Cyclists

[pogo]

The UCI had no problem when USADA's arbitrators found Floyd Landis guilty of doping. And they had no problem when USADA issued an eight-year ban for Tyler Hamilton. So why intervene to claim jurisdiction now?

Both failed drug tests. There is a rigorous process based on solid, verifiable physical tests which all riders are subject to, and which Armstrong has been subject to more than most. Why without any physical evidence (or none that they've presented) single Armstrong out?

The alternative would be a criminal prosecution, such as happened in the BALCO affair. In a criminal case witnesses have to testify under oath, so have strong reasons not to lie: they could be sent to jail if they do. Also in a criminal case someone is only convicted if the case is proved beyond reasonable doubt. This combination of sworn witnesses and the need to remove all doubt makes for a very strong process, able to impose the toughest sentences.

But there is no physical evidence here. Nor is it a court of law. There is no indication witnesses are in danger of perjury if they are less than honest, and there is the suggestion many are participating in return for some consideration of their own case. And there's no indication this will be determined beyond a reasonable doubt.

The USADA is also going well beyond its rules over statute of limitation and ban lengths in bringing this. The USADA's arbitration process is meant for hearing already decided cases, i.e. ones decided on the physical evidence.

[(o)(o)]

Why without any physical evidence (or none that they've presented) single Armstrong out?

Because he magically won a fuckton of races against all odds and his home is filled with bags of cash, titles and trophies.

Not to mention that everyone he's come into contact with since birth says they've seen him consuming performance enhancing drugs by the bucketload.

[disciple]

What 10 witnesses isn't enough for you?

there is no physical evidence

Oh but there is physical evidence. There were no tests in '99 for EPO. We still have Armstrong's blood samples from '99, we now have tests that can detect EPO.

Evidence exists, I don't know whether the USADA intended to present this.

You can game the system there and then but what happens later when something previously undetectable becomes detectable?

Oh hang on...

[pogo]

What 10 witnesses isn't enough for you?

Out of the dozens of people he worked with, the hundreds he competed against?

Oh but there is physical evidence. There were no tests in '99 for EPO. We still have Armstrong's blood samples from '99, we now have tests that can detect EPO.

Except there's an eight year statute of limitation: one reason for it may be that physical evidence so old is unreliable (but often statutes of limitation exist out of basic fairness, with exceptions for the most serious crimes). Also as there's no program for keeping athletes samples forever any program of testing old samples will be very arbitrary.

It's known for example that East European athletes systematically used drugs up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. But their records still stand as the IOC felt it too late to rewrite the Olympic history books. And the harm is much greater as there: some of the records they achieved were unnaturally long lived, some lasting till the present day.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/16/sport ... als.t.html

[disciple]

What 10 witnesses isn't enough for you?

Out of the dozens of people he worked with, the hundreds he competed against?

Christ, how many would you want? Would 100 be ok for you?

Oh but there is physical evidence. There were no tests in '99 for EPO. We still have Armstrong's blood samples from '99, we now have tests that can detect EPO.

Except there's an eight year statute of limitation: one reason for it may be that physical evidence so old is unreliable

Right, so you're saying EPO is known to spontaneously appear after a given amount of time then?

[zip accident]

Right, so you're saying EPO is known to spontaneously appear after a given amount of time then?

I know my blood samples aren't fit to be used one day late. So twelve years late (ew (imagine the stench from that)) could well be a significant problem.

What do you do if there is nothing found? If not finding anything wouldn't clear him, why should he agree to his samples being tested?

[pogo]

No, I'm saying the USADA's own rules impose an 8 year statute of limitation, so they should not consider anything before 2004 in this case. The reasons for this could be many: the unreliability of old physical evidence/methods, the difficulty anyone has defending themselves against such old evidence, and basic fairness. It's not just drug testing that has statutes of limitation: most legal systems do with exceptions only for the most serious crimes like murder. Eight years is a particularly long period, perhaps to allow for new tests to come along.

[disciple]

What do you do if there is nothing found? If not finding anything wouldn't clear him, why should he agree to his samples being tested?

Well actually, the testing I'm referring to was done in 2005.

It was an exercise in retesting stored samples to detect EPO in order to try their new EPO tests, they chose samples pre 2001 due to an increased likelihood of finding a few positives during that period. (a good idea as no EPO test existed at that point in time)

87 1999 samples were tested in total.

