NY Velocity Interviews Michael Ashenden
by gavia on Apr 7, 2009 11:48 AM EDT
in News
79 comments
NY Velocity has published a lengthy and detailed interview with Michael Ashenden, the anti-doping researcher. Among other things, Ashenden worked on the EPO test introduced in 2000 and the test for homologous blood-doping introduced in 2004. In the interview, he discusses the evolution of testing from his perspective as a researcher and the motivations that have led him to work in anti-doping. The interview does not shy away from controversy. It devotes significant space to the subject of Lance Armstrong, and in particular, the testing of the 1999 Tour de France samples and the disputed study by Dr. Ed Coyle.
Whether or not you agree with Ashenden's analysis and conclusions, this interview is essential reading. Rarely do we see such extensive on-the-record comments as Ashenden provides here. Likewise, Andy Shen at NY Velocity knows his stuff, and it shows in the questions he asks here.
Here at the Cafe we have held to a house rule strongly discouraging re-hashing the old debates, especially the controversy over the '99 samples. This isn't because we love Lance Armstrong, but rather, because we love the happy civility that reigns here. (The long-time regulars know this, natch, but I include it for the newcomers). Discussing Armstrong and doping tends to have the effect of introducing religion or politics into dinner party conversation. It's great if everyone agrees. Otherwise, not so much.
All the same, there is much to discuss in this interview. Just remember to play nice. Share the toys. Don't throw sand. Or, I'll shake my banana at you!
Read the NY Velocity Ashenden Interview.
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Yah Boo
I was hoping that you might have summarised that article. It looked awfully long and technical. Ah, well, more coffee first I guess.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 12:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Sorry ;-)
I didn’t think it would be fair to those guys. If it was the NY Times or something, I’d summarize. But they deserve the page hits for this one.
by gavia on Apr 7, 2009 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Oh, I've hit it
hit it a coulple of times already, I just haven’t been in the mood yet to make my way all the way to the end. And I don’t think that it will change my view of things, namely that he was probably doping then, but I genuinely believe he wants to come back and do it clean. And if he’d cut the bullying out too I might even start liking him.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
You needn't worry, they elaborate with easy to understand expressions for us simpletons
I bet it won’t take ou more than ~30min to read. :)
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
lol
A joke, silly. From when Contador shook his banana at Riccò at last year’s Giro.
by gavia on Apr 7, 2009 12:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
One thing that didn't show up in the interview
is that from the published photocopies of the lab reports (way back, in l’Equipe where else), it was very easy to figure out that Armstrong was on EPO, mainly because all 4 samples from the prologue were positive, and one of them was sure to be his, he being the prologue winner. So no secret number guessing necessary.
by tedvdw on Apr 7, 2009 12:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
And from there they could have done blood type and DNA matches with the other samples
Those Frenchies are really fixated on getting down the innocent Americans, it’s the Napoleon complex I tell you.
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 1:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Ashenden biased?
This is a long interview, and as I was reading it, I thought it seemed pretty damning – Ashenden seemed to make sense about the EPO testing, etc., and I was being swayed by what he was saying. Now don’t get me wrong – I’d like to believe Lance was clean, but I have a healthy skepticism about the chemical cleanliness of all cyclists in the late 90’s.
Then I got to the part where Ashenden more or less sneers at Lance’s improvement in time trials between 1996 and 1999, saying that he went from getting dropped in time trials to winning them and this couldn’t have happened without doping.
Now, like anyone who has seen pictures of Lance before and after cancer, I was struck by the change in distribution of body mass. Before cancer, his upper body was massive – for a cyclist – and afterwards it was fairly standard – for a cyclist. Clearly his power to weight ratio changed dramatically as a consequence of the weight loss during his illness and the selective addition. through training, of muscle to his legs but not his arms afterwards. This should, without referring to any fancy physiological testing, have made him a much better time trialist. Also, I’m willing to give credit to the idea that surviving cancer can change one’s mental outlook and approach to pain in ways that could also make one a better time trialist.
To my mind, Ashenden’s take on the difference between the 1996 and the 1999 Lance, which so glaringly omits any mention of what happened in between, devalues what he says elsewhere. Ashenden demonstrated a clear bias in that passage of the interview – a bias which I will have to assume is reflected in his views about the EPO testing as well. So, after starting out thinking that Ashenden sounded entirely credible, now I’m forced to take what he says with several grains of salt.
"Listen", he said, "to-morrow my nose is so tight on the handlebars that the only thing that touches those boils is a lovely breeze." (Hemingway)
by GreylockGrinder on Apr 7, 2009 12:11 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
the problem
as I see it, is this:
Armstrong’s post-cancer VO2 numbers, combined with his acknowledged post-cancer weight, don’t extrapolate out to the kind of wattage production he’d have to have.
