against the spirit of the sport.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

That is a very powerful quote IMO. I don't like it one bit. Given the chatter around Schoemen, I would love to know what he was given to make his miraculous recovery from hospital => Podium. I think at a bare minimum the medical records of athletes should not be private. We should be held to higher standard for proper transparency.

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I was just talking with my wife about this last night. My personal opinion is that I don't consider him, or anyone else with a TUE, a doper. I view dopers as someone breaking the rules and taking a banned substance. If the governing body approved the short term use of something that would otherwise be banned, then I see that as okay as long as that organization applied the approval/denial consistently across athletes. If not, I still wouldn't consider the athlete that received the TUE a doper, but rather would want to see the organization implement clearer procedures on approving/rejecting TUE requests so they are consistent.

Another question would be would you consider someone a doper if they took a substance early in their career (or when they raced decades ago) that was legal at the time but has since been banned? I would still say no - they were playing within the rules in place at the time.

I guess that depends on the intended use. Were they treating tendinitis or knee issues (i.e., a legitimate use) or was it administered solely to improve performance? I don't expect people to forgo needed medical treatment in the name of sport, so I support the TUE system. It's the dildos who bend the rules that make problems for the legit users.

Yes - I find his sudden resurgence alarming to say the least. To quote a famous doper "It's not normal".

So just about everybody gets a sniffle from allergies from time-to-time. Would you apply for a TUE for Kenacort for your A-race next season? If not, why not?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

They say he needed it because sometimes he has hay fever. I.E. pollen makes him sneeze sometimes.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I'm not a professional, so doing well in my A race doesn't impact my ability to make an income. I would not go apply for a TUE to take this, unless a physician said it was the only way to get well. At that point I'd likely not race and focus on getting well. I would have no problem with another athlete taking it if they applied for a TUE and were approved. Like I said I'd only have a problem if two athletes presented the same case for a TUE and only one was granted an approval, and in that scenario I'd fault the organization and not the athlete.

Zoom out slightly.

If a substance is taken under the guidance of the rules, is it doping?

If an allowable substance is later banned, do you retroactively ban athletes who took that substance? I.e. Meldonium.

It seems to me that this involves a lot of subjective opinion on intent, which is impossible to ascertain.

This is exactly the question I'm asking. No zooming out necessary. I am not saying that if it is doping he should be banned - he clearly followed the rules and therefore should not be banned. But should we consider his choices immoral?


No. You don't. I do not think many people would advocate this.



Yes, it is somewhat subjective, but that does not mean it is not worth discussion. But I think intent can be understood here with reasonable certainty - how reasonable is it to prescribe Kenacort to treat hay fever? Kinda seems like shooting a mosquito with a bazooka. Combine that with massive cycling performance benefits and the timing of each TUE and it seems clear that it was prescribed primarily to give him an advantage in those three races.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

The team doctor and governing body deemed it reasonable. I'd suggest uninformed medical opinion from fans is not helpful. If the system is not functioning, why not discuss that? Suggesting that a particular athlete'S TUE was suspect, although within the rules, is less valuable. Too many factors will influence individuals' perceptions. Where's the value in that discussion?

You are grossly under-representing symptoms which would require a drug of this kind. Wiggins may well have been gaming the system, but he still needed a doc to verify his symptoms, etc.

No one would give a TUE for this because they "sneeze sometimes".

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

If his symptoms were that bad, wouldn't he require the drug for training, more than once per a year, just prior to the biggest races?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I dunno....ask Wiggo. I'm not defending him, just pointing out that, if he required the drug / TUE for his symptoms, he was not just just "sneezing sometimes."

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

True - I agree with that. I think the question is, was he really sick enough to require that? If he was that sick, should he have been racing? Would he have been able to win the Tour de France while being that sick? Or might he have been gaming the TUE system with a compliant doctor? Obviously I do not know the answer to that. But I think it is a legitimate question, and there is enough info to make some educated guesses. His team doctor from 2009 when he placed 3rd (after armstrong's DQ) is questioning the legitimacy of the prescription: https://www.theguardian.com/...s-use-banned-steroid

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I think its pretty clear that in spite of wanting to believe that both British Cycling and Sky were whiter than white, they obviously had no compunction about pushing the limits and when I read this it reminded me of the Armstrong deposition (I think) where Armstrong asks whether the person asking the questions understands the difference between anabolic and catabolic

Wiggins obviously knew what it offered and had an agreeable physician who facilitated it

disappointing but i'm not suprised, so we can no longer blood dope, dropping weight is fine though if you have a TUE.........

The job of a cycling team doctor is to dope the riders. The doctor at the UCI who was signing off on TUEs, Dr. Zorzoli, was actively helping teams dope during the 00s. When the UCI switched from a 50% HCT limit to off-score, Dr. Zorzoli went around to the teams to explain how the teams' riders' blood values from previous seasons would have fared under the standard about to be enforced and how to adjust values to avoid triggering detection. He gave presentations that had graphs of the riders' blood values and which values would be suspicious. The graphs shown during the presentations to the riders were anonymized, but team staff were given the names so those riders' medical programs could be modified. Interesting enough, Dr. Zorzoli is a friend of Geert Lienders, the former Rabobank dope doctor who was hired by Team Sky, and bogus TUEs [Okayed by Zorzoli.] were one of the cornerstones of Rabobank's doping program. Zorzoli went further than that; he made suggestions to Rabobank about which drugs the team should use.

The timing of Wiggins' TUEs make it very clear what the intent was. They were before the three GTs he targeted, after he stopped targeting GTs he stopped getting TUEs, and the Giro one was a preventative for a grass that doesn't grow in Italy. Giving Kenacort for pollen is about as legit as giving heroin for a headache. Look at the statements and writing of Wiggins and Brailsford about their position on doping: Everything from Wiggins being afraid of needles to never using injections to pulling riders from races instead of getting TUEs to never being associated with doping doctors. Et cetera. Et cetera. Heck, Wiggins cannot even tell the truth about racing with Armstrong; he has made statements that he never raced with LA except the 2004 Dauphine even though he rode side by side with him for hours in 2009. Wiggins built his reputation on being an outspoken opponent of doping and the statements that were used to build that reputation have turned out to be lies. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what is what. From Wiggins being a pro for seven years and never placing in the top 100 of the Tour to blubbering to his team after being beaten by the 135 lb Contador in the 2009 Paris-Nice time trial he made his season's goal to suddenly finding he could be a world class grand tour climber by losing some weight should have made anyone with more than a few dozen brain cells laugh out loud about the absurdity of cleanly riding into fourth place against Contador, LA, the Schleck sisters, and, let's not forget, a totally jacked Franco Pellizotti.

And no, having a crooked doctor to give bogus a TUE then getting the corrupt UCI to rubber stamp it is not legal under the doping code despite what the fanboy muppets and the British media would have the public believe.

 I'm sorry but santa isn't real they all dope still and so do all your favorite pro triathletes just get over it

What does "get over it" mean? Does it mean just allow everyone to dope and not worry about it? Should I allow that attitude to carry over to AG triathlon where I have to race the dopers? What about high school cross country?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

So what we are discussing is a failed system, which is why I have suggested removing the specifics of any athlete from the discussion. It avoids partisan emotion from those lacking emotional maturity.

you pretend like wiggins or weiss is really an outlier just accept it kienle jan lionel ryf mirinda are all injecting themselves multiple times per day it's just a matter of who gets caught so just accept it they are all dopers. no sport is clean to any extent at its highest level

I think you are having an argument with yourself. I have not said any of those things. Are there top pro triathletes who dope that have not been caught? I am sure of it. Do I believe that every single person on the course at Kona is doped up? Nope. I do not believe that. And I know I will not dope and that I will not accept doping by people I race against. One way to make doping less attractive and reduce it is by making those that we know are doping feel unwelcome at races. Some sociopaths don't care about that, but most do care. They dope because they want people to think highly of them. If doping leads to the opposite of that, it stops serving its purpose.

"Accepting" doping does the opposite. And it leads to only those willing to risk debilitating long-term health problems in exchange for being able s/b/r faster for a few years being able to achieve success in sport. It leads to kids who do not have the maturity to weigh those consequences against the benefits to doping.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Not a Doper in the way of Rasmussen, Armstrong et al.

But very defiantly against the spirit of the rules (romantic notion that is!) Money isn't romantic is it!

Wiggins has long championed clean racing. When perhaps it would have been better to say "I believe in not breaking the rules"


Saying that, a while ago he started following Armstrong on Instagram and has bought various things from that time for his collection. Whereas I believe had I been him, Id want to keep far far away from anything like that. Even Cav was photo'd with Hincapie.

Just FFS stop associating with these people. Stop opening yourselves up for this ridicule!



I do wonder about British Cycling in the last couple years. Look at the Armistead fiasco!

Hey Ed, I am on the same page as you as to what the "intent" likely was, however, I think we need to let the system do its thing and allow the athletes to use whatever is acceptable in the system or change the system, not ask the athletes to go above and beyond because we may perceive it as morally wrong, keeping in mind that our morals in North America, or some kid in Kenya, or Khazakstan, or for that matter a British Knight's morals may not coincide.

Also in that vein let's not forget the blood bags that Rebecca Twigg, David Phinney, Alexi Grewal, Steve Hegg etc all had injected to them for their medals at the LA Olympic games cycling. It's also widely viewed that the last double Olympic 5000m+10000m gold medalist (Munich + Montreal) was more than likely on blood bags as the Finns seemed to have this nicely figured out. But all those were legit medals. The athletes and docs used every legal means available to them.

Interesection of intent and moral judgement is problematic just because of cultural/societal differences. We need the system fixed wherever possible

There is nothing on the record to suggest that Phinney partook in this. http://www.si.com/...s-tainted-with-blood

Threads all seem to have a variety of prattle, information, knowledge , and occasionally wisdom. Your comment is spot on. O'Malley's a thoughtful guy too.

Racing. The reason you don't see TUEs for corticosteroids at other times is because corticosteroids are only prohibited in-competition; a TUE would only be needed for in-competition use.

Maybe there was nefarious intent, maybe not. The timing isn't remotely suspicious, because of the above. Most of the outrage here is built by people who aren't medical professionals and who don't know WADA regs. Did he need Kenacort? Was it overkill? Or was it gaming the system with an inappropriate TUE? I don't know, but I'm not Wiggins' doctor. I do know that having a TUE in place before a race isn't evidence though.

bitch stfu the shit i'm saying makes total sense and is perfectly in context if there was no point in what i was saying this thread you made wouldn't exist. bro just get over it end of thread slowtwitch didn't solve doping and top 15 are still full of epo congrats oh big suprise bradley wiggins did corticosteroids wow never woulda guessed oh shit *your favorite pro triathlete* does epo, 70.3 champ works with doping cyclist, michael weiss uses peds, wow headline news extremely competitive people do things that make them win

Wow.

'70.3 champ works with doping cyclist'

No evidence whatsoever of that champ. And the rest is horse shit as well.

Bitch.

let me add some commas to that bitch
alright now read. dude people were going crazy about her working with yates or whatever his name was. i pulled kienle out of my ass but he does them too so do the rest of them just get over it

It's important to note that it's *POSSIBLE* that he was injected with powerful corticosteroids much more regularly than "just before the 2011 & 2012 Tours de France and the 2013 Giro."

One huge thing to remember here is that one of the primary noted benefits/side-effects of the corticosteroids listed is that they assist with fat metabolism. Corticosteroids are only banned *IN COMPETITION.* Why this is the case is the topic of some debate, as it seems highly likely that abuse of glucocorticoids outside of competition is a huge problem. But that's a separate topic.

