Tyler Hamilton: Confessor and witness

Hamilton admits to seeing Armstrong inject EPO

Many months have past with no news from the federal investigation into whether or not Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs.  Now, on Thursday evening, suddenly another bomb shell along the lines of Floyd Landis' admissions and allegations last year during the Tour of California.  

Tyler Hamilton, who rode with the US Postal Service team from 1998-2001, was interviewed by "60 Minutes."  The full interview will air on Sunday night, but the CBS Evening News on Thursday ran a short clip from it:

Corroboration or duplicity?  You be the judge

Not so surprising was the response from Armstrong's attorneys, who have chosen to stick to the tactic of assassinating the messenger.  According to them, Hamilton has "duped the CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes and Scott Pelley all in one fell swoop."  But the hyperbole does not stop there.  Now the language around Armstrong's never failing a test is "500 tests over 20 years of competition."  We have seen the number of times he has been tested discussed in the discussion board in other places, and the math is always a bit fuzzy.  The number always seemed to change and is seemingly a gross overestimate each time.  

This time around the number is 500 over 20 years. . .so an average of 25 times per year.  Except that by our calculations he did not compete for 20 years, and instead the number is closer to 16-17 years, and only if we include his amateur racing days:

1990-91:  Subaru

1992-96:  Motorola

1998-2005:  US Postal

2009:  Astana

2010:  RadioShack

And does anyone here believe that any pro cyclist was tested up to 25 times per year in the 1990s?  Or how about US amateurs in 1990-91?  But especially a rider like Lance Armstrong prior to 1999, when he was a mid-pack racer with mediocre palmares, excluding his 1993 World Championship?  It's classic "messaging" to keep the message on something else other than the allegations.  It begs the question of who is doing the duping, Hamilton or Armstrong's attorneys.

Hamilton also alleges that Armstrong admitted to him that he failed a drug test during the 2001 Tour de Suisse, an allegation we first heard from Landis last year.  The problem is that Landis' allegation has been public for a year now, so until more details come out about that specific event between Hamilton and Armstrong, that allegation remains an easy target for Armstrong proponents.  

Hamilton confesses

In a letter meant for what appears to be family and close friends but published on Cyclingnews.com, Hamilton confesses to his own doping.  And the thing that stands out in Hamilton's confession as well as Landis' from last year, is that these guys are burdened by the lies and deceit.  As well they should be, because they are not trained to live lies and keep a clear conscience.  There is such a profession for that, however---covert operatives in the CIA live double lives for years and years with no apparently ill consequences of it.  The athletes, though, are not trained to do that.  It requires a special personality type and skill set, and the cyclists are trained to race and compete, not to hoard secrets and live a lie.  Until we start a "Psychology of Sport" site, all we can say is the the psychology here is complex.  The Sports Psychologists and others can please chime in here with their comments, but for now we will leave the psycho-analysis at that.

Predictable reaction?

The reactions from the peleton will likely be two dimensional, with riders either condemning the liars and deceivers Landis and Hamilton, saying the past is the past, or those agreeing there is a problem but that now we are really making progress.  Or will it?  One has to wonder  if admissions by first Landis and now Hamilton will show others that it is ok to speak up?  The optimists out there will hold out that eventually the tide will turn, and we reach that "tipping point" when it now becomes acceptable to speak out.  It is anyone's guess what will happen after that, except at least those riders might be unburdened from any guilt they carry within themselves.

For now we will measure the fall out, if any, of this latest turn in the ongoing saga.  With the action heating up in the Giro and the Tour of California, all eyes should be on the racing, but yet again cycling cannot shake the doping issue.

The UCI's Suspicion score

The suspicion score: UCI rankings leaked, published and debated

I'm pretty sure that by now, most of you have read the following news, in which L'Equipe has obtained a confidential document from the UCI in which all the riders in the 2010 Tour de France have been scored on a scale from 0 to 10 based on their biological passport data (I've copied the full list from this article and pasted it at the end of this post)

On the scale, 0 means no suspicion of doping - a rider with an extremely clean passport record.  Scores between 6 and 10 apparently imply a high degree of circumstantial evidence because of large fluctuations in the passport data.

Not surprisingly, the reaction from the cycling world has been angry, with the UCI condemning the leak and the riders reacting angrily to both the leak and the fact that they're being rated on some kind of suspicion scale.

But let's cut through the expected emotive reactions and look at some of the issues behind the story.

The first point is that the leak and the fact that riders are being rated on a suspicion scale are two unrelated events.  That is, the fact that there is a leak should be condemned, mostly because it's a symptom of an organization that doesn't have it's house in order.  And a leak has some far-reaching implications, in that it undermines the trust that biological passport system relies on.  So that is certainly a concern for those involved in the fight against doping.

But the fact that riders are being ranked on this scale is a separate issue.  It may even be commended, depending on how it is done, but the leak has created confusion and speculation which shouldn't be confused with the actual concept of rating riders (a practice that certainly can be debated).

The rating concept is an issue that has people asking some very pertinent questions:  "How is the score calculated? What are the UCI doing with the scores? How can a rider be suspicious and not simply positive or negative? Are they targeting testing based on the ratings?  Is this fair?".

For the answers to these questions, let's go back to go forward.

The biological passport concept

We've said a fair amount on the biological passport in 2011, most of it very positive.  If you missed those pieces, I'd encourage you to read them here:

1. The legal, scientific and performance viewpoint of the biological passport
2. Evidence that the biological passport IS proving effective in the fight against doping

Without wishing to rehash those (lengthy) posts, a summary is important because it sets the context for why a rating system is part of the control and policing of the passport system.  First, the passport is a very stringently designed scientific tool.  It has the backing of substantial research, some of which we discussed in that first post on the legal issues.  It's not perfect, and of course more research is needed, but it's not a stab in the dark at catching dopers.

Now you may recall that in order for the biological passport to be legally acceptable, it has to have a very low risk of producing "false positive" results.  And false positives do happen, because you are looking for abnormal variations in a biological system that has natural variation to begin with.

And so what has been done is to set a limit of probability that allows 99.9% confidence that a a value (for reticulocytes, hemoglobin or off-score) lies outside the 'normal' range.  All measurements are analysed using software to answer the question "what is the probability of finding these values in an undoped sample?"  Only when a value lies outside this 99.9% confidence limit does it constitute a 'strike'.

That's the first line of defense against unfairly pursuing doping cases.  The second is that a rider is not sanctioned on a once-off strike.  A case is only opened if several different variables are beyond these boundaries on more than one occasion.

If this happens, then a third layer is that a team of experts evaluate and analyze the values.  If they feel that the profile is typical for a certain doping intervention, the athlete is contacted and questioned about potential reasons for his values. His justifications are again evaluated by the experts.  Only if they are still convinced that the profile is typical of doping and is not caused by the explanations put forward by the athlete (as has happened for Pellizotti and Valjevic), do they suggest the opening of a procedure against the athlete.

Legal clout, but expanding the impact of the passport through ranking the "near strikes"

So quite clearly, by the time a case is opened, there is already high certainty that doping is taking place - that's why three out of three cases that have gone to the CAS have been won by cycling.  This is a fantastic boost for the passport, because the stringency and strength of the system has been affirmed at the highest level.

This strength and "legal clout" comes from the high probability limit of 99.9%, which means that false positives will happen only once in a 1000 samples.  This is essential, because it must protect riders against false accusation.  The "problem" is that it also sets the bar so high that a lot of sample that are doped will perhaps fall into a 99% confidence limit, or even a 95% confidence limit, and thus not counted as strikes.  The legal requirement is a "conservative system", which doesn't necessarily ensure maximum impact on doping.
 
In other words, at say 95%, a sample would be suspicious and indicative of doping, but not legally enforceable, because you could get a false positive once every 20 measurements.  But that cyclist may still be doping and if they repeatedly produce these kinds of measurements, then these "near-strikes" also need to be accounted for. And this, I suspect, is how the rating system works.

