**** Breaking News: Hamilton Tested Positive? ***

Perro Loco

Just to get back on track-

I Have mixed emotions about this case-One I hope Tyler is innocence and can prove it (maybe a little unrealistic given the facts). On the other hand I would like a test in place that can catch those that are doping.
If Tyler was truly doping I would think less of him than those who have been caught but fessed up.

Regaurding the speed in the peleton- why doesn't anyone check the speed of the top guys in the time trials? I know the courses change but it would be interesting none theless. Nobody has also mentioned that the overall length of the tour (average per stage took a big drop over the past few years)

gntlmn

That's the intrigue about the Tour de France. A champion who chooses to ride ahead of the peloton all the time instead of within it will not be champion because there is not a rider on Earth who can beat the peloton. This all has to do with the advantage of the draft for the riders in the peloton that they have to give up if they break away. The more riders are in a breakaway, the greater is their own draft advantage. If you have a big enough breakaway, what is the peloton? It is broken then. How many does it take to have a broken peloton rather than a breakaway? Well, that's not an easy answer. If there is one in the breakaway, clearly the peloton is intact. But if you have 100 riders in the breakaway and the rest of the riders behind in the so called peloton, that would probably be called a broken peloton. The variations between create guessing games. That's what makes the Tour so interesting to watch because you find yourself trying to be a tactician just like the commentators.

We have not been talking about the average pace of TT's for GC contenders. That is an entirely different issue which I would be very interested in examining. What we have been doing is to debate the idea that the peloton speed is or is not their maximum rate for the Tour. The other party says it is, and I say it is not at maximum pace. I contend that just because the peloton speed is increasing is not all that extraordinary because the peloton does not ride at maximum speed.

If the entire Tour de France were ridden as ITT's, then we could compare more easily from year to year the differences. For example, if one year were a lot slower than the last, we might say, well, it was very hot this year or well, it was very windy this year or well, a lot of the roads were in disrepair this year or well, the stages were tougher this year. But as we are doing, we cannot even begin to explain why the peloton is riding faster because there are too many variable, the biggest of which is crowd psychology.

If we are going to talk about ITT's, that would be more productive as far as coming to relevant conclusions than to talk about the peloton. If you have some facts and analysis on TT times for GC contenders, let's look at them and try to understand what is happening. That sounds like fun to me.

gntlmn

Yes, that summarizes it very well.

gntlmn

It did? When? Do you have the numbers?

Also, yes, someone else mentioned about checking TT speeds. But those speeds too would go up a bit if the riders are not riding as far each day. You couldn't check just one TT. You would have to be very careful about that. Like for example, if you might compare the total of the last 5 years of TT's with the the total of the 5 years of TT's before that and see if the average speed for like say the top 10 has gone up or down. If more talented riders are making careers out of cycling than there used to be before salaries went very high recently then you would expect the top ten average to be significantly higher now than it was then. I think Lemond is credited with drawing salaries to higher levels because he attracted a lot of attention in America, and that attracted more advertisers. So salaries have risen a lot since 1990 or so.

philoakley

YEAR KM AVG SP WINNER
1986 61.5 48.84 Hinault
1986 58 46.03 Hinault
1987 87.5 44.42 Roche
1987 38 47.21 Bernard
1988 52 49.24 Yates
1989 73 44.6 Lemond
1989 24.5 54.54 Lemond
1990 61.5 47.87 Alcala
1990 45.5 44.27 Breukink
1991 73 45.75 Indurain
1991 57 47.66 Indurain
1992 65 49.04 Indurain
1992 64 52.35 Indurain
1993 59 48.6 Indurain
1993 48 50.49 Rominger
1994 64 50.55 Indurain
1995 54 50.41 Indurain
1995 46.5 48.46 Indurain
1996 63.5 50.54 Ulrich
1997 55.5 43.19 Ulrich
1997 63 49.76 Olano
1998 58 46.143 Ulrich
1998 52 48.85 Ulrich
1999 56.5 49.41 Armstrong
1999 57 50.085 Armstrong
2000 59 53.986 Armstrong
2001 61 49.28 Armstrong
2002 52 47.13 Botero
2002 50 46.99 Armstrong
2003 47 48.17 Ulrich
2003 49 54.36 Millar
2004 55 49.388 Armstrong

Perro Loco

I just through that out-checking TT times- but the more I think about it the less telling. Shorter stages in general- key riders are more protected- racing less- stronger teams=less long range attacks, no more 70+ KM TTs, weather conditions etc...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour04.p...tory/tdfhistory

Tours tended to average ~ 4,000 Km now tend to run 3,400-3,600
this year 3391
last year 3276

I think it is a complicated answer as why the average tour speed has increased.
My own answer would be multifactorial
with all of the following with the order somewhat random
1 Organized sprinter teams
2 more rested riders less racing, shorter races.
3 stronger depth of teams- in past you would see breakaways of key riders and everyone went siesta
4 improved training-now whole teams train together instead of racing
5 Drugs I think have played a part maybe less so now than in the early 90s when Hematocrits roumered to be > 50%
6 The Tour has become the focus of everyone. Everyone peaks for it - sprinters climbers, the lesser jerseys are hotly contested etc.