In any case, the larger point is that Wiggins might have been taking several of these medications of a very regular basis. One of his noted "transformations" was that he managed to lean down from being a relatively (for cycling) "large" track cyclist to a fantastic climber. Similar allegations dog the skinny-AF Froome.

In fact, the skeptics argue that the TUE for IC often stems from how long it takes to clear the system. I.e., they are really using this stuff for training, but they get a TUE so that in case it takes too long to clear the system, the are covered. I bring this up because - based on what several dopers-turned-whistleblower (like Landis) have indicated - it's unlikely that they were only taking this stuff during races.

It's obviously just speculation, but I'd be shocked if those TUEs represented the only times that Wiggins was taking these medications.

For the record, yes, I think Wiggins is a doper. Same with Froome. Same with the Williams sisters. And same with Bobridge and most of the other athletes implicated by Fancy Bears.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

LOL... ok. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Might not be seeing you much on ST anymore with that outright accusation of Kienle.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Wiggins is not a doper...and OJ is not a murderer. We have fabulous systems that work perfectly for most offenders so why would anyone want anything changed?

Thanks for the additional clarity on the use of the corticosteroids. Makes his "a needle has never pierced my skin" even more untruthlful.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I think a fun ST front page interview would be an interview of the fancy bears hacker team!!!

I wouldn't call him a cheater by any means but it's certainly not within the spirit of the sport. It certainly taints his record.

In my opinion, we need to revisit the TUE. I think the athlete should be barred from competing for at least a year while taking anything that would require a TUE. Yes, some conditions just happen on a person but part of sport is walking the line in training so that you don't dig your body into a hole that requires a TUE med to get out of.

Also, as others have mentioned, I think professional sport (all types) should make medical records public. If a doctor prescribes something they have to know the world is going to look over their shoulder.

alright bro me and you right now settle this like real men out on the green mono e mono i got a brand new 7 iron ready for some birdies bro mi banditos tienen la salsa verde es caliente bruhh yo soy platano breeuuuuwwhhh like dude bro dawg es no broma mi amigo... tu mejor correr rapido antes yo correr arriba en tu culo con mi calor picante get your taco ready bro your shit better b fuego cause i'm on my way to your location with 2 humvees full of la calor.. i got 4 anvils and barbells bro pumping iron for 24 hours at a time eating nothing but raw meat

Some people have ongoing conditions which require them to use banned substances ALL of the time. I'm a diabetic. Insulin is a banned substance. I need it to live. I inject it 4 times a day.

If you didn't allow a TUE for this, people like Steve Redgrave (legendary british rower) and Gary Hall Jnr would not be able to compete. It's hardly an advantage to have a medical condition which requires medication which happens to be banned just to live a somewhat 'normal' life. Although a "normal life" for a person with a chronic condition is somewhat different to someone who requires no medication to just live or be healthy.

I am sure there are other conditions that require people to use banned substances regularly or to use them if they have a flare up of their condition or the like.

Calling for a blanket ban on TUEs is stupid. They serve a purpose.

1. You have issues.

2. I would be a fairly large sum of money that you are nothing like this persona you project on this forum.

3. If you like posting on this forum, I would suggest 1) Reading the forum rules, and 2) Deleting the completely unsubstantiated allegations that people like Kienle have doped, lest Slowman see this thread and ban you.

Good day.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

i'm serious dude.... a serious weightlifter
lmfao but come on dude that shit was hilarious lol i'm cracking up rn bro tbh like come on it says "i am banana"... lol but my initial point was that it could be anybody i was just using kienle for example but in reality 90% of the best pros. i edited the post though and took kienle's name out

My apologies, I typed that post in haste. I didn't mean for s blanket ban on TUEs but rather TUEs that could readily be abused (basically any steroid, HGH, etc). They can get the TUE for those but they can't compete while on them. In Wiggins case, he'd have treated whatever was ailing him but not been able to compete.

I'd look at it a bit differently. We just have to adjust our expectations that a perfect system is possible, and accept that the WADA system is effectively enforcing regulated doping, not eliminating doping.

I've always suspected that there's aggressive exploitation of gray areas at best. And black areas in some cases (Russia).

But it's still, in my opinion, a shit-ton better than no regulation.

Not that I mind a little transparency thrown into the works.

Though I cringe at the source. This is Russia being butthurt over being publicly exposed and embarrassed. If this is the worst they can throw at WADA - a couple dozen TUEs for corticosteroids - it's a WADA win. In my mind, despite the WADA flaws I'm firmly in the Russia = Bad Guys / WADA = Good Guys camp.

Just as a matter of interest, my wife is naturally athletic, and runs twice a week, swims three times a week, and is a healthy weight. She had a back injury about 10 years ago, which flared up badly again last summer, so she was prescribed a 10 day course of prednisolone.

Thankfully, it did the job, and got rid of her disc pain, but the thing that shocked me the most was that she lost about 5 kgs in two weeks, and I couldn't believe how 'cut' she looked. It also affected her mood, to the point where she was relieved when the course finished. This is powerful stuff, and just on my small exposure to it, I'd be hesitant to take it unless absolutely necessary. It's quite shocking to me that it is abused within pro cycling.

This we topic has levels, floors and rooms. From different levels, floors and rooms the topic itself is save hidden behind various walls. To consider something is private amusement in a room. To consider something together is promoting fellowship on a floor. Changing the point of view is entering another floor. Understanding what all this leads to is leaving the building a go riding ..

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___/\___/\___/\___ the s u r f b o a r d of the K u r p f a l z is the r o a d b i k e .. oSo >>

If you RACE for living ... well

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What are you people, on dope?

—Mr. Hand

I'm sorry, I'm not clear what your comment refers to.

All good.

On the subject of cortisone, I had a cortisone injection for a partial tear of my ligamentum teres, the ligament at the end of the femur in the hip socket, and I have to say it has kinda made me feel hyped up for the last month or so. I had some psuedoephedrine (must have bought it overseas as it is no longer sold OTC here in nz anymore) today as I have been quite blocked up with a cold and it has made me feel quite hyped up. My understanding is that one of the performance enhancing effects can be this hyped feeling which allows you to push harder than normal?

I am trying to avoid arthroscopic surgery so hopefully the cortisone does its job. Although my groin/hip area still does not quite feel back to normal, even though I haven't been running, cycling or even kicking in swimming.

I haven't noticed any impact on my weight really, but then I haven't been training much, just swimming 2 to 3kms 5 times a week, although for last 2 weeks I've done nothing really.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37462540


"'This was about putting myself back on a level playing field'

Well at least that doesn't sound like Armstrong!


I held this guy up as a home grown hero. I have ridden on the Velodrome he started on (Herne Hill, South London) I supported him through TDF, and 2 Olympics

And all this, it just makes him look shit! :(

Better question - given his earlier admission of "no needles" - is he a liar?

His explanation seems to have shifted the emphasis from "no needles" to "no illegitimate or unnecessary needles" which isn't at all what the original quote was talking about.

I think your cortisone use is a good example of a TUE where the athlete shouldn't be allowed to compete within that year. Yeah, you're injured so it's not like you're using it to boost your prime condition *BUT* over-training to the point of injury shouldn't give someone the excuse to use a steroid to pop back because, in my opinion, that penalizes (indirectly) the guys who were more conscious of their training road and took a more conservative route (or put more effort into their recovery).

I'm not singling you out here, I'm just saying that I think the current system is prone to athletes abusing TUEs.

I suspect he will not be the last British cycling or sky member we learn has had tue's for drugs which under any other circumstances would be straight up doping

there are not many who deserve the moniker "hero." The term "hero" imply that a person possesses a certain trait worthy of emulation, but most often, what drew people's attention in the first place and what people seek to emulate are the tangible results achieved in a field of endeavor. Yet at the same time, people who shower adulation upon their "heroes" somehow expect a certain moral fortitude and character from their "heroes," and are aghast (or more often, in denial) at the moral failings of their "heroes," whether such failing occur on-the-field or off-the field. Truthfully, there aren't many sportspeople worthy to be held up as heroes.

At least you saw through the charade; just think of the many others who are so invested in their heroes that they would come up with all sorts of excuses for the questionable behaviors of brave brave Sir Wiggo.

Really? Four years ago I sub-luxed my shoulder courtesy of a skiing heavy fall on it (twice!). I had a cortisone injection a bit after that because it still hurt - a lot. I remember feeling slightly amazed that it had started to settle down the pain before I left the doctor's room, but I genuinely have no sense of having been hyped up after it for any period of time, or feeling especially different.

I suppose a bit of the reaction must depend on the dose, and I have no idea what mine was. But I'm intrigued to hear about your response as it seems to have been so dramatically different to mine.

I've thought about this more, and have decided, that, no, he probably didn't follow the rules. I'm not the first in this thread (Rappstar, et al) to reach that conclusion, but would just like to counter the repeated claim that he followed the rules. After reading section 4.1 of the International Standard for TUEs I think the it's probably inappropriate to say he followed the rules. He gamed the rules in order to dope, which would be a clear violation of the WADA code. With some culpability on his part, and some on UKAD/WADA for not calling him on it. So if that's true I wouldn't give him credit for "following the rules."

The combination of these TUEs in combination with the instances of voluntary withdrawal from races due to low cortisol suggest there could be fairly broad abuse of that class of drugs.

I don't want to "support him" as I 'feel" like he knew exactly what he was doing, but technically speaking "gaming the rules" is what professionals in every field do. They do what they can to legally get away with a competitive advantage; morals be damned. The problem then is not the players doing the "gaming" it's the system/box that you put them inside to play in. The box is not defined tightly enough, so the players use the full box they are given. He ends up legally doped to the gills to the extent that the system allows him to.

Here is the section 4.1 you mention:

4.1 An Athlete may be granted a TUE if (and only if) he/she can show, by a balance of probability, that each of the following conditions is met:

a. The Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method in question is needed to treat an acute or chronic medical condition, such that the Athlete would experience a significant impairment to health if the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method were to be withheld.


b. The Therapeutic Use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method is highly unlikely to produce any additional enhancement of performance beyond what might be anticipated by a return to the Athlete’s normal state of health following the treatment of the acute or chronic medical condition.


c. There is no reasonable Therapeutic alternative to the Use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method.


d. The necessity for the Use of the Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method is not a consequence, wholly or in part, of the prior Use (without a TUE) of a substance or method which was prohibited at the time of such Use.


[Comment to 4.1: When a TUEC is deciding whether or not to recognize a TUE granted by another Anti-Doping Organization (see Article 7, below), and when WADA is reviewing a decision to grant (or not to grant) a TUE (see Article 8, below), the issue will be the same as it is for a TUEC that is considering an application for a TUE under article 6, below, i.e., has the Athlete demonstrated by a balance of probability that each of the conditions set out in article 4.1 is met? The WADA documents titled “Medical Information to Support the Decisions of TUECs”, posted on WADA’s website, should be used to assist in the application of these criteria in relation to particular medical conditions.]

If you read Wiggo's answers, he insists on "returning to normal" and being on a level playing field. It might be a BS response, but that's how he's gaming it.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...ins-tue-case-stinks/

I agree.

He fails on both (b) and (c). Taking into account that he had to see multiple doctors before finding one that would sign off on the Tue, he fails on (a) as well.

The reason the UK papers are bending over backwards to say it was legal under the rules instead of printing the obvious truth is they are afraid of being sued under the ridiculous libel laws over there.

This was doping, pure and simple. It is the same method that has been used throughout the 90s and 00s.

Again, I'm not supporting him, but I am certain Wiggins could get a lawyer to defend that his TUE was completely "legally" fine per the clauses above. Of course we can read into it what we want, but I am making the point that the system and rules and resultant box that the guys play is not tight enough and thus you get this type of gaming going on.