A justified process of control and one way of implementing the passport

Now, this is speculative, because we simply don't know that this is the basis for those scores.  However, for the sake of illustration, this is how I would use a rating system: Consider a rider whose measurements would produce a 'strike' at a 99% confidence level, but not 99.9%.  The first such occurrence may be worth a score of 1.  If that same rider repeatedly 'strikes' at this lower probability level, he accumulates more points.  These points could be scaled afterwards by some correction factor to produce the 11-point scale (0 to 10) that was used, and there's the value you see in the lists below.

Our rider never exceeds a 99.9% confidence level, and so quite rightly, a case can't be opened, but he's been identified as a suspicious rider based on a long sequence of unusual values that lie on the border of being strikes.  The more often he is flagged with a near strike, the higher his score, which is reasonable.  And I believe it is entirely justified to watch this rider more closely.  Why?  Because we know from testimony that riders are able to manipulate their blood values through masking with EPO and by micro-dosing, and so it's quite conceivable that the precision of doping allows riders to stay beneath a 99.9% "radar" but not the 99%.

"Too normal" - sometimes variation is good

The other interesting possibility, mentioned in the L'Equipe report, is that some riders are suspicious precisely because they are "too normal".  That is, variation in blood markers is supposed to happen, and when it does not, then that too is a flag, and so is part of the designation of what constitutes suspicious.  I'm not sure how this is incorporated into a score, but it's hopefully understandable that if a rider presents with "perfect" values time after time, that's as much a problem as wild fluctuations outside the limits.

The fact that he is then rated on a scale, receiving a value of say 4 or 5, is simply part of the management of such a system.  In my opinion, this is entirely justified and acceptable.  It is part of the effective implementation of a passport system, which would lose much of its "bite" if there was not some avenue to monitor and target testing of riders who did not hit the 99.9% level.

The fact that these scores are now public knowledge, without necessarily explaining where the number comes from, that's the problem, for the following reasons:

1. The possibility of subjective scoring and generalization
   
   Honestly, in the immediate aftermath of seeing that list, did you look at some cyclists and say "Ha, I knew it!  Doper!", or did you look at some names and scores and say "No way is Rider X more suspicious than Rider Y!"?  Because if you did, then you were, at least partly, comparing riders based on subjective perceptions of guilt and innocence! 
   
   The problem is that it's quite possible that whoever developed those rankings did so objectively, but with some subjective moderation, and that would not be a good thing.  If the rating is developed solely on the basis of biological passport measurements (as we are led to believe by the L'Equipe article), then I'd be satisfied.  But if it is subjectively moderated, then that may be an issue. 
   
   An extension of this is that once public, then the scores can further re-inforce stereotypes about certain teams or riders.  For example, L'Equipe took the step of using the UCI scores to calculate  which teams and nationalities were most suspicious.  In what some will describe as 'vindication', it turns out that Astana and Radioshack are the most suspicious teams, and Russia, Ukraine and Kazhakstahn are most suspicious nations.  I'm reminded that sometimes, stereotypes exist because they're true - sometimes, reputations are earned and deserved.  But one can sympathize with the rider from these teams/countries who is NOT a doper, but is now implicated by association and generalization, which would be unfair.
   
   For the public, the subjective perception will always feature, but what a leak does is allow confusion, and confusion allows more subjectivity and generalization.
    
2. Uncertainty over the relative rankings and scaling
   
   How is a rating of 8 different from a rating of 4?  How close to a doping sanction is a guy who scores 9?  Is a score of 3 supposed to be interpreted as possible doping, likely innocence or neither?  Does the score actually have any doping relevance?  For one thing, it doesn't mean that the rider who scores 8 is doping twice as much as the rider scoring 4.  It doesn't mean he is twice as likely to be doping either.  The truth could well be the other way around, but it's just that the one is smarter at avoiding larger changes in bio-passport data.  But the problem is that by the time you get to 9 or 10, then that rider is so strongly suspected that a lot of people would be wondering why he isn't just sanctioned.  Or why the rider who scores 5 (Contador) is caught whereas riders who score 9 or 10 (Menchov, Popovych) are not caught?  Hopefully, in my short summary above, and in this previous post, I've explained why bringing a legal case has a more stringent requirement than being suspected.
   
   I've also given my illustration of how the bio-passport MIGHT be used to create these scores, by combining 'near-strikes' according to an objective criteria with the number of times they occur.  The cyclist scoring 8 or 9 might have produced 9 suspicious values at a probability limit of 99%, but not one at 99.9%.  Of course, this is speculative, which is why a leak undermines the credibility of the process, because it invites speculation.
   
   
3. The witch-hunt phenomenon
   
   The third point, very relevant, is that this kind of scoring (independent of it being leaked) will lead to a witch-hunt, where some riders will be targeted for testing.  I actually don't have a problem with this, provided that the classification of riders is done objectively using solid science (see point 1).  I will concede that some cyclists may be targeted unfairly, perhaps based on their reputation or allegations.  But honestly, I don't even have a problem with this, as long as it's not prejudicial to the rider's participation (that is, cases are opened unfairly).
   
   But that doesn't seem to be the case - every case opened so far has been won.  The expertise behind the passport is world class (even if the management and administration by the UCI is not - see the leak as Exhibit A), and so I'm confident that targeted testing is not a witch-hunt, but a more cost-effective and intelligent way to weed dopers out.  It's much like the sniper approach compared to the machine gun approach - if finances are limited, then rather spend the money where it may be most effective, and that is part of the value of the passport.
   
   Incidentally, targeted testing has helped catch dope cheats before - Ricco was suspected for a long time and targeted for testing before eventually being caught, and so there is definitely merit.  I guess the key question here is what do you actually do with a rider who is targeted?  By definition, the fact that he is suspicious and not positive means that you'll never be able to bring a case against him unless he slips up.  And perhaps more frequent testing for the higher rated cyclists will improve the chances of catching these slip-ups.  That's one way of focusing testing.  This kind of focus saves money, and as long as the process is objective and fair, and not played out unnecessarily in public, then I think they're positive.  But I accept that some may disagree.
   
   The other thing that is really interesting to consider is that some cyclists may be better than others as disguising doping.  Now, because of this leak, cheaters who are better at manipulating their values look squeaky clean, and have this rating as their defense, when in fact, all they are is more effective at doping!  That's part of the reason why linking names to scores may not be ideal, and certainly why a leak doesn't help because we lack the context to fully understand how the score is derived.
   
   As an aside, it is interesting to note that last year, during the Tour, a lot of the riders who were rated 8 or higher were NOT tested (as raised by an independent WADA Report) - this point is raised by Festinagirl in the comments section below, and it again opens the UCI to alleged favouritism as a result of lax testing.  If the point of this rating system is to target testing, then testing had better reflect it. If it doesn't, well, what's the point of the scores?  Too much unanswered.

Fascinating insight into the process, but have we moved backwards?

I'd be lying if I said the scores were not fascinating to see.  I've often argued for full transparency in anti-doping efforts, that the bio-passport values should be made available (as some promised to do but never did).  Seeing the rankings of riders is about as transparent as it gets, but the confusion and uncertainty over exactly what the scores mean and how they're used means one step forward for transparency, one step backward for improved knowledge!  And perhaps most worryingly of all, two steps back for trust and credibility of the whole anti-doping effort.

So perhaps the scores might have been made available without the associated names.  Revealing that riders are rated, and telling us that say 50% of the riders have a score of 4 or higher would send the same message to the professional peloton that they are being watched as publishing names.

As mentioned at the outset, linking the names with the scores only undermines credibility of the system, and the system is so reliant on the trust of anonymous analysis of blood values.  It also provides a convenient public defense to some riders who may not necessarily be innocent, and possibly disadvantages riders who may be innocent but now have high index scores.

The reality is that putting names to the biological passport should be done only in the very final step of the process - the leak has given us an insight into the process, but perhaps the same effect might have been achieved without the risk to the credibility and trust within the between rider and tester.

Intriguing insights into the UCI, the leak, and conflicts of interest

As for the UCI, there are signs, in one respect, that they are trying to enforce a biological passport system that I believe is already effective and continues to "scare" riders into less doping, if not eradicate it completely.  This leak will heighten that 'fear', reminding the riders that even negative tests don't mean they're not under the spotlight.

