Some questions...
1) Graves didn't podium in Olargues but he was tested. Why? (I know that doping authorities sometimes target riders who are under suspicion. Could this be the case with Graves?)
2) Rude obviously forfeits his win from Olargue. Does this affect the overall?
3) Understandable that Graves doesn't want to go through the process of having sample B tested with his health condition and all, but why is Rude not getting his B sample tested?
1) Graves didn't podium in Olargues but he was tested. Why? (I know that doping authorities sometimes target riders who are under suspicion. Could this be the case with Graves?)
2) Rude obviously forfeits his win from Olargue. Does this affect the overall?
3) Understandable that Graves doesn't want to go through the process of having sample B tested with his health condition and all, but why is Rude not getting his B sample tested?
Yes, I wonder what that is going to do to him in the long run.And Monster Energy drank?
People have commented that not having the B sample tested makes them look more guilty, but I feel not disputing the result is probably the best course of action. Its not likely to be a lab error, I'd say they've got an idea of where it got in their system so they'd probably be aiming to prove that and then ask for mitigating circumstances if it was mislabelled product or whatever. They'll still cop something (the rules put the onus on contenders to make sure they're clean) but they could escape suspension.
Fucks me how you're supposed to know whats in mislabelled supplements though, unless you've got access to a decent lab. Heck I've done some EWS Qualifiers and Challenger events and I wouldn't know what is in my gels, electrolye drink and methamphetam... errr... vitamins.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/chris-froome-reveals-details-cleared-anti-doping-investigation-384971
Yes they absolutely would. If he was rich enough.
if france / WADA clear him, the EWS is still able to impose their own sanctions. at least that's my reading of their rules. so that could keep him from the EWS, but not from WC DH. except yeti doesn't have a proper DH bike.
Come on, man. What’s the more likely scenario:
a) a company who’s business model and livelihood depends on supplying supplements to pro riders in MX/cycling world who get tested regularly accidentally putting TWO banned substances in their supplements
b) two guys who regularly train together using PEDs privately in a discipline without any anti-doping measures in place (until now)
Occam’s razor and all that...
RR and JG are using the ‘deny, blame, externalise’ tactics that we see all too often. Where’s the integrity?
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c) the conversion facility that RP uses failed to do a proper line clearance, and a batch for RP got contaminated. it's entirely possible that a contamination was missed by RP's testing but was caught by WADA.
also, just because they are RP athletes doesn't necessarily mean it was RP product that was tainted. they're just the only known supplement (due to sponsorship) known at this time.
this is why testing is conducted immediately after races, because of the high rates of metabolism during competition the body will process things quickly. i believe for some substances you can't actually test for the substance itself, only for the by products of the product post metabolism.
I know this may be too draconian, but could you randomly piss test them say after a transition stage? As you said, those types of substances get out of your system super, super quick.
its possible sure, but the logistics of sample collection & control would be challenging.
maybe by not taking supplements? Is that what WADA and UCI are getting at? In the "What Do EWS Athletes Eat During a Race" videos Pinkbike puts out, Barelli and a few others (Carlson maybe?) make a pretty big deal about eating only whole foods, and energy bars they make themselves...
bingo.
Or.... they are just enforcing the rules and want the athletes to know that you take stuff at your own risk.
I know that in other sports with strict drug enforcement policy, athletes send their supplements to independent labs to get them tested.
I know that in other sports with strict drug enforcement policy, athletes send their supplements to independent labs to get them tested.
Someone needs to update that spirit of enduro clip.
Thats heckin sweet and all, but for a fly-in squid like me that just grabs a bunch of gels, bananas and energy bloks or whatever from the store for a race I don't really have time to whip out Grandma's vegan muffin bar recipe.
In the threads on Vital and PB, some users have double checked their own energy gels and pre-workout stuff and found out they contain PEDs and WADA-banned substances. I wonder how many races I've done in the past 20 years where I'd have been over the limit for alcohol or caffeine (I didn't start using gels until I got into XC/Enduro stuff).
Not saying this is an excuse for the pro guys who actually have certified PED supplement sponsors at all. But it would be interesting to see who would fail amongst the lynch mob.
I'm pretty sure the WADA rules for B-grade downhill actually require a minimum alcohol threshold that must be reached.
A couple observations:
1) the French are assholes
2) it's just enduro mtb. Boutique sport of a boutique sport. Does it really matter?
3) if banned substances are found in off the shelf products, maybe they should loosen up the standards? See #2.
4) it's okay to go off trails (aka taking the French line) but too much kool-aid and you're banned for life? Cheating is cheating.
