Team CSC-Sexy Back's Anti-Doping Review
I thought that perhaps now was a good time to look at the Anti-Doping data posted on Team CSC-Sexy Back's website. It was posted by Rasmus Damsgaard shortly before the Tour started.
Since the launch of the program in December 2006 until April 2008, a total of 941 anti-doping tests have been collected and analyzed. All tests conducted under the WADA CODE have been declared "negative."
It's a 9-pager, but there's some great information in there. Yes, I'm a fan, but I feel very confident about these riders being clean.
What do you think?
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I'm a fan too and it looks terrific....... but
here’s something from an article this morning on sporten.dk. It’s about Damsgaard being very pleased that the french doping authorities declaring a rider positive eventhough the substance is not one formally on the list that can result in a declared positive. His view is that WADA are too narrow in what they declare positive .
“It’s fantastic that the AFLD apparently has decided to screw WADA’s rules and are (busting/convicting) the riders medically, because they can, and then let the legal issues come in second hand”
He is very pleased that a case such as this has occured because he believes it will end up in CAS and there will then be a ruling on how to deal with all the EPO-like drugs that are not yet on the banned list.
This is where it gets interesting. It then says that he has “in his work” come across 5 athletes with suspicious bloodprofiles. After controlling the EPO parts of tests that WADA have declared negative he came across EPO, only of an unknown variety. He is now trying to have these five sanctioned, hoping their cases will end up in CAS.
” We need to get a case to CAS. I thought my cases would get there first but now AFLD will probably beat me too it, which is fine. With CAS there will be experts capable of deciding whether it is legally possible to make a judgement in these cases.” says Damsgaard
Now I don’t know if he does testing of this kind for other athletes except those from CSC and Astana or if he has done this research on completely different riders (he has access to tests from the bloodpassport-program too I believe) but there is a pretty big risk that Riis and/or Bruyneel will have some trouble soon.
It’s a little worrying that they use the phrase :”All tests conducted under the WADA CODE have been declared “negative.” because in the context of the article that could mean “but if I use a wider definition we have some positives”.
I noticed the "WADA CODE" thing, too, and thought the same thing.
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. - George Carlin
Isn't the point of longitudinal testing
to identify the effects of blood tampering? Not necessarily the particular drug or method? Even if a drug was undetectable, they could still identify markers that are out of range and punish the athlete accordingly. This was my understanding anyway.
...And please, God, I know you made me a bike racing fan to
teach me humility, but please let all those 5 riders be on Astana…..
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. - George Carlin
I don't know if the sport could take that kind of blow
It would probably wind up bigger than the Landis debacle, especially if two of those riders were previously suspected, ahem.
If I just had one more gear, I...
I have to reiterate
that I don’t know what data Damsgaard has access to. It might not be Astana or CSC. Also one negative thing about Damsgaard is that he is a little too fast to comment on everything and nothing at all. This may all be nothing because there hasn’t been any follow-up on this comment in any danish media ,which I find really surprising.
Jens,
the 5 athletes Damsgaard is talking about are NOT cyclists. I know this for a fact.
And shame on you Ruthann!!!
(Chastened)
If you are going to throw that “shame on me,” you’d better put up the goods! :-)
And can I just announce to the world, in general, how much I like color-coded graphs?
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. - George Carlin
you know I'm a gentleman,
I would never wish your fav team to have 5 positives, or any team for that matter! :P
I’ve been digging deep and I still can’t find the link, but I’m a man of my word, I’ll dig deeper tomorrow when I have more time, I’ll find the link .
Even without the link, he (Damsgaard) was going after the 5 athletes (not cyclists) who apparently had EPO in their blood, but the WADA rules prohibeted him to nail them, even though he hasn’t given up and hopes the cases go to CAS…
duh, thanks that is...
sorry Ruthann if I offended you, definetly not on purpouse!
:-)
you rock!
I’m just a wee bit sencitive for Astana, lol!
Not offended in the least! :-)
And in honor of the maillot jeune, “no worries, mate!”
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. - George Carlin
On second thought
I can imagine Dan with twin nautiluses on either side of his head. He’d look quite charming… certainly an improvement.
i didn't think this was confirmed, actually
however, because Dams works with xc skiing in addition to the two cycling teams, it is very possible that the athletes – and he has in the translations I’ve seen referred to athletes, not specifically cyclists – are from skiing.
me, i think it’s too soon to know for sure just yet.
If a CSC rider ever gets busted
I will give up on this sport for sure.
The handling of Basso was actually pretty good
As far as I remember. He’d been fingered in OP, then was let go by CSC, and snapped up by Disco.
If a CSC rider is busted even though their anti-doping program is in place, there’s really no hope for this sport.
Links to the Damsgårds artikles
Hi all, I love this site, and I found the links to the artikles, here in Danish:
http://www.sporten.dk/cykling/tour-de-france-1-2008/snyderne-har-frit-spil
and
http://www.sporten.dk/cykling/tour-de-france-1-2008/anklage-wada-sylter-positive-doping-prover
You can google-translate the sites, it is not very good, but allmost good, and maybe Jens or Bruce can provide a better translations.
So happy for all the love for the Sexy boys.
Too late for me to translate all
But it doesn’t appear from the articles that the five athletes are riders from the teams he’s working with.
He somehow (unclear how) came across 5 WADA negative samples last fall. When analyzed he concluded that they were without question full of EPO of an underground variety not known to WADA “there are hundreds of them, produced in one of numerous underground labs in China, Russia, India, South and centralamerica”
The main point of the article is a crushing criticism of WADAs rigidity and unwillingness to combat doping effectively by not embracing the concept of longitudal testing and sticking to their very narrow definitions. All the while they are projecting the image that they are on top of th doping problem something Damsgaard disagrees with completely saying there is probably more EPO than ever in the world of sport. He says athletes can dope with EPO at the Tour and Olympics virtually without the fear of getting tested positive (he is however almost certain that none of the riders in his program could get away with it).
I tried the Google translator
It actually works surprisingly well. Most parts of the articles are completely understandeable with the exception of certain words. No Accountants or Windy whatsoever.
Thank's, much appreciated
Little OldLady to the rescue. I didn’t even think to go back to their older Damsgaard articles.
LittleOldLadies who love the Tour
rock.
"If writing too much about the Classics is wrong, I don't want to be right."
by Chris Fontecchio on Jul 18, 2008 6:07 PM EDT reply actions

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