Yes, an asthmatic might read that as.... Permitted at all times when inhaled up to agreed max therapeutic levels and sometimes abnormal high blood levels can be waived under certain circumstances
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Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [Francois]
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Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [cartsman]
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cartsman wrote:
2) Speaking of optimism, I do think there's reason to think that the benefits of doping have been reduced enough by the controls now in place that we're seeing a more level playing field. I'm sure it's not clean, but it's maybe more akin to what we had before the days of EPO and blood transfusions, when doping was going on but the benefits were small enough that clean riders could still win. We're seeing riders speak out more against doping. We haven't had a big scandal in a while - when was the last GT winner to be banned/stripped? Can't think of one since Contador. OK that wasn't that long ago, but compared to the 90s and 00s when practically every leading name seemed to be embroiled in a scandal. And the stuff that people are getting pinged for seems to be more grey zone and marginal benefits doping than the big EPO/transfusion/HGH we were seeing in the past - asthma treatments, questionable TUEs, etc.It's still EASY to fool the biological passport microdosing both EPO and testosterone. Google it.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [TriStart]
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TriStart wrote:
Ron_Burgundy wrote:
TriStart wrote:
Hammer Down wrote:
TriStart wrote:
Hammer Down wrote:
TriStart wrote:
But his levels were way above what is allowed. So now he presented 'evidence', he can use his puffer as much as he likes it? That will make it even harder to beat him (of course not because he's using it to improve his performance).19% isn’t “way above.” The report of “double the legal amount” is wrong. I don’t like froome all that much but this case is a joke to anyone who understands the drug and the condition.
They set the limit for a reason, now he apparently has managed to prove that he legally can be above that limit. So shouldn't they increase the limit? Can he now regularly come above that level? My sister used to play handball at European level, she had a TUE for her asthma medicine. She would be out of breath, come to the sideline, take a puff and then score 3 goals in a row because she outran her direct competitor. Would be nice to have such booster on the long climbs.
Btw, since she has stopped playing she very very rarely needs her medicine anymore.
Comparing this to an anecdotal story from women's handball is silly so I'll ignore that part. He didn't prove he can legally go above that limit. What Sky proved is that 6 hour stages do things to the body that make it very difficult to determine the amount of medication used previously and nitpicking this in order to attempt to prove someone to be a cheater is asinine.
So other riders cyclists which were caught with less, but did receive bans just hired the wrong experts or didn't have enough money to hire good experts to prove their innocence? He uses the medication routinely, and often in 6 hour stages, and often in 3 week tours. It seems odd that it only happened once, or that he only tested once which such an elevated level. I wonder if they proved that the elevated level was caused by a normal dose, or if they raised enough doubt that it might have been caused by a normal dose but couldn't actually prove it in this case. It's usually fairly easy to have a scientist say: "Well, in exceptional cases, it could be possible that..." and then couple that with the fact that cycling 3 week races at the highest level is exceptional and you raise enough doubt to have the case dropped.
But if Froome gets a clearance for high levels of salbutamol, shouldn't the legally allowed level be raised then? Or dropped at all?
I'm not sure why i am repeating this but here it goes. There are very credible studies suggesting the current testing threshold is too low due to potential individual level variance. Secondly, there was some suggestions that if the equipment was calibrated differently it would drop his sample concentration very close to the legal limit ( i have read that could account for 400 ng/ml). Add these two variables together and you cannot conclusively state that he took too much. Also, though the legal limit was around 1000 ng/ml, the supposed actual limit was around 200-300 ng/ml higher to allow for error. Lets theorize that Frooms 2000 ng/ml initial sample is adjusted with a new machine, now you are around 1600 ng/ml, that is 400-300 ng/ml over the actual limit. Now consider the body of evidence which calls into question the actual test and you have a very difficult case to deal with.
I work in medicine, but had the chance to work in analytical chemistry for a few years, primarily GC-MS. Knowing what is in a sample is not really that hard. Knowing the exact concentration is a completely different task. Calibration and upkeep of the equipment is paramount. Talking with biochemists who study metabolism, individual level variation and excretion rates are very hard to nail down.
