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Having followed cycling for 25+ years, the likelihood that any doping - even in EWS - is accidental is slim.
Never said its not their responsibility, even said they need to be diligent.
(FFWDed for simplicity)
CG is one of the GOATS.
#clues
Everybody be cool.
There has been no official information released at this time.
Respect the athletes who make our sport so awesome to watch and inspire us to push ourselves. Don’t speculate or spread false information about who might be involved.
First thing, doping is a race and the better anti-doping is getting, the smarter the dopers are (or seems to be). So know it seems like athletes are trying to gain a small edge by using either drugs at a very low level or drugs that are very difficult to detect (mostly drugs who completely mimic regular human products from what I've read).
An other method would be to use an other drug that would react during the testing and give false results (the so called "masking" drugs).
Second thing when you talk about medical testing you need to understand a couple concept:
- Specificity = capacity NOT to give false positive (or accurately detect true negative as such), so basically it means your test is very good at detecting a specific molecule among others.
- Sensitivity = capacity NOT to overlook false negative (or accurately detect true positive), so basically it means your test is capable of detecting very small concentration.
Now it usually is impossible to get both an excellent sensitivity ans specificity. If you add to that athlete using (very) low level of drugs to gain a marginal (but useful) gain in performance and the fact that sample conservation and transport is critical ( because some drugs and metabolites are extremely sensitive to temperature or light) you can understand how complicated the testing process is...
So for me a positive test on the A sample can be as simple as a slightly deteriorated sample or a test not being specific/sensitive enough and giving a false positive. It can also be an incoherent result which could indicate use of a masking product (or simply an interaction between "legal product" mimicking a masking product), an error in the testing process and a lot of other things.
Anyway this is why there is a procedure with two samples and hopefully second testing will be done with an other testing method/machine. In the meantime I think everybody is doing a good job at not spreading false rumours.
Hope this can be a bit helpful
This is really a communication issue for EWS. If only the French rounds were testing and the anti-doping agencies only have one instance of testing during the series, I think its really hard to draw truly definitive conclusions. Mistakes happen and this a career limiting accusation. If a rider had consistent results at 2 or more rounds on A and B samples, I think you can make some definitive decisions.
Given that there seems to be some positive results and issues, I think the EWS needs to be more transparent and acknowledge that it may have a doping problem, BUT it lacks enough definitive evidence (if that is really the case) to name and/or punish riders. I would then modify the rules that some caught doping would be banned from a full season worth of rounds (I think its 8) and if they are caught a second time, it's a lifetime ban.
So this is the reason behind the "biological passport" that CG is explaining. The idea is to monitor biological parameters of the athlete through regular testing, so instead of searching the product you search for the (abnormal) effects. It can be very powerful since punctual variation are non-existent.
But this is only a UCI process for now.
As for punishment, a one season ban is way too lenient..
So....who is the rider and who is the US team/manager? Nothing jumping out at me on this list: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-complete-guide-to-2018-enduro-world-s…
We should check the rules but from what I understood the B sample testing is mandatory, the rider only gets the right to be present or represented during the testing process.
And I'm sure about the fact that samples A and B are from the same collection. So sample B can only prevent a manipulation or testing error of sample A. Unless you are using a completely different method (if available).
So yes this is a good failsafe but as I pointed earlier it is not completely sure (especially if there is a case of cross-reaction or a biological specificity from the rider).
And by the way, considering the time before sample A was tested (and rumours began), if testing was systematic (and considering how close some events can be) it would be easy to have an other sample from the athlete at another race...
Anyway even if both samples fail, the athlete can still make an appeal and try to prove why he failed the test without being a doper. So to me the athlete have quite enough means to protect their career.
Boycotts never work, but if this gets leaked - the ship should sink.
Not sure how systematic testing has been so there may not be multiple samples to prove doping across several races. At any rate, getting caught cheating at one race for something as serious as doping (as opposed to pot or ecstasy) should trigger a lifetime ban and not some 6-month-suspension-in-the-off-season slap on the wrist.
https://cyclingtips.com/2016/04/the-curious-case-of-oscar74-how-usada-n…
Martin Maes
Greg Callaghan
Ruchie Rude
Jared Graves (sitting on the floor on the right)
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