Spain, Daniel. I got three kids here and I’m done with the interviews. I’ve already done 200 or something like that. How come you didn’t come to Spain? I’ll let you go, I’m going to spend some time at home. Bye, bye.


https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/...soned-decision

trustbran

He does have a family life just like you and me outside of his cycling profession. I would like to just step away and spend time with my family after tons of interviews on winning and or doping suspicions ....

gsteinb

The implication is that he can't find a team because he was rider #15 , and his Veulta win is suspect.

jyl

I think Horner is employable, the problem is at what price and for how long?

The chatter is that he had offers for 1 year deals at so-so pay, but he wanted/wants more. Look at Trek's statements over the past couple months, it is fairly apparent they have been trying to work something out w/ him, until his recent tweet saying he was "going somewhere else".

Look at it from a team's point of view. His biological passport is old news, the team will have reviewed that data long ago. The "rider 15" chatter is also old news, it refers to a single alleged conversation about a season over a decade ago, and the team can always jettison him if it ever turns into more. The big problem is, do you risk committing $1MM/yr for two years to a rider who will be 44 y/o in the second year of that contract? Will you bet that a 44 y/o rider can win a Grand Tour after staying injury-free for 2 years?

I would have thought this could have be handled through a deal with lots of optionality - e.g. a moderate base salary, and big bonuses for getting on the podium of a GT - so "pay for results". But this is a crazy year in cycling, dozens or hundreds of top pro riders are losing their jobs.

Jed19

Yeah, except that you take some kind of body blow if your brand is ever associated with any kind of doping/doper. Why risk that with what is out there re rider #15 coupled with the very "suspicious" fact of a 41 year old blowing away much younger men in a very strenuous grand tour? It is not one thing, but the amalgamation of things. Age, rider#15 brouhaha (Horner has prevaricated, neither denying nor acknowledging he was rider #15 ) and not putting out too much money on an old horse in a young men's game.

jyl

See here:

https://m.cyclingnews.com/news/trek-c...ays-guercilena

Trek was willing to sign Horner, but they couldn't agree on salary.

TommyBing

Listen, they're all on drugs. All of them. Even the babies. Logan Owen's on it. Mathieu Van Der Poel. Even grandpas. Horner. Stuart O'Grady. Whatever other 35-40 year olds who retired over the last week. All of them. All on drugs.

Likely very few of you know what ribonucleotide reductase is, but that's what they're all on now. Maybe not RR, but some boutique chemistry that isn't known or tested for, like has always been the case.

There are kids smoking pot belge in the friggin' woods right now getting amped for their hard ride. Everyone wants the leg up.

Why do we clamor for anti-doping, when doping is the culture, the culture has always been as so, and we are merely viewers?

They're all on dope. You can't do it any other way.

Holy Christ, imagine JUST a masseuse and a chef. My God, if I had daily massages and three perfect meals on the regular, I would go atomic on Strava. If I had clenbuterol, albuterol, a transfusion, some EPO, and, most importantly, got to rub steroid creme on my taint, I don't know what I could be, but it would be better than I am with beef chili for lunch and two cysts that never heal on my ass.

They're all on the juice, boys. It's crazy to believe otherwise.

Jed19

What a shame, if you are right.

Maybe we, the fans, are suckers to believe the pro peloton can ever be clean. As an aside, I have always thought of the real possibility that there is a grand charade going on re the pro peloton and the doping doctors staying just a step ahead of the testing protocols.

B. Carfree

What possible benefit do athletes expect to derive from ribonucleotide reductase? My memory of my ancient metabolism background tells me that this enzyme catalyzes the conversion of ribonucleotides to deoxy ribonucleotides and oxidized NADP in the process. Both substrates aren't exactly things one wants to deplete, and the products aren't really helpful to performance, to my limited knowledge. I'm not really challenging this, I'm just not understanding it. What's the story?

Zinger

Jamaican guy in my boxing forum always says much the same. He used to be pretty active in amateur track events but knows zilch about cycling other than appreciating it as an endurance sport. I used to argue with him that they're turning the corner with it........I've stopped making those arguments lately.

Seems to me like as many dopers in MLB, cycling and other sports get exposed through investigations as through the testing proceedures. That's not a good sign that the testing proceedures are catching up with the tech. Even belated testing for new designer hormones and the like won't do much if they're getting past the controls with PEDs they already know about.

Caretaker

Never argue with the TommyBs of this world, it's an unequal contest.

Zinger

Well I've got my suspicions that a few of the competitors out there are still making it hard for this transition to a pretty clean field to be realized. I suppose even if it's really happening it's going to take awhile for peoples suspicions to diminish. I mean they had some pretty stringent testing going on when LA made his comeback and it didn't nail him down then.

jyl

On the other hand, look at Horner's biological passport data, because AFAIK it is the only time a GT winner has released his blood data for multiple years. For the sake of argument let's hypothetically assume he is doping. The blood data shows the hypothetical doping would have had to be pretty subtle and incremental. In other words, even riders who choose to dope today, can no longer use the big doses of EPO or big blood transfusions of olden days.

To be clear, I am not saying that Horner was doping and I don't think he was - but he has provided the only long-term biological passport data in the public domain, so we have to use him as the hypothetical.

Just like crime, doping can never be completely eradicated. Any cycling fan who expects a zero doping peleton is doomed to disappointment and should switch to some other sport. What strong anti-doping controls can do is to hold the level of doping down to very low - only a small percentage of riders doping, and doing so in cautious, incremental ways that give them some benefit at some times, but not enough to turn the race upside down or make a barely top 30 rider into a seven-time TdF winner (Lance Armstrong as described by Greg LeMond).

The doping level in the peleton of the 2000's was rampant and constant, like crime in a city overrun by gangs. Perhaps today's peleton is like the town or city where you live, more than you'd wish but you still like living there. Maybe we can someday get to Mayberry USA, but don't count on it - and there was some crime even in Mayberry, Otis was in jail occasionally.

gsteinb

Let's start with

peloton

jyl

Glad this isn't a spelling bee thread . . .

Zinger

Well I wouldn't expect doping to be entirely eradicated but if even a couple of the guys still winning are getting past the controls dirty then all bets are off for the peloton. I did ease off watching for awhile during Armstrong's reign. More out of boredom from lack of competition than anything else.....Although I knew since about 2002 or so.

And the Jamaican guy in my boxing forum might not know cycling but he knew that LA was juicing about 4 years ago, lol. I think maybe his insight has to do with what goes on undetected in amateur track events at the top level.

gsteinb

It's probably easier than delving into this.

What data is there to indicate that the sport is actually clean, never mind cleaner? Winners of the Tour and Vuelta put up 'unreal' numbers on climbs. Numbers that are in range of, and in many cases beat, the numbers put up by guys who were known to be doping at the time. The nature of doping is that when a test is developed guys don't stop doping but move on to a drug or system for which there is no test. There is no historical precedence for the ending of doping. That is to say given the possibilities the more obvious answer is that just like in the past it's more likely guys are doping than not. In your analogy mayberry is more like wall street. The crook may wear a designer suit and drive a fancy car, but he's still robbing you. Just because we don't know about the doping doesn't mean it isn't happening. There was this guy armstrong who passed 500 tests...