It was bound to happen sooner or later. Various news organizations are reporting that the UCI’s new biological passport program has turned up a small number of suspicious cases, which in turn have produced some doping cases that are being actively pursued.
One of those cases involves a top-level professional road cyclist. In what’s a rather unusual set of circumstances, the alleged doper’s name is not being released publicly. And until someone is consistently unavailable to race for a variety of increasingly lame sounding reasons, we may not find out who the hapless person is for a while. How many out there have a certain amount of curiosity as to who it is? Come on, be truthful now.
One of the interesting things about the story (various versions can be found at VeloNews.com, ESPN.com and CyclingNews.com), is that of more than 2100 tests conducted on more than 850 cyclists, 23 cyclists’ results came up suspicious. And of those, 5 cyclists — across all of the various cycling disciplines — have results that may lead to sanctions. According to CyclingNews.com, of the five riders who are facing the greatest scrutiny:
[O]ne rider is expected to be sanctioned, while four others are also facing potential bans.
Alright, let’s break down the numbers a bit. Remember that the biological passport system collects data on athletes over time and looks for variations in the athlete’s hormone and other biological parameters (like hematocrit and hemoglobin values, for example) that may indicate the use of various blood doping techniques, or the use of testosterone or other steroids.
It’s a bit of a black box, in that the exact criteria for determining what constitutes a big enough variation to provoke suspicion hasn’t been widely published — if at all. Let’s dig in to the recent stories.
By the reports, a total of 2172 tests have been performed on at least 854 athletes during the first four months of the year. At the current pace, the UCI would complete fewer than 6600 tests during the course of 2008. CyclingNews.com quotes Anne Gripper, UCI’s head of anti-doping activities, as saying:
“Last year we completed just over 9,000 tests: this year we will be doing just over 18,500,” Gripper told the Associated Press, although she expects the volume of testing to go down once they’ve established good baseline values for all the riders. “This is the peak year of testing. Once we have strong profiles we won’t need the same volume of testing,” she said. “Given the enormity of what we are doing it has been going well. We are getting the full support of the riders and teams.”
Odd. At the current pace the UCI won’t even come close to last year’s volume of testing, let alone reach their target of 18,500 tests conducted. Glad to know that the UCI is getting the full support of riders and teams. I’d be surprised if they weren’t. Fighting against such a program would certainly look odd to many people, and some would take that as a tacit admission that anyone fighting against the program is involved in doping.
Now, back to the number of tests and the number of riders tested. It turns out that at the current numbers indicate that, on average, each of the 850+ riders has been tested 2.5 times since the beginning of the year. While the idea of the biological passport may hold a great deal of promise for the long term, one has to ask: Is this enough testing on the athletes to really and truly establish what each cyclist’s individual patterns are?
This is what I find puzzling: The idea of creating these “passports” is to look at an athlete’s values over time and chart the person’s natural variations. I find it hard to believe that two or three data points for each item the program tracks can give a clear picture of each person’s “normal” results.
Let’s break it down a little further. If 854 riders have been tested and 23 had results that merited further investigation, that means 2.7 percent of the riders tested might possibly be doping in one form or another. This is an interesting result. The last year that I saw numbers for WADA’s test results was 2005 or 2006, when cycling had about 4 percent of A sample tests result in adverse findings. How many of those cases resulted in sanctions is unclear.
But looking at the number of riders who are in the hot seat right now, less than one percent of riders tested (approximately 0.585 percent, actually) may be proven to be dopers. Another way of looking at it is that less than one quarter of the “suspicious” results have proven (allegedly) to be doping related. Pretty small numbers, wouldn’t you say?
Does this mean that a sudden wave of playing by the rules has swept over professional cycling? Well, anecdotally, doping has been nigh on endemic in cycling for, like, forever. So with the increased scrutiny, perhaps a number of those who were doping in the past have now been scared straight. Pat McQuaid seems to think so, as CyclingNews.com reports:
“We are seeing a major change at the top level of the sport,” McQuaid claimed. “We all are aware that cycling has a doping problem and for 40 years has been dealing with a doping problem. We needed to go at it with a huge campaign in which we bombarded athletes with tests and the biological passport program gave us that opportunity.”
