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KD teammate
Hors Categorie
Denmark
5683 Posts |
 Posted - 09/09/2009 : 11:56:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Forstoppelse
I'm sorry, I won't. I hope some journalist reads this as it's the evidence needed for convicting: In the Tour, Armstrong produced between 30% - 60% less blood than he did at the Giro and around 50% less than he did from August to May. Nonetheless, he raises both HCT and HB 5-6% after rest days in the Tour when he, producing almost twice as much blood, dropped 5-8% during the Giro. What does this mean? We can conclude that those 5% extra in the Tour, they were never baby-RBC's or, he didn't produce those 5% himself in the Tour. Those 5% couldn't be produced by Armstrong himself in the Tour which doesn't make dehydration very likely, unless part of dehydration is blood just turning up from nowhere. There is just no explanation to how he could get more RBC's but produce less RBC-babies in the Tour - or well, yes, there is..
Now, I do believe in Damsgaard but only as long as he's making himself trustworthy. Passing by this case would not only be damaging to the anti-doping fight, it would be damaging to his reputation. All in all, though, taking action in this case would do more damage than good to cycling in general.
Your argumentation about Armstrongs blood values being "conclusive" is flawed and basicly wrong. We should all pay careful attention to the exact words and statements made from the educated experts in this field. The problem is, that many factors can have an impact on the measured "health values", so the interpretation of the values can not be simplified like you just did in your post above.
The first mistake is to believe that all the measured numbers can be trusted as accurate. We should be aware that we always have a lack of accuracy in the test method, meaning that hemoglobin and hematocrite never can be measured with 100% accuracy. So lets say your real hemoglobin value is 14.0 g/dl, then a hemoglobin test with an accuracy of +/-2% will mean that your measurement can show all sorts of values from 13.7-14.3 g/dl. The first time you test -it might show 13.7, and the second time you test -it might show 14.3! This variation alone is a result of the inaccuracy of the test, and thus we need bigger variations than that, in order to conlude whether or not your hemoglobin actualy changed or perhaps remained the same.
Second mistake is if you dont take all known factors into account when making your judgement. Did you know that hemoglobin values fluctuate naturaly during the day? It has been scientificly proofed (www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/hemoglobin/test.html) that hemoglobin is lowest in the morning and will be highest in the evening. In order to take this factor into account, we also need to know at what point of the day Armstrongs samples were collected. Was it a morning/afternoon/evening sample? A lot other factors also play a huge role. Did you know that the level of folate+B9+B12+iron can also impact the level of reticulocytes?
We should also remember, that reticulocytes (1 day old red blood cells) is actualy the bodys delayed response to the level of hemoglobin (meaning that reticulocytes will only start to rise in a situation, where the bodies hemoglobin value has declined to a value below its normal level, or where the rider artificialy increase his blood production by using EPO/CERA, while blood doping would actualy cause a sudden decline in the reticulocytes). Finally we shall also remember, that the riders intake of water during a stage (or perhaps even dehydration) also will have a significant impact on the measured hematocrite, and thereby is another important uncertainty.
Third mistake is if you disregard all the unknown factors having a possible influence on a top riders blood values, before making your judgement. We still need to learn and understand if the blood values for instance can be kept stable during a 3-week race (instead of the normaly expected decline), in case the rider is characterized of either arriving with "top shape" (giving another blood balance), or perhaps if the rider belonging to the 10% fastest riders he will spent less time in the "red zone", and hence wont suffer the expected hemoglobin decline. Those are all unkown factors. They havent yet been investigated and tested. They might be wrong/right, but until a scientific expert has tested those different situations with scrutiny, we should just remember that they play into the field of uncertainty!
Finaly I can't figure out why you seem to prefer that "stuppid journalists" should be in charge of interpreting complex blood values and making "layman judgements", instead of the system we currently have in place with the Biological Passport. With the Biological Passport we have 9 quallified scientific experts forming a competent group, to interpret and judge the values in a sound and scientific way!
