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

gntlmn

As many times as I've seen doctors screw up, I wouldn't be surprised if they cut into a blood vessel that they didn't intend to. But I don't think it's too likely.

On the other hand, I have heard that doctors are becoming more liberal with blood transfusions while the general public is I think still very wary due to the risk of contamination. If someone can avoid a blood transfusion, I think they would.

gntlmn

It's a possibility that he could have low blood iron, which sometimes occurs in endurance athletes. This before a surgery might be one reason for a transfusion. Women are far more likely to require this, however, than men, and there are other ways to replenish it (regular or medicated iron tablets).

I think Tyler better start talking about his so called surgery. He's not doing too good in this discussion about why he might need a blood transfusion.

gntlmn

It's not just one study. Currently the failure rate is 1% of all pro cyclists tested. This means that the evidence indicates that cycling is 99% clean. But to give you the benefit of the doubt, I increased the expected result by a factor of 5 to 5%. The evidence does not suggest doping is this high. The evidence suggests it is 1%. Now you are saying that the 5% that I am willing to consider is way low? It seems like that is what you are saying.

Perhaps you might quantify the percentage of pro athletes that you suspect are doping. Is it 50%? 75%? I think the answer is lower than 5% and closer to 1%. I am using the facts (test results) to arrive at that estimate. I'd like to hear what your estimate is.

gntlmn

Yes, you do mention a few riders, and it seems that the topic has now changed from all riders, which was my focus, to top riders, which is now your focus. Well, if some riders are doping and that's the reason why they are top riders, perhaps that would be true, that top riders are more likely to be dopers than other riders. But then you have to try to define what a top rider is.

I, frankly, have not considered Tyler to be anywhere near the level of cyclist that Lance Armstrong is. He seems to do very well on one day, and then the next day might fall flat on his face. Take the Vuelta TT that he won as a result. The very next day, he lost more than 10 minutes to the stage winner on the mountain stage. And Tyler is not supposed to be a bad climber. Something was amiss. His performance in the Tour de France was poor too, and then he goes on to win the TT at the Olympics. I wouldn't be too surprised if this turns out to be a true positive for him (ie, really did blood dope). But Tyler is one rider. There are many.

It seems like riders who dope often turn out to have done so when they are on the verge of retirement. They are faced with either retiring due to continued sub par performance, or they resort to drugs/doping. Tyler is one. Riis is another, Pantani, the list goes on. These riders may not have doped during their primes, but turn to it as a last resort.

And yes, I think EPO was getting used a lot more in the late 90's than it is now that the testing has improved. But there really are a lot of riders out there. I'd like to know exactly how many pro riders there are in the world now. That would be an interesting number. I think it's pretty high.

Why Tour gets faster? I think the Tour speeds are largely a function of the speed of the peloton where the effort level per rider is not very high. Review the heart rate data that was collected this year for the Tour, and you will see that it is very low for the peloton on the flats. Back in the olden days (Merckx and before), the size of the peloton was smaller. Therefore, I would expect their average heart rates to have been higher at the same speed. Now if it is true that speed was lower back then, as you suggest and I have no reason to doubt, then this can largely be explained by a bigger peloton requiring less effort per rider to maintain its speed. We're talking about heartbeats in the 90's per minute on the flats. The other reason might be that riders are getting reeled in better by the peloton now than they used to. If heartrates are not maxing out, it is simply a matter of motivating the riders in the peloton to dog an aggressor on a mostly flat course. Let's face it, even the best cyclist by himself stands no chance of beating the peloton on the flats if the riders want to reel him in. In the mountains, that's a different story.

And that brings me to why I think training has improved so much. Well, we have heart rate monitors now and have for what, about 15 years or more? That led to a great improvement. But Lance Armstrong says that the best training tool in the last 10 years is the power meter. If you have ever used one of these, you may agree that it is much easier to up the bar, so to speak, and make improvements in riding when the uncertainty or fudge factor/delay/heat variation of a heart monitor is improved by looking at power. I believe it has resulted in huge gains in training effect, perhaps 5%.

Another tool which has been around perhaps since the beginning of the 1990's is the hypoxic tent. This can result in something like a 5% increase in VO2 uptake due to increases in red blood cells and other blood adaptations to simulated altitude. Many of the top cyclists use these tents. Armstrong is one.

And then you have the effects of better bicycles and better aerodynamics. Take the skin suit for example. When you have a company that can shave one minute of a one hour time trial by providing a high tech riding apparel, that's a dramatic improvement and over the very best of just a year or two ago. And we have more carbon fiber now and more wind tunnel testing. The bike weights would be a factor on the climbs.

I think the biggest gains on the climbs come from the power meter and the hypoxic tents combined with more and more experience in using these new technologies to their optimum. After all, if you have the fanciest jet in the world, it doesn't do you much good until you know how to make the best use of all it's flying controls.

Well, when you add up a few % here, and a few % there, you end up getting a very large improvement all combined. I don't think the current race averages is all that much greater than it used to be considering the improvements in methodology.

