Tripleshot Cycling

GUILTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh Baby, there is justice after all.

McQuaid sounds disappointed.

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/10895 ... title.aspx

Contador loses titles to last year's Giro and the 2010 TdF.

Schleck now has his first title.

Yeah, but he will be back racing in August 2012...credit for time served?!?!

Seems to me that the ban should commenece today for 2 years. Not a bad gig to be able to race through your time served and keep fit .

Sure he loses a few of his results, but even worse he completely robbed Andy Schleck of all of the pomp and circumstance that goes along with winning a grand tour. No one wants to win that way, after the fact.

Justice? Really? I don't know. I know so little about this but:

"Merckx, who himself tested positive in controversial circumstances in his career, feels that the trace amount of Clenbuterol found in Contador’s urine – 50 picogrammes per litre, a far lower level than most anti-doping labs are able to detect – means that he should have been acquitted."

Interesting comments by Schleck also. Contador won a lot of other races and was presumably tested during those as well. With what appears to be a very small amount of a banned substance during one test, does this make him a serial doper? I just don't know!

You're asking if Contador is a serial doper??

i) His name was originally linked to Operacion Puerto, but then swept under the rug by Spanish authorities because he is too big of a star.

ii) WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) believes the small amount of Clubenterol found in his system is because he used clubenterol while training, then withdrew blood when there were traces remaining in his system and injected the blood back into his body during the TdF. He would then be guilty of 2 offences - blood doping and steriod use. Remember, they found traces of plasticizers unique to blood bags in his system as well.

Contador was caught because the tests at this one German lab was able to dectect very small amounts of clubenterol and blood bag plasticizers. He thought he was already in the clear. To suggest he should be innocent becasue he almost got away with it is wrong.

While riders are tested frequently in competition, they are tested very, very infrequently out of competition. With the rumoured 'micro doses' that are now used, you pretty much have to catch riders within a few hours of doping. Contador was probably unaware of the accuracy of the new tests.

And if you think he's the only one, why do think people like Levi Liepheimer (Armstrong's old team) are still winning races at 40.

Eddy Merkx as an authority in anti-doping? You mean the guy who introduced Armstrong to doping doc Michele Ferrari? But just as personal friends.

(http://books.google.ca/books?id=EEtf6uA ... ng&f=false p 121)

As for the small amount, the rule was written to have no threshold, IE no minimum amount for doping. Yes, it's small, but it leaves the body fast. For me the evidence that Contador had plasticizers (chemicals that keep plastics soft) in his blood, revealed by the German lab, reinforces that it is doping. You can only get that from transfusing, even though plasticizers are not enough, yet, to get you a ban by themselves.

I'm guessing the blood he withdrew during his training period had traces of clen in it from him trying to get lean, and he re-infused it on the rest day (Which we know was (is?) a practice in the protour from the Armstrong investigation. And all transfusions, unless you're bleeding to death, are banned.), inadvertently contaminating himself.

As for serial doping, the rules don't give you credit for clean days. Just like you can't plead that you didn't speed every other day the cop didn't see you. Transfusing is a pretty serious kind of pre-meditated doping that takes lots of resources, expertise, and is known to have big effects on performance. Besides nearly killing guys like Manzano and Ricco. It wasn't the steak.

Such a quagmire of a topic and not one to be taken lightly. Stripping Contador of tour titles!!! Very disappointing and I'm not even a Contador fan.... Leave's me thinking who is clean and who just hasn't been caught (yet)? What's acceptable or is it (at all)?

Like I said, I know so little about this (and many other topics as well)!!!!

Thanks for the education and the earful!

It's kind of funny for the Schlecks. They're now on Bruyneel's team, the best chemist in cycling, and Andy get's awarded the 2010 TdF because of Contador's cheating.

The Schlecks though have there own shady connections - payments were made to Dr. Fuentes (operacion Puerto) in Spain.

And Cadel Evans' soignier was caught with 195 doses of EPO.

So who knows?

leftcoaster wrote:why do think people like Levi Liepheimer (Armstrong's old team) are still winning races at 40.

Hater. Levi hasn't tested positive since early in his career when he was dominating U.S. domestic crits. And his off-score in the Tour in 2005 was only 132.8. That's a full 0.2 away from the 133 limit that would have gotten him tossed. Stop the hate!

debh wrote:Seems to me that the ban should commenece today for 2 years.

Yes. I think if he had voluntarily stood down for the past year-and-a-half, then he could legitimately come back in August.