But the UCI's reaction, combined with other UCI anti-doping actions only provides more fodder for critical of the UCI.  For one thing, the leak undermines the credibility of an organization that can't seem to sort out its own internal processes.  One of the key requirements of a successful anti-doping programme is trust - every party must trust the others to be fair and accurate in their actions and a leak like this undermines that trust.  The UCI already has this clandestine reputation, and this doesn't help.

It also doesn't help when the UCI can't reach agreements over testing at races and ends up marginalizing independent organizations, as happened for the upcoming Tour of California.  Rather than having independent and comprehensive testing from USADA, Bonnie Ford reports that the UCI will now handle the testing, which further increases the perception that the UCI are hiding something, giving preferential treatment to certain teams and riders, and generally having an enormous conflict of interest.

When the UCI deplore the leak and publication of their suspicion scores, and follow this up a day later by marginalizing independent testing authorities as a result of unwillingness to make available test results or allow targeted testing, it only reinforces the perception of a clandestine approach.  Perhaps full transparency is the way to go - but not for the first time, it's the media who have forced it onto the UCI, who continue to send mixed signals about anti-doping efforts.

Difficult times for cycling.  And all the while, a bike race goes ahead in Italy, but it's anti-doping on the back pages.  

Ross

And finally, here is the complete list:

0 Mario Aerts, Yukiya Arashiro, Stephane Augé, Michael Barry, Francesco Bellotti, Jose Alberto Benitez, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Lars Boom, Maxime Bouet, Pavel Brutt, Fabian Cancellara, Manuel Cardoso, Dries Devenyns, Samuel Dumoulin, Julien El Farès, Simon Gerrans, Anthony Geslin, Bert Grabsch, Christopher Horner, Robert Hunter, Kristjan Koren, Burt Lancaster, David Le Lay, Christophe Le Mével, Adriano Malori, Koes Moerenhout, Amael Moinard, Lloyd Mondory, Damien Monier, Juan Jose Oroz, Remi Pauriol, Mathieu Perget, Gregory Rast, Mark Renshaw, Nicolas Roche, Jurgen Roelandts, Pierre Rolland, Anthony Roux, Jeremy Roy, Mathieu Sprick, Rein Taaramae, Sebastien Turgot, Niki Terpstra, Brian Vandborg, Kristof Vandewalle, Ivan Velasco, Thomas Voeckler, Fabian Wegmann, David Zabriskie

1 Marcus Burghardt, Sandy Casar, Anthony Charteau, Sylvain Chavanel, Julian Dean, Mickael Delage, Martin Elmiger, Johannes Fröhlinger, Jakob Fuglsang, Robert Gesink, Xavier Florencio, Adam Hansen, Ryder Hesjedal, George Hincapie, Andreas Klier, Roger Kluge, Alexander Kuchinsky, Daniel Lloyd, Mirco Lorenzetto, Martijn Maaskant, Aitor Pérez, Alan Pérez, Jerome Pineau, Ruben Plaza, Alexandre Pliuschin, MaartenTjallingii, Rafael Valls, Maarten Wynants

2 Eros Capecchi, Mark Cavendish, Stephen Cummings, Remy Di Gregorio, Arkaitz Duran, Mathias Frank, Oscar Freire, John Gadret, Francesco Gavazzi, Volodymir Gustov, Thor Hushovd, Christophe Kern, Thomas Löfkvist, Sebastien Minard, Daniel Navarro, Grischa Niermann, Stuart O'Grady, Rubén Pérez, Christophe Riblon, Thomas Rohregger, L. L. Sanchez, Carlos Sastre, Fränk Schleck, Simon Spilak, Bram Tankink, Stijn Vandenbergh, Benoit Vaugrenard, Jens Voigt, Eduard Vorganov

3 Ivan Basso, Grega Bole, Brent Bookwalter, Dimitri Champion, Gerald Ciolek, Rui Costa, Damiano Cunego, Mauro Da Dalto, Francis De Greef, Markus Eibegger, Imanol Erviti, Tyler Farrar, Fabio Felline, Juan Antonio Flecha, Maxim Iglinskiy, Vasil Kiryienka, Roman Kreuziger, Matthieu Ladagnous, Robbie McEwen, Maxime Monfort, Sergio Paulinho, Joaquin Rodriguez, Andy Schleck, Chris Anker Sörensen, Sylvester Szmyd, Paolo Tiralongo, Amets Txurruka, Johan Van Summeren, Gorka Verdugo, Charles Wegelius

4 Lance Armstrong, Janez Brajkovic, Bernhard Eisel, Cadel Evans, Pierrick Fédrigo, Juan Manuel Garate, Andriy Grivko, Jesus Hernandez, Ignatas Konovalovas, Sebastian Lang, Levi Leipheimer, David Millar, Daniel Moreno, Serge Pauwels, Manuel Quinziato, Luke Roberts, Samuel Sanchez, Christian Vande Velde, Nicolas Vogondy

5 Alessandro Ballan, Matti Breschel, Alberto Contador, Cyril Gautier, Inaki Isasi, Sergei Ivanov, Vladimir Karpets, Alexandr Kolobnev, Karsten Kroon, Steve Morabito, Benjamin Noval, Jose Rojas, Nicki Sörensen, Alexander Vinokourov, Bradley Wiggins

6 Linus Gerdemann, Christian Knees, Egoi Martínez, Alessandro Petacchi, Francesco Reda, Mauro Santambrogio, Geraint Thomas

7 Jeremy Hunt, Andreas Klöden, Tony Martin, Christophe Moreau, Michael Rogers, Wesley Sulzberger

8 David De la Fuente, Ivan Gutiérrez, Danilo Hondo, Matthew Lloyd, Iban Mayoz, Dmitriy Muravyev, Rinaldo Nocentini, Daniel Oss, Kevin Seeldraeyers, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Jurgen Van Den Broeck

9 Denis Menchov

10 Carlos Barredo,Yaroslav Popovych

And here, courtesy L'Equipe, are the rankings of teams and nations:

The ranking of the least suspicious teams:
1.Cofidis 4
2. Bbox Buoygues Telecom 14
3. FDJ 15
4. AG2R-La Mondiale 16
5. Garmin-Transitions 17
6. Cervelo 20
     Footon-Servetto 20
8. Rabobank 21
9. Liquigas 22
    Team Sky 22
11. Milram 23
       Saxo Bank 23
13. Euskaltel-Euskadi 24
14. Katusha 26
15. Lampre 28
16. Quick Step 30
17. Omega Pharma-Lotto 31
18. HTC-Columbia 32
       BMC 32
       Caisse d’Epargne 32
21. Astana 39
22. RadioShack 40

The ranking of the least suspicious nations:
1. France 1.23 (based on the average of 35 riders)
2. Netherlands 1.25 (8)
3. Switzerland 1.60 (5)
4. Portugal 2.0 (3)
5. Slovenia 2.25 (4)
6. USA 2.37 (8)
7. Belgium 2.69 (13)
8. Denmark 2.80 (5)
9. Austria 3.0 (3)
10. Germany 3.27 (15)
       Australia 3.27 (11)
12. Spain 3.27 (32)
       Great Britain 3.27 (8)
14. Italy 3.70 (17)
15. Belarus 4.0 (3)
16. Russia 4.33 (6)
17. Kazakhstan 5.33 (3)
       Ukraine 5.33 (3)


Your thoughts welcome!

The Biological passport stands up to test 3

Valjavec ruling:  CAS further strengthens the biological passport

One last short post, just to give a bit of significant news in the world of cycling.

It is significant in that it boosts the efforts of the biological passport even further, and it is significant because it follows on from a series of posts we did just over a month ago on the biological passort, its scientific and legal issues.

That news is that Tadej Valjavec has been banned for two years on the basis of the athlete biological passport system.  The ban is an overturning of an earlier Slovenian decision to clear the rider.

