trail wrote:
Trev wrote:
In a round about way this has been done in cycling. They tested before the event, if you haematocrit was over 50% you were withdrawn for several weeks. Amazing how many were on about 49% when normal for an athlete is only about 43% ish.
How do you know this? Where the statistics published somewhere?
Imthinkmits pretty common knowledge how many were close to the 50%. I'm sure the info is still on the Internet somewhere.
There was a bit of a scandal several years ago when one of the Brituish Cycling team was just over 50%. Think there was something published then about how many cyclists were near 50%.
http://www.theguardian.com/...ar/31/comment.sport1
It was the possibility that freedom and responsibility had been abused which gave Brailsford his dark night of the soul last week. It had tainted his week, he admitted, although not his pleasure in the performance of his riders. Too wise to make public claims of Hayles' innocence but privately certain that there will be no case to answer, he is now working to find a method of ensuring - preferably before the team leave for Beijing - that there will be no more nasty shocks.
He is concerned that Hayles' test was an extreme example of a set of elevated haematocrit readings recently taken from other riders in the squad, which he thinks may be due to changes in blood values when they taper off from the highest point of their training in the days before the start of a competition.
"Elevated haematocrit readings recently taken from other riders in the squad"