Out of those 87, 13 were positive and 6 of those belonged to Armstrong. These 6 failed the strictest criteria test, it was apparent (to any trained tester) that an additional 2 contained synthetic EPO but for various reasons these 2 did not meet the stricter standards. So 6, probably 8 failed tests there for 1999, and almost 50% of all failed samples were from Armstrong. Yeah.

So this is around the start of Armstrong's winning streak.

From what I've read it also appears that Armstrong underwent one helluva transformation in the '99 TdF. Prior to that he's not always able to finish or finishes around 1:30 behind. Then in 1999 he's repeatedly dropping the peleton.

So something's triggered that sudden improvement and certainly the failed retest would indicate that doping could be the explanation.

It's interesting, it appears that the 99 tour was a sort of 'let's start afresh' thing. 98 there was a lot of scandal, 99 was a bit of an amnesty year. Which seems to be backed up by those positive test doping figures above.

Paul Kimmage was/is particularly vocal about this and blames Armstrong as instrumental in taking the Tour back to its "old ways".

[pogo]

I remember news reports of this at the time. There was a lot of controversy not just because of the age of the samples but because there were doubts over how well they'd been kept, in particular how surely they could be associated with particular riders. And because they were single samples, there were no A and B samples, it was impossible to do a second test confirming the result. So no action was taken. That would have been within a statute of limitations, but it is 13 years since any offence now. Here's a contemporary report.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/236419 ... abuse.html

As for a step change in performance there can be many explanations for that. Remember how swimmer Ye Shiwen was accused of taking drugs because she bettered her PB by three seconds in winning her event at London 2012? But then people remembered that Ian Thorpe improved his own PB by five seconds in a year at a similar stage in his career: young swimmers develop quickly.

Armstrong was coming off treatment for life-threatening cancer. In December 1996 he was receiving chemotherapy for it. So two, three years before 1999 he was in no state to race. He was bound to see massive improvements from that.

[disciple]

Ye Shiwen

You're saying that a passed test equates to 'not doping' rather than 'we covered our tracks sufficiently well'?

C'mon, how on Earth can you now make that assumption and then base an argument on it given what you read? Are you just trying to waste my time or something.

[disciple]

I remember news reports of this at the time. There was a lot of controversy not just because of the age of the samples but because there were doubts over how well they'd been kept, in particular how surely they could be associated with particular riders. And because they were single samples, there were no A and B samples, it was impossible to do a second test confirming the result. So no action was taken.

A well-honed Armstrong PR machine in action.



The 2005 tests were done on B samples, the A samples had long since gone. But yes they got positives on the B samples but it was inadmissable due to lack of A samples.

"How well they're kept" is relevant but also isn't, EPO can't spontaneously appear. A positive EPO test can degrade to a negative over time, a negative can't degrade into a positive. There was enough evidence to indicate doping but not enough for a formal prosecution. A technicality.

Here's what actually happened.

The 2005 tests were done as research using current (2005) dope testing methods, there was never any intention to prosecute positive results, it was simply academic research. In fact there could not be any prosecution, (at the time) the laboratory had no idea who the samples belonged to since they were anonomised.

So they then discovered the positive results.

A L'Equipe reporter does some investigative reporting.

The UCI releases documents to the L'Equipe reporter which link the samples to Armstrong. NOTE the UCI.

Article appears in L'Equipe, shit hits the fan, Richard Verbruggen (UCI president) vehemently denies releasing any documents.

WADA didn't actually exist in at the time of the offence, they release a strongly worded statement prompting the "UCI, conduct an appropriate enquiry to determine whether the facts revealed by the article could lead to any sanction process or to any other steps within the jurisdiction of that federation."

And the UCI do squat.

A short while later, after the exchange of several letters between WADA and UCI, it becomes obvious that UCI was not interested in accepting any responsibility. And so the WADA start their own enquiry, announcing this to all, 5 October 2005

And the very next day the UCI employ a lawyer to undertake an enquiry on their behalf!

A short time later at the behest of the IOC President Jacques Rogge, a 'reconciliation' meeting is arranged between the WADA president Richard Pound, and the UCI president. And it's here Verbruggen finally accepts that yes the UCI authorised release.

The UCI immediately suspends Dr. Mario Zorzoli. (who is later reinstated early the following year).

At this same meeting the UCI president explains that their lawyer has drafted a report that 'severely criticizes' the WADA and the report would make extremely bad reading for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

So we have the UCI refusing to investigate, and when another body subsequently then begins their own enquiry the UCI take action to undermine.

Pretty much the same pattern as the current Armstrong investigation then.

Either way we have a situation where there IS physical evidence that Armstrong doped in 1999 but no action was taken.