Perhaps there’s another explanation. Maybe the doping problem in cycling wasn’t that bad all these years. Will we ever have any way of being able to compare the pre-biological passport days to the new, improved system for catching cheats? Again, perhaps. The Guardian adds another interesting little tidbit, not seen in the other articles listed above:
In addition to the biological passport programme a “doping audit”, commissioned by McQuaid in the aftermath of Floyd Landis’s positive test at the 2006 Tour de France, is nearing completion. Its findings are expected to be published before this year’s Tour begins on July 5.
What, exactly, is a doping audit? Is that like an investigation that might give us a true sense of how pervasive the problem of doping in cycling has been? Will the audit’s findings be made public? It will be interesting, indeed, to see what this audit will have to tell us and whether it might shed some light on just how bad the problem has been in the past.
Back to the biological passport system. As I said earlier, it’s a bit of a black box. And, apparently, the full workings of the program haven’t been ironed out just yet. ESPN.com’s article adds this to the mix:
The UCI executive committee meets next month in Copenhagen, Denmark, to finalize its rules for operating the passport program. McQuaid said the program results are available to WADA despite a split between the two organizations.
So, let’s get this straight: Twenty three riders had results that warranted further investigation. Five riders are facing some sort of disciplinary action due to the results of tests being used to build their biological passports. And the final rules for how the program operates haven’t been decided. What’s wrong with this story?
And further, VeloNews.com reports that nine anti-doping experts from Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden,”would be given the job of analyzing all the blood profiles submitted by hundreds of professional riders.” Is it me, or does that sound like they haven’t been involved the work of analyzing samples up to now?
VeloNews.com also tells us:
The UCI qualify the passport scheme as an “efficient deterrent”, but admitted they would not be naive when it came to potential drugs cheats at the Giro d’Italia.
“We can never be 100-percent sure that a rider isn’t doping. We can’t control the decisions taken by riders before and during a race,” the UCI added.
“But we can certainly influence their decisions by conducting an effective anti-doping program. Riders will be completely deterred from doping when they feel that the risks of being detected and banned exceed the potential benefits of using doping methods and substances.”
A system like the biological passport could well be a mighty deterrent to those who are inclined to cheat. Let’s hope that the scientific details of how the program is supposed to work are solid. But given what’s been reported in the last couple of days, I have some misgivings as to just how solid the program’s foundation may be.
854 riders
2,172 samples (2.54 x’s tested)
23 “warranted further scrutiny” (1.9% of tested)
1 expected to be sanctioned (1 rider from 854)
4 facing potential bans (this is only assumption — “they think” — but the proof isn’t solid)
UCI and WADA may claim any statistical references they wish — that the “blood passport program has “scared straight” the entire body of racing professionals — but what purpose other then to verbally justify their previous assertions that there was a “culture of doping” going on is served? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Looking at their own numbers — their “claims” of doing a “bang up job” of “dope testing” — what do we learn?
Since the inception and general acceptance of the blood passport program they have managed to test EACH RIDER 2.54 x’s – – – this is over WHAT PERIOD OF TIME??? Allow me a conservative guess — 10 MONTHS!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Of the 854 tested riders — 1.9 % showed anomalies — WHAT THESE ANOMALIES WERE OR WHY THEY ARE INDICATORS FOR FURTHER TESTING is not revealed — but we are told TO TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT. What is wrong with this picture?
It seems to me that what we need to understand is that the UCI is playing the “old game!” — We know best and we’ll tell you what’s going on. What is wrong with this picture?
Ann Gripper must see us very much like Pat McQ — we are just not “smart enough” to know when the bull is being spread around”¦
Given the fact that past testing programs only had a small percentage of positive cases resulting in action against a rider, I hardly see that these results indicate anything at all.
As Rant says above, we don’t really know what the true extent of doping was in the past. Some riders were caught (a small %age) and some riders have since confessed (again, a small amount). There is much speculation, both in general as well as in regards to specific riders, usually along the lines of “too fast to be anything other than doping”, which just may be true, but to me, the evidence in not there to form a solid conclusion.