Why give pros all the credit? :)

Sure, I agree. There's a gray area to exploit. It's pretty large. At one end of the spectrum, if you're a "textualist" then taking caffeine and something like First Endurance Optygen purely for performance benefit is doping. And the other end you have stuff like taking powerful drugs like tramadol and corticosteroids for performance benefit.

We all have a line. One one side of the line you shrug and say, "It is what it is." On other end you say, "OK, we should do something about this."

To me Wiggins and co. fall on the wrong side of that line. The rules for corticosteroids should be tightened up, it seems. Those aren't like caffeine. They're powerful drugs that can harm athletes long-term. It wouldn't be hard. The tests are already there. The only tricky part is allowing people who genuinely use them for actual acute medical issues to use them appropriately.

well put. i would add though that i believe there is a point at which people with acute medical issues need to accept that they shouldn't be racing with those conditions - both to remove this grey area and for their own health.

the thing with wiggo is that it's not so much what he did as what he promise he would do. He and Brailsford set themselves as unimpeachable and promised much, yet what has come to light is contradicting a lot of what Wiggo publicly said. It's not there yet, but he's getting pretty close to defining what the definition of the term "is" is.

https://www.theguardian.com/...-sky-bradley-wiggins

every single article is going out of its way to make clear "there is no suggestion that he or the team broke any rules"

this is purely for libel reason

there is no question he can find an expert and a QC who would make hay with the first publication that called him on it

my problem with this situation is that both Wiggins and Brailsford have at every single step in the process stated repeatedly that they are clean, the implication being both in spirit and letter of the law. It turns out that Brad shows up one week before, the team asks if there is anything they can do, he says I've had some trouble breathing and they get one of the more powerful catabolic steroids signed off that no respiratory physician would ordinarily give someone with asthma and hayfever

Irrespective of whether it was the appropriate drug (and the view amongst my colleagues who are all physicians is it was not) the reality is that both the riders and management of team sky - and obviously by close association - british cycling - have been shown to be just as willing to push the boundaries of whats permitted as any of the individuals who they have spent so many years chastising

Brailsford and Wiggins are f**ked from a reputation point of view, the next thing we'll have is more and more members of the British Olympic Team - I believe its 100 or more who have notified the governing bodies that they've had TUE's that might be released and the system will be shown exactly for what it is, which is the boundary between clinical need and good clinical practice and doping is a very fuzzy line

IF - and this didn't happen - Wiggins had said he had asthma and hay fever and the physicians when submitting a TUE had also submitted the clinical evidence for the course of treatment (and the UK in that sense has a large body of work on clinical best practice in the NICE guidelines) they'd not be on such thin ice, but as it is, they found a physician who agreed to sign it off at essentially his request having been facilitated by the management team and now they're being shown for what they are

I have been as much a fan of BC and Sky as any other Brit but this could well result in the downfall of the team IF further evidence comes out that they effectively got a sanctioned doping program through the use of TUE's and sympathetic doctors.

There is no grey area with certain acute conditions.

If I don't inject myself with insulin, I die.

When I was first diagnosed with diabetes, I was told I might not be able to do as much sports etc as I used to. I swam and played rugby. I didn't listen to that though and I found out ways in which I could still participate and compete in the things I enjoyed doing. Undoubtedly, being able to be active in sports has made me healthier. Tri training is not all that healthy anyway with the volumes, but it has meant my required insulin levels drop dramatically, and it also means I stay in shape. All of which are good things for diabetics.

Having people with acute conditions stay active can often be good for their condition.

Taking something in order to make sure you stay alive can hardly be classified as "performance enhancing", unless you count "not dying" as being performance enhancing?

We are in agreement that he's on the wrong side of "our line" (as I sit here and am on my 5th espresso, dangerously close to the mytical ~6 espresso line that Giagni Bugno crossed and was suspended for). What this tells us is that the system is too "loose". The box needs to be tightened down and made smaller so that the gaming of the system happens in a more confined box resulting in more fair playing of the game. Systems will always be gamed. It's just like drafting in pro triathlon. Guys will sit right at the edge of the box and will sit just inside the draft zone longer than they should if they believe the other guy is, as no one wants to give away an advantage that the other player in the game is getting away with. And so it goes. It's basic game theory. Only way is to tighten the clamp and make the box tiny. It could be that if you need a TUE for this type of stuff, then you have to sit out for the next 3-6 months....I don't know, but there are real reasons why athletes need TUES who will then be penalized. Maybe that is "part of the cost" of a tighter box.

To me it is clear Wiggo took the drugs to perform better. They were definitely performance enhancing. But him and Brailsford will say they never doped (they did not technically) and were clean (they were technically).

I am as much a fan of Sky as I am of the Oregon project (check the ST threads and how much I was cheering for Farah in the 5000/10000 and Rupp in the marathon at Rio). The reality, is that I expect that all these orgs will maximize their performance using every legal means to them, morals be damned. I grew up sprinting in Canada when Ben Johnson was winning the bronze medal to Carl Lewis in the LA Olympics (1984), so let's just say, at this point, I just expect pros to do everything they can get away with, and in public they will act like choir boys. Nothing new if Sky are not choir boys. The British public, may be duped and now finding out that they are a slightly lesser version of the USPostal Blue train hitting Col de La Madeleine, but it's too much of the same to not not feel uneasy. Great athletes, great coaches, lots of money and every medical means they can get away with. In the case of Postal they stuff they could get away was illegal. In the case of Sky, now that the box is tighter they can win playing by the rules to the letter, which in many cases, might cross our moral line, but they are playing the rules. That's why Vino just mocked at the entire world taking his gold medal at the London Olympics. He treated EPO and blood bags like pro triatheletes sitting at the edge of the draft zone. Take what you can until you get put in the sin bin, then come back and win. Only way is to make the system tighter. Wiggins will keep his victories, but I think he'll be less of an "unwanted" than say Linford Christie who had an illegal nandrolone drug bust (I'd still have loved to see how fast Linford could have run in the 1996 100m finals in Atlanta as I am under no illusion what others were on).

trail wrote:

[At one end of the spectrum, if you're a "textualist" then taking caffeine and something like First Endurance Optygen purely for performance benefit is doping. And the other end you have stuff like taking powerful drugs like tramadol and corticosteroids for performance benefit.

You know, I've been thinking about this a lot and you were the first to post on these same lines. The problem people have with his actions here aren't necessarily based on the rules, which he may or may not have broken. It's the idea that he took a drug that he knew to be performance enhancing, for that reason, and it seems unlikely that it was for any other reason given many of the arguments made here already.

Now caffeine exists naturally in coffee, and I drink a lot of coffee. It is also in Coke which most of us are happy to chug on in the marathon leg, but we all sort of think that is ok because, you know, it is in coca cola anyway. But how do we feel about what we are doing when we nail down an energy gel containing caffeine? The caffeine doesn't need to be in there, it isn't an inherent part of the thing itself. It is put in there to fulfill a purpose. We have no other reason to consume that caffeine at that time, other than for the performance benefit of that chemical.

I'm not totally stupid... I know these things are streets apart, but it is an interesting thought exercise. For the record, I carry gels with caffeine from time to time, and I definitely chug down on Coke on the IM run. And I live on coffee. The coffee helps me get through the work day, but the caffeine gel and the Coke help get me through the marathon if I'm honest about it.

Caffeine:
Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant and is used to reduce physical fatigue and to prevent or treat drowsiness.[10] It produces increased wakefulness, increased focus, and better general body coordination.[29] The amount of caffeine needed to produce these effects varies from person to person, depending on body size and degree of tolerance.[29] Desired effects begin approximately one hour after consumption, and a moderate dose usually subsides in about three or four hours.[6] Caffeine can delay or prevent sleep, and improves task performance during sleep deprivation.[30] Shift workers have fewer mistakes caused by drowsiness.[31] At normal doses, caffeine has variable effects on learning and memory, but it generally improves reaction time, arousal, and concentration.[32] A 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis found that concurrent caffeine and l-theanine use has synergistic psychoactive effects that promote alertness, attention, and task switching;[33] these effects are most pronounced during the first hour post-dose.[33]
Both caffeine and coffee are proven ergogenic aids in humans.[34] Caffeine improves athletic performance in aerobic (especially endurance sports) and anaerobic conditions.[34] Moderate doses of caffeine (around 5 mg/kg[34]) can improve sprint performance,[35] cycling and running time trial performance,[34] endurance (i.e., it delays the onset of muscle fatigue and central fatigue),[34][36][37] and cycling power output.[34]

https://en.wikipedia.org/...nhancing_performance

accepting that it is a continuum of performance enhancing substances, we've accepted that caffeine up to a given point in spite of being a stimulant is permissable and that specific medications to treat specific conditions - insulin for diabetics - would be morally acceptable but when you have to go out and find a physician to sign off a TUE for a drug that speciailists in that area say they would not and should not prescribe its just pushing the legal boundaries of the sport to its very limit

To do it once, would be one thing - he had the symptoms pre the tour in 2012 - but to go and subsequently do it again, and then again...........we can all draw our own conclusions

Brad and Dave have made it their raison d'etre to profess the cleanliness of their programs to all and sundry but it turns out when you can find a sympathetic doctor and a drug that may (not one agrees it does) offer some relief to and underlying condition but has massive other benefits they have no problems saying thats ok..........

I have had such low expectations of sports for so long that I am not surprised but I did think that they were all about the spirit and the ethics of the sport. It turns out that this may not have been the case

Andrew, FWIW I agree with you completely. It is a matter of scale, but I do find the parallel interesting.

this is where is at...

u do it once cause u needed it then it is all good... doing over and over again... well everybody now can see what you were doing

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Coming back to the gaming of the system, they (Sir Wiggo and Brailford) can technically stand up there with a straight face and say they did everything clean, because they have followed the rules (albeit very loose and easily hijacked) to the letter even though you and I consider them to be doped to the gills, but just like legally using caffeinated gels that none of us need a TUE for, they have taken the step of taking a drug legally that you need a TUE for. All playing inside the rules.

Rules need to be tightened if you don't want the players to get away with this stuff. This is what Dumoulin was kind of implying in his cyclingnew.com interview. There is always be someone who takes full advantage of the rules, playing completely legally if the rules allow for it. It's like the pro triathlete who sits at 12.01 m of the draft zone forever and they when he enters he takes 14.99 seconds to get through every times. He sits right on the boundary of what he is allowed to do. If we don't like it, make it 20 m and 7.5 seconds to pass once you enter.

I am certain that if you had Vino participate in this thread, he'd basically tell us that every team NOT doing what Sky is doing are idiots for leaving time on the table. Do you see how this ends up. Everyone ends up using every armament that the current arms race allows.

Wiggo still "performance enhanced" but totally legally...basically legally approved doping. Technically same deal as a 2.99 second sticky bottle hand off. (I assume they allow 3 seconds, but I might have that number wrong).

All of which is fine. My only problem is that they've behaved like a Virgin on prom night when it turns out they spent the last 4 years of HS turning tricks behind the gym.....

Listening to "the real coaching" podcast. They made good point.

Make all TUE's public so people know what Is going on w athletes.

Need a TUE? Cool it just goes on public record what you are doing with it.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Yeah, I really think that is the easiest / simplest solution. No massive changes in the system are required....just make TUE's public.

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Think I'm pretty much in agreement with you. As far as we know, Sky and Wiggins are technically legal. Nothing that's come to light so far warrants a ban or titles being stripped, and I'm sure it's all stuff that most if not all of the other teams and riders are doing as well.

The issue for them is that they didn't set out to be like all the other teams. They stuck themselves on a pedestal and said they were going to be whiter than white. And now it turns out that what they actually meant was that they would do anything within the letter of the law to win. That's at least an improvement on the days when the line seemed to be not "anything within the law", but "anything I can do without getting caught", but it's not good enough, and it's not what they purported to be about.

