Tour de France 2018

Ricardodaforce

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Less than a week to go!

Looking forward to the tones of Boulting, Imlach and Boardman.

Still missing Ligget and Sherwin.

Le Tourmalet is back!

The ASO moves to prevent Froome from participating. Good!


Bring it on!
 
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If it was a Frenchman, yeah come on mate no problem. Not been found guilty race away. Hypocrites.
 
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Less than a week to go!

Looking forward to the tones of Boulting, Imlach and Boardman.

Still missing Ligget and Sherwin.

Le Galibier is back!

The ASO moves to prevent Froome from participating. Good!


Bring it on!

Like you I miss Ligget and Sherwin, not sure about Froome being "banned" from the tour, if he does not ride who will lead the Sky team
 
Pretty sure he won't be banned, at the moment its what they would like, looking forward to it as usual though.
Will be in France a bit whilst its on, going to try and find a comfy bar to watch it with the locals.

Talking of drug cheats I presume boring Millar will be back again as a pundit, very hard going listening to him.
 
Pretty sure he won't be banned, at the moment its what they would like, looking forward to it as usual though.
Will be in France a bit whilst its on, going to try and find a comfy bar to watch it with the locals.

Talking of drug cheats I presume boring Millar will be back again as a pundit, very hard going listening to him.

It’s a bit of a sad situation when a race organisation cannot decree who can and cannot participate in their own race.
 
Personally think Froome should be allowed to ride as still not proven/resolved. If Froome/Sky are responsible for the delay in the hearing then the rules need sorting. Would love to see Geraint given no 1 spot though, hopefully he will get through tour without too many crashes this year.
 
Personally think Froome should be allowed to ride as still not proven/resolved. If Froome/Sky are responsible for the delay in the hearing then the rules need sorting. Would love to see Geraint given no 1 spot though, hopefully he will get through tour without too many crashes this year.

Both A and B samples proved that he had a more than permitted amount of salbutamol in his urine. There is no doubt.
Why treat him differently to Contador?
 
Problem is as everyone knows the organisers are too biased towards their countrymen.
 
Still at least banning froome this week guarantees lots of press coverage before the event starts...whether or not the ban is upheld.

Don’t understand why it has taken so long to resolve the reasons for the excess salbutamol and punish or absolve...
 
Both A and B samples proved that he had a more than permitted amount of salbutamol in his urine. There is no doubt.
Why treat him differently to Contador?

Thought the hearing - trial in a way- had been delayed? Delay may/is due to Froome/Sky but rules need looking at if that is the case.

Have not looked it up but Contador must have had a hearing?
 

Only last year Bardet, went unpunished for taking on bottles during the last kms of a stage whilst two others were penalised.
Also recall the cut off time being amended or disregarded when a favoured rider might suffer.

The disqualification of Peter Sagan last year, obviously not liked by the organisers and treated far more harshly than others who have committed far worse.
 
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Only last year Bardot, went unpunished for taking on bottles during the last kms of a stage whilst two others were penalised.
Also recall the cut off time being amended or disregarded when a favoured rider might suffer.

The disqualification of Peter Sagan last year, obviously not liked by the organisers and treated far more harshly than others who have committed far worse.

The disqualification of Sagan was totally justified in my view.
 
The disqualification of Sagan was totally justified in my view.

Have to disagree, seen much worse in sprints over the years and can't ever recall a dq from the whole race.
Seen riders headbutt others and only get fined or placed last on the stage, very harsh in my opinion
 
Problem is as everyone knows the organisers are too biased towards their countrymen.

Yeah right, that, that is why the French police arrested members of the Festina and Cofidis teams for doping.
Both French teams.
 
Yeah right, that, that is why the French police arrested members of the Festina and Cofidis teams for doping.
Both French teams.

And who can forget a blubbering, bleached Richard Virenque (the darling of French cycling) protesting his innocence even when most of his team had confessed and exposed their doping program.
 