The 2.4 average tests/rider is interesting, but perhaps the tests have not been evenly administered. There has been speculation that the 2 “random” daily tests in the TdF, for example, might not be so random and perhaps in fact are used to target “riders of interest” who might not get tested as either a stage winner or top GC. Perhaps the passport testing has been biased towards “riders of iinterest” who are suspected of doping.
It could also be that, if suspicious results some up via the BP program, additional and (hopefully) more definitive tests are run to nail things down. Exact details of how the BP program actually works seem to be few.
In my opinion, at this point there has not been enough time to actually have developed meaningful profiles for riders. Do we really know how training and racing effects the various parameters being looked at? What about the possible effects of various diets, of disease, use of legitimate medications, etc.?
So what would happen if you found 850 non-athletes with no reason to dope, and tested them 2100 times? Statistically speaking, are you likely to find zero anomalous measurements? That would be almost impossible. So how many anomalous readings to you expect to find? I suppose it depends on how you define anomalous.
And that’s been a big problem so far in cycling. A lot of the tests I’ve looked at define anomalous as just slightly outside of normal.
In a perfect world, the dopers would be strongly statistically isolated from the honest athletes. The honest athletes would for example get results between one and two, and the cheaters would measure at 100. Wouldn’t that be nice. Instead, we have tests where the honest athletes measure from one to two, more or less, and the cheaters have measurements of 2.5 (or so).
That’s little picture stuff though. Let’s look at the big picture.
1. Maybe nobody dopes, and these are all false positives.
2. Maybe doping is widespread, and most dopers are getting away with it.
3. Maybe the tests are perfect, and they’re finding exactly who’s doping.
4. Maybe there’s a lot of dopers, but they’re really good at cheating, and the tests suck, and the people getting caught are still all innocent.
Statistically, these cover the four corner cases of what these results mean. And sociologically, these are the corner cases of our current culture’s mythology. Item number 1 doesn’t really represent anyone’s mythology. Item 2 is the most popular mythology about the current state of the world. Item 3 is a mythology that seems to be held by many supporters of anti-doping.l And 4 is the mythology of cynics like me, that think anti-doping is doing more harm than good.
In sociology, “myth” doesn’t mean something is false. It’s a widely held belief that influences society, regardless of whether or not it is true. But in this case I think that none of these myths can be purely true. The real truth must lie in the middle of all of these myths. Statistically, it’s the most likely answer.
The biggest problem of anti-doping is it’s failure to try to predict false positive rates. We can’t rule out the possibility that the positive rates are similar to, or only two or three times higher than, whatever this false positive rate might be. In fact, a number of people have looked at some of these tests, and concluded that false positive rates could easily be one in a few hundred.
And so we get the the statistical heart of the problem. When positive rates are fairly low, and are not drastically different from best guess false positive rates, then we could easily be at the intersection of all of these myths:
1. A lot more people dope than are being caught.
AND
2. A significant portion of those who are caught are innocent.
Not only does statistics allow both of these to be true at the same time, all the numbers I’ve seen, including these new numbers, suggest to me that this is the most likely description of the world we live in.
tom
tom
I am amazed at the clarity of your thinking. Nice to know you are out there!
Thomas:
Your idea above, about taking 850 non-athletes and running a BP program on them would be a good idea, IMO. A control group, a standard procedure in many forms of medical testing, but which the anti-doping community seems to ignore. It is assumed, for example, that an athlete showing a T/E ration of 4:1 or greater, or who has a certain CIR must be doping, but have these tests been run on a significant number of non-doping people to see if there are other, innocent things that can cause these results? The recently discussed research about genetics and false positives and negatives re testosterone is one example of what is at least a potential problem.
Here’s another myth, held by WADA: the tests, being “scientific”, are infallible, and another who tests positive must of necessity be doping.
Be truthful? You don’t have to strap ME to a lie-detector test – I’m dyin’ to know who’s in the hot seat! 🙂 Any guesses?
