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



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.php?id=results/history/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.
 
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...
 
gntlmn said:
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.
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.
 
tamman2000 said:
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...

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.
 
Saucy said:
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.
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
tamman2000 said:
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...

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.
 
philoakley said:
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

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.
 
antoineg said:
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.

That's a good question. But the answer is that the peloton will not go at this speed. The strong teams tend to control the pace at the front of the pack. The weaker teams ride toward the back and get to relatively rest, but then they get paid back with crashes.

Some things are easy to see, such as that the peloton is not traveling at the fastest speed. Other things are not, such as what that fastest speed is. It's best not to try to answer questions which have little credible evidence to support them. That would be such a question.

There is evidence to support my assertion that the peloton does not travel at the fastest speed possible and that is that there are sometimes successful breakaways. This tells you, because of the extreme savings in the draft of the peloton, that it does not travel at the fastest speed.

Another way to see that this is true is to note that certain teams tend to occupy the front of the peloton for very long periods of time, sometimes the entire stage. It would be more efficient, and thus faster for the peloton, if the riders kept shifting around, round and round and round. But they do not do that because none of them cares how fast the peloton finishes, just how their teams and riders place in the final GC or in the stage results, including sprints and mountains. If the peloton slowed to 30 kph for day after day, and a particular team built a huge margin, they would probably say they were controlling the pace. But that would be pretty slow. Riders would inevitably break away and stir things up a bit. They would want a stage win.
 
gntlmn said:
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.
While chimerras and mosaics are probably more common than thought they are still exceedingly rare. Yes, his blood results should stay positive if one of these conditions existed.
 
Perro Loco said:
While chimerras and mosaics are probably more common than thought they are still exceedingly rare.
Has anyone been able to find any data on just how rare they are? (besides the random anal extraction of a computation I did...)
 
tamman2000 said:
Has anyone been able to find any data on just how rare they are? (besides the random anal extraction of a computation I did...)
Probably completely unknown. Why- to some extent no one has tried to figure the incidence. People who have this are asymptomatic and discovered incidentaly. Also if the contribution is from one population is low routine testing may not detect it.
If you search through the medical Literature you will find only a few case reports- not series.
 
Perro Loco said:
Probably completely unknown. Why- to some extent no one has tried to figure the incidence. People who have this are asymptomatic and discovered incidentaly. Also if the contribution is from one population is low routine testing may not detect it.
If you search through the medical Literature you will find only a few case reports- not series.

Funny but now I recall that Stephen King used this concept of having part of the dna of a twin inside another person in at least one of his horror novels. Of course, he takes it beyond science to the realm of fantasy with body parts intact within the whole twin.
 
Perro Loco said:
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?
I put this up a day or so ago and wondered if anybody else saw this- or could verify this was in L'Equipe?
If this is true this would be further damning evidence.
I have often wondered if the U.C.I. keeps closer tabs on riders with "flucuating numbers". However the part that seems strange is why would they tell the person under suspicion.
 
Perro Loco said:
I put this up a day or so ago and wondered if anybody else saw this- or could verify this was in L'Equipe?
If this is true this would be further damning evidence.
I have often wondered if the U.C.I. keeps closer tabs on riders with "flucuating numbers". However the part that seems strange is why would they tell the person under suspicion.

I think that link has gone stale. I don't see anything about Hamilton there.
 
Perro Loco said:
I put this up a day or so ago and wondered if anybody else saw this- or could verify this was in L'Equipe?
If this is true this would be further damning evidence.
I have often wondered if the U.C.I. keeps closer tabs on riders with "flucuating numbers". However the part that seems strange is why would they tell the person under suspicion.

I checked L'Equipe's official site but couldn't find this story. Maybe they have more content in their paper than on the site?
 
Saucy said:
I checked L'Equipe's official site but couldn't find this story. Maybe they have more content in their paper than on the site?
Per
http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,3253,s1-10407,00.html?category_id=441
It looks like some substance to the story- not sure how reliable L'Equipe tends to be..
Overall a very good article.



The Hamilton Question
Plus cycling makers recall components, Kryptonite expands lock replacement program, and why urban sprawl takes years off your life.
By Joe Lindsey, Contributing Writer


Did he or didn't he?

That question (and various riffs on the answer) have been lighting up e-mail inboxes, message boards and news reports since the revelation that Tyler Hamilton tested positive for blood doping at the Tour of Spain and had a similar case in the Olympics dismissed on a rather embarrassing (for the IOC) technicality: that the second sample was ruined by the authorities.