Some articles summarizing the Valjavec ruling can be found here and here, and they explain how the passport has received yet another boost as a result of this decision.  This follows on from the CAS decisions to uphold the ban of Pietro Caucchioli and to overturn a CONI decision to exonerate Franco Pellizotti in early March.  The second decision in particular was significant, because CAS ruled against the Italian federation that had cleared Pellizotti despite biological passport figures that were deemed suspicious.

The same has now happened for Valjevic - he was initially cleared by the Olympic Committee of Slovenia, on the basis that he argued that his suspicious values (strikes, as we called them in our series) were the result of an ulcer.  His case was apparently very well presented, with some serious "heavy-weight" experts arguing it out before the CAS.  This was therefore the most stringent legal test of the passport to date - we discussed in our articles the legal issues, and the chances of "false strikes" against riders.  Valjevic tested that system to its limit, and it came out stronger, and that's a great step forward for the passport system.

CAS said in a statement that "The CAS has set aside the decision of the OCS to exonerate the athlete from any doping offense and has imposed a two-year ban on him starting on 20 January 2011, as well as the disqualification of all his results obtained between 19 April and 30 September 2009 and a fine of EUR 52’500".

Every one of these cases strengthens the legal basis and adds momentum and "clout" to the biological passport system.  CAS used the precedent set in the Caucchioli and Pellizotti cases to make this ruling, and further cases like this are likely. 

Our articles on bio passport, which include some great discussion, including inputs from those scientists who are actually responsible for the passport's creation and implementation (for which we are enormously honoured) can be found here:

1. The legal, scientific and performance viewpoint of the biological passport
2. Evidence that the biological passport IS proving effective in the fight against doping

All in all, the passport may not be perfect, and yes, athletes will micro-dose and get away with doping, but as we showed (in Part 2 of the series), it's making a difference.  And now the CAS are supporting that effort and adding weight to it.

That's all, see you after Easter

Ross

le Tour de France weekend preview

The Tour de France - the 'sparring' begins

This weekend is one of the great sporting weekends, as always, because it's usually the start of the Tour de France, and the end of Wimbledon. And so for a "newsy-opinion" post, I thought I'd preview these two events.

First is the Tour de France preview, and below it, you can find some discussion around Wimbledon, where the chance of a Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal finals rematch is still on!

But first, Le Tour de France...

Opening salvo

The Tour gets underway in Brest this weekend, and let's hope for a clean Tour with the bike-racing dominating the news rather than the doping, as we wrote yesterday!

For the first time in many years, we start with a mass ride, not a Prologue Time-trial, which means the first yellow jersey wearer is unlikely to be a Fabian Cancellara-type Time-trial specialist, but a strong sprinter - the stakes on that first finish line sprint will be huge! It's not a pure sprinter's stage, however, because it's hardly flat, and it will be one of the strong men of the race who survives a few jagged climbs who takes out the win - perhaps Cancellara is the man to watch, after all. I'd go with Robbie McEwen, however, as this year's first maillot jaune, because he's one sprinter who is capable of hanging on a tough day, especially so early in the Tour.

Tuesday sees the first real test for the big GC contenders, in the form of a short, 29.5 km Time-trial in Cholet. The Time-trials are very short this year, which will play into the hands of the climbers, though the Tour is, I must be honest, a little short of pedigreed climbing specialists who are capable of sustaining that level for the full three weeks. There are certainly climbers, but none who jump out as a Pantani-type overall champion. Soler Hernandez, last year's King of the Mountains will likely feature. But here again, the KoM title will go to the guy who is a good climber but also unlikely to feature in the GC, because he's given free reign to go out and accumulate points without intefering with the "real" race. I've always thought they should award bigger time-bonuses to reward the climbers a little more...

Plenty of 'snipers' and once-off stage winners are expected, but not repeat-stage winners, even in the sprinters, where the race lacks a real "boss". Robbie McEwen, for example, will have to fight for himself in the sprints, because his Lotto team are throwing all their weight behind Cadel Evans for the overall title. This, plus the absence of Tom Boonen due to his cocaine-liaison, means a wide open race on the flat stages.

GC contenders - an open race but with two prominent names

The two names to look out for must be Valverde and Evans, who've shown form all year. Evans also knows what it takes to compete in the Tour, having finished a brave second last year, and having fought with Contador and Rasmussen all the way through the mountains. Valverde fought in patches, and was particularly good in the Alps (as he has been a few times), but has never really carried that through to Paris. Perhaps his maturity and more experience will help him this time around.

This time round, the riders go anti-clockwise, which means they tackle the Pyrenees first, and the Alps only in the second week. Some great stages lie ahead, including the Alp d'Huez climb on July 23rd. France's Bastille day, July 14th, also sees a great stage with a finish on top of Hautacam, after the climb of the legendary Tormalet. This stage is really going to be the first indication of who has the real yellow-jersey credentials.

We'll look at specific stages once the race is underway, as we preview or review the action (time permitting, of course).

But, since we're never shy for a prediction, however incorrect, we'll call Evans as this year's champion, with the other contenders to follow - that's a "run with the herd prediction!"

One final article on cycling, to follow up on yesterday's post on cycling's drug culture. We received the following story from George, which grows (pardon the pun) the legend of doping history of the Tour de France:

When Pierre Brambilla (a well known user of amphetamines)lost to Jean Robic on the last day of the Tour in 1947 he reportedly buried his bike at the bottom of his garden. When asked by a reporter about the incident, he replied sarcastically it was to grow bamboo for a new pair of wheels. "Good job you didn't plant your feeding bottles then," the journalist replied, "You'd have grown a pharmacy."

Join us for race opinion over the next three weeks!

Ross

Tour de France 2008

3 weeks in July 2008: Are we optimistic to expect a clean tour?

The Tour de France begins on Saturday. And while I wish that I could be as optimistic and excited about it as I was perhaps five, maybe ten years ago, there is so much water under the bridge for cycling that my enthusiasm is drastically tempered by my cynicism!

It's true that so far in 2008, we've given cycling a very poor run here at The Science of Sport. In fact, I don't think we've done a single post on the sport, including through the Classics season and the Giro d'Italia! That's partly because there's been so much to write about in other areas, but it's also because, I must confess, the constant negative press, the deception and the farcical attitude of certain people within cycling has really put me off the sport a little - Pat McQuiade, the head of the UCI, last year denied that cycling had a doping problem, despite the fact that millions of dollars was being lost as sponsors pulled the plug on their riders.

So just as those sponsors decided to jump ship, I guess our own attitudes reflect the general malaise around the sport of cycling. The 2008 Tour will start without its defending champion, Alberto Contador, who happens to be on a team (Astana) with a track record of doping. It also starts without one of its great sprinters, Tom Boonen, who returned a positive test for cocaine recently. And then of course, it starts with memories of last year's Tour, where two high profile "heroes" were expelled for positive tests. And the memories of the last ten Tours, where drugs have never been far from the headlines.

However, since no one likes a cynic, we do eventually have to find some light, and so over the next few weeks, as cycling's greatest race unfolds, we'll focus on the action. Funny thing is, last year, we promised the same thing - as I recall, we did a series of posts leading up to the race on doping, but we promised that as soon as the racing began, we'd leave the doping and discuss only the action.

Turns out the action in 2007 was the doping! First it Landis, who didn't even take to the line, the first "Champion" to be stripped due to his 2006 positive test. Then was Vinokourov, one of the "heroes" of the sport, who tested positive and got the boot. Then it was Rasmussen, the yellow-jersey wearer, sacked from his team in sight of the finish line. And so the 2007 Tour, which began with much hope, ended as perhaps one of the three most controversial tours ever. Let's hope 2008 is not the same.

There is some light on the horizon, I'll concede. In what is a telling indictment on the sport (the UCI, that is), most of the pressure to "clean up cycling" has come from the free market - the sponsors, the media, the event "owners", and the riders themselves, who are sick of the negativity surrounding the sport. The "clean up" campaign includes profiling of athletes' blood to establish a baseline against which subsequent testing can be compared, and also the somewhat powerless committment by cyclists to race drug free. The talk has been loud and it has been positive. Whether this is a true revolution remains to be seen, because the culture of doping in cycling is so deep, it may take generations to remove.

