LarDasse74

What you are saying is exactly true... except the riders who have money for the best doctors are *everyone.* That is, everyone with a wealthy team sponsor. It is sad that the USDA is targeting Armstrong, though... I guess he is one of the few left who has not admitted it.

Talldog

Zingggg ... slam the door, LOL ! Good one.

Jed19

Let me tell you a short story. A long time ago, when I was a junior in college, I had a full-time summer job as a night clerk of a convenience store called Quiktrip in my college-town. I saw a lot of athletes always buying cigarette wrapping papers all the time, and I knew that school authorities were always testing athletes for drugs, recreational drugs, for the most part. So, one night, one of my school's most famous athlete came in with his girlfriend, and I struck up a conversation with him re how come all these marijuana smokers on an almost everyday basis and nobody getting caught. He laughed, then told me that the testing was a joke. He mentioned something to do with orange juice, ground black pepper and some other ingredients I can't recall, and how they (the testing authorities) won't ever be able to get a positive on any athlete who is half-way savvy at my school.

For some reason, that experience has always stuck with me.

Pug

Haven't read Tyler's book, but Death of Marco Pantini by Matt Rendell explains how easy it was for them to screw around especially when enforcement was based on arbitrary hemocrit levels. Nonetheless, Pantini did get busted when he inexplicably blew past the hemocrit threshold then in force. Also interesting was Marco's tremendous cocaine habit not getting flagged either.

Keith99

Basics of why there has to be no unattended time between when an athlete is told of the test and when they produce the specimen.

One can cathedrize a patient, drain all the urine out and replace it with a clean sample (probably the best would be the patients own). All but foolproof.

I say all but as I can see ways a smart tester could detect issues, especially if the wrong lube is used when inserting the catheder.

The Wizzinator is an external system to accomplish the same thing.

It also seems there are lots of ways to contaminate the sample to avoid a positive for some drugs, which is why the actuall urination has to be observed. That would drive me nuts.

Keith99

I've generally not been impressed by Mensa members. Generally they are propel too concerend with being thought of as smart. The exception was a girl who was a member, who did not think all that highly of most Mensa chapters but who had found one that was fun.

ApostateAbe

I don't count myself as an exception to that rule, because intelligence is about the only thing I have going for me. Even so, I think the bad rap against Mensans is unfair. You would never know if someone is a Mensan unless he or she lets you know. If he or she lets you know, then a normal person would be inclined to think that the Mensan intends to brag. The Mensan who doesn't let you know would not be included in your evaluation, because you wouldn't know.

Keith99

Actually a very good point. The ones who get into a group like Mensa and have ot let the world know are likely not the best representitives of the group.

ChasH

I have no particular views about Mensa, but why would anyone suppose that members of that society would have valuable insights into the matter?

No, you'd be much more likely to hear something sensible from those attending a meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

hmm, maybe that's where Ferrari got some of his ideas ..... in a Sports Medicine poster session perhaps

Kurt Erlenbach

I recently finished Hamilton's book. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in the answer to this question. The short answer is; autologous blood doping, microdosing EPO, knowing the testing schedules, and having an escape plan if a test came up while "glowing." The book is a good read. One point he gets into that I found interesting was his response to the "leveling the playing field" argument - if everyone did it, then the playing field was fair for everyone. His answer is that that argument is not true. A racer's results are the consequence of physiology (including natural hematocrit levels), training, tactics,, equipment, and other factors. The purpose of doping essentially is to raise hematocrit. (As an aside, I got Aranesp, a form of EPO while doing chemo. That stuff is magic. When you're anemic, bumping up the hematocrit changes a rotten day to a good day. As a cyclist, I know that bumping up the number a few points would made a big difference.) So if everyone in the race bumps up their hematocrit to 50 (the UCI upper limit), it changes the calculus on all the other factors in determining the results. And it also means those who do not dope have no chance. Read the book. He burns Lance, and makes it clear what USADA's case is against Lance.

Racer Ex 

Hamilton's statement that a dope test is more an IQ test is spot on. All you need to do is look at how many non analytical positives there have been to understand this.

You can dope your ass off and not get caught.