Why treat him differently to Contador?
So he should be allowed to ride then. Contador tested positive for clenbuterol during the 2010 Tour, and he rode in the 2011 Giro (which he won) and the 2011 Tour with the case still unresolved.
 
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Glad he has been cleared, complete rubbish this going on for so long, he was a tiny bit over an allowed product for his Asthma and that is the complete story.
move on,,
 
Finally justice/common sense has prevailed.

The wealth of evidence has been piling up that proves that to put a arbitrary limit on the concentration of salbutamol in urine i.e below xx is legal above xx is doping is scientifically deeply flawed. The UCI would of course fight their case, what else can they do. Now wait for the legal implications of other riders being banned over many years for high salbutamol levels. I have never had any doubt that Froome knowingly never looked to cheat. Remember this is the guy who ‘broke the mould’ by releasing his physiology details in public.
 
Now wait for the legal implications of other riders being banned over many years for high salbutamol levels.
This is an interesting issue, but in the end I think it will come to nothing.

Imagine you're a rider who has registered a positive result for salbutamol, but you know that you've always, always taken it within the limits prescribed by your TUE. That must put you in a very strange position. You know you're innocent, but the test says you're guilty. You therefore know that either the test result was faulty, or the testing procedure was faulty, or maybe the science unperpinning it is faulty. What do you do? I imagine you challenge it, as strongly as you can, because at the end of the day you know you're innocent. Same thing if you're the team manager. You know your guy is innocent, so you challenge the test results, the testing procedure, and the science.

That sounds very much like what's happened here. (Note - I'm not saying that this episode proves that Froome is totally clean, and I'm not suggesting he isn't. Merely pointing out that his and his team's actions were exactly what you'd expect if he were indeed innocent.)

So now, what about all those other historic cases of salbutamol levels? Why didn't those riders and their teams challenge them in the same way that Froome and Sky have done?
 
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"So now, what about all those other historic cases of salbutamol levels? Why didn't those riders and their teams challenge them in the same way that Froome and Sky have done?"

The answer to that may be as simple as 'filthy lucre' (money) Sky have plenty and others don't ? I imagine these high profile 'legal eagles' cost a fortune and whatever the assignment they can always make it last seemingly indefinitely.

Also the science around the testing and results is so more advanced nowadays.
 
Going to be a warm one if it carries on like this, at least the cobbles should be dry this time, wonder how Froome will cope on them this time?
 
looking forward to a good scrap in the mountains
 
"So now, what about all those other historic cases of salbutamol levels? Why didn't those riders and their teams challenge them in the same way that Froome and Sky have done?"

The answer to that may be as simple as 'filthy lucre' (money) Sky have plenty and others don't ? I imagine these high profile 'legal eagles' cost a fortune and whatever the assignment they can always make it last seemingly indefinitely.

Also the science around the testing and results is so more advanced nowadays.


This is exactly what happened in the UKAD investigation/enquiry into Sky, it petered out simply because our national anti doping body didn't have enough money to take them on, due to being nearly bankrupted by the Tyson Fury case.
Folks on here should know that both UKAD and the Parliamentary committee, both failed to get answers to many important questions fired at Sky and Dave Brailsford, and simply gave up in the end.
Dr Freeman who refused to appear before the Parliamentary committee and answer questions, because he was ill, has now released a book about the affair. Brailsfraud refused to say what was in the "jiffy bag", and originally lied about the courier who delivered the jiffy bag - Simon Cope - saying that he had gone to France to see Emma Pooley, when in fact Emma Pooley was racing in Spain at the time.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/pooley-brailsford-and-sky-need-to-get-their-facts-straight/

Then we have the testosterone patches found at British Cycling's HQ in Manchester - a banned drug in sport. It looks as though Dr Freeman (I wonder if he is still a doctor?) may have had knowledge of these.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/que...s-ordered-at-team-sky-and-british-cycling-hq/

Then of course we have the Sky "No needles policy".