A culture of doping in cycling: History tells a story

But since we have a few days until that action starts, I thought I would go back to a post that was done last year in the lead-up to the race, and rework it for now. That post concered the culture of doping in cycling, and how historically, cyclists have taken to drugs just as you or I would take to a Gatorade during our training runs or rides.

It was about last year this time that Bjarne Riis, the winner of the 1996 Tour, admitted to doping. The problem is that he does not appear to be an isolated case, and even within that race of 1996, the top 4 riders all have some sort of history or track record of doping. The same goes for every single winner of the Tour de France since 1996 - either they are known drug users, or they are rumoured to have doped (with plenty of circumstantial evidence), or they are currently being tried (as in the case of Floyd Landis). And so I wrote last year that the "deeper you dig, the uglier it gets" for the sport of cycling.

The first point is that the Tour de France must be one of the first sporting events where doping was practiced. As far back as the early 1900's, riders were drinking wine and using strychnine to "dull the pain". Then, with World War II came the introduction of amphetamines, which were initially created to assist soldiers in battle to remain alert and focused.

They were soon used by professional cyclists, among them Tom Simpson, who famously died near the summit of the Mont Ventoux in the 1960's. In the legendary book Put me back on my bike by William Fotheringham, Simpson is credited with the following quote:

“I know from the way they ride the next day that they are taking dope. I don’t want to have to take it – I have too much respect for my body – but if I don’t win a big event soon, I shall have to start taking it”

Also at this time, one of the men to have won the Tour five times, Jacques Anquetil, was in his prime. Anquetil perfected the use of “the Anquetil cocktail” comprising a painkiller, morphine or palfium, injected directly into painful muscles even whilst cycling; an amphetamine to offset the somnolent effect of morphine; and a sleeping tablet, Gardenal, to allow sleep when the stimulatory effects of the amphetamines were still active. Anquetil’s recorded comment is that:

“You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants”

Anquetil also reportedly stated:

“For 50 years bike racers have been taking stimulants. Obviously we can do without them in a race, but then we will pedal 15 miles an hour (instead of 25). Since we are constantly asked to go faster and to make even greater efforts, we are obliged to take stimulants”

A final quote comes from a cyclist, Jesus Manzano (I do acknowledge that these quotes and statments are sometimes inspired by ulterior motives and might be sour-grapes, but given the number of them, they need to be heard), who was banned in 2004 for using doping products:

“They said that I was a rotten apple, but I now believe that the whole tree is rotten … When you train a lot your haematocrit goes down, so how is it possible for someone to go to the Dauphiné or the Giro with a (haematocrit) level of 52%. How do they get it up to this level? With EPO. But it’s the UCI’s (Union Cycliste Internationale) fault. Because they could sort it out very easily. They could take that cyclist to Lausanne, get him to spend a year training (without access to EPO) and see what happens. He won’t end up (with a haematocrit) at 52%, but at 38%. He won’t even be able to get out of bed. But it’s all a farce. The only ones who are getting rich are some of the doctors, and not the cyclists… I have a witness who said that one doctor was asking for six million pesetas (£30 000) to use his preparation methods. Will they be asking for six million for just aspirin and mineral salts?”

So this is the culture of the Tour de France, unfortunately. I once attended a presentation by Dr Alejandro Lucia from Spain, who was a research scientist of the Banesto team that included Miguel Indurain and Alex Zulle. His opinion on the matter was that to the cyclists, the use of doping products had become as acceptable as drinking Gatorade or some other energy drink during the race.

So just as you might plan to run a marathon or go for a long ride and feel that you can't do without some energy bars or gels, so too professional cyclists feel that doping is not an option but a necessity. And this may also be the reason why many cyclists can so easily deny the use of anything illegal - they genuinely believe that it's not illegal, just that it is necessary!

So when they say they have "done nothing wrong", they may actually believe it to be true, even when they might have used hormones or other drugs!

A final quote comes from the judge who presided over the doping case of Richard Virenque. His name is Judge Daniel Delegrove:

"These are not racers, they are pedalling test-tubes"

The 2008 Tour: Optimistic or naive?

Much has happened in the last year since we ran the article that contained these quotes, including the disaster-Tour of 2007 with Vino and Rasmussen. And for the next few weeks, we're going to focus on the racing action, not the doping (unless the doping supercedes it again) with the optimistic belief that we may see a clean Tour for once.

There are interesting ways to analyse this, including estimations of the power output during the mountain stages - there's already some evidence that a typical climbing day in the multi-stage races is being done at a LOWER average power output than it was three years ago.

Also, the somewhat erratic performances of cyclists does tend to suggest a 'cleaner' Tour - the days of a dominant rider cycling away from the field day after day like a Terminator on wheels seem gone. Does that mean less doping? Who knows? It certainly suggests it, because the recovery of riders seems worse now than before, and putting in two big efforts in the mountains seems beyond the normal physiological capacity of the riders. Or is that just a weaker Tour without its big champions? I believe the more open, competitive racing is a reflection of a more even race, where a few riders don't have the clear upper hand they once had. Time will tell if that's true...

Join us over the Tour de France 3 weeks for a race round-up and opinions!

Ross

Drugs in Sport: Trevor Graham case

Trevor Graham Case: Convicted of lying, but the truth remains only partially-exposed

Yesterday saw the verdict in the court case against Trevor Graham, the former Track coach who was implicated in the BALCO scandal and its subsequent perjury cases.

For those who haven't been following the news, the (very) short version of the story is that Graham, the coach of now-disgraced and imprisoned track stars Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, was being tried on three counts of lying to federal investigators during their investigation into the now infamous BALCO scandal. If you want a quick run-down of the "Who's who" in the case, check out this site: Steroid Nation

Those three charges involved:

• Lying to investigators about whether he had ever met an alleged "drug-dealer" (in performance enhancing drugs, that is) named Angel Heredia, in person
• Lying to investigators when he said that he had not spoken to Heredia since 1997
• Lying about whether he had worked together with Heredia to supply his elite athletes with banned substances

Unfortunately, the jury could only reach a decision on ONE of the THREE charges, and convicted Graham on count number 2 - lying about whether he'd spoken with Heredia since 1997.

That is, Graham alleged that he hadn't spoken to Heredia for 11 years, and then prosecutors produced phone records documenting over 100 calls made between the two.

If it seems obvious that he'd be convicted on that basis, consider that the jury, led by a man being described by some the "crazed jury foreman", failed to convict Graham of the first charge (that he had never met Heredia in person), even though the prosecution produced PICTURES of Graham and Heredia together. Apparently, that was not enough, and the jury returned a verdict of 11-1, with the foreman being the lone voice in the night.

But did Graham provide athletes with drugs? The answer we want to know

As for the one conviction that all athletics-lovers were hoping for, the one that related to Graham providing his athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, the jury went 10-2 on that one, with the Foreman again being one of those against conviction. That happened despite the fact that athletes testified at the trial (Antonio Pettigrew was one), and former athletes have all either tested positive or admitted to doping under Graham. Yet the prosecution could not PROVE its case, and so a man who has been tainted with the worst of the sport's ugly side is cleared on the most serious allegations and faces a short stint in prison, and nothing else.

And while I do not wish to advocate a "witch-hunt" (because if there is no proof, then of course the system cannot pursue a man to make him a scapegoat), the whole process delivers a long-term blow to the sport and the fight against doping, because a known "dirty" coach, a liar and a man who sits at the epicentre of all the problems in the sport today is largely cleared because of a legal system that, in my opinion, fails to work on the basis of what constitutes "Proof", and which ultimately provides a lop-sided bias towards clearing a man who athletics-lovers believe has done perhaps irreparable harm to their sport.

Tie up the loose ends first

There were, it must be noted, shaky procedures and an admittedly very suspect witness on the part of the prosecution - the problem with using "drug-dealers" like Heredia to testify is that they are inherently lacking credibility! And as pointed out in the comments section below, it is of course not ideal to pursue a man on a "witch-hunt" campaign based on evidence that does not stand up to scrutiny. So I'm all for a retrial and another attempt at hopefully tightening up the case. I guess in that regard, the prosecution must shoulder some blame for not making the thing so overpowering that there was no choice but to hang ALL the dirty laundary out!

