advertisement


Vuelta

It's not in body gene therapy. It's removing T-cells modifying them and introducing them to attack the cancer cells. Hence I stated in body.
I think true in body gene therapy will be achieved at some point. Cystic Fibosis was one disease which they thought could be cured. However, this is proving difficult.
The cost of the Novartis treatment development runs into hundreds of millions of dollars (200 million form US government to start with) and this is not altering true somatic cells. I cannot see any research group funding gene therapy research for aiding athletes. That's why I believe it's an absurd suggestion that cyclists could be doped via gene therapy, now or the future. Now PIGD...
 
You are NEVER going to have completely clean athletes when the stakes are so high. I say just let them take whatever they like. At some point it will get to where you have guys killing themselves with drugs and it will level off. The guys at the very top of these sports are going to be the best, drugs or not because even with drugs they put INSANE amounts of hard work into it along with physioligical advantages that the average person simply does not have.
 
Paul R said:
Delegating to 'informed commentators' as to what is 'abnormal' doesn't advance your cause. Froome is by definition at an 'abnormal' extreme, doping or not.
Click to expand...

I'm prepared to go with their models and calculations rather than the ITV 4 commentary team and Cycling Weekly Paul. There's enough science in those calculations to make the assertions of innocence here from uninformed commentators mildly amusing.

If all those in the field of sports science raise eyebrows and state that these are performances right at the limit of, if not over the limit of human physiology, then again, I'll go with their POV as opposed to Spike's or some other Sky fanboy without a clue.

I appreciate that you need an awful lot of data before you believe in anything - hence your position on climate change. You are in the minority and are, all things considered, likely to be proven wrong I'm afraid. The data IS there - it's just Brailsford won't release it and their trainers keep getting laptops stolen without any backups....

FWIW we know Froome's power for the 2012 Vuelta ITT at something like 406W for an hour. Is this evidence of abnormality? Is it not more or less consistent with the 2013 Ax-3 climb?

Paul
Click to expand...

Not really Paul because firstly the course involved a descent and corners and secondly Froome was very much off form that day and was beaten by Rodrigues and Contador...

Where were Froome's abnormalities prior to joining Sky Paul? Late developer? Unusual no?
 
Merlin
I'm sorry it's you supporting a PE teachers view, a very jealous one at that.
The best bit is they have all his bloods and will be testing for years to see if anything is present. So we shall wait and see...
 
I'm not trying to troll with my previous comment. Ultimately, do you REALLY care if they dope? Honestly. My previous point stands. I really think, doping or not the best guys are going to win regardless. With that said you'd also be rid of all the armchair judges crying foul every time someone wins.
 
Boneman, really all GB Cycling and Brailsford have to do is release the files to investigators and stop losing records and laptops. That seems a reasonable request.

It gets fanboys upset though - because they don't want to believe their British hero could be a cheat. Any suggestion that they are must be squashed.

Meanwhile they will happily post.

Spike said:
Just to muddy the waters, Bolt had no out of season tests for many, many years until 2014....
Click to expand...

So you see, many fanboys are happy to insinuate illegal activities until such insinuations are made against their personal heroes.

Then they go into one. It's quite amusing to watch provided there's good music in the background.

The poster, looking at his brief history here does appear to be something of an expert on alcoholic beverages - something I probably should have garnered from his posts.;)
 
In fact I believe Bolt is clean. There is no accusation from me that he is anything other. I pointed out that he had no out of season testing until 2014. This was probably due to Jamicas drug testing policy. I also believe Froome and Mo are clean. And all those bloods are kept and will be tested frequently. If they are found to be positive I will be the first to hold my hands up and say sorry I'm wrong. However, I think that's the difference between you and me. I was also well aware that most of the peloton from when I first started following Le Tour in 1975 were not clean (although I didn't know that as an 11 year old). However, I was quite aware that throughout the 80's and 90's when I went to watch in France that they were on PED.

Also like to point out I've been a cyclist for over 40 years just to answer your sky fan boy, Jonny come lately suggestions.
 
I would say that we are not yet at the level of enhancement that we were at it the EPO era but there are anomalies that have to be pointed out.

That Froome can climb at similar VAM's to those enhanced athletes raises eyebrows in those involved in sports science and I can see why.

According to many, human physiology advancement typically accounts for a 1% improvement in athletic performance every 10 years. So 30 years should account for around 3%.

The EPO era was clearly out of kilter with this as performances were raised by 15% in just a few years.