Like I said, it's easy to find scientists who are not so sure and willing to state 'but', 'if' etc. Too bad for Petacchi and Ulissi that they couldn't come up with that. And if what you write is all true, shouldn't they raise the limit considerably? And were other samples tested the same day with the same machines and protocol with the same calibration? Was a B-sample tested with a different machine? Calibrated differently? What was the outcome from that? Were other samples also tested with the same other machine?
Correct, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting the legal level should be raised. My understanding is that it was not incorrectly calibrated from an operator error standpoint, rather there are different calibration standards. I am assuming they were using GC-MS (could be LC-MS), which i had the chance to work with for a few years. Knowing the exact concentration can be highly dependent on the operator and how the machine is calibrated. In GC-MS you have a sample that will then separate out each individual component based on boiling point. Each individual component is then ionized and you are left with what is known as a mass to charge ratio. A computer data base can then automatically identify the chemical compound assuming it is already in the system. The calibration step is carried out from gas chromatography using what is known as a calibration curve. You can read more about that here . This is the step that one can potentially do everything right but yield different results based on the calibration standard.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [Ron_Burgundy]
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This article seems a nice summary on the Froome case:
http://sportsscientists.com/...s-salbutamol-result/
This 2014 article is interesting about incidence of asthma in team sky and elite swimmers:
https://www.theguardian.com/...swimmers-cyclist-eid
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [lacticturkey]
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lacticturkey wrote:
This article seems a nice summary on the Froome case:
http://sportsscientists.com/...s-salbutamol-result/
thanks - the article is more even-handed than I'd expected given Ross' Twitter feed, which is quite strident..
However this is palpable nonsense,
Rieu said to L’Equipe that in order to reach the 1000 ng/ml threshold, “you really have to mess things up and not follow classic doping protocol.
As I wrote in 2008 about the Pettachi case, when salbutamol still needed a TUE (which I had at the time) - studies show it's easy to hit 800 ng/ml with only a few hits of an inhaler. A few more, some dehydration, the extraordinary physical state of a rider many days into a stage race, easy. No doping protocols needed.
And the thing that I keep harping on, is there are no studies showing performance improvements from salbutamol except when taken intravenously or orally at massive dosages. I haven't seen any studies that measure blood concentrations when these massive dosages are used, but it seems reasonable to expect them to be multiples of thousands, not the 1000 ng/ml that is easily achieved with only an inhaler.
There are no studies that show any performance improvement with dosages that can be delivered by inhaler.
So I don't much care for Froome and many things about Sky are disturbing, but this particular scandal isn't.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [lacticturkey]
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lacticturkey wrote:
waived under certain circumstancesWith the certain circumstances being, apparently, "not Italian." :)
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [doug in co]
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Why are you assuming that they (Sky) are only inhaling the drug? Because they show you an inhaler and say so? I think that’s the big issue and question is how it was administered to get to those levels.
https://twitter.com/mungub
https://twitter.com/mungub
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [mungub50]
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mungub50 wrote:
Why are you assuming that they (Sky) are only inhaling the drug? Because they show you an inhaler and say so? I think that’s the big issue and question is how it was administered to get to those levels.Yeah, the logic has been going in circles based on that assumption. E.g. all the performance-benefit tests based on inhaled therapeutic doses for asthma show no performance benefit so some conclude that "there is no performance benefit for salbutamol" (*cough* Slowman *cough*).
Nevermind studies like this one that study performance benefit via oral administration on non-asthmatic men. The conclusion was that "Under the conditions of this study, oral salbutamol appears to be an effective ergogenic aid in nonasthmatic individuals not experiencing adverse side effects." And there are statistically significant increases in both strength and time-to-exhaustion. Of course a ~12% increase in time-to-exhaustion might be kinda useful for someone attempting a 2-hour breakaway and being chased by Tom Dumoulin. The studies aren't totally conclusive, e.g. not highly trained athletes, small samples sizes, blah blah, but anyone who categorically states that "there is no performance benefit" and could never be part of anyone's doping program is talking somewhat out-of-ass, in my opinion.