However, that's not what this post is about - this is about the loss of opportunity to expose athletes and names of people who have dragged the sport into the mire.

These cases are always hyped as an opportunity to clean up the sport, with allegations of names and details hitting the headlines long before the witnesses hit the courtroon. Yet that has again failed to happen, and I get the uncomfortable feeling that someone (perhaps all of them) don't really want the truth to come out. It happens with regularity in the world of sports doping - Marion Jones "confesses" but doesn't fully come clean, people are indicted but never fully admit (think McNamee and Clemens - whatever came of that - big show, no action). It seems that inside the murky legal system, facts can be buried from the inside, and this Graham case is no different.

I must confess that a legal system where the clever work of some lawyers (and scientists, in some recent high profile cases in athletics) manages to create enough doubt to allow those who are known cheats (to everyone within the sport) to escape from those outside it. The only loser in all this is the sport, and Trevor Graham, and his group of merry dopers, live to dope another day.

Final word from Heredia (and a word that should worry us here in South Africa in particular), who was at the centre of the alleged provision of drugs to athletes:

"Conte was sent to jail, I don't know what is going to happen to me, but I could go to jail, too. But I can tell you, nothing is going to stop. Athletes are still going to South Africa to train; they're still doping."

And thanks to the Jury Foreman and unscrupulous defence lawyers, that prediction will be true.

How a sprinter takes drugs

The method behind the doping: Victor Conte's sensational letter spills the beans on drug use by sprinters

We interrupt our series on Fatigue (which is progressing rather more slowly than I'd like - my apologies, but work has been heavy of late!), to bring you a news-story from last week.

It concerns the ongoing saga of Dwain Chambers, the British sprinter who made news here about 10 weeks ago when he returned to the sport following his two-year ban after failing a drugs test for THG, the designer steroid at the centre of the now infamous BALCO case. Chambers caused a massive headache for the authorities by qualifying for the British World Indoor Team (where he went on to claim silver), and is currently making a push for inclusion in the British Olympic setup. Presently, the British Olympic Committee issue immediate life-time bans for drug offenders, and Chambers is doing his best to get past that small obstacle!

As part of this case, he's roped in none other than Victor Conte, the man behind THG and BALCO. His story was brilliantly told by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams in their book "Game of Shadows" - well worth a read, if you can get hold of it.

So it was just over a week ago, last Friday, that Dwain Chambers met the British Olympic authorities in an attempt to clear his name, fight against drugs cheats. Part of the plan was to reveal everything, blow the lid right off doping, and inform the authorities just how athletes were getting away with drug use.

Enter Exhibit A, a letter written by Victor Conte, which explains the process, the drugs, the secrecy, the methods behind the cheating for Dwain Chambers. We've taken this letter from the BBC site and pasted it below, in dark grey text, in its full form. Well worth a read, and highly informative. Of course, there will always be questions about the source, since Conte is a man who undoubetdly enjoys the "attention" this kind of story provides. Nevertheless, amazing inside information.

Before you read, three things to take note of from a Science of Sports point of view:

• Seven prohibited substances, ranging from THG (called "The Clear") all the way down to a thyroid hormone, with pretty much everything in between
• The athletes are extremely adept at dodging the system for long enough to get away with drug use for those substances which can be tested for. Of the seven, two have no tests, with others having rather sketchy tests. Conte's letter gives examples of how the athletes get away with it, in what he calls "ducking and diving".
• He reveals some interesting statistics that implicate a rather unusual (and certainly inferior, if he is to be believed) testing pattern, with fewest tests during the off-season when the athletes are competing. Of course, logistically, it's easier to test athletes in-competition, but if Conte is truthful (and I suspect in this part, he is), then the athletes are of course doing their doping work out of season, and so one might expect the testing numbers to reflect that.

The letter is below:

Dear Dwain,

Per your request, this letter is to confirm I am willing to assist you in providing UK Sport and others with information that will help them to improve the effectiveness of their anti-doping programs.

The specific details regarding how you were able to circumvent the British and IAAF anti-doping tests for an extended period of time are provided below.

Your performance enhancing drug program included the following seven prohibited substances: THG, testosterone/epitestosterone cream, EPO (Procrit), HGH (Serostim), insulin (Humalog), modafinil (Provigil) and liothryonine, which is a synthetic form of the T3 thyroid hormone (Cytomel).

THG is a previously undetectable designer steroid nicknamed "the clear." It was primarily used in the off season and was taken two days per week, typically on Mondays and Wednesdays. Generally, these were the two most intense weight-training days of the week. The purpose was to accelerate healing and tissue repair. Thirty units (IU) of the liquid was place under the tongue during the morning time-frame. THG was used in cycles of "three weeks on and one week off."

Testosterone/epitestosterone cream was also primarily used during the off season. It was rubbed into the skin on the front of the forearm two days per week, typically Tuesdays and Thursdays. The dosage was ½ gram which contained 50mg of testosterone and 2.5mg of epitestosterone (20 to 1 ratio). The purpose was to offset the suppression of endogenous testosterone caused by the use of the THG and to accelerate recovery. The testosterone/ epitestosterone cream was also used in cycles of three weeks on and one week off.

EPO was used three days per week during the "corrective phase", which is the first two weeks of a cycle. Typically, it was on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It was only used once per week during the "maintenance phase" thereafter, typically this was every Wednesday. The dosage was 4,000 IU per injection. The purpose was to increase the red blood cell count and enhance oxygen uptake and utilization. This substance provides a big advantage to sprinters because it enables them to do more track repetitions and obtain a much deeper training load during the off season. EPO becomes undetectable about 72 hours after subcutaneous injection (stomach) and only 24 hours after intravenous injection.

HGH was used three nights per week, typically on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Each injection would contain 4.5 units of growth hormone. Once again, this substance was used primarily during the off season to help with recovery from very strenuous weight training sessions.

Insulin was used after strenuous weight training sessions during the off season. Three units of Humalog (fast-acting insulin) were injected immediately after the workout sessions together with a powdered drink that contained 30 grams of dextrose, 30 grams of whey protein isolates and 3 grams of creatine. The purpose was to quickly replenish glycogen, resynthesize ATP and promote protein synthesis and muscle growth. Insulin acts as a "shuttle system" in the transport of glucose and branch chain amino acids. There is no test available for insulin at this time.

Modafinil was used as a "wakefulness promoting" agent before competitions. The purpose was to decrease fatigue and enhance mental alertness and reaction time. A 200mg tablet was consumed one hour before competition.

Liothryonine was used help accelerate the basic metabolic rate before competitions. The purpose was to reduce sluggishness and increase quickness. Two 25mg tablets were taken one hour before competition. There is no test available for liothryonine at this time.

In general terms, explosive strength athletes, such as sprinters, use anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin and EPO during the off season. They use these drugs in conjunction with an intense weight training program, which helps to develop a strength base that will serve them throughout the competitive season. Speed work is done just prior to the start of the competitive season.

It is important to understand it is not really necessary for athletes to have access to designer anabolic steroids such as THG. They can simply use fast-acting testosterone (oral as well as creams and gels) and still easily avoid the testers. For example, oral testosterone will clear the system in less than a week and testosterone creams and gels will clear even faster.

Many drug-tested athletes use what I call the "duck and dodge" technique. Several journalists in the UK have recently referred to it as the "duck and dive" technique. This is basically how it works.

First, the athlete repeatedly calls their own cell phone until the message capacity is full. This way the athlete can claim to the testers that they didn't get a message when they finally decide to make themselves available. Secondly, they provide incorrect information on their whereabouts form. They say they are going to one place and then go to another. Thereafter, they start using testosterone, growth hormone and other drugs for a short cycle of two to three weeks.
After the athlete discontinues using the drugs for a few days and they know that they will test clean, they become available and resume training at their regular facility.