I've already reported extensively on the case for BICYCLING, and you can find the articles in the
Race Scene section. But I caution people about jumping to conclusions one way or another. The simple fact is that this is the first case involving this test and will likely drag on for months, if not longer.

At its heart is an issue that I've not seen reported on much of anywhere: that whether or not this is a provable case of doping has its roots in a sea change in the efforts and approach of the anti-doping authorities.

Before the World Anti-Doping Agency was created in 2000, sporting federations were almost autonomous in their efforts to police doping. They set their own standards, performed their own tests and had their own rules on the standard of proof. Some, like the UCI, held that a positive result could only come from an admission of doping, the possession of substances or a positive test; that it had to be beyond a reasonable doubt. Other international governing bodies relied on a lower standard of proof, a phrase known as "comfortable satisfaction," which is often used in internal medical and legal review boards (such as malpractice) and has a long history in arbitration hearings (since doping in sport is in most countries not a criminal offense, the justice system has little jurisdiction, leaving it to arbitrators).

But the WADA code, which every IOC-recognized governing body is required to sign (or face expulsion from the Olympics), standardized the burden of proof to the comfortable satisfaction requirement. Dr. Michael Ashenden, head of the Science and Industry Against Blood Doping consortium, told me the definition of comfortable satisfaction lies "between probability and beyond a reasonable doubt."

Much was made of the news this summer that USADA would lower its standard of proof to the "comfortable satisfaction" bar, as it allowed previously circumstantial evidence - such as an allegation from a coach that he doped a particular athlete - and seemed tailor-made to produce a guilty verdict in cases Tim Montgomery, a top sprinter accused in the BALCO scandal. But the proof burden has more far-reaching implications as well.

Last week, I spoke with Dr. Ashenden, who supervised much of the research that produced the test for homologous blood doping. In our conversation, he outlined how the new standard of proof had changed how tests are approved for sporting use.

In the past, a test had to satisfy two bars of scrutiny: one scientific and one legal - that is, to be used by an organization like the UCI, which put the level of proof required at beyond a reasonable doubt, any prospective test not only had to show evidence of doping, but be so clear about it that it was difficult to challenge the test results in a court setting.

That changed with WADA, said Ashenden. "[Any] test must satisfy WADA's criteria, which includes being published in a peer-reviewed journal," Ashenden said. "It must satisfy that peer review and expert panel review methodogy. Then it must be validated and replicated in a lab other than the one that created the test. All of that is a lock-step process.

"Once that's in place and WADA accept the test, then it's in the realm of the code - labs must follow principles, guidelines and standards for conducting the test. Assuming all that, the level of proof is beyond probability, but not beyond a reasonable doubt."

Ashenden is of the opinion that the change is for the better. "The scope to impose sanctions is strengthened, and that's a very important point to recognize" he told me. "Not just for research, but to tailor the tests to that principle and to let athletes know that before, they could hide under the skirts of lawyers, get off on technicalities, but that is no longer the case."

But is the standard for approving tests rigorous enough to stand up to challenge? The authors of the homologous blood doping test published their findings last year in the Italian journal Haematologica, and at that time noted that a significant variation in the accuracy of test results ocurred depending on the quality of the antiserum available. When I asked Dr. Ashenden if this issue had been resolved since the study was published, he declined to answer directly, saying that he could not comment on the specifics of the test methodology while
Hamilton's case was still pending.

In its September 23 edition, the French sports daily l'Equipe reported that the UCI sent letters of notification to Hamilton after both the Tour de Romandie (which he won) and the Dauphine Libere (where he was a close second to Iban Mayo), warning him of what l'Equipe called "strange fluctuations" in certain values of his blood tests.

If that is true, since Hamilton was put on notice, as it were, more than two months prior to his first suspect sample at the Athens Olympics, then a positive result at the Tour of Spain would seem to indicate one of two possibilities: that he was possessed of such hubris that he believed the authorities would not be able to identify blood doping even if they thought his samples looked odd, or that he is completely innocent and was at a loss to understand what the UCI was supposedly warning him about.

The issues surrounding the accuracy of the homologous doping test certainly do not rule out the latter possibility, although the possible reasons - aside from four separate instances of laboratory error - for a rider returning a false positive on four separate occasions four months apart are far-fetched indeed. Gaudiest among them is that
Hamilton
is a natural chimera, with blood and possibly other body tissues are composed of cells derived from two separate genetic lineages, a vestige of unknown loss of a twin at some point in-utero.