Very disappointing that Brailsford hasn't even emerged to try and defend or explain his position yet.

I don't think it's legal if the TUE was prescribed without legitimate reason. I highly doubt Wiggins would have gotten any of those TUE's had he seen any regular "unattached" doctor so it's not really legal doping, it's just doping. The problem is proving a TUE is not legit and that's how they're gaming the system.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

I totally agree but it's almost like we have cake on our face for actually Believing a team like this.

Or shall I say, is there a way in today's world of winning and big money business for teams to do it the "right way"? I don't know, and I guess the "good guys" get sent packing early.

It kinda reminds me of college athletics and "amateurish" as schools make millions off players, coaches make absurb contracts as highest paid employee on campus, but we are suppose to believe this is all about a simple game played by students.

Shit like this pisses me off more and more. Idk maybe that's what it takes to compete at that level, but fuck...as a competitor, who doesn't want it to be simply a matter of "am I good enough". Of course in cycling it's not been that way for a long long time.

Just as you say, don't give me this BS "we are going to do it right".

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

But if the TUE was approved by UCI, then technically it's fine right? I don't like it, and it's not what Sky claimed to be about, but from what I've seen they followed the process and haven't done anything outside the rules. If they'd forged a doctor's approval, or back-dated forms or something, that would be more of a problem, but right now they seem to have followed the letter but not the spirit of the rules.

So there are 2 issues:

1) Sky are as cynical as any other team in that they push the envelope of what they can get away with within the rules. This isn't what they claimed to be about. Wiggins autobiography where he talked about having grown up in a "no needle" culture, and also stated how fit and healthy he was coming into the 2012 TdF (he said something like he only had a couple of minor colds and barely missed a day's training that season), is also now looking pretty stupid
2) The rules in this case seem to be open to abuse and need tightening up. I've got a lot of sympathy with the view that some substances are extreme enough that if you need them for medical reasons then you're probably sick enough that you shouldn't be racing. A couple of puffs of salbutamol which offers no benefit to somebody who's not an asthmatic is clearly fine, but a steroid which can potentially cut fat without losing power seems like it shouldn't be allowed under any circumstance short of taking time out of the sport

I'm OK with the view that the rules are the rules, and that it would be naïve not to take advantage of them. Certainly, if you take a parallel with legal drafting in triathlon, I wouldn't expect any triathlete to voluntarily maintain a 20m gap when the rule says 12m. As you say, the bit that stinks is the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another.

Maybe the simplest solution is simply to make the TUE process fully transparent (maybe 3 months in arrears, to avoid other riders getting a competitive advantage from knowing their opponent is suffering from hayfever or whatever). Publish the data, including any TUEs that have been rejected, and I suspect you'd see a big improvement both in what the teams submit in the first place, and in the rigour and consistency that UCI apply in reviewing them.

Doper, as in you think what has been published already counts as doping? Or doper, as in you think they've also been doing things which are outside the letter of the rules?

I agree the problem also lies within UCI and other governing bodies and how TUE's approvals are handled. I just don't think that many of the TUE's like Wiggins are actually legit and inside the rules. The problem is that it's too complicated/impossible for the UCI to prove they're unnecessarily prescribed and therefore the use of a lot of those meds are approved despite in reality not being allowed.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

Is he a pro cyclist?

Then he is a doper...

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

Obviously I was the first in this thread to say Wiggo followed the rules but reading this discussion makes me wonder:

Would WADA say that getting a doctor to prescribe a highly performance enhancing drug when it is not indicated by the symptoms instead of the appropriate trea tent which nay not be performance enhancing and then exaggerating the case for it on the TUE is within the rules?

I'd bet they would say no. But their tue application examiners are supposed to be looking out for these shennanigans, right? Seems like they are just as much at fault for allowing this through.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Eh, my guess is that it's setup to allow than to disallow. A strong union gets things setup like that.

Eta: when you start talking about people's "health", there are going to be far more restrictions on what authorities can do to stop someone from doing their job. So my guess is that if medical say xyz helps w whatever symptom, legally they are going to have hands tied when trying to ban it.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

you don't need an union to push for this when the governing body (viz. UCI) has vested interest in implementing things this way

You mean keeping its stars involved in the sport? Yes they are guilty of that, and can be added to long list of all other sports organizations that have an interest in keeping its best athletes in front of the public.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/09/news/road/dumoulin-wiggins-tue-situation-stinks_421457

He is a legal doper, also anorectic Froome pictures come to mind when reading the story above, he probably also got TUE.

Here is why I think it is doping even despite the fact it was "approved by governing body"

Being part of big well connected team with tons of money, I'm assuming it would be much easier to receive TUE than applying as independent competitor. We all know how corrupted those governing bodies really are, and how easy is to "convince" them.

best example from Rio:
http://metro.co.uk/2016/08/11/second-kenyan-coach-booted-from-rio-olympics-after-posing-as-athlete-during-a-drug-test-6062824/


taking such a strong drugs and justifying that you "had to to get better or to stay alive", then suddenly winning the race, is a slap to everyone with a bit of brain.


We are all intelligent and have to think logically, not believing in all BS they are feeding us with.

It sounds to me like we are creating a bar that Wiggins was supposed to meet (and failed to) so we can act outraged. Wiggins and team laid the expectation that they weren't doping and they aren't. The TUE process is completely legal and within the rules. The fact that we don't accept the TUE process is not relevant to this point. We can't retroactively create a standard for fairness then impose it on an athlete.

I frankly don't care one way or another about the TUE process. But people here get so appalled at any little medication that we need to draw a line. The TUE process is what sets the standard for taking certain medications.

The 'posturing' of Sky always led me to believe they would do anything & everything to gain an advantage i.e. if it wasn't explicitly banned under WADA rules, it's fair game. We all know necessity is the mother of invention, and pharmacuticals are no exception.

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29 years and counting

No one would object to it if they never thought it would come out. I also wonder if WADA really have the in house staff to review every TUE

First the team does it. They send it to the UCI. If the UCI say it's a ok. I don't see WADA having the resources to sense check every application

This shit - and that is what this is - has exposed brailsford and wiggins for being no different from Lance and Bruyneel in spirit only in the letter of the law

nope. most of us would agree that they played by the rules, albeit using an interpretation of the rules that pushed things to the hazy boundaries of the rules. Proving intent is a lot harder to do, and not many are trying to prove that though most would agree that the intent is to take full advantage of the fringe (or is it marginal) benefits provided by the treatment.

the outrage is at the inconsistencies between what were done and what were stated by Wiggo and Brailsford when they claimed that they'd hold themselves accountable to a higher standard (e.g. no needles). It was a publicity ploy at the time to extricate themselves from the fall outs from the Armstrong investigations, and they had not imagined at the time that they would need to reconcile their actions with their words at a later time (albeit the disclosure was made public by an organization with serious moral credibility issues)

Exactly my point.

Lance times - who has best doctor wins
Team Sky times - Who has best lawyer to navigate UCI BS rules wins.

If TUE would exist during Lance times, he would use it to full extent, he had $ and connections. It is sickening, they first shut Lance, then incorporate the whole circus before 2015 season, then allow them dope up to their gills under TUE in very legitimate way, so corporate dopers are not dopers anymore.

I agree, Ralph.



I couldn't disagree more. Athletes have a right to medical privacy as much as anyone. The system should allow for that, as it does at the moment. If the TUE system is allowing athletes to take drugs to enhance performance under the pretence of medical need, then the TUE approval system needs refining. Perhaps a start would be having more than one doctor review and sign off the TUE or not approving TUEs retrospectively so they can be used to mask PEDs.

That's where the focus needs to be. Stripping athletes of medical privacy is not correct. These are sportsmen and women, not gladiators at the whim of the public.

I see where you are going, but I partially disagree for international level athletes, at which point you are a public figure and matter about your health, certainly those pertaining to performance, probably need to be public for coaches and fans. I have not totally thought this through though and could be easily swayed....certain at the local level or sub national level you have a right to privacy since sport might not be how you earn a living and public disclosure of "health issue" could affect how you earn a living elsewhere. But at an international level, athletes already lose privacy by having to register whereabouts and associated intrusions on life. No one is forcing anyone to be an athlete. At some point, using your analogy, once they are public figures, to some degree they indeed are modern day gladiators (short of the fight to death part).

I disagree only in that we are finding out that people are hiding behind "medical privacy". I think above all else fair play matters more than anything.

That's where you need to start. If that means keeping medical privacy and changing how they give TUE's, fine.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Although arguably their right to privacy is slightly diminished if they are receiving tax payers funds.

Transparency is good for sports. Individuals receiving government funds need to be subject to a degree of scrutiny that others need not be.

The athletes always have the choice not to publish and to not receive funds.

That said i agree there is a privacy issue. The issue here which is becoming more and more apparent as an endemic issue across all sports is that the bodies responsible for governance and transparency have failed abysmally in their duty of care both to individualsee and the spirit of the competition

While I understand that point, my counter is simply that this is the cost of being a professional athlete under the WADA code. You are not entitled to that profession and, if you choose to pursue it, those are the rules.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

It's OK

Dave has said they didn't do it to enhance performance. The process has integrity

https://www.theguardian.com/...-bradley-wiggins-tue

That's cleared that up. Nothing to see here.......

F$$k brailsford and wiggins for thinking that's going to be it and we'll all swallow it........

With all due respect, you just proved my point even though you started your post by refuting my point. He didn't push "to the hazy boundaries of the rules". Nor do we have any proof that the intent "is to take full advantage of the fringe benefits" of the treatment. He simply followed all the rules and got a TUE. Lastly, his "no needles" standard leaves some wiggle room. Does a flu shot count? You are splitting hairs so you can be incensed!

Again- If you have a problem with the TUE process we can certainly discuss that, but in another thread.

Yet those aren't "the rules."

Athletes forego their privacy to a designated body, not the public. The idea that if you chose to be an athlete you forego certain liberties is absolutely false. Under the current system, athletes are afforded that privacy, and for good reason. Another iteration of this argument is if they have nothing to hide, why should they object? Or, if you have nothing to hide, why shouldn't law enforcement just wander in whenever they want and go through your possessions? Nothing to hide, right? It's an absolutely fallacious argument.

It is being proposed from the point of view that being a professional athlete is somehow a privileged, easy ride. Making that argument smacks of rancour and jealousy. Becoming a professional athlete is not some Faustian bargain. The rules cover everyone, from the 0.001% who become household names to the swollen ranks of journey men professional athletes scraping by.

Tighten the requirements of the TUE system.

Your initial comment was taken to mean that we are making something out of nothing by setting an arbitrary bar, but that is misconstruing the fact on the ground. The bar was not set by the public and is rather the doing of Sky all along. The public didn't require that they implement a no-needle policy, and it was Wiggo himself who a) asserted in interviews and in his autobiography that he has a no needle policy and b) lamented about the lax reinforcement of a no-needles policy at the Dauphinee. Now that he's found to be duplicitous in his original claim aimed at reassuring the public, should it just be hushed up?

yes, "we" the public are calling it out, but we the public also didn't require or want their publicity spiel in the first place. That spiel is their way of saying "trust us on this, we promise," and it's not stated in a vacuum but rather with the intent to assuage.

 
Looks dope to me....

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I think, as others have said, that what has been published it outside of the letter of the rules. In other words, I disagree pretty strongly with the idea that just because they ostensibly followed the TUE procedure that everything is kosher. I think it's clear that, as regards some of the more subjective clauses within the TUE requirements, they violated the specific letter of those rules.