I have some other questions too. Don’t you think the Giro’s organizers made it an absolute prereq that Astana bring Contador, Levi & Kloden? And getting only a week’s prep time will surely not have them on their “A” game. Poor Levi will be jet-lagged for most of this week at least! But don’t get me wrong – I’m thrilled they’ll be there. What do you think REALLY prompted this turn-around? And IF the TDF nitwits “re-evaluate” & eventually invite Astana to their race, won’t it be too much to expect stellar performances from the guys in both GTs? What odds do you give now for the ASO to change their previous decision?
BTW, how does Vino only get ONE YEAR’s suspension for BLOOD DOPING?!! Why doesn’t the UCI have mandatory PED suspension rules? Why is it left up to the individual countries’ ADAs (or is it the national cycling federations)? There MUST be consistency for crap’s sake! And how is Basso coming back to a PRO TOUR team NEXT year? I thought that was supposed to be a 4 YEAR thing…
And you know, I think Johan’s statement last week that Vino is absolutely NOT coming back to Astana helped things with the Giro organiziers & maybe will help with the TDF too. What do you think?
And pretty please, SOMEone give me a quickie summation of “Oil for Drugs”. From the little I saw last week in the DiLuca CAS articles, it seems awfully similar to OP. If they really have DiLuca on tape discussing with the Dr when to take EPO, etc, how on earth did he only get a 3 MONTH suspension at the freakin END of the season 4 years after the fact? NO WONDER none of the cyclists rumoured to be linked to OP came forward except Basso. And now I’m wondering why Basso did.
Susie B,
Cycling Fans Anonymous has a pretty good summary of Oil for Drugs here. Wikipedia has a brief entry, too, with links to various articles on the subject.
Right on Tom
Tom,
I think you’ve done an excellent job of summarizing the possibilities about what’s happening right now. It would be a very interesting experiment, indeed, to track the values of 850 “regular joes” and “regular josephines” to see what results occur. And then, to add to the mix, track a similar group of competitive (but not elite) athletes. I’d be very curious as to what those results might tell us.
Your points are well taken
Rant:
Your ihtended link to the Wikipedia article above insteads links back here.
Thanks William. I’ve corrected it. Most appreciated.
Rant, You said “It will be interesting, indeed, to see what this audit will have to tell us and whether it might shed some light on just how bad the problem has been in the past.” One of the benchmarks that has been used in the past to raise suspicions about doping have been the results/speed that the winners have had in particular races. I have noticed that the speeds that some of the winners of races have had this year aren’t that much different from past races. Indeed Valverde’s win this year in Liege Bastogne Liege 38.756km/h, was not too far off Hamilton’s win in 2003, 39.889km/h. Valverde’ win in ’06 was 41.202km/h. Was Valverde doping in ’06 but not ’08? Kim Kerchen won this year’s Fleche Wallone in the 2nd fastest time of 43.45 km/h. The fastest was David Rebellin in ’04 with 44.08 km/h. Shouldn’t we be seeing slower times now if everyone is now cleaner?
David Millar, who has survived the blacklist, has been punching out a five minute time trial output of 487 watts in february this year which is up from 423 watts in december. We can contrast this with Landis’ best (albeit over 10 minutes) of 435 watts. Millar’s maximum sprinting output over 10 seconds was 1480 watts in Feb 08 up from 1215 watts in ’07. Again contrasting this with Landis, he could only do 900 watts for a few seconds! So what is going on? Are the passports really going to shed any light on this situation.
And how about the Great Britain track cycling team? They won virtually everything this year. What in the world are they on? I am not convinced that the passports will actually shed much light on the past as much as it will shed on the future. What the passport may be do is shed some light on those that have been wrongly accused in the past.
Luc,
Where can we find those power numbers?
And how are done the measurement?
Just as reference Armstrong and Ullrich were able to sustain 480W on a climb lasting more than 20mn after a full moutain stage. Interesting to compare with the poor 487 watts of Millar on a short TT!
Thanks, Rant. I’ve only had the time to read the Wiki article so far today but have printed out CFA’s synopsis & will read tonight.
What’s your opinion of Vino’s “suspension”? The 1st time I read about it, I was convinced it was a TYPO. I think it is outrageous. Why bother to test at all if certain countries can just ignore what the punishment is supposed to be?
