… Sting Like A Wasp
Fabio Cannavaro is pissed off, to say the least.
“It really annoys me. And in case you didn’t understand properly I’ll repeat that, it really annoys me,” he said. “I have a clean conscience. Someone gets stung by a bee and finds themselves in the paper as if they were a drug user. When it happened I thought I was dreaming. Some newspapers and television stations really exaggerated.”
Well, OK, he said he was annoyed, not pissed. But I suspect that his annoyance is pretty great. What’s got Cannavaro all hopping mad? He was charged with a doping offense for receiving a “cortisone-based treatment” after being stung by a wasp. Apparently, Cannavaro is allergic to such stings. When his football club, Juventus, applied for a therapeutic use exemption, apparently they botched the paperwork. And by botching the paperwork, a drug test that Cannavaro took shortly afterwards came back positive.
The Italian Olympic Committee’s (CONI’s) anti-doping tribunal, however, had the good sense to drop proceedings against the footballer — a move which allows him to play in a World Cup qualifying match in a few days time.
“(CONI’s anti-doping tribunal) has dropped proceedings against Fabio Cannavaro, considering well-founded the prosecutor’s request for them to be dropped,” read a statement on CONI’s website.
Sometimes common sense prevails. I have to wonder, though, what Jonathan Vaughters thinks of all this. Vaughters, for those who don’t follow cycling, had to drop out of the 2001 Tour de France after a wasp sting cause his right eye to swell shut. He was told by a doctor that he could either get treatment and risk testing positive for banned substances, or he could withdraw from the race. Vaughters didn’t take the treatment and dropped out the next day after about 4 kilometers, when the racing started to heat up. I’ve always wondered why the UCI didn’t suggest — and Vaughter’s employers at the time didn’t think of — applying for a TUE at the time.
Astana In The Crosshairs?
William Schart let a link to this story, which suggests that prosecutors in France are now having syringes used by Team Astana (and perhaps other teams) tested for illicit drugs. French sports newspaper L’Equipe says this comes after “the discovery of several suspicious syringes in a container given by organizers to all the teams in order to collect the medical waste.”
In time (and perhaps earlier, given how tapped into the network L’Equipe’s reporters are), we’ll know whether any residues or remainders of banned substances exist in the syringes from Team Astana, or whatever other teams might be under investigation.
Perhaps more troubling is this part of the article:
While there were no positive tests at this year’s Tour, authorities did seize drugs that the French anti-doping agency’s scientific adviser said raised questions.
The drugs – which include treatments for diabetes, high blood pressure and convulsions suffered by manic-depressives – are not banned but are “incongruous” in top-level athletes, said Professor Michel Rieu last week.
It’s one thing if those drugs were being used without proper prescriptions. And it has been suggested in various quarters that certain medications (insulin, various high blood pressure meds, and others) have uses for either doping or masking the effects of doping. But it’s neither “incongruous” nor especially unlikely that professional cyclists might need medications for diabetes, or high blood pressure, or even manic depression. It is possible (and even quite likely) that there are professional cyclists who have these types of medical conditions.
If these medications were taken away from people who actually needed them, then the authorities were/are playing a dangerous game with those people’s health.
Lance’s response? “SSDD”.
No doubt.
There was a swimmer, I think back in 1972 perhaps, who had asthma. He filed the proper paperwork with US swim fed in a timely manner, but the fed dropped the ball, so when the swimmer won a gold medal at the Olympics and then tested positive for his asthma meds, he got his medal jerked. Too lazy to look this up:)
Smartest guys in cycling take “iffy” substances and then put the evidence of that use in a “sharpies” container supplied by the French government…………………………………………………………….. I think not.
William,
I believe the swimmer was a Rick DeMint, who was all of about 16 or 17 at the time. It was a huge travesty the way the decision came down. It took 29 years or more before the USOC officially apologized for their mistake. The IOC, on the other hand, won’t re-consider his case.