PS: In regards of the values you have calculated for Armstrongs reticulocytes in the Giro and Tour, I also have to say that its wrong to interpret the values, in the way you did. First of all you should be aware that the first Giro sample and first Tour sample was taken 2 days before the race had even started. Hence these first values dont reflect "the blood production" during the race, and shouldnt be included in your Giro and Tour average. With this in mind, we arrive with these average values for Amstrong instead:
Oct-May (11 samples): Hemoglobin=14.7g/dl, hematocrite=41.6%, reticulocytes=1.1%
Giro (2 samples).......: Hemoglobin=13.3g/dl, hematocrite=39.1%, reticulocytes=0.8%
Pre Tour (3 samples).: Hemoglobin=15.4g/dl, hematocrite=44.5%, reticulocytes=0.6%
Tour (5 samples)......: Hemoglobin=14.1g/dl, hematocrite=41.96%, reticulocytes=0.6%
With the testing uncertainty and relativly few samples, I think you cant conclude that Armstrongs reticulocytes (indicating blood production) should be considered as significant lower in the Tour compared to the Giro. Instead I actualy see the reticulocytes values to have remained stable right since the Giro started and until the Tour ended. Thus indicating that Armstrong had a stable blood production in this entire time frame. For sure his reticulocytes are significant lower in May-July compared to his values from Oct-May. Whether or not such a difference is strange, is a matter for the educated experts to answer, and not a matter for me/you to decide.
In regards of hemoglobin, I see some constant values during the Tour. We really cant conclude that his hemoglobin increased at certain days in the Tour (due to all uncertainties impacting the numbers), but we can certainly conclude that it didnt drop! In comparison, we can conclude that Armstrongs hemoglobin droped in the Giro. Beside from that we cant conclude anything. Whether or not its possible to maintain constant hemoglobin for top riders in shape during a 3-week race, will be a question for the educated experts to answer. As a final observation we have two high hemoglobin values at 16g/dl posted by Armstrong in June, that likely indicates altitude training.
For a final and last time, I blieve the most strange thing about Armstrongs blood values, is the fact that his hemoglobin and hematocrite is so incredible low, compared to other professional riders. So did he use a forbidden substance to artificily lower his values to normal levels? Or did he simply decide not to raise his "natural hemoglobin", but instead use other advanced doping methods (like synthetic hemoglobin, etc)?
For sure I will leave it to the established and educated experts to work more narrowly to interpret and judge the values of Armstrong. We need true experts to interpret blood values the right way, without "overanalysing" the numbers into various directions. We can all have our personal thoughts and speculation about his values, but until someone arrive with scientific proofs at the table, it will remain as such.
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Edited by - KD teammate on 09/09/2009 16:48:49 |
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Forstoppelse
Stagiaire
Denmark
19 Posts |
Posted - 09/09/2009 : 19:37:32
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Okay, touché - there's of course a lot of things not taken into consideration. Still, my conclusions are not "basically wrong", they are basically right, just without the smaller things that you correctly mention. I have only heard of inconsistencies of up to 0,3 in hematocrit - that would correspond to very small inconsistency in hemaglobin. Yes, we do not know if some riders actually manage to spike their blood values significantly under a GT and manage to do it clean. What we do know is, though, that all CSC-riders' HCT and HB dropped quite a bit in the 2007 Tour where we also know that Michael Rasmussen's HB and HCT took quite some jumps. There are uncertainties about the retics, yes, but you would expect that when his HCT rises as much as it does, the retics would have given a sign of what to come. They don't. How can he get so much blood when he is in fact not producing much of it?
Still, none of us are experts but I think the uncertainties you mention don't quite add up for the HB/HCT-reticulocyte correspondence. They don't match and, with my limited knowledge in this area, I can't find a natural explanation for how he could get blood that he never produced under the Tour. You are welcome to enlighten me.
Why I am not just letting this go is because, of all people, I have doubts anyone will be taking action against Armstrong. It harms cycling and UCI much more than it looks to help anti-doping fight. Journalists don't seem to want to do anything so that's why it's left to us to research this. |
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KD teammate
Hors Categorie
Denmark
5683 Posts |
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CSC ATLANTA
Hors Categorie
USA
2185 Posts |
Posted - 17/09/2009 : 18:18:26
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Todays cyclingnews carries a very intriging development where Shimano becomes the first manufacture/sponsor to indicate they will demande teams and riders are clean at risk of them pulling their support.
I see this as a great development, attacking the issue from as many directions as possible. It would be nice to see other companies follow suit. |
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KD teammate
Hors Categorie
Denmark
5683 Posts |
Posted - 17/09/2009 : 18:58:07
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quote:
Originally posted by CSC ATLANTA
Todays cyclingnews carries a very intriging development where Shimano becomes the first manufacture/sponsor to indicate they will demande teams and riders are clean at risk of them pulling their support.
I see this as a great development, attacking the issue from as many directions as possible. It would be nice to see other companies follow suit.