On Saturday, I read a bit on various cycling forums & I have to say, I was very disheartened. It seems the consensus is that doping is as prevalent as ever & the blood passports & in-team testing is PR for the sponsors. I don’t care who doped two years or ten years ago, but I do care that there is at least a serious attempt to curtail doping in this sport NOW. Otherwise, I doubt there will be much of a pro sport left to watch. I mean, exactly how many millionaires with an interest in cycling & money to burn are there?
Pulling a few performance numbers here and there tells us little, if anything. Take any 2 cyclists; one will almost certainly have a faster TT time, or produce more watts, or have a higher VO2 max or whatever. Do we actually know what a top athlete, who trains intensively, plus is blessed with high genetic potential, can actually put up in the way of, say power output, without the aid of PEDs?
Maybe Armstrong and Ullrich’s power outputs Jean quotes above are an indication they were on something, and maybe it is just an indication they were remarkable atheletes. Or maybe even one was on something and the other clean, just that much better.
Luc,
One of the main things I’m interested in in this “audit” that Pat McQuaid speaks about is what it entails. Is it a real look into past doping violations, adverse analytical findings, and so forth, with the statistics and information to provide a clear picture of what happened over the years (or, at least, what happened that they know about)? Who, exactly, are they auditing? I have my doubts, honestly, that whatever comes of this enterprise will actually prove useful. But I’m willing to wait and see.
The power numbers you cite are interesting. I’d like to hear more about them. One thing I do know is that the guys who are sprinters can generate some phenomenal power numbers for a brief period of time, which is just what you might expect from someone who has to wind up the speed very quickly.
Susie B,
I think there’s a fundamental inconsistency in Vino’s suspension. Setting aside the question of whether or not he did it, if he’s proven to have cheated, he should be subject to the same penalty as anyone else charged with the same offense. Getting half what others get is wrong, unless there are extenuating circumstances that we’re not aware of. Of course, this is a moot point if he stays retired. After all, in a practical sense whether he’s got a one or two year suspension only matters if he wants to race again. If he’s really walked away from his career as a pro cyclist, nothing changes regardless of what punishment is slapped upon him.
As far as the forums go, I’d take some of that with a grain of salt. Yes, there are some (perhaps many) who believe that doping is endemic in cycling. Certainly, there are anecdotes that circulate which support this point of view. But some of those stories don’t rise to the level of solid proof, while others can sound quite believable.
For a number of those folks who believe most cyclists dope, the current efforts of various teams (Slipstream, High Road, Astana, CSC) may well appear to be for PR purposes. Whether that’s true or not will be seen over time. Having spoken to Paul Strauss in the past, my impression is that the ACE program is not meant to be a CYA kind of effort, or a means to avoid detection. Instead, it’s meant to be a deterrent, and a means to providing information and counseling to those who might be going down the wrong path. My impression of the Damsgaard efforts is much the same, although I haven’t spoken to him directly.
Hi Jean,
The power measurements for David Millar are out of the June issue Cycle Sport magazine. I tried getting a link for you but only found last month’s. The editors had David Millar do several article on himself and the one i am quoting is by his trainer (i left the magazine at home so don’t recall his name). Floyd Landis’ numbers come out of his book Positively False. I know you have quoted similar numbers for Armstrong and Ullrich before but my question is why are the times in races remaining approximately the same if we are in this supposed drug free and clean era. Are the strategies of racing different? Are they increasing speeds in the flats to compensate for a lower output in the mountains? Or is there better training a la Armstrong, to make the differences up? There is definitely something happening in the training of the british track cycling squad and i do believe they are clean so what are the differences?
Luc,
I am not following closely the british track cycling but it seems that they have good installation to train now, other countries have not the same possibilities. That could explain their results.
Because the number are from the same source, his trainer, we can take it for good (same conditions of measurement). So Millar’s power variation could probably be explained by a different state of form. What is clear he is not able to make the same performance on long races and stages as in his doping past.
I would be interested to compare his maximum output power of the year on 5′, on 20′ and 1hour for every last 5 years.
The speed of the races are linked with weather and tactics, we should have more precision on that point to build our minds just after one year.