Bill,
I’d have a hard time believing that, too. But truth has a way of being stranger than fiction. Who knew that the authorities would take to dumpster diving to catch the cheats? (Actually, that’s how the IRS agent dug up a lot of the Balco evidence, but that’s another story …)
Dumpster diving isn’t the most elegant way to collect potential evidence. However, it’s sometimes a necessary element of a thorough investigation. Leaking information to the press that dumpster diving was part of your investigation, is however, wholly unnecessary and probably unprofessional. Given the sensationalism associated with the dumpster diving, it’s easy to conclude the investigator’s motives are less than pure and that they have, perhaps, prostituted their professional values for the sake of media print?
As for the other news, Vaughters should be pissed. UCI and WADA should be embarrassed, but they are not……
Dumpster diving? If they cared about chain of custody, that would be one huge issue!!
US Postal underwent a 2 year witch hunt by the French government over medical products it had allegedly disposed of in a dumpster. This time, the medical products are in a sharpies container the teams were mandated to use.
No wonder Armstrong says SSDD.
A team that had been subject to a two year legal wrangle with the French government would either have to have a seriously short memory or be really stupid to dispose of their medical waste in a way in which they would then be subject to the same kind of inquiry.
While I acknowledge that criminals are stupid sometimes, THAT team isn’t stupid, even though Contador may miss a split or two, once in awhile.
>Sigh< I can’t believe three years later we are still “here” with the AFLD and L’Equipe….Now Floyd has disappeared and I can’t send him his traditional birthday cake. (hmmm perhpas that is WHY he disappeared?) What’s this crummy world coming to?
(the former) strbuk
Bill,
There is no allegation, US Postal dumped boxes of medical products (including Actovegin), 160 syringes, used transfusion equipment. The staff of US postal, in a anonymous car, were filmed dropping the bag by french TV.
Surely american TV didn’t report it, but US Postal management explained that Actovegin were used to cure one of the staff, so they never denied the findings, just it’s use, the transfusion equipment was allegedly used for “IV saline”…
The rubbish was not taken by the french TV team, they don’t reported to police, the story was discovered on TV so it was too late to find it again. A procedure was opened but police have probably done nothing.
Astana was not a team but 2 teams… maybe someone has tried to stab another by dropping some proofs. Not sure that people of management were happy to drive with such medical waste, if searched by police they would have broken french antidoping laws and rsiked a 7 years jail sentence.
Jeff,
It was specific medical dumpster. Too much people of hotels were complaining to have to manipulate so many syringes, rubbish with blood, and so after a stage or a race. Syringes were not only in bins but everywhere in the rooms, on/under beds,… as reported by Manzano and confirmed by the US Postal garbage, riders used around 15-20 syringes by day
Are you not embarrassed that Lance could have a back-dated TUE in 1999 for an alleged saddle sore to clear a positive test and that Vaughters who had not paid $500.000 to UCI cannot cure a wasp sting
Same Subject Deny Deny… but what about the magic 49% hematocrit easily obtained by training high? Even the trickiest man made mistake by publishing his blood values.
Jean C,
Once again, your response to one of my posts goes well beyond the subject matter I addressed. Why are you so anxious to attempt to pull me towards subject matter I either find extraneous, don’t feel compelled to comment upon, or don’t feel qualified to venture an opinion?
It’s more than understandable that a system was put in place to properly dispose of medical waste. That’s the professional part of the equation. Releasing information to the press about the details of an ongoing investigation involving suspicion of chemical product use that may pass muster under the “WADA Code” (go figure), while possibly being illegal (or possibly legal) under French law, serves only to bring attention and publicity to the investigators/prosecutors and serves little to further said investigation. This is especially true if nothing illegal is ultimately found and roughly equal publicity is not given in the event nothing is found.
