from 2003 - the drugs and protocols have only got better
Agree and def think this skews the AG ‘doper’ numbers by a huge amount. And they don’t even view it as levelling it for sports performance, but rather just their general health. I’d wager that a lot of the AG’ers on TRT are MOP and BOP and couldn’t care less about its effects on their 13+ hour ironman time, and thus they don’t see it as doping or don’t care.
Even a 2% boost is huge when you are racing for minutes or even seconds. Again, yellow bracelet man had an awesome boost and never got caught. They are always ahead of the testing. And it is not just EPO, there is myriad of techniques either illegal or in the grey area that they are using to boost their performance. Hint: read the whole carbon monoxide rebreather that put Pogacar in the spotlight at the Tour. First, he denies it completely, but then when he realized there was a leak from his camp, he took it back and indicated the only did the test and not the actual controlled micro poisoning with CO that boosts the red cells. Rings a bell? Deny deny… oh wait. We have been here.
Again, not saying everyone does or doesn’t but a bit of Occam’s Razor indicates there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than you think.
Come on, we all know that pro cyclists are continuing to go faster and faster, or, at least just as fast as their glowing predecessors, because of the latest advances in tubeless technology.
The ITA asserts an anti-doping rule violation against triathlete Tomás RodrÃguez Hernández
The International Testing Agency (ITA) on behalf of IRONMAN reports that a sample provided by Tomás RodrÃguez Hernández, a triathlete from Mexico, has returned an Adverse Analytical Finding for Clomifene (S4. Hormone and Metabolic Modulators).
The sample was collected under the Testing Authority and Results Management Authority of IRONMAN during an in-competition anti-doping control at the 2024 IRONMAN Texas on 27 April 2024.
The athlete has been notified of the case and has been provisionally suspended pursuant to Article 7.4.2 of the IRONMAN Anti-Doping Rules (IRONMAN ADR).
The athlete requested the opening and analysis of the B-sample, which confirmed the result of the A-sample. The athlete also challenged the imposition of the Provisional Suspension.
The ITA has asserted an Anti-Doping Rule Violation as per Article 2.1 and/or Article 2.2 of the IRONMAN ADR. The case will be referred to the International Hearing Panel, which is IRONMAN’s first instance panel as per Article 8 of the IRONMAN ADR, to hold a hearing on the case.
Given that the case is underway, there will be no further comments during the ongoing proceeding.
Clearly mistakenly took his wife’s fertility drugs.
EPO microdosing appears to be non-detectable within (probably much less than) 20 hours
Any of the official doping agencies are running a complete mess of “out-of-contest” testing programs for long-distance triathlon, flimsy and unstructured at best.
The combined effect of Pt. 1 & Pt. 2 is that basically nobody gets caught, obviously. You really need to screw up to get caught.
In the case of Chartier, it is a well-known rumour in the Girona community, that somebody snitched him.
Assuming the points above are real, then “ignorance” is believing that everybody is clean.
I don’t believe everyone is clean, but I certainly don’t believe it is an rampant as some like to carry on hysterically about.
As for EPO even when on full dose it’s only providing around 5% improvement, micro dosing would hardly seem worth the trouble or risk.
Let’s assume his appeal involves two different tactics:
1.) They attack the validity of the test itself.
This is going to be really, really hard, but let’s say for some reason there’s a chain of custody issue, or something else that would otherwise render the actual testing moot. It’s the only way he keeps the IM TX victory.
2.) They go the “no fault or negligence” route.
This will still result in a vacating of his IM TX result. The footnotes in IRONMAN’s rulebook specifically states that athletes are always responsible for what’s in their own body, regardless of how a substance got there. That enforces the AAV disqualification. But you can still prove that you are not at fault for the issue (such as the contaminated supplement, or food supply, or reason here). This can wind up resulting in just a reprimand (but still losing the result), all the way up to a two year ban.
If he fails in this defense, it’s four years.
If I had to guess, we’re going to wind up somewhere in this bucket. And I’d put dollars on a reduced sanction. If I had to pull a number out of a hat, it’s going to be two years; I doubt that IM will be able to completely rebut the contaminated food argument, but it will also make it difficult for TRH and his team to prove that it did happen, because it’s not like he’s got samples of chicken and eggs bought at the same time lying around. (I’m also relatively certain that clofemine use in livestock is not permissible in the U.S., and I would have hazarded a guess that if it’s from eggs it would have been while in the Woodlands, but…well…stranger things have happened with our food supply.)
Seems much more simple if you read the WADA link in its entirety:
“ In conclusion, a method was developed to assist in distinguishing between the consumption of eggs containing clomiphene and ingestion of the drug.â€
Assuming this test works realibly, this is great. If the test can differentiate from clomid contaminated then put an end. Surprising that this was leaked if WADA was still testing.
I believe Rodriguez deleted all the comments from his IG post. Reading through the comments was entertaining. India Lee’s coach/bf? was going full on “Froome’s wife” on the guy. Joe Skipper, as usual, was also very critical. You would think these two would know better to keep their mouths shut on social media until the investigation is finished.
A 4% improvement in power will raise bike speed by less than 2% (at the speeds that PROs are riding)
Interesting. Laidlow out biked the next best guy by 1.6 - 1.9% in his astounding performances at Kona, Nice, and T100 London. Usually the difference is more like 0.5 - 1.0% between the whole top 5 guys on the bike leg. He assured everyone he’s clean though, so nothing to see here.
Here is the critical section where they can differentiate:
The intake of the substance differed between the both studies: While the microdose study volunteers took a preparation containing 42 % (Z)- and 58 % (E)-clomiphene, the egg consumers took almost only (Z)-clomiphene.
What does this mean? To explain somewhat simply- many molecules are like your hands- they have right handed shapes and left handed shapes, but otherwise are identical (this is a big simplification, but it is good enough for now-this is what the E and the Z are signifying). If you dope, you have a ~50/50 mixture of both versions of the molecule, but if you eat contaminated eggs, you will only show having ~90% of one version of that molecule, and ~10% of the other.
Coming out with a adverse analytical finding, I hope they not only determined the presence of clomiphene, but also the percentages of the E/Z molecules.
So what’s next in the process for Tomas? Since he’s challenging the results, I take it there will be some kind of audience for the two parties to discuss; will he need an attorney?