As far as whether or not they ALSO took something for which you cannot get a TUE, I don't really think that matters. But it wouldn't surprise me either way. With the TUE process so easily abused, why bother risking it? But, if you are going to break some of WADA's rules, why would you care about breaking more of them?

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I largely agree with your point, but I don't think this is entirely true. The resources of Sky, I presume, have the expertise to produce an exquisitely documented, "air-tight" TUE that would make it difficult for UKAD/WADA to challenge on a medical basis.

So in that sense it's probably easier for Sky's premier GC rider to get a TUE for a long-duration injected corticosteroid than it is for trail. I could probably get my Dr. to prescribe one easily, but he wouldn't want to take the time to write up a 25-page medical history documenting my "asthma," history of treatment, and the set of conditions that clearly indicate that no other treatment than this particular injected drug would be medically sufficient.

On paper the rules are the same. In practice there are differences.

From Wiggins himself on how they got TUE.

“It was prescribed for allergies and respiratory problems,” Wiggins told BBC1 in an interview that will be aired Sunday. “I’ve been a lifelong sufferer of asthma and I went to my team doctor at the time and we went in turn to a specialist to see if there’s anything else we could do to cure these problems. And he in turn said: ‘Yeah, there’s something you can do but you’re going to need authorization from cycling’s governing body [the UCI].'”
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/...#2XyZAmsFo8GmEt1V.99

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

exactly. in itself, taking what seems to be a massive overkill medication that would not normally be prescribed for allergies is dubious at best. it is possible though that wiggins had tried everything else with no success and finally found something that actually worked for him.
the problem is he is on record as saying he never got injections other than vaccinations and the occasional saline drip and now we know that is untrue. not just saying that but making a point of it as evidence of how completely clean he is. so he is certainly a liar and that sort of manipulation of the truth is particularly suspicious given the background here.

personally i'm not that surprised as sky have a history of pushing the boundaries in any way they can, it is disappointing though

I totally support this. I think this simple step would go a long way towards addressing a complex issue. Public records of TUEs would force athletes to self-police or risk the ire of fans and even sponsors.

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This sounds like a horse poop answer to me.

If this drug is so powerful, why is it not banned outright? No TUE. Period.

I think most of these guys still cheat (I consider abusing the TUE process cheating, which I believe this is). How hard would it be for him to find a doc to do this? Not very. The Sky narrative has always been way too similar to USPS. Some good, and so-so riders become top tier with great coaching and tactics...

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Brian

It's more what big business and money can do for you. And of course what's their response to the issue?

"Oh what we are doing is technically legal...so yeah, we are clear".

Sky pushing it's money muscle around. Cool story, Sky. You "technically" haven't cheated! Yay! You are doing it right!

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

It is banned outright in-competition*. There is a theoretical exemption for EVERY medicine on the banned list with a convincing enough TUE. EPO is a prime case. Had WADA existed at the time, Lance would have needed a TUE in order to take EPO during his cancer treatment. 99% of the substances on the banned list are pharmacological interventions designed to treat legitimate medical complications. One of the common stimulants that track & field sprinters get popped for is a narcolepsy medication. Simone Biles taking Adderall is a very relevant case here - both in terms of legitimate use as well as abuse. Testosterone TUEs are very hard to get, and yet there are certainly athletes - though likely few elites - who would qualify for one. There's almost nothing that "no way, no how, no TUE." The issue is just how robust the TUE process is. Is it believable, for instance, that Serena Williams suffers from Sjogren's Syndrome? I'm very skeptical. And of course there is the definition of "suffers." Illness typically exists on a spectrum. So who gets to decide how severe is severe enough to warrant intervention? And this is where that oft-used refrain, "it wasn't to gain an advantage; it was just to bring them up/back to 'normal' levels."

What exactly does the word "normal" mean in the context of totally abnormal physical pursuits. There's nothing normal about running a 2:05ish marathon, so who gets to decide what defines normal within that context? What exactly is "normal" when it comes to racing a grand tour?

The other thing to remember is that "so powerful" is highly relative. Michael Phelps won the 200 butterfly by 0.01seconds over a race lasting just under two minutes. Even 1% is a MASSIVE advantage.

*The reason for certain substances being banned in competition vs out of competition is very debatable. For instance, clenbuterol is considered an anabolic and is banned at all times. But several of the corticosteroids that athletes are getting TUEs for have *similar* effects and yet are legal OOC and only banned IC.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

If that's how the best team in cycling wants to do it, cool. But it won't do itself or the sport any favors.

It just looks bad. But I don't even know if they care, they are doing it the "right" way for how they want to do it apparently.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Except they didn't break WADA's rules re: the TUE.

Again, not defending Wiggins or saying he didn't game the system, but if wea re gonna make the argument that he essentially doped, we should make sure we have the facts straight.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Interesting since the TUE says it is for an allergy to grass and pollen, not for asthma.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I agree that disclosing TUEs is the simplest, most straightforward step. Medical privacy, my ass. Nobody is saying you have to have your entire medical history disclosed, like that time you got VD on shore leave back in the service or how many fertility treatments it took for your old lady to get knocked up. The whole concept of a TUE is specific to elite-level sanctioned athletic competition, so it only exists in and of that context. If you want to play in that particular sandbox, you have to disclose that particular subset of your medical info and that is all; no more, no less. All the rest of your 'normal' medical history can remain privileged just like the rest of us 'normal' schmucks that don't ever cross WADA's radar.

Wiggins is lying again.

Dr. Zorzoli at the UCI signed off on one of Wiggins' TUEs on 6/30/2011. WIggins' specialist examination was on 7/2/2011.

That is a neat trick. Sky's marginal gains must include Dr. Who's TARDIS..

That's where I disagree.


from: https://www.wada-ama.org/...emption-tue#item-726

I would say that #1, #2, & #3 are all very questionable - or demonstrably false - in the case of Wiggins. In my *OPINION*, Wiggins did NOT meet all four requirements, and yet he was granted a TUE anyway. Now, you could say that the TUE system is broken or easily gamed or whatever. But fundamentally, the rules are pretty clear. At least in how they are written. That the rules are not actually enforced with that same clarity is disappointing. But that does not absolve a party who breaks the rules of breaking them.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

To be fair to Wiggo triamcinolone acetonide would be a common alternative if other drugs have not worked and he is trying to ensure no issues before a big race. If you are a life long asthmatic and already having allergic issues this might be the best method to ensure no severe asthma issues, in fact this drug is used often as a drug to prevent asthma attacks. I would argue the weight loss claims as dubious when examining current literature. Futhermore, this will suppress his immune system, not something you want to be doing regularly. In fact i think this will play around with your amino acids and actually cause muscle wasting in long term use.

Setting aside the clinical need for one second or the efficacy of the treatment chosen

Brad and Dave made it a point of fact that they did not indulge in needles - to the extend that other than vaccinations or drips they did not use them

He said himself that he had not missed a day going in to the 2012 tour but then said he'd had this breathing problem, which apparently was not sufficient enough to stop him from not missing a day

BUT - and this is the worst F**king part of the whole debacle - he either has the same symptoms just before his next two big races in 13 and 14, or they chose to administer the drug as a prophylactic measure

They can not have it both ways - this is irrespective of whether the drug was needed - they can not on the one hand say that they've not engaged in the use of medications through needles, then in the next breath explain that "well, on these three occasions we actually go a TUE, the first time because he was sick, the next two just in case"

None of this reflects well on either of them, even more so now its become / becoming apparent that team members and management were unaware of this.

As to its effectiveness - I've no idea - but I also suspect that at the very start of the EPO epidemic, data on its effectiveness was both limited in volume and quality for any assessment of EPO's benefit to cyclists to be known - this may be the same

Wiggins and Brailsford have a PR problem - Britains most successful olympian now has an asterisk next to his one grand tour one, and his manager has now reinforced the skepticism that every other track and road team has held about Sky from the outset.

Sky will no longer be whiter than white - sky will be viewed as tainted and inconsistent in so far as whilst they've refused contracts to convicted dopers - they apparently have no issue with mis-representing their policies on needles or taking advantage of the WADA code

As someone pointed out earlier - the very fact the TUE was signed off before the consultant appointment with the specialist would suggest that the preferred course of action was know and a retrospective justification for it was all that they sought

I suspect that there are some team members in the south of france that will be having some very difficult conversations with the management team

Though the upside of this, is that at least we now know why no one has been able to find a whistle blower, or the smoking gun, because being smarter than the average alley cat, they do not have a team wide, systematic doping program in place, instead, what they have chosen to do, is on a case by case basis limited to a Dr, RIder and Brailsford make decisions about what medications to take. If it comes out that Geraint, or others had TUE's and these were approved in the same way I think we can determine that unlike USPS where there'd be team meetings about doping up, Brailsford learnt that they way not to get caught was to do it one on one..........

I am really f**king annoyed by this - sunlight is the best disinfectant and had Sky been as truly transparent as they always want to be seen as - this would never have happened

The final thing we have learnt is why Brailsford never signed up to the teams that wanted a doping code stronger than WADA's - had they at the time, Wiggins would never have been allowed to ride......

Hey Jordan, this is where it is not up to you, or I to decide if 1,2,3 were questionable. That's where the doc and those that grant the TUE to decide if that is the case. It's clear to ME that he was gaming the system, but he's totally legally allowed to do whatever gaming he and Sky want to do, in the context of the flimsy rules. That's the problem with any set of rules. Those searching for a competitive advantage will game them. While you are TTing by yourself to Hawi there will be 10 guys sitting within 12.00 to 12.01 meters of each other and when they go to 11.98, they will then take 14.99 seconds and take the full draft effect before sticking their front wheel in front of the next guy. All legal and nothing wrong with it according to the rules. If you make the draft box 20m guys will do what they can at 20m. If you make the TUE system tighter there will be guys doing everything they can inside the new "tighter" system to get any legal advantage they can.

To Andrewmc, I don't think there will be any asterisk in British public's minds about Wiggo. People are very nationalistic and just as competitive about their champions as athletes themselves are. It's gonna be something like, "hey screw off you silly Americans/Italians/Spaniards/Germans....sure our champion went to the limit but he didn't cross it like Lance, Basso, Contador and Ullrich.....he was totally legal in his wins so it's all sour grapes. You guys are just jealous cause you can't beat us fair and square"....and so it goes. People are very possessive about their champions and if their champions did everything "fair and square" they will be embraced for doing what is needed to win in their competition.

We just have a higher bar as athletes. I don't think the general public does.....for crying out loud, my wife was defending Gatlin at the olympics.....she could not understand my disdain....it was like "Dev, stop it, the guy did his suspension and he's racing clean since he's not testing positive". WTF? I just shut up and watched, because the IOC/WADA etc etc etc has the general public believing that it's all clean stuff going on. It's good for selling sponsors.

I actually think that at least the more informed British cycling public will feel they've been misled on this. Most people I know who actually follow cycling (as opposed to just tuning into the Olympics every 4 years and cheering on anybody in a GB top) are, if not exactly shocked, then somewhat disillusioned. There's a fair few Brits on this thread as well, and nobody is exactly making a robust defence of Wiggins. The best spin you can put on this would be that they didn't break the rules.

Britain generally has a pretty negative view on dopers, we're not typically big on second chances or rehabilitation. The likes of Christie and Chambers are persona non grata. Millar's reinvention of himself as an anti-doping crusader has been a lot more successful in the US than in the UK, where a lot of people still don't like him. Armitstead's missed doping tests attracted a lot of criticism. And although the British Media has to be careful what they print because of libel laws, there are plenty of critical articles going around at the moment. I think Wiggins is somewhat tainted now in a lot of people's eyes. I don't think Sky are irredeemably tainted yet, but they've certainly lost a lot of fans and are going to have to do a lot better than "we didn't break any rules" if they want to get people back onside. Brailsford has now said he wasn't aware of triamcinolone's use as a doping drug - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...y-wigginss-tue---it/. I guess that's just about plausible (I ran a search for it in the Slowtwitch knowledge base and up until the last week it only cropped up a few times and never in connection with professional dopers that I could see), but if true then in light of his new knowledge I'd expect him to make changes in how Sky treat the TUE process in future, rather than insisting that in the same situation he'd do the same thing again.