The part that got my attention involved the claim about Armstrong’s height only being 5’5’ or so. That’s bogus and easy: Leipheimer’s 5’7" (and wears a size 8 shoe . . .). Compare Leipheimer and Armstrong in photos: Armstrong’s at least 5’9" or 5’10."
But, returning, the biggest loser in this splat, to my mind, is Coyle: he comes off like a complete tool.
by R Mc on Apr 7, 2009 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
no way 5'5"
I’ve stood next to the guy, and wasn’t looking that far down (I’m 6’1").
by Sui Juris on Apr 7, 2009 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
He’s about 5’11", just look at the size of his bike.
by Ryan_Liles on Apr 7, 2009 1:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
i'm 5'4" and have stood next to LL -
no way is he 5’7"!
by cg. on Apr 7, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Is is height like Pinnochio's nose?
let’s hope not, huh?
by bradBordeaux on Apr 7, 2009 1:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Armstrong is 5'9" and Levi is 5'7"
You can’t base it on Lance’s bike size because he’s on a 58 Madone, exceptionally large for his height.
by brunopitton on Apr 7, 2009 4:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Is time-trial performance that affected by upper-body mass?
I mean I can certainly see the argument for an improvement in climbing ability.
But you look at good time-triallers – Cancellara, Grabsch, Larsson – they’re all pretty heavy-set (for cyclists anyway).
Maybe Ashenden is wrong to ‘sneer’ here, but I’m not sure that suggesting a decrease in upper body mass is – by itself – an explanation for massive improvement in time trialling.
(I’m also not that convinced by the ‘cancer-raised-Lance’s-pain-threshold’ argument either – largely because it’s totally unquantifiable).
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 1:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well Contador has along with other light riders like Rasmussen
proved that weight in general doesn’t matter at all on flat road in open terrain, even if it rains.
Yes I wanted to anger people with this remark. :p
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 1:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Chris Boardman was a super skinny dude when he was at his prime.
Look at Levi, and Contador.
TT guys come in all kinds of sizes.
by Ryan_Liles on Apr 7, 2009 1:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Dunno how jacked the modern guys are
Spartacus didn’t look jacked carrying his bike Sunday. Skinny arms, thunderthighs.
Those Lance Oslo pictures present quite a different body than modern riders, even guys like Devolder with strong backs.
by Softie on Apr 7, 2009 1:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Non. Neither is it by increase in leg muscle mass
(not for TTs over 1 km).
by tedvdw on Apr 7, 2009 1:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Unless by mass, we mean frontal area, right?
If someone has upper body mass that creates a wider frontal area – like wide shoulder, for ex. – that would influence crono ability. But mass on its own, right, that has no effect on crono.
Crono – all ’bout the lightbulbs.
by gavia on Apr 7, 2009 2:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Sure. Not a big effect, tho.
Even when, if we’re very very generous about he weight change, going from 79 to 74 kg.
http://www.analyticcycling.com/DiffEqWindCourse_Page.html
by tedvdw on Apr 7, 2009 2:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
True, but
more muscle mass (even in the upper body) allows for more power when TTing (at least when not in the mountains).
by pigilito on Apr 7, 2009 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Hardly.
Do you agree that bigger muscles are better for shorter distances? Look at Chris Hoy, sprinter and 1 km TT king on the track, very muscular, lots of explosive power. Now look at the fastest 4km TT rider, Bradley Wiggins. He’s scrawny and so are his close competitors. So then, what about TTs of around 50 km?! It’s not about muscle mass. It’s all about the engine and flexibility; ability to maintain a very aero position and at the same time churning out the big watts.
by tedvdw on Apr 7, 2009 2:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
what he said.
big watts, small hole in the wind.
by gavia on Apr 7, 2009 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Upper-body muscles needs oxygene even if they don’t work very much, so I guess that one can increase the efficency by decreasing those muscles. But I have no idea if that makes much of difference really.
No longer that I call them tights, I call them freedom ware.
by TheFigurehead on Apr 7, 2009 4:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I see the point, but I'm not sure why his 'bias' would matter...
The first case is a more or less subjective judgement that the improvement shouldn’t be possible. Its possible to disagree, and you have given a sense of at least one possible basis for doing so. But the rest of it, largely, as it applies to LA, seems to be based on reading data according to standard criteria that are not vague or ambiguous. Assuming his statements about the analysis protocols being valid are true, I don’t see where ‘bias’ can possibly come into it. Its purely indexical. Does this or does this not cross the defined threshold of a positive? It’s not a judgment call.
by Ed K on Apr 7, 2009 2:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Exactly.
We can pick apart what Ashenden said and form our own conclusions.
Simply saying that he is coming at the issue from a biased perspective tells us nothing about whether he is actually right or not.
The point is – you can be biased, and right, at the same time.
(and, indeed, unbiased and wrong).
