Yesterday Danish and Norwegian media made allegations that Jakob Fuglsang of the Astana team was in contact with banned doctor Michele Ferrari. It’s all been denied and makes for a strange story with a political tone.
Doping
Operation Aderlass and the Bio Passport
The image of Austrian skier Max Hauke sitting with a blood bag connected to his arm during a police raid at the cross-country skiing world championships in Seefeld, Austria was bad enough for any trypanophobes out there. But behind the sordid image came the question: what about the bio passport, how come it took the police rather than testing? Now with the reported confessions of Stefan Denifl and Georg Preidler it raises wider questions about the passport…
Much Ado About Something
Chris Froome goes from persona non grata to all clear in the space of a couple of days, the UCI has announced the salbutamol case from last year’s Vuelta has been closed. The *asterisk of pending resolution is deleted, the Sword of Damocles sheathed and ASO suspend the action they began three weeks ago to block Froome from riding the Tour de France. But all the same things won’t return to the state they were when things were normal.
UCI to Introduce Cortisol Testing and Ban Tramadol
Don’t jump for joy yet, don’t open the champagne but all the same the news yesterday from the UCI that the Management Committee, its board, has announced it plans to test cortisol levels and ban Tramadol for 2019 and this is welcome news.
Froome and the Giro’s Risk
As mentioned in the post looking at the overall contenders, to cite Chris Froome is to mention his ongoing case with the UCI following the adverse analytical finding for salbutamol in the Vuelta. While all riders have to watch out for the climbs, descents, corners, bad weather and more over the next three weeks Chris Froome runs the added risk of being taken out of the race by a tribunal or seeing his result disqualified after the race finishes in Rome, an obvious concern for the event itself too. The probability of these events is unknown but the risk exists which is awkward.
Improving TUEs and Installing Health Tests
In the wake of last week’s report from the UK parliament plenty readers have emailed in to ask for a reaction. Only it’s hard to have much of a response there’s not much new apart from seeing it printed on parliamentary headed paper and getting front page coverage in the UK media rather than back page or cycling-specific coverage. Whatever the British parliament does, the story is set to rumble on and on and it’s been hard to add to past pieces (here and here). Instead a quick look at TUEs where things have already changed but there’s room for improvement.
Froome-quently Asked Questions
Chris Froome is set to resume racing at the upcoming Ruta Del Sol race in Spain. So far, so normal as it’s common for stage race specialists to start their season here, Froome himself did so in 2015 (pictured) and you might remember his battle with Alberto Contador. This isn’t a normal situation with Froome’s ongoing anti-doping case following the excessive quantity of salbutamol from last year’s Vuelta. There are lots of questions, here are a few answers…
Lowlights of 2017
Having picked five highlights of the year, a scan of some of this year’s lowlights. In no particular order here are a few boos, hisses, gripes and cock-ups…
Chris Froome’s Salbutamol Case
The UCI has announced that Chris Froome has given an Adverse Analytical Finding for Salbutamol following a test during the Vuelta a España. The announcement alone is curious given two newspapers seem got a scoop to have got hold of the story but add in that it’s Froome, that he could be stripped of the Vuelta title, serve a ban and that the substance in question has particular rules make this a complex topic and Twitter today has seen more speculation than a Bitcoin chatroom. Let’s try to explore the matter at hand…
Nudge Theory and Tramadol
The MPCC group has called on WADA to ban Tramadol and to impose stricter regulations of corticosteroids in an open letter. The idea is noble but the method of an open letter seems fruitless. What if cycling’s stakeholders could be “nudged” into adopting these measures? This week saw Richard Thaler win the Nobel Memorial prize for economics for his ideas on prompting behavioural changes and maybe there are lessons that can be applied to the pro peloton.