Froome however is matching those performances and if you compare them with the performances of riders from before, Froome's maximal effort does not fit in with the physiological model developed by scientists.

If it's correct that he was climbing at 6.5 w/kg (it's an if as Paul pointed out there appeared to be an error and I was only reading that), then that doesn't fit with Indurain managing 5.3 w/kg just 20 years earlier. The gains from physiology should amount to 2% or just 0.1 w/kg - taking the climbing speed to 5.4 w/kg not 6.5 w/kg.

We have to allow for improvements in equipment. Bikes of course weigh 3kg less these days but that's taken into account as the w/kg figure is calculated for man and machine combined for obvious reasons.

So that leaves gears and tyres really - and potentially rotating weight of the rims. Can that really account for a 20% increase in performance. The scientists concerned say now.
 
Will you please point me to the Scientist who say no. And please not Vayer. He is not a Scientist. He has also accused Froome of using a hidden electric motor!
 
I love cycling. Hate cycling threads, too many know-it-all experts. Changing the subject slightly, what worries me is not that top athletes are doping, but how closely they are legally sailing to an inch of the line. Having legal injections etc. The Sharapova saga was one such. She was legally doping for years, along with many others until her favourite dope was made illegal and she didn't read the memo. In the future, what is legal today may be considered cheating tomorrow. I'm just not sure if it's not already cheating, just allowed in the rules. TUEs are another example. It's a scary gulf between the school playing field and professional sport. It didn't used to be.
 
Spike said:
Will you please point me to the Scientist who say no. And please not Vayer. He is not a Scientist. He has also accused Froome of using a hidden electric motor!
Click to expand...

Ross Tucker would be one Spike - but he's supportive of the efforts of the likes of Vayer and Kimmage so you would probably dismiss him as being ignorant.
 
boneman said:
You are NEVER going to have completely clean athletes when the stakes are so high. I say just let them take whatever they like. At some point it will get to where you have guys killing themselves with drugs and it will level off.
Click to expand...
This was the case back in the bad old undetectable EPO days. But the victims weren't the famous winning cyclists, they were the domestiques and wannabes who could not afford to dope professionally.

I don't see any evidence that Froome is doping, when I see some I will believe. His two GT wins this year have not been easy, and if you look at the Vuelta, Contador is the stand out suspicious character, for doing so consistently well after his off day. Or he could just have been starting to feel well and just enjoying his last race.

Paul
 
SteveG said:
Have you actually read Ross Tucker on Vayer's conclusions from that AX3 climb? If not then perhaps you should: http://sportsscientists.com/2013/07/tour-rest-day-pondering-the-unanswerables-with-physiological-implications/
Click to expand...

Of course I had Steve. That piece was written during the race and, do remember, that he doesn't rule out Vayer's assessment or prove it to be wrong.

Now look at what Tucker's opinion was 16 months later after having the time to digest more data.

All (including Nibali this year and Froome last) are just within the boundaries of “normal” physiology, as we understand it. That is, they are all physiologically plausible, which means, I guess, whatever you want it to! Those who want to believe, for reasons of hope, patriotism or wilful ignorance, will say that they’re plausible, now we’re happy. Those who don’t will find ways to say that everyone in the GC is right up at the limit, and right up in the same territory as known dopers from the past.

What Mike Puchowicz’s method showed, however, for this year, is that Nibali was always faster than historical predictions or benchmarks, and that the other GC guys were faster half the time, slower half the time. So the rest of the GC, and guys like [Rafal] Majka and Tejay [Van Garderen], were performing at a level that is consistent with the past, whereas Nibali was performing better than the past would suggest.

I could have written the same last year, except swap Nibali for Froome – last year, Froome was always better than history benchmarks, Quintana was mostly better than historical predictions, and the rest were basically equal to them.

Where the “concern” enters is that Nibali, like Froome a year before, occasionally exceeded those historical benchmarks that they sometimes even outperformed the predictions made based on an era where we absolutely KNOW that doping existed. So Nibali, Froome and Quintana have produced performances that put them in the same ‘range’ as dopers. You don’t need complex regression and formulas for this – all you have to do is look at the fastest times ever on Hautacam for Nibali, or Ax-3-Domaines for Froome, and look at the names they’ve beaten and matched. It’s a who’s-who of dopers, and cycling unfortunately has made its own bed – you’re always suspicious by association.
Click to expand...
 
Nowhere I've read in Tuckers work does he say he thinks Froome is doping, and generally what he says is that his performances are at the upper end of plausible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top