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 2:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yes, the height issue is silly.
He is quite clearly 5"9ish.
Notice, if you read the interview, Ashenden does not talk about his height at all. It is just a bit of speculation by Andy – which he acknowledges.
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 1:19 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Andy is a bit too eager in that interview
trying to lead Ashenden to the answers/conclusions.
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I thought Andy Shen's
interview seemed to ask leading questions to show a bias against Lance.
by Teel22 on Apr 7, 2009 2:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Leading questions only really matter in witness testimony in an adversarial situation.
All interviews of this sort ask ‘leading’ questions. But the witness is free to respond or not as they wish, rather than under oath / required to answer or take the fifth in a court, so it doesn’t matter.
by Ed K on Apr 7, 2009 2:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Agreed, the only problem is the way it will scare certain readers away
I bet the majority of Lance fans will write this interview off as yet another hate fest, because Andy is so direct and many times almost answer his own questions.
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I'm thinking that Andy's audience
isn’t really the LA uber alles crowd.
by Sui Juris on Apr 7, 2009 3:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
He’s about 5’11", just look at the size of his bike.
by Ryan_Liles on Apr 7, 2009 1:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I'd prefer to look at a photo of him standing between Levi and Basso.
Levi is 5’7", Basso 6’0".
And there’s your answer.
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 1:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
in centimeters,
Levi is what, 1.70? Lance 1.7+? Basso 1.80? Contador looks slightly taller than Levi
by Bruce Suomi on Apr 7, 2009 2:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Andy posted a link
to this photo on the nyvelocity site.
Provided no-one is wearing lifts, I think that shows how tall Lance is.
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The interesting bit is the hemoglobin problem
I was hoping that autologous transfusions would be history with the bio-passport. Now the scientists say publicly that their main analytical hope for adverse findings from autologous transfusions—-hemoglobin spikes—-don’t work.
So I’m now sceptical of what will happen this year, and will be rooting for riders who race frequently and race hard . . .
by Softie on Apr 7, 2009 1:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
but doping allows riders to ride more frequently and harder
Basically, doping give us what we want, while killing tactics.
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 1:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Autologous blood doping
generally requires a period of rest after giving the blood in order to recover. No rider who gives a unit Wednesday is going to race the Basque Country the following week. What piques my suspicions with autologous transfusions are long periods of not racing followed by dominant performances.
That said, it appears that Fuentes was keeping blood for quite a bit longer than the few months I thought that it could be kept. So my suspicions could be wrong anyway.
by Softie on Apr 7, 2009 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Fuentes had two techniques
The basic service, whereby they drain a pint (That’s nearly an armful!) sometime in the offseason, and then keep it fresh by taking new blood out and putting the last lot back in until you get to the point in the season when you want to play your trump card, and some experimental new technique initially developed by the US Army which preserved the blood a lot longer and enabled you to save multiple trump cards. We won’t really know until the Tour if this sort of stuff is really obsolete.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 6:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
you lost me at
“deeloped by the US Army”.
by Sui Juris on Apr 7, 2009 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
HAVE YOU GOT YOUR HEARING AID IN?
There was something in the Jaksche interview, where he mentioned Fuentes’ new method of super-cooling blood to make it last much longer. Now obviously you need to do something to it to stop it turning into a Tyler-style blood slurpee, but all that stuff was on a need to know basis.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 8:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
LA put out a statment denying the intent to evade the test
Doesn’t mention being out of the tester’s sight, but that’s what one would expect when showering. He claims that the tester agreed to the shower.
Typically, though, in an effort to put the best face on things, he notes that the hair test also came back negative (at the moment, testing hair is done soley to advance the science of testing; no positives can come from it).
I hope the French put out an official statement on this.
by pigilito on Apr 7, 2009 2:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
he used the hair test as an argument? :S
who can use that to anything, when no one ever has been caught in a test based on hair.
by OctaBech on Apr 7, 2009 2:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
No individual maybe
but they still let leak that about a quarter of French rugby players showed traces of drug use in their hair. And Lance above all people should know of the close links between the French press and the French labs.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 6:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The shower thing is really dumb
There was a bit of a rumpus last year when one of the Quickstep riders did that at the Tour of California. Surely they had heard about it.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 6:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I can believe Lance doped in '99...
In fact the case is fairly compelling. (Though I’m not convinced by some of Ashenden’s confident assurances about the integrity of the testing.) But if he had to dope to win in ‘99, if he’s really just a so-so rider, wouldn’t he also have had to dope to win in 2000-2005? Seems to me his later form validates his earlier form, and in those later years the dope testing was better. If he was doping, why wasn’t he caught then?
by tgartner on Apr 7, 2009 3:41 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
One reason for nobody being caught is that dopers
are always ahead of of the testers. Always. CERA has been around in one form or another since 2004 or 2005 and the test hasn’t come till last year.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that a guy at somewhere between 5’8 and 5’10 and weighing 162-170ish pounds winning the Alpe d’Huez time trial by a minute against pure climbers such as Guerini and Simoni. But i doubt I will ever know in my lifetime the truth b/c you don’t know who to believe.