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/apr/13/ukad-team-sky-breached-no-needles-allegation
 
This is an interesting read:

Alessandro Petacchi served a nine-month ban following his 2007 positive test for salbutamol but the Italian has welcomed the UCI’s decision to drop its anti-doping proceedings against Chris Froome, despite the fact that the Sky rider’s urine sample contained twice the permitted level of the substance.
“I didn’t have the same help with legal costs that Froome was able to find with Sky, but I’m happy that he has been finally absolved, because that vindicates me retrospectively,” Petacchi told L’Équipe.
Petacchi returned a sample containing 1,352ng/ml of salbutamol following stage 11 of the 2007 Giro d’Italia – the permitted threshold is 1,000ng/ml – and was withheld from that year’s Tour de France. Although Petacchi was initially absolved by the Italian cycling federation, WADA appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and he was ultimately handed a nine-month ban and stripped of his five stage wins on the 2007 Giro.
Froome’s returned a sample contained 2,000ng/ml of salbutamol following stage 18 of the 2017 Vuelta – twice the permitted threshold – but did not withhold himself from racing and won the Giro in May. On Monday, the UCI announced that it had dropped its proceedings against Froome, citing advice from WADA. Froome’s legal team reportedly submitted 1,500 pages of documentation to support his case, although Froome did not undergo pharmacokinetic testing to try to replicate the conditions of his positive test.
 
This is an interesting read:

Alessandro Petacchi served a nine-month ban following his 2007 positive test for salbutamol but the Italian has welcomed the UCI’s decision to drop its anti-doping proceedings against Chris Froome, despite the fact that the Sky rider’s urine sample contained twice the permitted level of the substance.
“I didn’t have the same help with legal costs that Froome was able to find with Sky, but I’m happy that he has been finally absolved, because that vindicates me retrospectively,” Petacchi told L’Équipe.
Petacchi returned a sample containing 1,352ng/ml of salbutamol following stage 11 of the 2007 Giro d’Italia – the permitted threshold is 1,000ng/ml – and was withheld from that year’s Tour de France. Although Petacchi was initially absolved by the Italian cycling federation, WADA appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and he was ultimately handed a nine-month ban and stripped of his five stage wins on the 2007 Giro.
Froome’s returned a sample contained 2,000ng/ml of salbutamol following stage 18 of the 2017 Vuelta – twice the permitted threshold – but did not withhold himself from racing and won the Giro in May. On Monday, the UCI announced that it had dropped its proceedings against Froome, citing advice from WADA. Froome’s legal team reportedly submitted 1,500 pages of documentation to support his case, although Froome did not undergo pharmacokinetic testing to try to replicate the conditions of his positive test.

And that last point is key, because it confirms that the UCI had been overwhelmed by legalese, and that Froome never had to replicate the conditions which allegedly caused his original sample to "malfunction".
 
When Froomes sample was adjusted for dehydration it came down to 1200 apparently.
 
When Froomes sample was adjusted for dehydration it came down to 1200 apparently.

From Cycling News:

Froome's uncorrected salbutamol level was 2000ng/mL, as reported last year in the original story published by The Guardian and Le Monde on December 13. That value is double WADA's limit of 1000ng/mL (eg., the maximum concentration that it considers as evidence that an athlete used the permitted therapeutic dose).

However, WADA's technical documents, which date back to at least 2014, allow for uncertainty in lab measurements of 10 percent. When deciding whether or not a reading warrants further investigation as an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF), they use a 'decision limit' (DL) of 1200ng/mL. Froome's sample was 66.7 per cent over that limit.

WADA's newest rules allow for even further adjustment of the limit.

There has also been an allowance for urine samples that are highly concentrated because of dehydration, but a correction for this was only applied to 'endogenous substances' (growth hormone, steroids) before a WADA 2018 technical document was issued on November 15, 2017.