If you’d be good enough to document your statements about, “Syringes were not only in bins but everywhere in the rooms, on/under beds,… as reported by Manzano and confirmed by the US Postal garbage, riders used around 15-20 syringes by day”, with proof (not innuendo) regarding how the purported syringes got there, that would be appreciated. Otherwise, I’m going to have to call bravo sierra (BS) on you.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for LA. He’s amply able to speak for himself. WADA and UCI should absolutely be ashamed of Vaughters’ grotesquely swollen face, as shown in pictures taken the day after he was stung by some sort of bee while competing in the TdF. They prohibited a simple and effective remedy that would in no way give him a competitive advantage over the other racers. The IoC should be more ashamed of their conduct regarding the swimmer, Rick DeMint. It takes frighteningly simple and irresponsible minds to treat innocent athletes in such a callous manner.
I’m not in any sort of denial mode. I am commenting on French investigators/prosecutors being self serving attention seekers at the expense of a professional inquiry. It’s clearly not same subject deny deny, but thanks for playing. It’s same excrement different day.
I’m not sure what the French version of the Keystone Cops is hoping to gain by repeating recent history (SSDD)? If they are hoping to elevate French riders through the attrition of disqualification, it’s not going to work. There are just too many riders to disqualify. Better to start from the back. Not so many to disqualify to get to a French Lantern Rouge.
strbuk,
The former strbuk? You mean you’re no longer you? 😉
Billl,
I think the point about chain of custody is perhaps one of the central points here. Even supposing the lab finds evidence of banned substances, how could anyone possibly know who took what? Without proper chain of custody, we couldn’t even be sure that the tainted syringes came from any particular rider, much less any cyclist on the team. (Unless the syringes are labeled as to who used what, and even then, I wouldn’t place too much faith in the labels since the items weren’t under constant control and observation.)
Jean,
Setting aside who paid how much to whom in a particular instance, one hallmark of a rational anti-doping system would be a mechanism to deal with emergencies or unexpected developments. Riders injured in a crash might need blood transfusions. Riders get saddle sores. Riders get stung by wasps and bees and need medical treatment to prevent anaphylaxis from setting in. When Vaughters was stung, the people at the UCI should have been able to instruct his team on the paperwork to fill out so that he could get a TUE for his emergency treatment. It shouldn’t have been necessary to make any sort of payoff in any amount to keep him riding. What happened to him was just plain wrong.
Could it be possible to obtain DNA from syringes? If so, it might be possible to link syringes with specific individuals. Presumably riders have routinely submitted blood samples for the blood passport system which could be used to match with any DNA samples obtained from the medical wastes.
Otherwise, sanctions could be leveled at the team as a whole rather than any individual, although how this might work against, say LA, who is no longer a member of the team I don’t know. Fines, banning from races in France, etc.
And of course, there is the possibility that nothing will be found.
William,
In theory, yes, it could be possible to get DNA from the needles. But I’m not sure how well they would be able to get the DNA to match up to any individual. The problem is that if the container the needles were disposed in is like most of those used here, then there will be many needles in one container, potentially coming into contact with each other. That means that DNA material might get transferred from one needle to another. While it might be possible to match DNA to riders, it may well be hard to say which needle was used for which rider. With the cross-contamination that’s likely to have occurred, it’s most likely that the data that Toxlab determines will be essentially useless in pinning the use of a particular drug on a particular user.
Now, as far as banning teams outright, that could happen. But as you point out, how would that work for a team like Astana, where a number of riders will be on different teams next year?
And you’re right. There’s always the possibility that nothing (or nothing reliable) will be found. We should be able to figure out at least a bit of what’s been determined, based on the actions that various players take in the near future. Interesting times are ahead for a number of cyclists and their teams, that’s for sure.
Just to remember everyone that insulin is used to dope, Pantani was one user of it.
http://www.velonews.com/article/5556
AFLD is rumoured to work on an insulin test.
http://www.20minutes.fr/article/352735/Sport-UCI-AFLD-les-raisons-d-un-clash.php
Jean,
True. The point that concerns me is whether or not cyclists (or others) on those teams had legitimate uses for the medications, etc. that were seized. If they did, and if they were deprived of those medications, that would be a very bad thing. If no one on the teams, or no one on their support staffs had a legitimate need for the drugs, then the authorities would be acting appropriately. Problem is, the story doesn’t provide enough context for us to know which of these two possibilities happened.
