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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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

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.