Don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that all these improvements in cycling do not come at the expense of a decline in vigilance. I think the price of having a clean sport is continuing to find better and better methods of testing for cheaters. I wholeheartedly agree that we cannot let down our guard at all. I am merely suggesting that the problem is not as big as the sport. We still have great riders who do not dope, and I think that the dopers are a very small minority which is I hope shrinking to an increasingly smaller percentage of the pros.

gntlmn

That's interesting. Take a look at the top of page 1290 in the link where there are 8 patients in the study highlighted there. They say that the first 5 of these 8 patients underwent orthopedic surgery. Apparently, blood transfusions for orthopedic surgery, which is what I would expect Tyler to have had if he had any surgery, is not at all uncommon. It's interesting that such patients are included in this study.

Another point is that it takes some time to absorb the results of this study. I don't think the typical journalist or layperson is capable of understanding it very well. It's highly technical. It reminds me of the OJ trial when the jurors became overwhelmed with the DNA testing, and then completely ignored it in their final decision. They simply didn't understand it. It was beyond them. So their may be a gap between the science and the public perception of this procedure for testing homologous blood indications.

antoineg

Dr. Heard: according to the published sources:



It sounds as if this is an established procedure/method which has been subject to legal scrutiny and challenges from the court system(s).

It's certified now by both the UCI and the IOC. I highly doubt that they would certify a test that had very many concerns about false positives, for the exact reasons you bring up -- no one could claim the results are correct.

I could be wrong, but I did want to point out the previous legal uses of this test.

Tuschinski

Pantani seems to be a bad example as he wasn't near retirement. And well.... the dreaded names return: Gewiss, Festina and PDM. Doping was used by top contenders in their prime



Considering the fact that EPO effects are noticeable long after the drugs are detectable I don't agree with your reasoning. EPO is still the drug of choice afaik.



If you look back to the time of merckx I follow your reasoning, but why is the average speed increasing yearly? I would point towards shorter and easier stages, but it remains to be seen if that holds for the last 10 years (data anyone?). For now I see ageing contenders (JU, LA, TH, Heras, etc) go faster and faster.



Good point.



EPO is easier



I agree on aerodynamics, but the bikeweigths have been low since before Merckx Climbing bikes under 7 kilo have been used by Van Impe, Breu and Zoetemelk.



Could be (I sure hope so!)



What is bothering me is the coming out of (Dutch) Ex-pro's. They show that there was a massive acceptance of using dope wich implies most Dutch teams used dope . The picture they show make the Festina affair that much more plausible (and indicates that Festina hardly was an incident!).

Can we say that the cycling world changed that much since then? I see the same people behind the curtains, the same coaches, doctors and trainers. I see Cofidis (I think they sacrifce their riders... Millar pays the price for the whole team)

I see no reason not to be sceptical

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antoineg

Excellent site: Science and Industry Against Blood Doping

gntlmn

Maybe you might elaborate on the Dutch riders. What? Where? How? Who? When?

gntlmn

Yes, that is interesting. Notice that was written in 2002. I wonder if they would say anything different today. But the main idea is that the antidoping community has to focus not only on the here and now but what's in the research labs. Otherwise, the kneejerk reaction will not work. The only way to stay ahead of the cheats is to anticipate what they might use and develop testing before it ever comes to public use. I guess they missed THG when it came out because they failed to anticipate it the way this article suggested they should have.

antoineg

He could have at least said "look, I had surgery a couple months ago in Lausanne for a bone problem. I don't have all the details right now, but I will get that to you in 48 hours once I get in touch with my doctor, but right now I'm kind of blown away and not thinking too clearly. Please bear with me."

I think that if you want specifics from the UCI/IOC on the test itself, or what information might have been communicted between the two testing bodies for each group, you should demand the same kind of specificity from Tyler. It's only reasonable, given that he has the two failed "A" samples.

antoineg

If you look at their publications page, there are several published papers from 2004. I'm not sure what your point is here?

I'm sorry, it must be early. Kneejerk reaction by whom? Towards whom?

I can think of a couple other ways to stay ahead, including stricter enforcement and longer penalties, thus increasing the cost/benefit ratio for the athletes.

You do realize that there are many articles referenced on the site? Check the publications page. There's a lot of information there in the abstracts, including several by Nelson, et al, on blood doping. Lots on EPO that I'm going to read today as well.

Perro Loco

Regarding more research and anticipation. It is hard to anticipate, and research cost dollars. If you think about allocating research dollars and rescources - look at it this way- catching a few hundred elite athletes at cheating is not a huge world health issue. Furthermore there is no incentive either personal, or financial to interest researchers (no noble prize waiting or drug patents etc.). In addition testing is expensive, and tracking athletes is expensive. This is a relatively cynical view in some respects, but I think also very true. Anticipation has never worked as new methods come up all the time (relatively speaking). I tend to agree harsh penalties are the best solution.

gntlmn

Didn't he say something like that? How did the story come out that he thought it was from surgery if he hadn't said anything? And yes, I do demand specificity from Tyler, but remember, this is breaking news. He hasn't had much time so far.

And by the way, the latest is that Phonak has announced that it has suspended Tyler pending further developments on the doping investigation. If the conclusions are finalized, he will be ejected--contract terminated.