I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

[Incandenza]

Contador reportedly failed a drug test days before Tour de France finish.

[Brandenburger Toro]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Ah, fuck fuck fuck.

I think there's a pretty good chance he's legit: Clenbuterol wouldn't be much use in the middle of a race, and wouldn't be much use in clearly miniscule quantities, since he'll have been tested almost daily during the Tour and only once did it (barely) show up. It's also an encouraging sign that his people are announcing this and getting out in front of it.

But he (who took years to get past the Puerto misidentification) and - particularly - the sport need this like they need blunt-force trauma.

[Fausto]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

His people are talking about food contamination. I don't share Toro's optimism. This will drag on for ages and ages. His reputation is now forever tarnished. The sport takes another kicking.
Food contamination - why do they say these things?

[diggedy derek]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Maybe the sport needs some sort of blunt trauma to sort it out. Surely the only solution, long term, is an easier race?

Anyway, for me, this means another two to three years before I take any notice of the TdF.

[longeared]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Agree with Fausto, I fear it will drag on for ages, and probably overshadow next year's race.

How come it has taken two and a half months to announce this (not via the UCI either), whereas most Tour positives tend to be announced in under a week after the event?

[Janik]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Maybe because it's only trace amounts that have been detected? Given the high profile of the individual who gave the sample, they may have wanted to repeat their analysis a few times to be sure of it.

[Guest]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

The cycling bureaucracy looks more and more ridiculous as I look at it. It beggars belief and imagination just to take in the pure nonsense factor.

Wanna know what's "systemic" in cycling? How about the pervasive fallacy that an athlete's body can serve the greater good of public domain. That by creating a veil of ignorance and suspicion resulting from non-plus legal chatter between industry and governing bodies, we have somehow engendered a healthier environment between fans and participants.

Good lord, where would I begin to elaborate on this one? How about the fact that governing bodies like wada currently ban substances they have no means to test for? This sets up a power dynamic between insider trafficking of advanced training regimens and those who believe that if wada says "no repoxygen!", that means no one they compete against will have used it. The ignorant suffer because in reality wada is banning public dissemination of knowledge that is beyond their control.

Or we could talk about the underlying eugenics assertions being made here - the idea that only natural selection should determine what constitutes an elite athlete. In other words, what's implicitly preached is that if one's genes endow them with less ability, they can shove off - regardless of what technology/medicine may be available to help them close the gap. Nevermind the fact that we give drugs to college students to help stay up all night cramming or lasik surgery for people with bad genes for eyesight - in cycling we call these people cheaters. But natural selection and eugenics? Didn't a certain radical government some 60 years deceased advocate this ideology?

But let's break this down to fundamentals. The concept that you put in your own body must not change or alter body functions (intrinsic homeostasis as morally correct) is absurd. We alter our bodies everyday from that cup of coffee to grandpa's pacemaker. Why, the bicycle itself is nothing less than bionic "cheating" for bipedal animals. Since we're constantly promoting the evolution of the bicycle, why not the athlete? For the first few decades of bike racing it was considered unethical to train before a race because they deemed it unfair to "athletes" who didn't train. Would anyone say that now?

No.

The whole systemic fallacy from governing laws to eugenics; unnatural to naturally selected; cheater to participant; it all comes out in the wash. What is so convoluted in the sport of today is yesterday's fashion - the future of athletics and sports is inexorable. We will soon have access to artificial red blood cells that can carry 200% more oxygen to muscle tissue. Who will want to watch le tour when amateurs can finish a stage in under two hours?

My idea of a clean race is where no one gets elbowed or headbutted and the power delivered to a bicycle comes entirely from a single human being. Is that so hard to reconcile oneself to?

Or we could go back to not training before races. Think about it.

[The Exploding Vole]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Welcome, wtf.

[Incandenza]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Indeed.

[ad hoc]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

But what exactly is your point, wtf? I'm not really sure.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

It would appear from BBC reports that Contador's tested "positive" at a level of about one-ninth of the level that the Olympic doping regulations (which are strict enough in themselves) would even have picked up.

Given that what he's tested for is a supplement apparently routinely added into cattle feed by farmers (it builds muscle, ie meat, and reduces fat retention) I wouldn't mind guessing that virtually all of us who have eaten any steak or (dare I say it) beefburger product from the high street in the last week or so, would similarly test "positive" for this "drug" at these levels.

As professional cyclists must consume red meat in quantities that mere mortals can hardly imagine (some of them eat raw liver every day, FFS) it's amazing that they don't all test "positive" in these terms all the time.

[Brandenburger Toro]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Aye, this makes no sense as a doping story. It's a drug that's easy to test for, taken in quanitites so minute as to be useless, over an apparent time-scale and at a point in the race where its effects would be negligible at best.

Food gets contaminated all the time, particularly by things that aren't known pathogens or allergens and therefore subject to rigourous testing. And WADA's scientists do seem to be backing up the Contador camp's conjecture.

To echo those upthread; Welcome, wtf, but wtf are you talking about?