But per this decision, I'd imagine it's now a free-for-all for salbutamol. Game on.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [trail]
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trail wrote:
mungub50 wrote:
Why are you assuming that they (Sky) are only inhaling the drug? Because they show you an inhaler and say so? I think that’s the big issue and question is how it was administered to get to those levels.Yeah, the logic has been going in circles based on that assumption. E.g. all the performance-benefit tests based on inhaled therapeutic doses for asthma show no performance benefit so some conclude that "there is no performance benefit for salbutamol" (*cough* Slowman *cough*).
At the same time, there's rather a lot of "You have asthma? Tough - if you take a single puff from an inhaler before a race you're a filthy doper, no matter that that's legal." around here.
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [Toby]
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Toby wrote:
At the same time, there's rather a lot of "You have asthma? Tough - if you take a single puff from an inhaler before a race you're a filthy doper, no matter that that's legal." around here.
As a former coach of people with asthma, I can definitely sympathize with that. Both the Hater and Fanboi tribal camps are lazy positions.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [trail]
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But wouldn’t the concentration be significantly higher?
--Chris
--Chris
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [chriselam]
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chriselam wrote:
But wouldn’t the concentration be significantly higher?No clue. Just challenging the narrow question about albuterol being a plausible performance-enhancing substance at all.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [trail]
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trail wrote:
chriselam wrote:
But wouldn’t the concentration be significantly higher?No clue. Just challenging the narrow question about albuterol being a plausible performance-enhancing substance at all.
I had never even heard of albuterol until all this. Just wondering A) how much do you actually have to have in your system for it to do something beneficial and B) could you get that much through an inhaler and C) what levels would you have in your body if you used a different delivery method.
I think the answers to those 3 questions helps determine what’s going on here.
Side note: Sky is stupid enough to risk having their star athlete, who already has all eyes on him and who already is a known asthmatic, take only slightly more than the limit of this drug in order to give him a marginal at best (at this dosage level) performance boost?
Seems like everyone thinks Sky is an advanced athlete doping factory, which they very well could be. But are they really good at it - go from Wiggins to Froome without missing a beat - or really bad at it - let Froome go just over the limit for a negligible advantage.
--Chris
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [chriselam]
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chriselam wrote:
Side note: Sky is stupid enough to risk having their star athlete, who already has all eyes on him and who already is a known asthmatic, take only slightly more than the limit of this drug in order to give him a marginal at best (at this dosage level) performance boost? Seems like everyone thinks Sky is an advanced athlete doping factory, which they very well could be. But are they really good at it - go from Wiggins to Froome without missing a beat - or really bad at it - let Froome go just over the limit for a negligible advantage.
Just a slight clarification. We don't know how much he took. But he tested in at fully double the 1000ng/mL limit. 100% over a limit that's supposed to be generous. Even after correcting for the maximum possible dehydration and maximum variability in test accuracy, it was still 19% over. So that's not really "just over" the limit. That's way far over.
We have no idea how much he took or when. Or in what form. Only Froome and/or Sky knows that. We just know that it's unusual.
Post deleted by windschatten
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Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [FlashBazbo]
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FlashBazbo wrote:
Sun Wu Kong wrote:
How do you say, "can of worms" in French?)Ca sent la merde!
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [windschatten]
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windschatten wrote:
Given the class of molecules it belongs to, Salbutamol is not harmless. It boggles my mind how people could be so naive....I would not take it for performance benefits even if it were legal.
For lay people I suggest to just scroll to the bottom third of this page:
https://medbroadcast.com/...rug/ratio-salbutamol
Most lists of side-effects are pretty alarming - take a look at the one for ibuprofen https://www.medbroadcast.com/...getdrug/nu-ibuprofen
I've been taking salbutamol since I was diagnosed with asthma as a kid, never had any of those side effects, though I'm only on very low doses.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [trail]
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trail wrote:
chriselam wrote:
Side note: Sky is stupid enough to risk having their star athlete, who already has all eyes on him and who already is a known asthmatic, take only slightly more than the limit of this drug in order to give him a marginal at best (at this dosage level) performance boost?