Jed19

Absolutely! Marion Jones proved that.

mprelaw

It's also a lot easier to dope your ass off if you can buy your way out of it when you do get caught. Which a lot of reports now seem to indicate that he was doing. Centered around a positive for EPO during the Tour de Suisse in the early 2000s (2001 seems to ring a bell?).

Although we should probably hold up final judgment on that until USADA releases its report, it certainly seems like they have some evidence of that taking place.

colombo357

By the end of Tyler's book, it became clear that a dope test is an IQ test for the doping doctor, not the patient/athlete.

Hamilton never once screwed up himself. He got caught because of Fuentes. Fuentes and/or his assistant f-ed up the frozen blood bags, and Tyler got traces of blood, if not an entire bag of blood, from another rider.

Lance had the luxury of exclusive rights to Michele Ferrari's services, most definitely because he had the most money. Can't really blame him though.

Shimagnolo

Man, that sucks. That could have been pretty bad if the blood types were incompatible.

Tyler's book just arrived in the mail today.

dersan

The main problem in here is evolution.We expect better results from athelets,we want new world records we want our team to devastate their oppenents.Yeah the problem is humanbody evolves slowly.But our need are fast.So our atheletes use streoids and other stuff to gain uppper hand in the evolution.of course we will put rules to stop this but as we know rules are to be broken.
The main problem is whole evolution on the entire universe.And we can not stop it.So accept the results.
Yes lance armstrong doped and win 7 stages and he got cought.Now we want a guy who can win 8 times to pass armstrong.Do you belive this guy gonna not dope

Campag4life

Your post smacks of you taking a different kind of dope.

achoo

Speaking of which:

https://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/...le-delay-usada

I am shocked - shocked - to find USADA hasn't released their report yet.

colombo357

Who is "we"? Surely not cycling fans, just wannabes sitting around at home wearing yellow bracelets. Does that describe you pretty well? A real cycling fan does NOT want to see someone win 8 times. Contador might do it, but at least he'll do it in a spectacular fashion.

Read Tyler's book.

colombo357

Probably dotting their i's and crossing their t's.

USADA has no physical evidence, but plenty of eyewitness testimony, which poses a tricky situation. Also, that testimony implicates the UCI itself in a specific scandal (Tour de Suisse 2001) as well as general incompetence over the years.

Jed19

Don't forget that the same evidence is gonna have to be used in Bruyneel's arbitration, so it makes sense to be done with Bruyneel's hearing before releasing that body of evidence to the UCI. That is exactly what I'll do if I were USADA.

achoo

You mean they're still writing it? AFTER banning Armstrong?

Ummm, what's wrong with this picture?

I also suspect USADA is having problems making their decision compliant with Articles 17 and 25 of the World Anti-Doping Code.

https://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/Wo...DE_2009_EN.pdf

achoo

Yeah. Heaven forbid Bruyneel would have a chance to examine the evidence being used against him....

colombo357

I didn't understand any of it until reading Tyler's book. His 60 minutes interview doesn't even scratch the surface.

Lance didn't bring doping into the peloton, and I don't think anyone can really hold his personal doping decisions against him. Where he went wrong was he allegedly controlled the doping of his teammates (treated everyone like crap except for Bruyneel and Ferrari) and teamed up with the UCI against his competitors. This goes beyond sports doping and crosses the line into drug dealing and sports fixing.

Yeah, there's a statute of limitations, but under these extreme circumstances that WADA has never seen and is unlikely to see again in the foreseeable future, exceptions can be made. It's the arbitration panel's decision. Also, we're talking about sports here... the bar is set lower than that of civil and criminal courts.

Like it or not, Lance Armstrong's athletic future is dismal. He better workout his arms now since all he'll be doing is pounding sand.

colombo357

Again, the eyewitness testimony that has not yet been revealed to the public poses a tricky situation.

There are two sides to this.

Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, and Michele Ferrari

vs.

Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis (I know... laughable) but also Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Jonathan Vaughters, Christian Vandevelde, George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Kristin Armstrong, Sheryl Crow, etc.

A bunch of these guys were in fact doping only because "everyone else was doing it". Unlike Lance, they weren't controlling the drugs nor working directly with the UCI to fix the results. Big difference, and they shouldn't be thrown under the bus.