Sorry to say, but I believe the announcement from Shimano is just hot air. Today it has been announced that Skil-Shimano has withdrawed their ProTour license application. So the team need to offer something else in order to get invitations to the big races in next season. We should probably see their announcement in that light. Simply that they want to promote themself as a more strict and ethical sponsor, than all other teams. It doesnt really impress my at all, because their announcement is no revolution. In fact they just copy how the sponsorship terms already has been made for years at CSC/Saxo Bank. Shimano has promised to cease their sponsorship for a team, in case the management is revealed as taking part in organised doping affairs, and if riders dope on their own they will accept 1 case/team, but call for a meeting if a team file 2 cases, to make sure that appropriate measures are launched to avoid further cases.
Of course its nice, that Shimano now promise to act the same way as all other sponsors for the ProTour teams. But its no revolution. And basicly its just a free talk. In regards of Euskaltel, they for instance havent withdrawed their sponsorship of components! We shall be careful not to get impressed. They only promise to act, like all other sponsors would act. Of course all sponsors will withdraw in case a team is proofed to have been systematicly doped. We saw that happen even with T-mobile, Kelme, Liberty Seguros and Phonak.
We have nothing new under the sun. Except that Shimano want to promote themself with a high ethical stance, to get invited for next years races. 
¤ Winner of the Golden League Fantasy Game 2008 |
Edited by - KD teammate on 17/09/2009 19:26:15 |
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Culkasi
Hors Categorie
United Kingdom
4081 Posts |
Posted - 17/09/2009 : 19:07:26
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KD - Shimano has just withdrawn their PT application, and applied for PCT status :)
Culkasi |
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KD teammate
Hors Categorie
Denmark
5683 Posts |
Posted - 17/09/2009 : 19:24:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Culkasi
KD - Shimano has just withdrawn their PT application, and applied for PCT status :)
He, he -this news ticked in few minutes after my post. So I just made a quick edit, but it really didnt change my opinion/conclusion. I still think Shimano's announcement is part of a bigger agenda to promote themself as a sponsor with higher ethical standards, than other teams. This year Skill-Shimano was lucky to get invited for the Tour De France. Without getting a ProTour license for next season, the management now have to offer something else, to try put them in attractive light. Next year we have a higher number of teams fighting for invitations.
So I still see the announcement from Shimano, in the light of promoting themself to be offering a higher ethical stance than other teams.
To me its only hot air. I like what they say, and appreciate it. But it just doesnt impress me in any way.
¤ Winner of the Golden League Fantasy Game 2008 |
Edited by - KD teammate on 17/09/2009 19:28:06 |
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CSC ATLANTA
Hors Categorie
USA
2185 Posts |
Posted - 17/09/2009 : 20:55:40
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I see this as two entirely different items. The Skil-Shimano decission regarding their license status and the Shimano, the manufacture.
As a component supplier, Shimano has never been the primary title sponsor of any team. KD's observation that Shimano will need to demonstrate some actual follow through is correct, but this is still and interesting new approach. |
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Labomb
National Champion
Denmark
828 Posts |
Posted - 18/09/2009 : 15:38:16
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UCI announces that 3 Liberty Seguros has been caught by using CERA ahead of this years Volta a Portugal.
The winner Nuno Ribeiro, Isidro Nozal and Hector Guerra.
Lets hope this team, will be closed down. It has a long "dark" history and has hired several riders which should never had a second chance!
LaBoMB
Back again. |
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Ajax0
Hors Categorie
Denmark
3798 Posts |
Posted - 20/09/2009 : 12:01:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Labomb
UCI announces that 3 Liberty Seguros has been caught by using CERA ahead of this years Volta a Portugal.
The winner Nuno Ribeiro, Isidro Nozal and Hector Guerra.
Lets hope this team, will be closed down. It has a long "dark" history and has hired several riders which should never had a second chance!
LaBoMB
Back again.
The sponsor behind the team, the insurance company Liberty Seguros, have withdrawn their sponsorship of the the Spanish professional continental team. Like you, Labomb, I won't miss this team either. Signing tainted riders like this team has done with Nuno Ribeiro, Isidro Nozal and Rubén Plaza is not helping the sport in any way, so hopefully other teams will learn not to follow their example.
Winner of the 2008 Tour de France fantasy game! |
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Culkasi
Hors Categorie
United Kingdom
4081 Posts |
Posted - 30/09/2009 : 18:42:43
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Dekkers B-test is positive, and NOW he admits to doping, stating he hopes to come back in 2 years and proove that his results where made because of his talents, rather than a one-time dru use.
Why didn't he admit imidiately when he was caught? pfft
Culkasi |
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Paul@CSC
World Champion
United Kingdom
1416 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2009 : 14:12:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Culkasi
Dekkers B-test is positive, and NOW he admits to doping, stating he hopes to come back in 2 years and proove that his results where made because of his talents, rather than a one-time dru use.