Rant,
if some riders were using insulin or other medications, they would had TUE and team managers (or even UCI) would have said it, without naming the riders. I doubt seriously that no one (UCI or AFLD) checked that possibility.
I heard that some riders were hoping that insulin would be detected because they said it’s “often” used. So I do believe that what they found was more than a a few sample.
Last point, the preliminary investigation was opened in July but we just have got that piece of information.
Jean C,
Rant wrote about context. You didn’t address context.
You seem to believe insulin was found. If insulin was found, to whom did it belong? Did it belong to an athlete or did it belong to a non-riding member of the team? If it belonged to one of the riders competing in the TdF and if it was used without benefit of a TUE, then cheating occurred. If it belonged to a diabetic non-riding team member, such as a team mechanic, and was used to control his/her diabetic condition, then no cheating occurred. I have a diabetic friend. Disposal of syringes and insulin containers can be tricky when traveling. Is it smart/proper or within the rules for non-riding team members to dispose of products used to treat diabetes in the sharps containers supplied to the teams? I don’t know the answer to that one. Do you?
You “heard that some riders were hoping that insulin would be detected because they said it’s ‘often’ used. So I do believe that what they found was more than a few sample.” I have heard the following:
· All professional athletes take performance enhancing drugs.
· No cyclist in the professional peloton took performance enhancing drugs in 2009.
· WADA is primarily concerned with the health of athletes and fair competition.
· The Floyd Landis debacle was decided by a fair process that utilized impartial parties to render judgement.
Just because we hear it, it doesn’t make it true….
Hint: none of the above bullets is true. All are false.
In other news, figureheads of UCI, WADA, and IoC have their respective knickers all in a twist about the long delays in the Operation Puerto case:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/operacion-puerto-delay-scandalous-says-mcquaid
Karma is a beeoch. Go Spain!
That’s the thing. The wheels of justice turn slowly. Much too slowly for those who would dispense their own form of “justice” with an almost fanatical devotion to …
Wow! This one really caught my eye:
Good News For Lhottellerie
French climbing hope, Clement Lhotellerie, will not be spending the next two years on suspension vacation. In fact, after only a five month suspension, he will be returning in 2010 with the French Roubaix-Lille-Metropole team.
Lhotellerie tested positive on April 26th at Liege-Bastogne-Liege for the forbidden substance, Methylhexanamine. Afterwards, Lhotellerie was dropped from his Vacansoleil team, then suspended for two years.
However, the story does not end there, and for once, there seems to have been a legitimate appeal.
Lhotellerie personally presented the culprit to the disciplinary committee: geranium oil. Lhotellerie had hoped to fight a cold with a natural product. “Geranium oil is a synonym for Methylhexanamine, but one must also note that there are 29 synonyms for Methylhexanamine…After my evidence was presented, my suspension was reduced to five months.”
I, for one, am happy to see reasonable justice done in this case. As an athlete, you’re still responsible for what you put in your body, but a longer suspension, in this case, would be unnecessary. He got a suspension and a significant downgrade in racing level when he returns. Still pretty heavy stuff.
Just what benefit to performance would you get from Geranium oil??
It would appear that it has some stimulant effect, at least Methylhexanamine does. In the US geranium oil is available OTC, and Methylhexanamine is only 0.66% concentration. I doubt that much stimulant effect could arise from using geranium oil (unless the concentration is significantly different in France).
So, what agency was blessed with this goodwill when in general, anti-doping agencies have tended to nail anyone caught in their crosshairs to the wall?
I guess it shows that there is a real need for a database containing all the known synonyms for the names of WADA’s banned substances. If there were, I’d definitely add “extract of cortisol.” 😉
Seriously, though, what it really highlights to me is that we need a system that documents the real benefits (or lack thereof) of various performance-enhancing substances, and then classifies punishment for the use of proven performance enhancers based on the type of advantage each banned substance confers. That is, a mild stimulant would be dealt with differently than EPO or CERA.