Also to comment on his height…when u look at photos with him and Trek Livestrong, he is the shortest guy in the frame. Shortest guy on the team is 5’10. So he is around 5’8 to 5’9
by Vlaanderen90 on Apr 7, 2009 4:24 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Retrospective testing
is, I imagine, the only way to ‘catch up’ with the dopers.
Sure, you may be three years ahead of the testers now.
But they’ll catch up with you sooner or later.
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 5:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Then they should try a CERA test on Lance
I’d like to think that they could catch up but they would have to invest millions upon millions to be able to catch up with the cutting edge of blood and doping technology.
by Vlaanderen90 on Apr 7, 2009 6:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The interesting thing about CERA
is – IIRC – that the developers of the drug (Roche?) told WADA how to test for it.
I guess that kind of collaboration between the drug companies and the testers is particularly helpful. I am by no means a chemist, but I’m sure it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility to insert markers into commercial products, something that would make testing far easier.
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Aye
On the other hand, it is one thing to have a reliable test, it is another thing to have a bullet-proof test. Even if the manufacturer told how it could be tested for or even included a chemical marker, it still takes a lot of time to review testing procedures enough to make sure they are reliable. If the test was 99% accurate, that still means that 4 Protour riders would provide a false positive. (assuming 18 teams of 23 riders each)
The bottom line is that the tests will likely remain behind the leading edge of PED-science for the forseeable future.
Brooklyn Chewing Gum: Vlaanderens Mooiste
by Koppenberg on Apr 7, 2009 6:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The really big problem with EPO
is that there are apparently loads of little tiny labs in China making their own, slightly different, versions. And the standard tests only find the versions officially licensed for use in the west. Now you or I may say that there is no way we would stick something like that in our bodies, but cyclists have been known to use stuff only licensed for veterinary use. In South Africa.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 7:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Hence the fabled biopassport?
But even then I suppose that would only arouse suspicion that something is going on.
Is the biopassport itself sufficient to sanction someone if there are massive jumps in, say, haematocrit, if nothing is detected in blood or urine?
by Mark T1979 on Apr 7, 2009 7:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Ashenden doesn't seem to think so
and if you microdose properly I guess that you don’t get massive, sudden jumps. And we’ve seen in the past with riders like Rasmussen and Valverde how brazen they can be in the face of overwhelming bad news.
by Monty. on Apr 7, 2009 7:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah it is too hard to judge by hematocrit because
many cyclists train themselves so hard before their targets which would drive their hematocrits low because they probably aren’t getting enough iron and other essential nutrients. Then this number will go back up after resting and numbers will vary between persons.
Though I do believe their are other markers in the blood that can help to determine if their was doping practices going on.
by Vlaanderen90 on Apr 7, 2009 7:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
We should invent an award:
Something like the Dario Frigo I was willing to inject the scariest shyte into my body award.
Brooklyn Chewing Gum: Vlaanderens Mooiste
by Koppenberg on Apr 7, 2009 7:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
hey, what happened to our
resident doc on this? Didn’t we have one, last year?
by Sui Juris on Apr 7, 2009 7:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
fine = find
I’m not sure how ‘nice fine Gavia’ isn’t for all ages but I got a laugh out of your reply.
by brunopitton on Apr 7, 2009 8:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I agree
though in fairness we should thank mysterion from yesterday’s thread, I think that’s where it was first posted here
by plinytheelder on Apr 8, 2009 12:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Not sure how far ahead the dopers are...
Since a hell of a lot of them have gotten caught. Maybe those are just the dumb ones, but…
by tgartner on Apr 7, 2009 7:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
It really is the dumb ones that get caught for like amphetamines but..
When puerto hit, CERA was highlighted in the documents but they didn’t do anything or even find out about it for another 2 years. Though since they have the CERA test they can identify the marker that the manufactuer put into the drug.
It is getting better but you never know with money that could be exchanging hands and such.
by Vlaanderen90 on Apr 7, 2009 7:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
that's a fair point, but
think about Basso and Ullrich. Even if they didn’t have the smarts, they had the money (nevermind the motivation). And it still nipped at their heels.
Then again, see Armstrong, Lance.
by Sui Juris on Apr 7, 2009 7:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Oh I know. But they had guys behind them with smarts.
They really only got “caught” because they had their blood in bags and names on a list. They might have been doing other things at the same time.
by Vlaanderen90 on Apr 7, 2009 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I've only made it half way through the interview.
I might wait for the cliff notes or maybe the interview on tape.
by brunopitton on Apr 8, 2009 1:04 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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