Although TD2018DL did not go into effect until March 1, 2018, by Froome's comments, and The Times' previous report that his corrected salbutamol level was 1429ng/mL, it can be concluded that WADA retroactively applied the correction to his pending case, bringing the decision limit up from 1200ng/mL to 1680ng/mL*.

With an adjustment for dehydration, Froome's stage 18 Vuelta sample was still 19.05 per cent over the decision limit.

"The classic [inaccuracy] from the start was of my result being double the limit when it was less than 20 per cent over with the figure corrected," Froome told The Times.

While Froome was still clearly over the decision limit, 20 per cent over is a bit easier to explain away than 66.7 per cent. While WADA rules allow for riders to undergo a controlled pharmacokinetic study to demonstrate under laboratory conditions that their bodies excrete more salbutamol than normal, the agency acknowledged that given the unique conditions of a Grand Tour – variability in Froome's doping controls over the Vuelta, which he led from stage 3 to the finish, and other factors – it would not be practicable to reproduce this kind of salbutamol excretion result.

The case also led to a rare WADA admission that "in rare cases, athletes may exceed the decision limit concentration without exceeding the maximum inhaled dose".



David Walsh’s column on Sunday will be a fascinating read.
 
From Cycling News:

Froome's uncorrected salbutamol level was 2000ng/mL, as reported last year in the original story published by The Guardian and Le Monde on December 13. That value is double WADA's limit of 1000ng/mL (eg., the maximum concentration that it considers as evidence that an athlete used the permitted therapeutic dose).

However, WADA's technical documents, which date back to at least 2014, allow for uncertainty in lab measurements of 10 percent. When deciding whether or not a reading warrants further investigation as an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF), they use a 'decision limit' (DL) of 1200ng/mL. Froome's sample was 66.7 per cent over that limit.

WADA's newest rules allow for even further adjustment of the limit.

There has also been an allowance for urine samples that are highly concentrated because of dehydration, but a correction for this was only applied to 'endogenous substances' (growth hormone, steroids) before a WADA 2018 technical document was issued on November 15, 2017.

Although TD2018DL did not go into effect until March 1, 2018, by Froome's comments, and The Times' previous report that his corrected salbutamol level was 1429ng/mL, it can be concluded that WADA retroactively applied the correction to his pending case, bringing the decision limit up from 1200ng/mL to 1680ng/mL*.

With an adjustment for dehydration, Froome's stage 18 Vuelta sample was still 19.05 per cent over the decision limit.

"The classic [inaccuracy] from the start was of my result being double the limit when it was less than 20 per cent over with the figure corrected," Froome told The Times.

While Froome was still clearly over the decision limit, 20 per cent over is a bit easier to explain away than 66.7 per cent. While WADA rules allow for riders to undergo a controlled pharmacokinetic study to demonstrate under laboratory conditions that their bodies excrete more salbutamol than normal, the agency acknowledged that given the unique conditions of a Grand Tour – variability in Froome's doping controls over the Vuelta, which he led from stage 3 to the finish, and other factors – it would not be practicable to reproduce this kind of salbutamol excretion result.

The case also led to a rare WADA admission that "in rare cases, athletes may exceed the decision limit concentration without exceeding the maximum inhaled dose".



David Walsh’s column on Sunday will be a fascinating read.

So, not guilty then.
 
This hot weather is playing havoc with my breathing, well over the limit with Salbuterol and Fluticasone too.
To avoid any problems I'm leaving my bike in the shed today and going by bus, Blue inhaler in my bag though.

Fortunately its only a flat stage, no mountains in Cambridgeshire although there is the Col de Speedbump just up the road.
 
Not feeling it yet this year, sometimes the first week is exciting, not so far though.

Had a wander up the Champs de Elysees on Monday, never realised just how bad the road surface is and the gutter bit they ride on to avoid the cobbles is very narrow.
Here it is in all its glory, risked life and limb to get this photo

Champs.jpg
 
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