It will be interesting to see if there are more Sky TUEs revealed. Froome's TUEs look more innocuous and were already in the public domain. If it stops there it might not be too bad. If it turns out that pretty much the whole Sky TdF squad has been suffering from hayfever, allergies and asthma then I think there'd be serious repercussions - sponsors pulling out, senior management being fired, etc.

I would still draw a big distinction between the current scandal and previous doping scandals. Teams who are willing to do whatever they can get away with while at least following the rules and leaving an official paper trail, are still a lot better than teams who completely ignore the rules and just do whatever they can get away with without being caught.

I think when you have David Walsh - arguably the biggest DB / Team Sky fanboy - stating that in light of the clinical opinions proffered this does not look good, you know Wiggins, Brailsford and Sky have a problem

Most of the public could not give two monkeys about this but I suspect that Wiggins and Brailsford value the opinion of the cycling community and their peers rather more than that of the Xmas book market and this has harmed them

If it turns out that Dave B sat in rooms with cyclists on the team and discussed providing prophylactic medications - that happen to PED's - to a number of other riders and his senior management team, and the other riders did not know, he's finished..........

I would not underestimate the contempt with which that will be held. I think even his interview was poor:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/26/sir-dave-brailsford-stout-defence-team-sky-bradley-wiggins


he wont look at improving the health of the rider but has somehow ended up giving the same drug three years in a row in the days running up to their A race.......


seriously what are the odds that BW always presents with the same symptoms in advance of the one big race a year, three years in a row.......


this looks poor

A slightly different approach from Callum Skinner - releasing his medical records showing he had asthma from childhood.
http://www.scotsman.com/...ing-hacked-1-4241055

From Froomes Twitter
https://twitter.com/...serp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

no coded message or sub-text there............move on.........

All the "Winners" with asthma are dopers.

DB and BW have both kind of implied that the TUE was for preventative reasons as much as treating an actual condition. That would at least sit better with Wiggins claim to have been in great health coming up to the 2012 TdF (but still doesn't square with his claim to have never had an injection other than a vaccination) and is a more plausible justification than coincidentally getting the same health problems just before a major GT, 3 years in a row.

Whether that fits with how TUEs should be used is a matter of opinion. First criteria is "The athlete would experience significant health problems without taking the prohibited substance or method". I guess to satisfy this properly you'd have to show that Wiggins was highly likely (or almost certain?) to have asthma/allergy problems which would significantly impact performance based on previous years. I don't know how this could be convincing - he was clearly in pretty good shape in 2009 when he finished 4th in the TdF (and got bumped up to 3rd), and presumably given what Garmin's doctor has said he wasn't on any TUEs back then.

I don't know how legit Wiggin's allergies are/were, but I used to live in the UK and suffered pretty bad pollen allergies. But when I would visit France in the summer it would become far, far worse. Really debilitating. So if he suffered anything like I would in France, then I can imagine wanting to take something preventative. That's not to absolve him of scrutiny, nor question why such a powerful drug is being allowed under a TUE right before a race, but it could speak to the motive of wanting to find something to stop any potential debilitating hayfever bouts.

The issue I have is, if you have health issues due to ashtma and you are only taking an medicine that really helps right before an GT and not rest of year?

How the hell are you able to train the rest of the time to a world class level? Just seems very odd.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

My understanding was that you don't need a TUE for that substance unless it is used in racing. Someone please confirm. So he could be using it all along in training.

At least one physician should comment on whether you'd prescribe this simply to prevent something happening

Or maybe he's just unlucky and it only happens before A races and not when he's on the continent the rest of the time

He'd need if it it was on a WADA list and he's subject to out of competition testing i think

You cant rock up with a T Rx just because youre not competing on a given day. At least thats not my understanding of it

According to the usada and I searched it for UK cyclists, out of comp is allowed to use triamcinolone.

Ok great, allowed to use during training.

Now here is the sticky part.

How did he win Paris Nice, Dauphine, and Tour of Romandie in 2012 (eta: added year 2012 when he won the Tour) without the drug and TUE?

So he can race in France without it less than 1 month before TdF? Yawn.

Sky, I give you mad props for gaming the hell out of the system and yet again making cycling have lots and lots of egg on their face.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

So in a matter of 20 days an athlete doing 2 races in the same general area shows what symptoms to getting an TUE? From wiki "it was viewed as a great prep for July's TdF, hence why a majority of the contenders for the GC of the major tour participated in the Dauphine".


-wins an week long race on June 10th without the drug and TUE (or atleast not with an TUE, and he didn't test positive.....so clean)

-starts a 3 week long race June 30th with the drug and TUE.

So how/why did Sky show he needed it again? UCI deserves negative for giving it, but it's not clear what led to sky's reasoning for it?

Eta: if you say "allergies" then why does he get the TUE over different months and only before a GT over a few years?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Hey hey.....don't you know that the weather changes in France from June to July.....allergies obviously go insane during TdF season

.....pink font entirely optional here.

Carry on with this thread!

And just an FYI, I'm not trying to throw mud on anyone, but point out the likely facts in this case.

For a team that talked about being "above" all this stuff, it certainly feels creepy.

But why wouldn't they do it, if they can. I don't see how you can compete without doing these things in the sport of cycling.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

OK, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you are now conflating it with fact. The facts are that Wiggo applied for, and received, a TUE according to the rules. He did not "break the rules".

You can argue that he violated the "spirit" of the rules (and I likely would agree), but factually he did not break any rules.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Curious justification for why they wanted to apply for TUE and why it was given.

I've not seen anything to justify why they should have seeken it out other than to get an advantage. The time frames of when they applied for it don't make sense. "Allergies" only when you do a 3 week bike race. Of course.

They and uci have a lot to answer for.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Maybe RowToTri should change the title of the thread to:

Is someone who takes banned products with TUE a doper, or is that person a non doper.

My 2 cents.

Look at it this way first...you can be a doper on account of taking doping products with a TUE and be legally clean.

But we're all dopers who are legally clean, at least everyone of us that takes coffee....so where do you draw the line?

So I take back my above statement and say you can't be a doper unless you broke a rule. Wiggins did everything legally in that its not up to us to judge if his doctors were slippery and loose and compliant. Its up to WADA to decide that, since we don't have all the fact at hand (same with Serena, same with Biles). I don't like it, but by the letter of the rule, what Wiggo did was not doping. It was playing legally.

I think you have to draw the line somewhere and that line drawing starts with setting rules and making athletes and teams follow them. Otherwise it is a slippery slope of morals based interpretations. The only morals that should come into play are those encoded in the rules, otherwise its free for all in terms of accusing everyone you don't like of doing something that just does not happen to fall in line with your personal moral code of ethics.

Wiggo, Froome, Cancellara,Skinner and quite a few more....

Ok they all needed TUE due to their "grave conditions" before the competition... check the times oft heir TUE and check their palmares. And what is very peculiar and absolutely obvious...., it was all enabled by one single Dr. Zorzoli....

That doctor for no reason was suspended not long ago, then reinstated, then quit.....All of this smells like shit from a mile...If this would all be kosher, he would be still doing what he was doing, the fact that few @$$holes is trying to say it is fine to dope with TUE , doesn't change the fact that it is doping. If you don't see it you are probably on TUE yourself, and I'm sorry for your,

All documents can be downloaded here: http://fancybear.net/ add @FancyBears guys on Twitter and you will see other people with severe asthma beating those healthy, because asthma actually helps excel in those sports... (sarcasm)

And when you look at Williams TUE list, holly... she is a walking pharmacy... I'm surprised she can actually live every day life someone from WADA should go to jail for this...

I'm selling my 2 team SKY jerseys and Cancellara pic goes off the wall from my cycling studio...

Respiratory allergies are a strong asthma trigger. Not saying that justifies the TUE (my thoughts are pretty clear above), just pointing out that this bit isn't necessarily an inconsistency.

Cancellara seems kind of legit to me. Doesn't fit the pattern.

There's a pretty solid record that he had an actual acute medical condition. He was hospitalized before the 2011 Vuelta. There are pictures from both TUEs showing his face was messed up. It's well-documented that he carries a sting kit on his training rides.

Also neither the Vuelta nor the Tour of Belgium are his "A" races. Those would be the Classics and WC/Olympic time trials.

Also it seems unlikely that Cancellara would go through the elaborate ruse of hospitalizing himself and punching himself in the face because 8 years later someone might hack WADA and publicize his two TUEs.

I'm a Spartacus fanboi, but, still, trail gives a pass on this one. If you want to argue that the rules should be changed so that athletes in the future are forced to either withdraw from the race, or race without the treatment, then fine. But it's hard to fault a professional athlete for exceeding the published standards of WADA for what was probably an actual serious medical problem.

I don't disagree....but the facts are that at least two doctors and the oversight committee at WADA felt it was justified and no rules were broken.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Dev, you're drawing a false equivalence. If the rule says "12m back", and you stay 12m back, then you're obeying the rules in letter and spirit. If the rules say, "you can use otherwise prohibited drugs to treat an existing medical condition as long as you obtain a specific form of approval", and you invent a condition to justify using some drug that you think will help your performance, that's cheating.

I don't know whether BW is an asthma sufferer or whether the treatment is appropriate. If he is and it is, then sure - carry on. But so many inconsistencies have come to light that it's reasonable to wonder whether the critical elements on which the TUE rests are legitimate, and if they're not, then he was cheating. Or, if you want to stick to the credo that you're not cheating unless the UCI or WADA say you were, he was morally in the wrong. And to return to your original analogy, someone who sits 12m behind another rider, when the draft zone is 12m long, and who takes <15 seconds to exit that zone when the rules allow 15s to pass, is not in any kind of moral grey area.... hence the false equivalence.

The issue of whether or not the TUE should have been granted is, to some extent, a separate question. My reading of the timelines that have been quoted and the procedures that were followed is that the process broke down in this instance, and that an exemption was granted when perhaps one wasn't warranted. But whether or not the TUE should have been given, on the basis of what was submitted, doesn't alter the fact that the submission shouldn't have been made if BW wasn't suffering from whatever malady he claimed to be, if there weren't other permitted remedies available, etc. And if it shouldn't have been made, then it's cheating, in the same way that appealing for a catch in baseball or cricket when you know that the ball hit the ground before you took it is cheating, regardless of whether the umpire gives it out or not.

Fair enough, his pic stays..., I always loved Spartacus, his later TUE are kinda questionable but...

Those TUE rules should change, if you are on TUE you are not competing. If it takes 30 days for drug to disappear from your system, you are not competing for 45 just to give enough buffer.

If you take TUE and win, your gold medal does not count, because it means you didn't need TUE, this way nobody will apply for TUE to get ahead, but to really get back in action. In other words you must be severely F##$%@ to apply for TUE, and you are doing it only to be ready for next season, because this season you are done anyway.

Each TUE should be public, unanimously approved by 6 doctors from different disciplines, different countries drown randomly from pool of 500 doctors. Yes it should be really obvious that even doctor that doesn't know your history of athlete should say: ok this guy needs it he is f#@$%^.