Armstrong was coming off treatment for life-threatening cancer. In December 1996 he was receiving chemotherapy for it. So two, three years before 1999 he was in no state to race. He was bound to see massive improvements from that.

Not just 96. 93, 94, 95, 96 - not competitive. 99 dropping the peleton.

[Dio]

It's known for example that East European athletes systematically used drugs up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. But their records still stand as the IOC felt it too late to rewrite the Olympic history books. And the harm is much greater as there: some of the records they achieved were unnaturally long lived, some lasting till the present day.

The Eastern bloc were only the least subtle offenders; it was far more rampant in the west.

I did a bit of a study of this a couple of weeks ago during the Olympics using this data.

It appears pretty clear that there were two major phases of doping affecting track and field. The first ran to the introduction of random out-of-competition drug testing in 1989.

Pretty much every women's 'power' track and field event has a record dating 1985-1988 (100, 200, 400, 800, long jump, shot, discus, heptathlon, 4x4 - and 4x1 until last month) and for a few cases where I was able to find season's bests for the individual athletes and / or events, there was an obvious clear drop between 1988 and 1989. E.g. consider Joyner-Kersee's Heptathlon record; she scored 7200 and 7300 in 1987 and 1988, the latter of which is still a world record, but never exceeded 7100 after.

For the men, the cliff comes a few years later in 1993-95 (I expect there to be a 'first cliff' in the data in 1988-1989, but I don't have enough data to see it). Long jump, 400m hurdles, shot, 4x4...; you can distinguish a 'first phase' shakeout for hammer and discus which date to the mid-80s. It's likely that there would be a few more on the list were it not for a few obviously 'different' (rather than just bigger or stronger) intervening athletes like Michael Johnson (and even he couldn't get the 4x400 record), Jonathan Edwards, Sergei Bubka and Bolt - if you look at the history, there's definite 'pauses' in the records in the mid 90s that are only just being overtaken now in several events.

Presumably, a new doping regimen that could stay under the radar was still effective for men, but couldn't match the wild west hormone therapy days for the women.

The earlier it is, the more likely it's DDR/USSR. But the west, especially the Americans, very clearly picked up the doping baton in 1987 and 1988. Hardly a surprise, when even mid-70s surveys showed that at least 20% and possibly a majority of athletes in US commercial sport (football, notably) were on steroids.

If anyone has more statistics available (e.g. season's best for every event for every year from 1980 to the present) I'd be fascinated to look at it in more detail. Some sort of athletics equivalent of cricinfo would do nicely...

[pogo]

Yes. I've not looked into it at all, but remember it vaguely and was reminded of it during the Olympics: some athlete or commentator pointing out that they weren't going to see a world record as the current one was set by an East German some time in the 1980s. Everyone knows that many of the records and results are due to drugs but there's no going back and rewriting history. How can you be sure that the people that came second and third weren't also using drugs? It would be very harsh to pick on East Germans just because the collapse of the Berlin Wall led to the drug taking there being exposed.

Not just 96. 93, 94, 95, 96 - not competitive. 99 dropping the peleton.

In 1996 he had cancer, so that explains that year. But cyclists do get better. It's fairly unique as a physical sport that there's also a lot of technique; a lot of of strategy and training for particular disciplines/events, and a lot of teamwork for an individual event. Bradley Wiggins has just won his first Tour, convincingly, at age 32. The point about Ye Shiwen is that drugs allegations follow all successful athletes, but on examination they often don't hold up.

[disciple]

Yes you're right, it's likely that his 99 samples showed positive for EPO is just coincidence and is wholey unrelated to any improvement.

It's very obviously just coincidental correlation and there couldn't possibly be any causal link.

He just got better like, technique. EPO in blood? Huh? What's that got to do with anything? The guy's just good at cycling innit.

[pogo]

But again the tests of the '99 samples did not stand up to scrutiny. They were investigated and

The report said tests on urine samples were conducted improperly and fell so short of scientific standards that it was "completely irresponsible" to suggest they "constitute evidence of anything."

It said no proper records were kept of the samples, there had been no "chain of custody" guaranteeing their integrity, and no way of knowing whether the samples had been "spiked" with banned substances.

The report said WADA and the LNDD might have "behaved in ways that are completely inconsistent with the rules and regulations of international anti-doping control testing," and might also have been against the law. It accused WADA of putting pressure on the LNDD to summarize the results of the tests, and said both agencies violated rules of confidentiality.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/20 ... 3699.shtml

And that was in 2006, so just within the 8 year limit on such investigations.