Most athletes are tested approximately two times each year on a random out-of -competition basis. If a tester shows up and the athlete is not where they are supposed to be, then the athlete will receive a "missed test". This is the equivalent to receiving "strike one" when up to bat in a baseball game. The current anti-doping rules allow an athlete to have two missed tests in any given eighteen-month period without a penalty or consequence. So, the disadvantage for an athlete having a missed test is that they have one strike against them. The advantage of that missed test is the athlete has now received the benefit of a cycle of steroids. Long story short, an athlete can continue to duck and dive until they have two missed tests, which basically means that they can continue to use drugs until that time.

In summary, it's my opinion that more than fifty percent of the drug tests performed each year should be during the off season or the fourth quarter. This is when the track athletes are duckin' and divin' and using anabolic steroids and other drugs. Let me provide some rather startling information for your consideration. If you check the testing statistics on the USADA website, you will find that the number of out-of-competition drug tests performed during each quarter of 2007 are as follows: in the first quarter there were 1208, second quarter 1295, third quarter 1141 and in the fourth quarter there were only 642.

In late 2003 I advised USADA about the importance of random testing during the fourth quarter of the year. They did initially seem to follow my advice because they increased the number of fourth-quarter tests in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

However, they failed to continue this practice in 2007. Why would USADA decide to perform only 15% of their annual out-of-competition tests during the fourth quarter? Let's not forget that this is the off season before the upcoming summer Olympic Games. This is equivalent to a fisherman knowing that the fish are ready to bite and then consciously deciding that it is time to reel in his line and hook, lean his fishing pole up against a tree and take a nap.

On several occasions, I have provided detailed information to both USADA and WADA in an attempt to help them establish more effective testing policies and procedures.
I certainly have more information that I would like the opportunity to provide to you and UK Sport, but I will leave that for another time.

Hopefully, this information will be helpful and I am available to assist you further upon request.

Yours sincerely,
Victor Conte

There you have it, straight from the mouth of the "conductor" of the doping symphony. Note also Conte's reference to "more information" that he is leaving for "another time"!

This is by no means the only sensational drugs story doing the rounds at the moment. There is also the Trevor Graham case, which threatens to be even bigger, and maybe more damaging to the sport - so far, it's . We'll bring you some insight into that particular case next week, so join us then!

And also, we'll gradually chip away at Fatigue!

Ross

LIfetime bans for drug cheats?

Should dopers be banned for life? Or is two years enough? A debate of crime vs. punishment

Yesterday, we looked at the case of Dwain Chambers, disgraced sprinter from Britain who served a two year suspension for his use of the designer steroid THG and who is now making a bid to run for Britain, first at the World Indoors (which he will run in) and then in the Olympic Games (where he's trying to get to). Even failing this, he's likely to push for the World Champs and other big races in the future. His desire to do so has sparked lively reactions, polarizing opinion among present and former athletes for Britain.

For example, double Olympic Champion Kelly Holmes has said:

"This was an athlete who went to America, knowingly took a drug that was undetectable at the time, got caught, admitted he'd taken drugs, then went on to say that you can't win anything without taking drugs. It doesn't put us in a good light allowing a cheat, who has admitted he's a cheat, to represent us."

She is backed up by Steve Cram, former 1500m champion, and now a commentator and journalist, who suggests that a lifetime ban for any drug cheat should be in order:

"I think a lot of us in the sport feel that a two-year ban is never enough for people committing that type of offence. And I would hope that as the next few months follow on, this isn't really just about Dwain Chambers at all, it's about the sport's attitude towards those who've committed serious drugs offences."

As things stand, Chambers will never take part in the Olympic Games, because the British Olympic Authorities do issue a lifetime ban to all convicted drug cheats. So for now, Cram, Holmes, and others who agree with them, can be satisfied knowing that the Olympics, at least, are out of reach.

However, there are those who support Chambers and are fully behind his efforts to run again. In effect, they are saying that "he has done the time, now let him come back and make a new start". They apply the letter of the law, which says that a convicted doper gets two years, and then is allowed to return to sport.

For example, Kim Collins, former 100m world champion, is quoted as saying:

"If they don't pick him then UK Athletics would be bending their own rules. He should be allowed to run and he should be representing Great Britain because he's the man for the job. He did serve his time and unless they are willing to change the rules and keep it 'once and you're out', he should be able to run."

Now, bear in mind that all this has been said against the backdrop of the issue of Chambers' selection of the British team for the world indoor championships in March, so people are commenting more on that issue than perhaps the issue of what to do with a convicted doper.

Should we be considering a four-year ban for dopers? Or criminal charges?

But it got me thinking about the severity of the punishment for a doping offence. This issue, as you might imagine, is debated extensively, and some have suggested that any positive test should result in a lifetime ban, or at the very least, a four-year ban, as Lord Sebastian Coe and Ed Moses have recently suggested.

Coe, for his part, has been pushing for a four-year ban for drug cheats since last year. If that sounds extreme, others within the IOC have even suggested that doping offences should be criminalized - jail time the result of a positive test.

The problem with increasing the punishment - testing will be even more vulnerable to attack

What interests me about this is that no one is looking at the testing procedure and systems, but rather assuming that testing is capable of reliably catching athletes who do cheat. For the implicit assumption when one calls for increased bans, is that the process that will ultimately give that ban is sound, and not likely to collapse under what would become even more pressure to be correct. If the system for testing and then processing positive tests is even slightly flawed, increasing the bans simply invites even more legal wrangling and controversy.

Now, believe me, I'm the last person to side with those who cheat in sport - I wish we could watch sport knowing that the most any athlete is using is a Vitamin C supplement! But the problem is that the process AFTER A POSITIVE TEST seems to be so flawed that if the punishment was made more severe, the already creaky structures under which athletes are tested would come crashing down under the "burden of proof" that would be required to send a runner to jail!

The "Innocent Man" syndrome

I recently read John Grisham's book "The Innocent Man", which is about a man who is wrongfully sentenced to death as a result of a flawed justice system - he loses 11 years of his life on death row before being exonerated. It would take me pages to run through just how flawed the system was, and besides, this is The Science of Sport, not a Book Club (though I'd highly recommend the book)! But the point is, it would be terrible if someone could write a book in 2015 about an athlete who spends 2 years in jail and/or is banned for life for testing positive for any drug, when he's actually been wrongfully convicted!

But the even bigger problem - dopers will get away with more under the increased burden of proof

Now, if you're thinking I'm going soft of dopers, let me address the balance. Because while the chance of "false positive" is a real one, what concerns me more is that dopers who test positive will have even more chance of getting away with it, because the entire process that ultimately delivers their sentence would now be under even more pressure to avoid a false conviction.

What we have seen in recent years is a dramatic change in how doping cases are managed. In the past, it was a case that an athlete would test positive, receive their ban, and disappear for four years - think Ben Johnson in 1988. He got caught, took his punishment, and we didn't hear from him again, until the ban was served.

But these days, "positive" doesn't mean positive, it means start the legal fight

But what is happening more and more today is that athletes are wising up to the "grey areas" in the system. There is almost a "guide book" on how to respond when you test positive. You begin by attacking the personality and integrity of your accusers, you go after the credibility of the laboratory testing you, you cry out that people are out to get you and that you're being discriminated against. Then you take your defence into the media and put all kinds of articles on Wikipedia to claim your innocence. You might even consider writing a book about it, and you definitely hire an expensive legal team who help you concoct defences like the "vanishing twin theory" which is more at home on an episode of "House" than in a sports tribunal, or you simply bombard the system with so much doubt that you escape punishment because no one can prove the use amidst all that uncertainty. And all the while, you deny, deny, deny, because actually proving that you used drugs is no longer as simple as testing your blood or urine and finding the presence of drugs in it! (and this doesn't even take into account the fact that a lot of drugs can't even be detected!)

The positive drugs test, formerly definitive proof that an athlete has doped, is now nothing more than the start of a usually messy, drawn out fight that is played out in the media and undermines the sport more than even the drugs use does. The problem is that sometimes the athlete has a case, because there are flaws and mistakes, and the system is not beyond reproach, which it needs to be in order to issue life bans. The result of this is that I honestly believe that we are headed for the day where an athlete who tests positive will face a trial consisting of a judge and a jury of their peers, who will have to assess their guilt based on days of testimony and evidence...think "Boston Legal" and "The Practice" for sport.