Seems like everyone thinks Sky is an advanced athlete doping factory, which they very well could be. But are they really good at it - go from Wiggins to Froome without missing a beat - or really bad at it - let Froome go just over the limit for a negligible advantage.
Just a slight clarification. We don't know how much he took. But he tested in at fully double the 1000ng/mL limit. 100% over a limit that's supposed to be generous. Even after correcting for the maximum possible dehydration and maximum variability in test accuracy, it was still 19% over. So that's not really "just over" the limit. That's way far over.
We have no idea how much he took or when. Or in what form. Only Froome and/or Sky knows that. We just know that it's unusual.
Why has he risked his entire career and livlihood by taking something that would, at best, give marginal performance enhancements?
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [zedzded]
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zedzded wrote:
Why has he risked his entire career and livlihood by taking something that would, at best, give marginal performance enhancements?
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [trail]
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trail wrote:
chriselam wrote:
Side note: Sky is stupid enough to risk having their star athlete, who already has all eyes on him and who already is a known asthmatic, take only slightly more than the limit of this drug in order to give him a marginal at best (at this dosage level) performance boost? Seems like everyone thinks Sky is an advanced athlete doping factory, which they very well could be. But are they really good at it - go from Wiggins to Froome without missing a beat - or really bad at it - let Froome go just over the limit for a negligible advantage.
Just a slight clarification. We don't know how much he took. But he tested in at fully double the 1000ng/mL limit. 100% over a limit that's supposed to be generous. Even after correcting for the maximum possible dehydration and maximum variability in test accuracy, it was still 19% over. So that's not really "just over" the limit. That's way far over.
We have no idea how much he took or when. Or in what form. Only Froome and/or Sky knows that. We just know that it's unusual.
Without knowing how much is needed to see a performance boost I don’t think you can say he is way over. Might be, I just don’t know. For that matter, I don’t know how much a single puff delivers, maybe someone here with asthma knows. Maybe that 20% overage is a single puff, or maybe you can only get that much by injecting it. Without knowing, how can you really run around with a pitchfork?
--Chris
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [marcag]
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Sky release a boat load of Data on Froome and his giro win via BBC Website.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/44694122
He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/44694122
He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [earthling]
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So 6W/kg and I can hang with him.....
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those with friends.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those with friends.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [chriselam]
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chriselam wrote:
Without knowing how much is needed to see a performance boost I don’t think you can say he is way over.
I didn't say he was way over the amount needed to see a performance benefit because I don't know what that is. I said he was way over the limit required to trigger an AAF.
Re: Chris Froome CLEARED in salbutamol case [zedzded]
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zedzded wrote:
Why has he risked his entire career and livlihood by taking something that would, at best, give marginal performance enhancements?
Well this is a team with the catch-phrase "marginal gains". :)
And you're assuming the gain was marginal. Maybe it isn't. We don't know for sure.
chriselam wrote:
Without knowing, how can you really run around with a pitchfork?Any my pitchfork is more for WADA than Froome. WADA says that you test over 1000ng/mL you get an AAF unless *you* can prove that it was achievable through inhalation.
That didn't happen. They didn't make Froome prove it. They've made people in the past try to prove. Ulissi tried. He went through testing. Petacchi tried. They failed the tests.
Maybe the testing is dumb and inaccurate. Maybe other athletes before Froome who also went over 1000ng/mL got off, and we just don't know because their tests didn't leak to the press. If that's the case, then WADA owes an explanation (without naming names of the other athletes).
If Froome was the first, it kinda stinks.
Maybe the testing is dumb, and Sky was just the first smart enough to call BS on it. Fine. That's a service to athletes.
But in that case salbutamol should be stricken entirely from the Prohibited List until the test is no longer dumb, and Petacchi and Ulissi should get their Giro stage wins back (they lost 7 Giro stages wins between them, which is very real money).
As it stands right now, there's a gross inconsistency between what's stated in the The Code and what's happened in reality.