Very similar to Wingnutt
I don't think one single thing explains it all.

tamman2000

Could he be a chimera?

A chimera is a person who has genetic material of more than one person. I did a little bit of googling, and I couldn't find out how common chimeras are... but I did find out that it is ussually fraternal twins who are chimeras (8% of fraternal twins...), but you can also get the additional genes from your mother, or from a spontainiously aborted twin.

so... 1 out of 80 pregnancies are twins, 25% of pregnancies end in spontainious abortions (most before the mother is aware of the pregnancy), and 8% of fraternal twins are chimeras...

I figure (roughly) 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10000 people without twins are chimeras. This new test has been used on all of the endurance athletes from the olympics and a lot of people from this years tour and vuelta. It is getting to the point where I don't think we should be supprised if there is an athlete tested who is a chimera.

Odds are Tyler was doping, but I don't think the case is closed yet...

antoineg

So, comparisons aside, what is the maxiumum speed for the peleton for the TdF, the pace at which they can no longer choose to go faster? Take the 2004 race for example as you formulate your answer.

Saucy

Everything I know about chimeras I learned from a CSI episode. But I would think such a condition would be noted in TH's medical file and would have been considered. With all the medical examinations involved in elite sports I find it hard to believe that this would not be known by the parties involved. Besides I'm sure the Phonak publicity team would be all over the media with this information and Haven would be prancing around wearing a "I'm with Chimera" t-shirt.

I think TH's only defense is to argue that the test is not scientifically sound. He can't argue sample contamination can he? I don't know much about lab testing procedures, but it seems he can't argue this because both the A and B samples tested the same and what are the odds that both samples, and only his, were contaminated? That would be hard to prove, I would think.

But if the test is not scientifically sound, then why weren't there other positives?

The only thing going for him is that this is a first-time ever use of this procedure in detecting blood doping. Other than that, he's in serious trouble.

tamman2000

They had this on CSI? I don't watch much TV...

My understanding of chimerism is that there are no symptoms of the conditions, and no side effects, it just happens to be the way you are, as such, even if you are an elite athlete/lab rat there is little reason to check for it, and thus it wouldn't be in the file...

But I do agree that if this is the case, Phonak most likely would have tested for it (very recently) and would be shoving it down the throat of every news organisation that would listen.

Frihed89

Detecting the effects of doping through aggregate data is hard enough and even harder with panel data because of the secrecy. The time trial data for the winner shows no significant trend and I haven't taken the trouble to copy the peleton data, but it shows that there is probably is a significant slope in the trend over time.

One reason you may not see any really significant changes in top speeds and only modest changes in average speeds (i.e., the peleton) is that there are more riders now and thus the variation in rider abilities is likely to be much larger then in "the old days". In that case you have different populations for comparisons and what we might be seeing (or not seeing) is that doping has the biggest effect on the performance of the below average riders. This raises the mean speeds of the riders compared to their counterfactual no-doping performance (but how can we test for this, given the secracy). It could also result in a modest increase in the mean speeds of the modern pelton compared to the old days, but not the top speed of the winners, who may only be marginally better performers than the old stars, with or without dope.

Have fun with this one.

Perro Loco

back on topic from

http://www.cycling4all.com/
According to L'Equipe Tyler Hamilton (Usa) = Phonak was already warned ("yellow card") by the Medical Committee of the UCI after his final victory in the Tour de Romadie. They told him already about "strange fluctuations" in his blood-values.

Anybody read L'Equipe and can verify this?

gntlmn

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Tyler's test positives truly were indications of doping. If he submitted to testing in some kind of facility where no access to additional doping products were available, then the test results would disappear over a period of time, and he would test negative over a period of time. Chimera results, if I'm reading you correctly, would not disappear. He would still get the same result in a few months.

I bet that the Olympics was not the first place that Tyler's blood was tested using the new procedure. Was it? If not, then he would also have a positive if he's a chimera for the tests before the Olympics. We would have heard of this.

Don't you think that he would be scrambling now to confirm this if he were a chimera? I don't think he is.

gntlmn

Hmm. I don't see any clear differences here. Also, this is the winner only. Top ten average might be more revealing, but even that looks like it will not be conclusive. There's not enough differences here.