Whatever the result,
Hamilton
's case is likely to drag on in court for months. His attorney, Howard Jacobs, told me that he hopes to have it resolved by the Spring Classics, but Hamilton could at that point already be suspended by the UCI and fighting it on appeal. He faces a two-year ban.

But the case will be more than a hearing on whether or not one drug test is accurate enough to warrant a suspension. It will be a referendum on the approach to and scope of the fight against doping.

Before WADA, rumors of corruption in dope-testing were widespread. To name one example, Wade Exum, formerly head of the US Olympic Committee's anti-doping operation, filed a lawsuit (later dismissed) alleging coverups of positive tests in that organization. The competing interests - clean sport versus exciting sport - pitted morals against money, with each governing body serving not only as police, judge and jury, but chief marketer and a cheerleader for the defense: why catch the world's top riders at doping when the catch would result only in another black eye for the sport and alienate fans and sponsors? (Another form of this hypocrisy can be seen in American sports, which happily police against recreational drugs like marijuana, which hurt a league's marketability, but refuse to impose stricter rules on performance enhancers, which arguably make the game more exciting. Chicks dig the long ball.)

The risk we run now is a swing too far back the other way. WADA is aggressively pursuing dopers and has made no bones of being unafraid of going after sports' top names. But sometimes the cops are too zealous.

Phonak held a press conference to announce the results of
Hamilton's A samples from both Athens and Spain
, before the B samples had been tested. I asked Jacobs, Hamilton's attorney, why they would prematurely announce the results when the news had to hurt Hamilton's reputation even if he was later absolved by negative B tests. Jacobs said that Phonak had been getting calls that week about the tests and felt it necessary to make a pre-emptive strike on the rumors before they got out of hand. "Someone at the IOC, the UCI or the labs leaked it," he said of the A sample results.

While the leaker was likely not paid and stood to gain little from the action, the leak calls into question the impartiality of the anti-doping authorities, much as did news in 2000 that the French police investigating Lance Armstrong's United States Postal Service team had topped the dossier with a photo of Armstrong on it, with a crudely drawn syringe protruding from the American's butt. As in journalism and politics, the appearance of impropriety may be more important than any actual impropriety. At the very least, such news is not encouraging.

The unfortunate aspect of all of this is twofold. First,
Hamilton may not ever be sanctioned, but it is doubtful he can ever be fully cleared, either. Already his gold medal has been tainted by the lack of a clear test result. Arne Ljungqvist, head of the IOC's medical commission, declined to say if Hamilton
was innocent or simply fortunate that his B sample could not be analyzed. "It's up to everyone to reach his own conclusions," he said sourly, even though dope testing is supposed to preclude that very outcome.

Second, if the test is shown to be unreliable, it will be a huge setback for the fight against doping, instantly calling into question the methods and means by which the authorities go about their work. In order to make any positive impact, the fight against doping absolutely must be above reproach. For some, who are convinced that sport is simply too corrupt to clean itself up, a few innocent people caught in the wringer are an acceptable price to pay for making sure no dope cheat walks free. But the point of legislating sporting ethics is to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior - again, doping is not wrong on the face of it, but by the ethics with which we choose to judge sport. Those ethics also apply to those who would clean it up.
Hamilton's case is important not simply for itself, but for all those who have gone before, and who are still to come. For their sakes and our own, we owe it to ourselves to do it right.
 
Thanks for the cut/paste of that article Loco.Interesting point of view, one with which i agree with.I freely admit my bias towards Tyler in this case as im a huge fan.Its pretty heartbreaking to hear but not nearly as bad as being in his shoes.
I am giving him the benefit of the doubt until i hear more from his side of the story because of who he is.This new doping test proceedure is so new i believe it possible to be faulty.Thats my incredibly bias opinion - i can understand how others see the worst in the situation though.
Very sad.
 
Thank you Perro Loco for sending in that article. Contrary to the opinions of the "rush to judgement crowd", there are several issues surrounding this matter. These include legal, scientific, procedural questions, articulated elsewhere, that need to be answered before Hamilton is "guilty" in any moral or legal sense.

And before the hypersensitive and more easily offended members of this forum get all in an uproar, I would like announce publicly that I support and encourage your right to express your opinion, regardless of how you may have derived said opinion; however, I do reserve the right to disagree with the contents of your conclusions. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
 

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