Public and spectators should be able to sign up for all details of why/when/who gets TUE. I pay my hard earn money buying Rapha\cervelo\trek stuff based on athletes performance etc. If Athlete says I do not take drugs I always race clean, then it comes up he was doping legitimately on TUE, why not full transparency??
Just say it: I crashed in this race and had to take some powerful stuff because I could not get on the bike next day, problem is they all take stuff before the race...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-SE-lirYg

I think we can all "sniff" what was going on. But then tighten the rules so guys like Wiggins don't get away with it. That's what I am getting at. If he legally got the TUE he did not cheat. He could fabricate all kinds of reason why the TUE was needed provided he could generate the correct supporting documents, then he's followed the rules. The problem many of you guys get into is all this discussion about the spirit of the rules and moral code and all of that. Like I said, I don't feel he followed the spirit, and it does not conform with what I think is morally right, but I bet you some guy from Khazhakstan or Kenya is thinking that every everything Wiggo did is just fine and they are going to do exactly the same thing and get legally juiced up. So you need a tighter system.

Now if you prove that the TUE is invalid then he cheated, but right now the TUE is valid so no rules were broken so legally speaking no cheating. Using our morals, yeah, he probably was on the wrong side of our moral code, but our moral code unfortunately carries zero weight in getting his TdF title revoked. Prove the TUE was invalid and that this was straight up cheating, then it's all good. Until then he did everything legally.

It's like the train at 70.3 Worlds. All legal slipstreaming at legal distance....or maybe actually not. As it stands Wiggins was likely MORE LEGAL than most of the 70.3 WC front group as more than one of us saw guys slide inside 12m and not make the pass. That's definitely illegal and cheating (the fact that they got away with it does not make it "not cheating"), but they got away with it as no ref was there. Wiggo on the other hand has tabled everything he has done to the "refs" and has not hidden anything that we are aware of.

See I've never really said any rules have been broken. I'm not even caring if he's a labeled doper or not. I'm more out to show how Sky behaves.

I've just said Sky based on facts I've seen is now dodgy. You or dev may be cool with how they acted but I'm not. That's BS way of gaming the system. Thay system needs fixing.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Please go back and re-read my posts. You are assigning beliefs to me which I do not hold. In fact, I highlighted what I believe to be the simplest, easiest and fastest way to improve the TUE system.

My point re: rules being broken was in response to Jordan's claim that they were, in fact, broken.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

You and a bunch of posters are assigning beliefs to Power13 and I that neither of us have. Neither of us personally likes Sky's mode of operation on this topic. We are just trying to explain that Sky is doing everything legally. We don't need to like it, we don't need to support it, but we can be intellectually honest that they are following the rules as the rules are written. Don't like how they are behaving inside these rules, well, let's go get the rules re written, because you can't ask them to be even more stringent on themselves than what the rules allow. Yes, I realize they claimed to be on an anti doping platform, and guess what.....they TECHNICALLY have not doped. At least nothing we can prove.

As for some of you suddenly coming to the conclusion "NOW" that Sky is dodgy? Really, after all the years of the Postal train and Sky seemingly able to pull off the exact same thing at Postal why the surprise. Most people have been saying that they likely are doing something that is currently legal and using every legal loophole to get an advantage. Guess what, we're likely seeing an instantiation on the Wiggo TUE. But Sky to our best knowledge is breaking no rules like Postal, CSC, Astana, Phonak etc

We're in agreement that the system needs fixing. We're not in ageeement about being cool about how Sky operates. I don't like it, but its not up to me to tell them how to behave inside the rules. I think Froome (obviously no love between him and Wiggins) and Dumoulin and others have done a pretty good job in what they have publicly said. If Sky goes outside the rules, well then it's a free for all on lynching them.

Am I really reading that you said if you fabricate an condition but get wada to approve, all is well?

Wow just wow. Lawyer/doctor up to win your way to races! Yay as long as it's within the rules.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

We part ways over the validity of the TUE.

Your view (I think - I don't want to put words in your mouth) is that he was given a TUE for exactly the drug that he used, and that therefore he didn't cheat. My view is that if he got the TUE under false pretenses, he cheated.

I've read a lot of claims that proper processes weren't followed: the exemption appears to have been granted before the medical examination in one instance, for example - and if those reports are accurate, they would speak to your point about the need to tighten the TUE standards and procedures. That's a worthwhile structural argument to have, but it's different to the question of whether or not BW (and others) cheated. If they don't suffer from the condition that they claim to, or if the drug that they're using to treat the condition isn't the most appropriate one, or the condition isn't as bad as they say it is, then they're cheating if they apply on the basis that they do/it is/it is etc. And that's not a letter/spirit argument - that's the letter of the law, per Rappstar's post.

The argument about whether he cheated isn't about whether the rules are too lax: it's about whether he followed the rules as they are written. Your argument (I think - words/mouth etc) is that he got the TUE, ipso facto he did follow the rules. The inconsistencies in his story make me question whether he did actually follow the rules, and the fact that he got the TUE doesn't speak to whether or not he was truthful in the context of his application. And if he wasn't truthful, then he cheated, in the same way that the fielder appealing for a catch that he knows has bounced cheated, whether or not the umpire calls the batter out.

I am saying he went in with a condition. I think it is fabricated, but I am not the medical doc, and I am not the one granting the TUE from the WADA side. Nor are you, nor are most of us on ST. You still need to have the system do its job or fix the system. In competitive endeavors the players always go to the limit. Just assume the worst of the players and consider it a bonus if they behave like choir boys.

We need legit medical people and legit sport officials to do their jobs. The rest of us on the internet can claim whatever we want that there were inconsistencies. Once it is proven definitively that the TUE was achieved in an invalid way and the medical and sport officials were loose with their application of professional responsibility and Wiggins should have never gotten a TUE, then we can say he cheated. Until then, since we are not the doc, nor the WADA guy he technically was clean.

The reason why I am saying this is not to protect Wiggins, but to actually protect athletes who properly and legally go through the process for legit reason. They are not cheaters, but we can have an internet court and just pretty well come up with anything we want about those who have TUEs and say they cheated.

Once it is proven that Wiggo got the TUE inappropriately then let's go full steam and strip him of the Tour de France win. I think it's going to be really hard to prove that in court though based on what I have read to date. It still smells really bad though. System needs tightening. I think, as Power13 and others suggested if all TUEs are made public, there will automatically be self policing and at that level of athletics and championship winning potential, privacy goes out the window. It should be a "cost to play"

It's never going to be proven wrong because it's impossible too. And as I said I don't need that to make my own judgment. But I'm also not interested in actually saying he is or isn't a doper.

What I'm interested in is fixing a system that is fucked up. That allows big money teams to find "specialists" to fix "problems" and get it covered.

And when someone acts in a shady manner, I'm going to call that action out. So I get why Sky asked for the TUE. He had allergies, that's there answer that they can sit on their perch and feel good about.

But I find it interesting that in all their early press conferences they were talking transparency and doing it right, and then this type of stuff comes out. Left and right hand aren't together on that team. And I as a coach and fan of the sport can certainly call that out. Just having a TUE doesn't make them immune from questioning that specific tactic.

Eta: actually they know exactly what they are doing. They are "legally" doping. Good on them. They worked the system. Big props!

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

We're aligned on everything you typed above. Power13 and I have just been trying to stress that they have not cheated that we know of "yet". Guys have come on here and say they cheated, but there is no real final proof or conclusion. Just pieces of evidence so far to suggest motives were very shady.

Lots of discussion here, but the short answer is 'yes'. Maybe not by the letter of the law/rules - but this behaviour is way too suspect to believe that it was 'simply' allergies (or whatever). They wanted to deliver this particular agent in/close to competition that is banned in that context and is tremendously performance-enhancing. They found the way to make that happened within the TUE rules. Ooookay, but *to me* doping is the intention of gaining an advantage by using materials and methods that are performace enhancing and not explicitly allowable. So, invent a designed steroid not on the banned list and use it? Doping. Create an excuse to use a substance that requires a TUE when you don't need *that* substance to resolve your medical issue? Doping. Put a motor in your seatpost and use it to help your progress? Doping.

And given Sky's (and BW's) explicit 'no needles / no doping' stance, well - why haven't we heard the justification for the TUE based on the inability to be accommodated using other approaches as per the rules. Bleh. Rotten. Raises red flags for other Sky riders. Needs to be investigated with the aim to amend the TUE procedures and minimize loopholes.

Maybe disclosure of TUEs is not enough (although this is a very powerful, important step). Maybe the drug taken using TUE should be indicated on the jersey during the event. 'Ah, yes, there goes BW again, slaying everyone up the Ventoux. Of course, we can all see that he's on triamcinolone. We have Dr. Smith here to provide some color commentary on the effects of triamcinolone. Dr. Smith, do you think that this TUE provides BW an advantage?'

No the hell with an investigation.

I don't need an internal UCI investigation to tell me that their decision was on the up and up, wink wink.

This particular decision is done. He's clean. Good on him and Sky for pulling a fast on us.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I seriously kid you not, this is one of the most brilliant legal moves I've ever seen in sports.

They literally got one of the top cyclists in the world on an banned substance during the biggest races in cycling. And the damn sport approved it.

This is legend status. If your grandpa told you this story you'd tell him to stop making stuff up.

Bravo guys! This is 5 out of 5 stars category, 97% on the rotten tomatoes rating system.

"Sir" David and "Sir" Bradley deserve double knight status with this.

And I'm not kidding. This should be expected for all teams now.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Here's what you all need to understand, and I hope it's not too technical, equivocating, or intemperate: Fuck Wiggo and the bike he rode in on.

No way man if Sky can make a mockery of the sport legally we should all support it! I mean they didn't do anything wrong!!!

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss......

If you are not on legal doped TUE drugs in cycling I don't take you serious anymore.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I feel a asthma coming on and I think it's a big one.......STICK ME, DOC!!!!!!! Give me all you got!!!!!!!

But do you go by "Sir" McNulty? That's critical when applying!

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Application process:


Sir McNulty- hell yeah he deserves all the dope he can get for his issues. TUE approved


McNulty- who does this wanker think he is trying to game our system.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I'm shanty Irish. I'm fooked.

Setting aside whether they cheated or not. Once we all read this and realised that DB and BW sat down with a Doc (not the rest of the management team as far as we know) and decided that Brad might be suffering from X, that the obvious solution was Y. They'd apply for a TUE and sort out the specialist consult later.

The whole thing makes me feel a little dirty - they do not need to have broken the rules for you to read about this and think that the BS just does not stack up.

FIrstly IF he really has a chronic condition requiring specialist input, he'd not getting an Rx from his team doc. His team doc is likely a general physician / internist / or specialist who's moved across in to a generalists role.

The fact that they sent him for a specialist consult suggests that the team doc wanted a second opinion to validate his dec'n making

Secondly - by and large - and there are clear exceptions to this - physicians are not going to second guess a patients primary physician. You can go for a second opinion but this wasn't a CA diagnosis, this was a steroid for a world class athlete heading in to a competition.

Most specialists would not know the WADA code if it jumped up and bit them in the arse. In fact the legality of a drug or otherwise would not even be a consideration for them in prescribing - they're not being asked to approve a drug for competition, they're being asked to validate a drug for treatment.

So, I would think that they write BW a scrip for what they want to give him, pack him off to see a specialist who might be thinking - its not the only option but equally its as acceptable as any other and to have a fight about an alternative is not worth it, so he signs it off and then DB and BW can say that it was validated by a specialist.

The ONLY problem I have with this entire BS episode is as a follows. BW / DB put themselves on a pedestal as being whiter than white - not just in the letter of the law, but in the spirit. They stated that they would never be tainted by doping, they'd not employ ex-dopers or continue to employ current ones but they do not see the incongruity of taking that stance but then finding a physician to prescribe a powerful PED to treat a condition that miraculously shows up moments before the A race of the year OR (and this is even worse) just in case it might.