Even with blood doping our body is limited by the energy which we can burn during the time of the race. Imagine you have 2 cars, one very powerfull the other less and this 2 car are used in the same race but they can only use 50l of fuel. That limits implicates for the most powerfull car to drive slowly until the time they can use his full power.
A fact which is important, athletes have a benefit of their doping during 2 more years, of course their performances decreases without blood doping, but their supplementary muscle mass will disappear progressively.
On Paris-Nice we have seen a real decrease of the output power of riders. The next TDF will give us a better view of the reality.
We assume that anyone riding a TT is putting forth, within the limits of his or her psychological ability to drive him or herself, a maximum effort. But what about in a long stage race? Could it be that those riders who are not either riding for the stage win in a TT or are going for a top GC spot might be riding tactically: saving something for later stages. In which case, a rider’s effort in a Tour TT might not be indicative of his physical abilities. Add to this the possibility that over the course of a 3 week race, one’s abilities might decline under the effects of exhaustion, injuries, and illnesses brought on by the race. We know, of course, that in massed start stages, there is a lot of tactical racing: on any given day, some riders are trying to conserve efforts and hence, aren’t performing up to their abilities, but rather are saving something for later.
This makes it hard to meaningfully compare results as an indication of doping, IMO. If rider X produces 480 watts climbing Alp d’Huez while rider Y only manages 400, it might be simply a case that X is going flat out for a result while Y is holding back.
Jean, I did not realise that doping benefits last up to 2 years. Is this measureable, as in blood values? I think likely not as we would hear of more athletes being caught (if the doping problem was as serious as is thought). Is it anecdotal or placebic? How about a scenario where an athlete has previously used doping products but has been clean for a year or 2. Is he guilty of cheating if he no longer dopes but still uses his inherent abilities to win? As you suggest, knowing Millar’s previous values would be enlightening as the 2 year benefits would have worn off. Your analogy with the cars works if you don’t consider drafting but as William points out a tactical race ie drafting, would leave a lot of residual fuel to power up that last hill of the stage. Do you happen to know what the benefits would be of following someone up a hill like Hincappie leading Armstrong. There is certainly minimal drafting benefit.
Luc,
Of course the benefits of doping can last 2 years, that is scientist who say that.
To understand you have to understand how doping works especially heavy doping program with blood manipulation, T, IGF,…
The PED and blood give a 15% boost to athletes. But by using PED during their training they can train harder (the famous hard work!) so they can gain more muscles and so… that is that advantage which last during the next 2 years.
Without PED, it’s not possible to train so hard, too much training decreases the performances!
David Millar, who has survived the blacklist, has been punching out a five minute time trial output of 487 watts in february this year which is up from 423 watts in december. We can contrast this with Landis’ best (albeit over 10 minutes) of 435 watts. Millar’s maximum sprinting output over 10 seconds was 1480 watts in Feb 08 up from 1215 watts in “˜07. Again contrasting this with Landis, he could only do 900 watts for a few seconds!
Well, Landis has never been anything of a sprinter; his particular talent is to hold pretty high wattage for a very long time. He once facetiously suggested that I, 51 year old slug, could outsprint him.
Lim published the following figures for the climbs.
* Col des Saises: 36 min 55 sec at 395 watts (gains time on field)
* Col des Aravis: 16 min 49 sec at 371 watts (loses time on field)
* Col de la Colombiere: 27 min 45 sec at 392 watts (gains time on field)
* Cote de Chatillon: 11 min 7 sec at 374 watts (loses time on field)
* Col de Joux-Plane: 37 min 34 sec at 372 watts (loses time on field)
…
In 2005, on stages 14 and 15, his 30 minute peak power performances were 379 watts and 361 watts.
Generally speaking, Landis doesn’t have very high peak values, but they hold up better over time than many other riders, and then there are tactics to consider.
I’d consider Millar to be a generally higher wattage guy, being bigger at 6′-4″ vs. 5-10″ in the first place, which explains his better career time trialling (power/aero drag limited) than climbing (power/weight limited).
The variations in Millar’s power seem consistent with conditioning variation from fallow winter to spring peaks.
TBV
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