LeMonde, the French newspaper that broke the Oscar Pereiro story, just can’t let go. The AFLD, France’s anti-doping agency, dropped all proceedings against Pereiro stemming from their investigation of his claimed therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for salbutamol on Thursday. Pereiro provided documentation that satisfied the agency that his TUE was, indeed, valid.
LeMonde, however, is running a story which contains this excerpt (from Marc, via Trust But Verify)
In the Spanish press, Oscar Pereiro had explained that he suffered from excercised-induced asthma, and that the UCI gave him a TUE several years ago to take Ventoline, which contains salbutamol.
Several specialists have expressed doubts regarding the diagnosis of so-called exercise-induced asthma. As early as 1999, Prof. Keun Youl Kim, secretary of the medical committee of the Asian Olympic Council, and president of its sub-commission on TUEs, had revealed in a report sent to the International Olympic Committee that “doctors for some athletes’ teams are strongly suspected of making intentionally erroneous diagnoses of exercise-induced asthma in order to be able to justify officially prescribing salbutamol, when their real objective is the improvement of the athletes’ physical performance during sporting events.”
For Robert Gauthier, who has carried out research on exercise-induced asthma and has conducted numerous tests on cyclists, TUE [note: spelled AUT in French] stands for “Authorization Useful for Trickery.” The former president of the Sports Medicine Center of Lyon estimates that “a single puff of salbutamol, through its blood-vessel-dilating action, can improve oxygen consumption by 0.3 liters, and can therefore improve power by around 20 watts.”
“For a rider weighing 80 kg along with his bicycle, on a climb of 8% at a speed of 20 km/hr, that would represent a gain of 1 km/hr or 3 minutes on a climb of 20 km,” Gauthier estimated.
Perhaps it’s true that salbutamol has the effect that Robert Gauthier claims. Other articles I’ve seen suggest, however, that the effects of salbutamol on someone who is not asthmatic are minimal. [Update: For links to two articles that refute Gauthier’s claims, scroll down to the comments by Robert on this page at TBV.] I’d like to see Gauthier’s research and the data to back up his assertion. But regardless, it appears the documentation Pereiro provided (after several attempts by the AFLD to get it) convinced what can only be presumed to be a rather sceptical group of reviewers that his medical waiver was necessary.
Strongly suspecting that certain doctors for certain teams may have prescribed inhalers for athletes who didn’t have exercise-induced asthma (as the article quotes Prof. Keun Youl Kim) is not proof that they did so. And it’s not proof that the athletes who might have used the medication actually experienced any performance enhancement.
The art and “science” of performance enhancement (legal or otherwise) is filled with a number of snake-oil salesmen peddling all sorts of products and ideas that don’t amount to a whole hill of beans. And there are any number of athletes (and others) who fall for their sales pitches. It’s pretty much the age-old quest for the fountain of youth.
One thing that needs to be sorted in all these controversies is whether the drug or method in question actually provides the athletes any real benefit. If it doesn’t, perhaps the anti-doping agencies would be better off directing their energies towards those drugs and methods that do provide unfair (and perhaps even unsafe) artificial performance enhancement.
“The damage can be repaired from France,” Pereiro told the Spanish news agency EFE. “I could have my name cleared by an apology and regret from Le Monde and the French authorities, but I am not counting on it.”
LeMonde, however, sees the need to fan the flames of controversy — or to save face — by publishing this story. Rather than apologize to Oscar Pereiro for their original story and its impact on his life (minimal, but perhaps real, in my estimation), I’d say they’ve bitch-slapped him, instead.
LeMond logic
if no scandal;
then no story.
if no story;
then no circulation.
if no circulation;
then no paycheck.
if no paycheck;
then no dinner.
no dinner = le grand crisis.
I vote for can’t let go — in fact, I think it’s more like “Won’t ever let go”