Why didn't he admit imidiately when he was caught? pfft
Culkasi
It annoys me when they deny it, they do themselves and fellow riders no favours !!!
The worse thing about the whole situation was highlighted by Kohl when he said that he'd had loads of tests while doping and not been caught becuase of the micro doping. This has led to a situation where obviously the riders feel that its worth waiting and requesting the b test. Really cycling needs to be in a state where the a test is the law and the b test really only back-up in a worst case scenario. To often it seems the riders await it on the off chance they get a false positive and get away with it 
Honesty is the best Policy!!
http://pauljones-journey.spaces.live.com |
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KD teammate
Hors Categorie
Denmark
5683 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2009 : 15:17:31
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I completely agree. In the last 10 years I have narrowly followed all doping cases in Cycling, and 9 out of 10 guilty riders follow the same pattern to plee completely innocent after a positive A-test. Most of those who get the A-test confirmed with a positive B-test, and are judged guilty by their national federation, even continue to fight for their "innosence" in the appeal court. They try in all possible and impossible ways, to escape a suspension.
One of the latest examples was Kashechkin. At first he wanted all test results nullified, since he found it a breach against his human rights to be tested at a time, while he was on vacation in Turkey. When this didnt happen, he tried all the other usual excuses to try and proof "procedural mistakes" by UCI in filing the case against him. When this didnt work he argued there was "procedural mistakes" by the testing lab. And when this didnt work, they tried to find a scientific expert to testify that the test method was not reliable. In the end the scientific expert however testified, that the test method for homologous blood doping was reliable. The chance for an undoped rider to test positive by the test with the 7 markers positive for Kashechkin, was acording to the expert 1:100,000,000,000.
In the end CAS therefor confirmed the 2-year suspension of Kashechkin. Honestly, I have in the past 2 years been reading all the decisions from CAS in cases against PCT/ProTour riders. The pattern is always the same. And one of the most important thing to remember is, that the entire testing system has been developed, so we basicly have a non-existing chance to get a "false positive" result. The criteria for positive tests are so strict, that we however often have a chance get a "false negative" result. Its never the other way around! This mean that when a test finaly succeed to proof a positive result from a rider with a positive sample, then we can be as good as certain, this rider indeed also doped.
Honestly none of the riders who continue to plee innosent after a positive A-test, should be taken serious. After this A-test we always have a long media show starting, with bad excuses and denial. In the end most top riders even appeal their case to CAS. By doing that, we have a track record of roughly 5%-10% being lucky to indeed escape a suspension. Each time it happens, the explanation from CAS however is not that the test result was wrong, but instead that a few procedural mistakes was made by UCI/laboratories (meaning the results are not legal).
To make a long story short, I think the new version of the antidoping rules in 2009, where UCI have started to "provisional suspend" riders right after their positive A-test, is a step in the right direction. This ought to send a signal to the media, public and the riders themself, that they have indeed now been caught as doped. If the rider choose not to admit, he just make a fool out of himself!
¤ Winner of the Golden League Fantasy Game 2008 |
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Mikael
National Champion
Denmark
876 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2009 : 16:07:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Culkasi
Dekkers B-test is positive, and NOW he admits to doping, stating he hopes to come back in 2 years and proove that his results where made because of his talents, rather than a one-time dru use.
Why didn't he admit imidiately when he was caught? pfft
Some insiders call it a "Bo Hamburger", hoping that there is a problem with the B-sample thus avoiding a sentence.
If we could just get to the point where everybody only denied use until the B-sample I would be satisfied. |
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Paul@CSC
World Champion
United Kingdom
1416 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2009 : 18:00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Mikael
quote:
Originally posted by Culkasi
Dekkers B-test is positive, and NOW he admits to doping, stating he hopes to come back in 2 years and proove that his results where made because of his talents, rather than a one-time dru use.
Why didn't he admit imidiately when he was caught? pfft
Some insiders call it a "Bo Hamburger", hoping that there is a problem with the B-sample thus avoiding a sentence.
If we could just get to the point where everybody only denied use until the B-sample I would be satisfied.
And it would really help if Valverde just got thrown out of the sport too, the whole positive in the TDF and banned in Italy, but why don't we let him keep riding and win a grand tour just to spit in the face of the cycling world some more, just really pisses me off !!.
Honesty is the best Policy!!
http://pauljones-journey.spaces.live.com |
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Doping affairs in Cycling since 1980