[Fausto]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Do you know what? For once I've watched a press conference, particularly with a cyclist or for that matter any sportsman who looks quite so upset. He looks one the verge of tears but through anger and injustice. Maybe for once a cyclist is an unfair victim of super stringent doping. Imagine how you would feel if this was you and you were innocent.
Can't imagine why Alberto Contador would risk everything for this drug. It makes no sense. A fat burner? He's Alberto Contador ffs.

[Brandenburger Toro]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Aye. The only halfway plausible theory I've heard about this coming up positive owing to cheating is that he took some blood out off season, had it transfused during the race, and that that was tainted from out-of-season doping.

But that doesn't make sense either, since you want some fat in the off-season to keep the immune system working properly. Especially if, ex hypothesi, you've just had a load of blood taken out.

I think you're right, I think he's a victim of all the cheats in the past in a sense; because they so horribly fucked cycling's reputation, just to survive it had to adopt a testing regime which will throw up false positives. But that's honestly what this looks like.

[longeared]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

The UCI's response to all this has been spectacularly pathetic so far.

First of all, according to AC, when first informed of the findings, the UCI told him that this was a "clear case of food contamination". Is it? How do they know? What basis was there for knowing this at that stage?

Next they announce AC is "provisionally suspended". What the hell does that mean? Either he is suspended from all competition or he isn't. What needs to happen for him to become fully suspended?

Then there is the case of the Chinese rider on RadioShack who tested positive for the same substance earlier in the year, and the UCI "don't know" whether sanctions were taken against him by his national federation.

The UCI seem to think that, if riders don't fail drug tests, then the sport must be clean. Which funnily enough is the argument Armstrong has been using for some years.

[Fausto]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Interesting article

[Etienne]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

wtf is clearly arguing for the allowing of athletes to take whatever substances they want, the libertarian approach. As I'd kind of prefer it if cyclists didn't have the life expectancy of pro-wrestlers, I'd be against it (it's bad enough as it is).

The natural selection argument can be pushed a bit too far. Quite apart from most sports rewarding the more dedicated than the more naturally talented athlete, if you allow people to take performance enhancing substances, then the naturally gifted athletes will still have the advantage as they can take them too.

[kugelrund]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

L'Equipe are reporting that there was more than just clenbuterol in his blood sample (http://tinyurl.com/2bdca2f):

"Selon nos informations, les scientifiques du laboratoire de Cologne y ont retrouvé des résidus plastiques semblables à ceux que l'ont retrouve après une transfusion sanguine et qui proviennent de la poche plastique qui recueille le sang prélevé."

(Roughly, "According to our information, the scientists at the laboratory in Cologne have found plastic residues similar to those that are found after a blood transfusion, and which come from the plastic bag in which a blood sample is collected.")

"Si l'hypothèse de l'utilisation de cette méthode interdite était retenue,cela pourrait signifier que le coureur espagnol aurait prélevé son sang à un moment où il prenait du clenbutérol pour se le réinfuser le 21 juillet."

(If the hypothesis of using this banned method holds up, it could signify that the Spanish rider had removed his blood at a time when he was taking clenbuterol, in order to reinfuse it on the 21st July...")

[ursus arctos]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

That was picked up in Italy overnight.

Evidently the test for "plastic" was originally developed for other reasons, and is in the process of being adopted for anti-doping purposes.

[Brandenburger Toro]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

What's the half-life of plastic in the system? Contador has had very serious health-problems in the past...

As I said, I'm puzzled by the transfusion theory, too. Clenbuterol doesn't make a whole lot of sense to take in the off-season, the time when blood would be withdrawn, since that's when you do want fat reserves to protect against infection.

[ursus arctos]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

A very valid question, and one that you would hope they have controlled for, given the number of transfusions that someone like AC would have had.

[Brandenburger Toro]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Etienne wrote:

wtf is clearly arguing for the allowing of athletes to take whatever substances they want, the libertarian approach.

Oh aye, I got that. I couldn't make out even the bare bones of a coherent argument for it, though.

As I'd kind of prefer it if cyclists didn't have the life expectancy of pro-wrestlers, I'd be against it (it's bad enough as it is).

Yeah, exactly

The natural selection argument can be pushed a bit too far. Quite apart from most sports rewarding the more dedicated than the more naturally talented athlete, if you allow people to take performance enhancing substances, then the naturally gifted athletes will still have the advantage as they can take them too.

Moreover, what you'll be rewarding is not the best sporting performance or the best physiognomy, but the best metabolic and physiological response to the available drugs. It doesn't create a "level playing field" at all. After all;



Plus, if we're not going to have equalising rules at all, why not let some riders but engines on their bikes? Why not let them ride recumbents? Why not let them take short cuts?

[Incandenza]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Unnamed source tells the New York Times that a urine test from Contador showed a plastic chemical found in plastic IV bags 8 times the limit for a positive test. This came on the final rest day of the Tour, one day before the positive clenbuterol test.

[Brandenburger Toro]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

An "unnamed source". Let's call him L. Armstrong. No, too obvious. Lance A...

[ursus arctos]

I guess Andy Schleck did win after all...

Keep pedalling, Toro. Your boy is looking awfully dirty.

The leak is pretty obviously from within WADA (my bet) or someone in the UCI who feels that McQuaid et al are stonewalling.