They've done nothing wrong legally but I'm not sure they've done the right thing either.

An incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement. Seasonal allergies have effects that can range from annoying to life threatening. For some people, the occasional use of a Flonase, Singulair etc do the job quite handily. Others, including myself need things which require TUE's just to rise to the miserable level of existence. TUE's are not easy to come by. If you're using Kenacort your allergic reactions are well beyond sniffles. And not everyone responds to the most common asthmatic drugs the same way. I, for example, might as well be using a sugar pill as Ventolin.

An awful lot of presumption in this thread.

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---------------------------------------------------------
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -- A fake Albert Einstein "quote"

I think this is less about what was prescribed than the process and behaviors of a team that wanted to be viewed in a certain light.

lets be honest, in the same way that USPS were whiter than white until they we not, Sky have LEGALLY been whiter than white, it just happens to have been a bunch of russian bears with an axe to grind that pointed out that perhaps things are not as clear cut as DB would have liked them to have been.

I think the issues here are far more related to the specific process, timings, transparency and physicians involved than any specific drug

Maybe if you need Kenacort to treat your allergic reactions, you're well beyond sniffles. You could use Kenacort without being badly ill, if you could get a doctor to prescribe it to you.

You've made quite a leap there. At the moment, I think (and I haven't cross-checked every published TUE against the whole Sky team roster) the only Sky TUEs that have been released are Wiggins and Froome. And Froome's look a lot less dodgy than Wiggins - were at times when he was known to be suffering with a chest infection, they weren't just before A races, and he'd already disclosed them publicly a long time before the leak. He's also come out pretty strongly since the leaks to support reform of the TUE process (which could of course just be a good way of trying to deflect attention).

As I said in an earlier post, if it turns out that the entire Sky team is prone to outbreaks of hayfever, asthma and allergies the week before the TdF every year, then they've lost all credibility and I would assume that sponsors would start pulling out and people would be fired. But right now we only know about Wiggins and Froome.

The ability to dominate the peloton with a train is largely down to tactics and money anyway, not doping, since the chances are that most of the peloton are up to the same tricks anyway. Doesn't matter whether the peloton is illegally doping, legally doping via TUEs, or is mostly clean, you're still going to see trains under the current rules. It's partly down to team radios, partly down to teams having 9 riders, partly down to some teams focusing almost 100% on GC, and a lot down to some teams having much deeper pockets than others. If you want to get rid of the Sky train, you either need to cut team sizes and/or enforce a salary cap low enough that they can't rock up to TdF with 3 or 4 domestiques who would be the GC leader on most other teams. Or convince Brailsford to try and win the green jersey and yellow jersey in the same year and split his resources accordingly ;-)

The main point is the other super teams have lots of horsepower, deep pockets and the desire to win as much as Sky. They have also been busted routinely over time too. I accept that the peloton is not doing free for all drug use as was the case during Indurain-Ullrich-Riis-Pantani-Armstrong years, but if you can dominate like any of the teams, you are likely maximizing performance through everything viable under the accepted rules of engagement of the time. If that means putting your GC leader on a legal TUE program that stretches our moral code, it would not be surprising....whether it Sky doing it at the Tour, Astana at the Giro or Movistar at the Vuelta. It's just not surprising. If I wass to find out that Tom Brady or Lionel Messi or Christian Renaldo are either legally or illegally doped, I would not be surprised. I hope they are not, and in the mean time, I just go and enjoy the show. By the way, Real Madrid vs Dortmund last nite was pretty good :-)

There are several teams with deep pockets, but according to this Sky have over twice the budget of Movistar and nearly twice that of Astana for example. That buys a lot of extra talent, particularly when you focus that money almost exclusively on the Tour as Sky does. Since the emergence of Froome they've known that if they bring their A game to the Tour they've got a very good chance of winning it, so they can focus their money and their training programme on having 5-6 top climbers who are peaked in early July. Movistar and Astana don't have that luxury - they have to hedge their bets across Giro and the Vuelta as well.

And yes, I wouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised at any doping revelations about athletes in team ball sports! Soccer and NFL have a lot more money and a lot less testing than cycling, to be honest I'd be more surprised if there wasn't widespread doping in those sports than if there was...

Come on now. One of the most famous celebrities in the UK walks into a Drs. office two weeks (or whatever) before the TdF with TUE application in hand and (speculatively) no acute condition. The WADA legality, on paper, is not a consideration. You can't tell me a specialist wouldn't have an inkling that something was up.

They may have a "flexible" view ;). My primary point was most jobbing specialists wont be familiar with the ins and outs of it and its not a moral judgement. They're just writing a Rx. I take the point that they might put 2 and 2 together and get 4 though.........

Lets stop for one moment saying SKY is operating within the rules.

If they operate within rules, lets ask question: Why Dr. Zorzoli got suspended then let go?

With that very important fact, lets say SKY did not operate within the rules, did SKY have found escaping goat Dr. Zorzoli, if someone would dig hard enough probably would find out about some deal with SKY and said Dr. Zorzoli. It is easier ban some Doc, then for SKY to be exposed.

Do you think Dr. Zorzoli was huge SKY fan and was giving TUEs for free, if that is the case SKY is 100% clean...

Hard to believe he is a fan, at that level it is all about $, so there must be a trace of some transaction/favor. I would love to look at his transactions/purchases etc during each TUE granted. I guess Facy Bears have to hack his PC and email accounts and dig for some more data.

'Now we understand why Team Sky never joined,' says MPCC doctor

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/now-we-understand-why-team-sky-never-joined-says-mpcc-doctor/


I also found this interesting from 2015 -
Vinokourov questions BMC and Team Sky's absence from MPCC


http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vinokourov-questions-bmc-and-team-skys-absence-from-mpcc/

So given that a majority of the comments on this thread think that he is guilty of doping...How can we apply this to other athletes?

- That anyone with a TUE is a doper UNLESS we know all of his/her medical history about the medical issue, know the schedule of Dr appointments they have had, and other medications they may have tried??

Some of you are going to say I'm just trying to be a smart ass and make a broad generalization, but what other take away message can be gleamed from this. All we have are rumors and allegations about the process of the TUE and most everyone has jumped to conclusions by making serious allegations.

It used to be the case (not all that long ago) that if you think you need a drug then go get a TUE. After that you are good. At some point in the last couple of months the bar was raised.

I've actually never stated he's a doper nor care to actually define him as a doper or not.

If you put up your race results, timing of TUE processes, when you didn't have a TUE but still raced, statements on your own actions of seeking an TUE then I can atleast look at the subject at hand and make more informed discussion points.


If you don't think this case brings up serious issues with gaming the system, then that's fine. We have nothing else to discuss. And I've not nor has anyone else stated that TUE= doping.

I've said that in this instance the info I have, I call BS w Wiggins. No one else but Wiggins. Eta: I should clarify I call BS on the whole situation- Wiggins, Sky, UCI.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

See the issue I see is, arguing whether he is a doper or not is pointless. That ship has passed, he's legally allowed to take banned substance during competition. End of story.

Discussing how/why he applied for an TUE AND was given the TUE should be the issue.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

He's not a 'doper' by most definitions.

I'm not a druggie because getting blotto on alcohol doesn't 'count', and neither does a lot of peoples penchant for chugging Ibuprofen, drinking coffee, etc.

If you are happy for me to consider you a druggie because 'you' pop pills (e.g. over-the-counter painkillers, anitinflammatories, etc), can't go without the caffeine/nicotine/alcohol fix, etc, etc, then sure, he's a doper. BTW, I get drunk, like most, but I have never in my whole life, ever felt the 'need for a drink' as so many people like to put it, and I'm English (we are supposed to (do) have a problem with this from many an American's eyes). Most people like to think they need these things to get 'through the day', therefore it's enhancing. However, most people won't consider you a druggie because it is legal (and thus socially acceptable) and this is where BW falls for me. If Sky are doing this for purely performance-enhancing reasons (I have no idea if they are...like others have mentioned, he could have taken this drug in the off-season (perfectly legal to do this without a TUE) if he was in a warm climate where his allergies were triggering asthma), then you can bet your life that every other team is also.

I realised this 'early' on, that people push the boundaries. When I was younger I was a very good T & F athlete. I was also very good academically and didn't train with the high performance squad because I couldn't at the times they trained (this is in the UK so a different set-up than the States). I show up at a national meet and we are staying at a youth hostel, 6 to a room, and out come all these supplements and shit from everyones bags. Me, I had a bag full of sweets cos I love sweets and that's what I enjoy eating. That's when I realised how naive I was in my approach, but I had never needed to look at 'things' cos I was still good enough to medal at that junior level and only training three times a week...however, it's also why I never became an Olympian, not dedicated enough and lazy (I hated training with a passion, competition was fun though).

P.S. Rappstar: I consider you no different from any other pro athlete i.e. I expect that you are pushing the boundaries as far as possible with respect to what you can get away with. You do this with all your equipment choices so it is hard for me to believe that you wouldn't elsewhere. You are not 'natural' from my definition e.g. you eat and drink what you do because you enjoy the taste and not eating 'weird shit' (e.g. smoothies that taste like someone's yacked into a glass of sawdust) for performance...unless you tell me that you take zero supplements (I probably wouldn't believe you anyway).

Personally, I want a world where people just wake up eat cereal (Sugar Puffs), have a sandwich (Coronation chicken), eat sweets (doesn't matter, all good, except peanut butter ones) then some dinner and compete. That's cos I am a natural athlete and lazy. i.e. keep it at the level of U13s before the age kids get too serious (U5s for football/soccer!!!).

- I have no TUEs
- I do take supplements. I'll gladly list them for you if you want. I've thought about having a section on my blog where I just list them. Thoughts from the ST peanut gallery on the value of this?

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

The only reason why people would want to see your supplements is so they don't have to do the work themselves into what perhaps they should/could be taking to perform better.

I'm not suggesting anything untoward, just that most/all pros will/have to push the limits in order to be competitive. BW 'likely' did this to the extreme, and I expect VN, CF, AC (well, we know he went further), AV (ditto), Q, etc, do the same. BTW, I have no idea about TUE and triathlon and the stakes aren't to the same level and neither is the infrastructure, compared to pro cycling, so I doubt TUEs are manipulated to the same extent...but it is only a matter of time until it happens (I wouldn't be surprised if it is already there at the ITU level...those guys (Europeans) can make a lot of money from endorsements that I don't think exists to the same level for IM athletes (no Olympics - outside of the US, an Olympic (gold) medal is massive because most countries don't win 50+)).

Wiggins went into more detailed interview.

Basically said every TUE was legit for allergies, and used them as far back as 2008.

When questioned why he failed to mention TUE in his book since it was necessary for him to use it because of allergies:

“I didn’t mention it in the book. I’d come off a season of … I’d won everything that year. When I was writing the book I wasn’t sat there thinking, 'I’d better bring my allergies up'. I was flying on cloud nine after dominating the sport all year. It wasn’t something that I brought to mind."

Following a training camp and the British national championships, Wiggins went to see a specialist on June 28, four days before the start of that year’s Tour de France. The application would be granted, with the date of June 29.


-I am impressed they can make that quick of a judgement.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...sthma-and-allergies/

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The SKY plot thickens. "In comp" rules are 1 day before and up until midnight of last day. Now they are finding evidence that British Cycling wants to investigate whether Wiggins took an injection immediately after a race and after doping controls on June 12, 2011. Sky said team bus had already left, fan video on YouTube apparently shows him getting on it before it left.

http://dailym.ai/2dwjV7Y

Take it for what it's worth. I think the one thing about the article, they don't seem to be trying to "get Sky" as much as get to the truth.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II