So my concern with increasing the length of a doping ban, and possibly criminalizing the use of drugs in sport is that the testing procedures, which are already "losing their teeth" in terms of actually following through with a positive test will become completely toothless as a result of increased bans --- taking a decision to ban an athlete for two years can be done a little more lightly than sending that same athlete to prison and preventing them from ever competing again!

So while in theory and principle, I'm all for a lifetime ban or even criminal charges, actually proving it poses a problem and until WADA and the federations figure out how to regain the upper hand in the "post-positive test" battle, increasing the ban will do little more than intensify the pressure they are under.

Back to Dwain Chambers - what should be done?

But let's get back to Dwain Chambers, for as Cram points out, the issue is not solely about one athlete, but about the attitude of the system towards its "cheats". And I'd love to hear from any of our readers who have some sports law experience, or even some experience in employment law on this one, because the issue here is bordering on that of "restraint of trade", where someone is prevented from earning a living unfairly.

Do you believe that a lifetime ban can be enforced for something like drug use? Or does this amount to restraint of trade, unfairly preventing the athlete from earning a living or surviving? Is it possible to block an athlete's participation based on one "mistake", willful or not?

I tried to think of the analogy from the world of business - if a businessman was caught defrauding his company, he'd without doubt be fired, and probably face criminal charges. But would he ever be able to work in the same industry again? Would the business world consider issuing a lifetime ban on a corrupt businessman? Well, rhetorical question, because there's no "system" to ban him from. But there's a good chance he'd be labeled and unable to find work, at least in the same area. Is that the same situation as Chambers and the Olympic Games?

All questions for which I don't have an answer - if you do, or have an opinion, please do let us know!

Ross

Dwain Chambers is back

Hopefully, you've noticed the newly added Tabs at the top of the page - we've added this to make it a little easier to navigate your way around our archives and to find articles. Thanks to Vanilla from Half-fast for steering me in the right direction to figure out how to add the tabs. While we're in the process of fixing them up and adding and rearranging our content, our email subscribers might get the occasional arbitrary email post which is actually just a page we're inserting to make use of the tabs, so please bear with us! We hope the tabs work well and they make the site a little easier to get around!

But for today, we thought we'd look at a story that has been around in the news for a while now, but one that we missed while I was in the USA - the story of Dwain Chambers.

Dwain Chambers: A headache for sports authorities, but a case control study on the state of doping

Dwain Chambers of Britain was one of the world's most promising sprinters - in 1999, at the age of 21, he claimed bronze at the World Athletics Championships in Spain.

He went on to win the European Championships in 2002, but never really made the big breakthrough, living in the shadow of the dominant sprinter of the early 2000's, Maurice Greene.

Then, in 2003, the wheels came off for Chambers, when his performances were poor, and he failed a drugs test in August. It was subsequently revealed that he had tested positive for THG, the designer steroid made famous by the BALCO scandal. It was Chamber's use of THG that landed him with a 2-year ban from the sport. He later admitted to having used THG since 2002, which would cost him (and team-mates) medals from the 2002 European Championships.

During his ban, Chambers dabbled in American Football, including a failed tryout with the San Francisco 49ers. He eventually returned to competitive athletics in 2006, and even won a medal as part of the British relay team at the 2006 European Championships. It was after this race that one of his team-mates from the 2002 European Championships, Darren Campbell, refused to join the team on the victory lap, in protest against Chamber's drug past. Campbell, along with 2 other team-mates, had been stripped of their own gold medals in 2002 thanks to Chambers' confessed use of THG.

The headache grows - Chambers finds form indoors

But the looming problem for the British Athletic authorities was only going to get bigger. Chambers has returned to form in 2008, and won the British Indoor Championships, having expressed his intention of qualifying for the World Indoor Championships.

The problem for the authorities is that Chambers had effectively retired from athletics in 2006, after the European Champs, when he had again attempted to start a career in American Football with the NFL Europa league. This was mixed in with a stint on a reality TV show, but the net result was that British authorities took Chambers off their list of athletes who would be tested out of competition.

However, on his return, Chambers did everything required of an athlete to qualify for the British team, even winning the indoor 60m title which SHOULD have guaranteed him his place.

But the situation is not so simple - understandably, the British athletics authorities do not want Chambers in their team. In their words:

"The committee was unanimous in its desire not to select Dwain".

And this was AFTER he'd been selected for the team, amid threats of lawsuits and counter-threats should he be omitted.

However, the fact was that there was no law in place to exclude Chambers and so the only basis for leaving him out would be an "exceptional circumstances" clause. This "exceptional circumstance" might have been that Chambers CANNOT run in the Beijing Olympics, thanks to a British Olympic law that gives a life-time ban to any athlete failing a dope test.

They chose not to make use of that law, possibly fearing reprisal from Chambers' lawyers, and so now we will see Chambers competing in a British vest come the World Indoor Championships in March.

But there's more to Chambers than this

So having said just this, Chambers' story is not exceptional. But then you begin to consider some of the things he has said since he was caught and banned. For example, in an interview with Matthew Pinsent in mid-2007, Chambers had the following to say about doping in sport:

"It's simple, science always moves faster than the testers. Some people take chances, some don't, and I was willing to take that chance. I was under the assumption that I wouldn't get caught."

In one sense, one has to applaud Chambers' honesty, as it makes a change from the usual conspiracy theories and denial that characterizes most positive tests these days - the usual tactic is to attack the testers, cry smear campaign, and deny every accusation. Chambers chose instead to speak his mind, revealing what most athletes probably think before they too use drugs.

But then later on, Chambers was asked whether a clean athlete could possibly beat a doped runner, his reply was:

"It's possible, but the person that's taken drugs has to be having a real bad day. That's what I believe."

This was seen to be a 'confession' that most of the top, successful athletes were using drugs and that success was not possible without the use of drugs. This common interpretation of Chambers' comments is probably taken a little out of context, but it earned Chambers almost universal condemnation from former and present British athletes. Now that Chambers is part of the British athletics scene once again, the viewpoints have been expressed from all corners.

For example, in response to Chambers' selection for the World Indoor team for 2008, Dame Kelly Holmes, double Olympic Champion from Athens, was quoted as saying that:

"This was an athlete who went to America, knowingly took a drug that was undetectable at the time, got caught, admitted he'd taken drugs, then went on to say that you can't win anything without taking drugs. It doesn't put us in a good light allowing a cheat, who has admitted he's a cheat, to represent us."

Harsh words, which encapsulate just how strongly some feel about Chambers' inclusion and the possibility that he will be fighting for an Olympic berth later this year. For more quotes and reaction to the story, check out this article.

The interesting possibility of a case control comparison of past vs. present

But apart from all the ethical and legal arguments that this issue has raised, there is also an interesting possible "case-control" study that may arise as a result. I for one, will be very interested to see just how Chambers fares this season.

Because what we have here is an athlete who admitted to using a steroid over a very clearly defined time-period, who is now competing, supposedly drug free.

So lets' say that Chambers comes back and runs the same times as he did during his drug-use days. If this happens, it invites three interesting possible conclusions, the first two of which are:

• Either he is still using drugs, and they are providing the same effect as before
• The drugs he used did not work to begin with

The second option seems unlikely, so it will be very interesting to see how the athletics world responds to Chambers should he be successful in 2008. He is already viewed with suspicion and that will only grow if he is successful this year. Perhaps the only way he will be able to avoid all suspicion and fulfill the role of "anti-doping ambassador" (a role he himself has spoken of) is if he is unsuccessful on the track!

That's a tricky situation to be in - success means suspicion, while avoiding suspicion requires mediocre performances! Of course, there is the third possibility which is that he is now drug-free and still performs at the same levels thanks to his training and dedication, but then being the cynics we are, that's a far less likely scenario!

So it will be very interesting to see how Chambers fares in the coming months. The possible legal wranglings on the horizon will also make for interesting discussion, should Chambers go after the Olympic Games as he's threatened to do. But for now, we'll keep an eye on his performances and see just how he performs!

Ross