Does anyone know how it is determined if any given substance is one which should be banned? Is there any pretense to a scientific basis, or is it merely based on hearsay and rumors? You know “I heard that so-and-so uses substance X to dope” and so X gets banned. even if it is banana peel.
When the Landis case broke 3 years ago, it was reported that there was little if any scientific evidence that testosterone would be of help, at least to a cyclist. There was some statements by some people who claimed that they used it a perceived benefits, and some vague statements the T “could help with recovery”, whatever that means, but no one to my knowledge ever referenced any sort of scientific study showing T to be of benefit to an endurance athlete. If such existed, I am pretty sure someone would have let us know here or at TBV.
BTW, I say this not to excuse FL, if indeed he did use T. It was against the rules, even if those rules based on faulty evidence. But the anti-doping agencies have limited financial resources; it seems to me that these resources could be best used to battle use of PEDs which are KNOWN to be of significant benefit to an athlete or to mask use of such PEDs, rather than those substances which are not known to be of benefit, or provide limited benefit.
I remember reading that Jonathan Vaughters said he was ok with having to leave the tour following the sting. It was something to do with making sure that riders aren’t taking banned substances is more important than one rider continuing in the tour. Don’t know if he really meant it, or was just following the company line and using it to show how important Garmin considers clean cycling.
At the Tour of Missouri I found myself standing right next to Jonathan. Didn’t think to ask him about it though.
Seems like he wasn’t too happy about it initially, judging by the quotes he gave to VeloNews and a couple of other cycling publications. Maybe with time his opinions have changed a bit. If I found myself standing next to him, I’m not sure the bee sting and its aftermath would be the first thing that would come to mind, in terms of conversation.
William,
In terms of how the ADAs determine which substances are performance-enhancing, it’s a bit of a mystery. Some are pretty obvious. Steroids help weightlifters bulk up, for example. EPO/CERA/blood doping increases the number of cells capable of transporting oxygen to the muscles. Other stuff seems like conjecture — especially when it comes to masking. Some “masking agents” have been banned not because they are effective at disguising the use of PEDs, but because someone somewhere believes that they may (emphasis on “may”) be used in that manner. One wise use of ADA money would be to fund research to determine which banned substances work, which are harmful to an athlete’s health, and which are just snake oil. Once that’s determined, they would be able to narrow the number of anti-doping lab tests performed on each sample, thus saving a great deal of money currently being spent on testing.
Quiet here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/sports/25graham.html
Quite can be a good thing. It probably means alphabet soup stupidity has taken a brief holiday?
eightzero,
Interesting article. So who to believe, was Graham framed, as he claims, in revenge for providing the syringe with traces of one of Balco’s signature PEDs, or was he involved in the whole sordid affair?
Jeff,
Quiet can be a good thing, indeed. But I’m guessing that the alphabet soup is just operating a bit under the radar, rather than taking a real holiday.
I’m unskilled at word play, but managed to stumble onto something mildly amusing. Alphabet Soup Stupidity does have an acronym that corresponds accurately.
IIRC, it’s in November when CAS gets moving on with the Valverde stupidity.
Reading the Graham article, I am reminded of the instant replay mantra: “clear, uncontrovertible evidence” in order to overturn a call. This does not necessarily mean, as sometimes people would like it to, that instant replay guarantees the “right call”. If the replay official doesn’t see enough to overturn the call, it stands, even though it might not necessarily be “right”. Graham tells us nothing in this article that provides clear evidence to overturn his conviction. Heck, it would not be enough for a not guilty verdict.
Now, he very well might be innocent, and was framed for what he revealed. But it also could very well be that, whether or not he was involved with doping, that he might have indeed committed perjury. But saying it isn’t so doesn’t make it not so.
Hi Rant,
Good article here.
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=reu-uciafld&prov=reuters&type=lgns
Are our friends at AFLD not adhering to chain of custody procedures? Fancy that.
Hey Luc,
The UCI and the AFLD sniping at each otherr? I’d never guess. 😉