The Race To Replace ACE - It's All Over Bar The Details

by fmk on Nov 8, 2008 9:37 AM EST

The Comic carries news that Garmin and Columbia, both given the big-E by ACE earlier this month, have already found someone new to share their bodily fluids with. Even my last ex wasn't that quick.

According to Jonathan Vaughters though we're going to have to wait another few weeks before we find out the exact details of the new programme. But he has given an interesting clue as to how it might work.

"ACE did a great job, but we're optimistic that this new system will be even better. We're going to talk this through with the riders first at the team get-together in mid-November, and then we'll be revealing specific details to the press late on in the month or in December. It'll be a whole new system and will very probably be in collaboration with the UCI."

The UCI? Has Pat McQuaid decided to branch the sport's governing body out and opened up a whole new revenue stream? Certainly a three-tier testing system has lots of potential: a basic bog-standard system for the teams too tight to splash out on the biological passport, the passport itself for middle-class teams and then a premium service for sponsors who want to fly the Team Clean flag.

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Bears much watching

If, for example, the UCI pays out of its general funds, calls the shots, etc., then be afraid. But if the UCI is simply lending its name to a program that is paid for by teams to a lab who then produces the work, then having the UCI in the loop doesn’t threaten anything. It’d just be a UCI lab adding another revenue stream for doing stuff that it already does for the UCI. I suppose a middle way is where they open up a revenue stream, but the UCI skims off it and has some say over the program, which may or may not be helpful, depending on whether by “UCI” we mean McQuaid (uh oh) or Anne Gripper (yay).

CQRanking.com, you complete me.

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 8, 2008 9:56 AM EST reply actions

We’ll have to await the details I guess.

Having suggested earlier in the week that Pierre Bordry might want to step up to the plate and replace AFLD revenues lost by not doing the Tour testing next year, I was thinking it would actually be a good idea for the likes of WADA to step up. Clearly they have the experience and the infrastructure in place.

So I’m not too fussed about the UCI being involved – more so if it’s a Gripper initiative than a McQuaid one. Given that he’s so busy on his world Tour recently (see the UCI’s news section for his recent itinerary) I’d hold out hope it’s Gripper taking the lead.

The only real downside I see with the UCI’s involvement is speed – look at how slow they are at getting test results in front of experts in the passport scheme. Taking on Garmin and Columbia means what, about sixty riders, times twenty or twenty-five tests a year. That’s a lot of extra work for a system already creaking at the seams. But if it’s being paid for, it might actually enable the UCI to speed up their own system.

pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway

by fmk on Nov 8, 2008 10:09 AM EST up reply actions

yeah

if it just gets tacked on to the end of their to-do list, see ya.

CQRanking.com, you complete me.

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 8, 2008 11:12 AM EST up reply actions

The key is competence, right?

They need someone who can interpret the longitudal stuff. I don’t see any team benefitting from just adding more tests. The key is to have someone read between the lines in the tests over time. I think they need someone who has worked with this methodology before. Bordry and AFLD deserve all credit for what they did at the Tour but that was just standard testing and I don’t see them having the knowhow.

Carlos Sastre - Tour de France winner - Born From Jets

by Jens on Nov 8, 2008 1:09 PM EST reply actions

Didn’t the French instigate a form of longitudinal testing in the immediate aftermath of l’Affaire Festina? It tends not to get mentioned much with all the glory for leading the field going to Garmin.

pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway

by fmk on Nov 8, 2008 1:26 PM EST up reply actions

and accuracy

and quality assurance and volume and speed. Probably a few others.

CQRanking.com, you complete me.

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 8, 2008 1:44 PM EST up reply actions

One of the bigger issues I noticed with the ACE system, highlighting n Joe Lindesay’s piece, was sample handling.

pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway

by fmk on Nov 8, 2008 1:46 PM EST up reply actions

Team Cleans - Who's Doing What?

CSC – Damsgaard
Columbia – TBA
Garmin – TBA
Astana – Damsgaard (plus Catlin for LA)
Liquigas – Damsgaard (plus Sassi for IB)
Milram – not clear, Damsgaard’s been mentioned, but maybe only on a call-basis
Cervélo – presumably the same Swiss lab as doing the Women’s team testing
Rock Racing – Scott Analytics

BMC – ???

Cyclismag also mentions a Danish Conti team, Team GLS, who will be introducing an anti-doping programme for 2009.

pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway

by fmk on Nov 8, 2008 1:56 PM EST reply actions

I thought that a WADA accredited lab is barred from . . . .

. . . performing any independent, or private testing of any kind for anything, or anyone.

Maybe that changed, I am not sure, but if it has not that means that labs like the AFDL, UCLA, ect. . . cannot be involved with any team performing any from of testing outside the contractual obligation they have with the WADA.
Period.

by Ryan_Liles on Nov 8, 2008 3:30 PM EST reply actions

No they are not

http://www.teamcsc-saxobank.com/upload/CSC_Saxo_Bank_second_AD_report.pdf

The antidoping program at Saxo Bank IT Factory, and a quate (spelling) from the program:

All urine tests and blood for homologous blood transfusions have been conducted according to
the WADA CODE and analysed by WADA accredited laboratories.

by LittleOldLady on Nov 8, 2008 3:52 PM EST up reply actions

But you all forget fmk comment

“found someone new to share their bodily fluids with. Even my last ex wasn’t that quick.” this has to be the line of the year, I spat my wine out this time.. yes it’s afternoon, so wine is being drunk…

by CycleGirl on Nov 9, 2008 1:00 AM EST reply actions

I'm still nicely buzzed from my night out and I too had a good giggle on that one. :-)

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed."

by nikki on Nov 9, 2008 1:02 AM EST up reply actions

IOU one packet of screen wipes plus one glass of wine.

pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway

by fmk on Nov 9, 2008 10:59 AM EST up reply actions