1) the French are assholes
2) it's just enduro mtb. Boutique sport of a boutique sport. Does it really matter?
3) if banned substances are found in off the shelf products, maybe they should loosen up the standards? See #2.
4) it's okay to go off trails (aka taking the French line) but too much kool-aid and you're banned for life? Cheating is cheating.
You remember when they piss-tested at Felcrag Champs? One C grader copped a 6 month suspension for high alcohol.... In C grade. In Queensland.
How is that even an issue?
Man, you really do sign your life away on those day licence waivers hey.
In Queensland, definitely a safety issue. A spectator could trip over your passed out corpse and sue the landowner.
So not only did a batch of RP's supplements somehow get contaminated with TWO banned substances, it was somehow missed by RP's testing, but picked up by WADA's tests and only RR and JG got caught even though other RP athletes would have taken the 'contaminated' supplements and regularly get tested. Do you realise how ridiculous this scenario is?
So considering these guys are sponsored by a company that provides a full suite of supplements (including pre-workout), what were they doing taking supplements from other brands? Looking for more 'performance enhancement', perhaps?
A couple observations to some observations.
Everybody is bragging about how much they despise the usage of doping in road racing, but as soon as one or even two of their heroes are caught doing the same a lot of people start to defend and relativize.
Professional sports are tainted. Period.
Why? Because two popular non french riders got caught cheating? That's worth a racist comment?
Depends. For those beaten by them and earning less money than those two - yes.
IF it was off the shelf products, which is only told by one of the "victims". That's the same story Berti told about his Clenbuterol steak. Of course you can believe that as you can believe in a supernatural entity responsible for all this.
Apples to bananas.
Everybody is bragging about how much they despise the usage of doping in road racing, but as soon as one or even two of their heroes are caught doing the same a lot of people start to defend and relativize.
Professional sports are tainted. Period.
The problem is not that the standards are too strict. WADA is toothless and really cant substantially punish people avoiding tests. I had a friend working for them and he left because he was frustrated.
The problem is the suplement market is a total shit show. It's completely unregulated, marketing bullshit effects and designed by gymbros for the most part. That's the real problem.
while it's certainly possible that a single batch had a double contamination, it's pretty unlikely. the more likely scenario was two separate batches each independently contaminated.
and yes, it's entirely possible that RP's testing missed it (again, only using RP as an example because they're the only supplement company we are aware of). it's impossible to test 100% of product, they use a sampling plan (hourly, per their website, in addition to raw material testing and end product testing) so if the source of contamination was during conversion (most likely) it definitely could have slipped through.
one thing to point out here - RP and WADA are testing different things, but looking for the same substances. RP is testing the actual product, and WADA is testing a biological sample post metabolism. given the nature of the samples, its possible they're using different evaluation techniques.
and no, it's not ridiculous. contamination like this is typically isolated to a single lot/batch of product (contamination is one of the biggest causes of lost product during pharma manufacturing). that reduces the likelihood that a lot of other athletes across multiple disciplines would return failing results. no one has yet answered the question if any of the other tested athletes at that EWS round are RP athletes. if yes, and they returned negative results, this scenario becomes very unlikely.
not only that, one other thing that hasn't been raised is the possibility of counterfeits. in the pharmaceutical realm, this is a HUGE issue, and those are companies with much tighter control over their manufacturing and distribution than unregulated supplements. in pharma it's a multi-billion dollar problem (i've seen numbers as high as $20 billion globally). and that's a heavily regulated industry. supplements are totally unregulated, so i'm sure counterfeits are an even bigger problem.
What if they just happened to catch two guys who were consciously doping?
Rude doesn't exactly have a physique that fits with an endurance athlete - He has way more body mass than virtually every other professional bike rider, from road biking to bmx to downhill, most riders are pretty fucking lean, and he's a pretty significant statistical outlier. Is it really that hard to see a super driven person with his body type using some blood doping program to increase his O2 intake? Don't both of these drugs leave the body pretty quickly? Hypothetically had they been tested mid race, wouldn't these numbers be significantly higher?
Graves meanwhile is older than the average racer and is clearly at the tail end of a career that he has long been used to being one of the fastest guys if not the fastest. Is it really that difficult to see somebody in such a position start scrambling for any supplemental advantage they can find that may or may not be strictly legal as long as it knowingly leaves the body quickly?
I've enjoyed following their careers and riding, and I wish Jared nothing but the best in his fight against cancer, but might be appropriate to drop some long suspensions or bans on them.
Fuck the spirit of enduro. Any time you start putting financial rewards on the line for physical accomplishments, people will start scrambling to do some shady things, if not outright banned things, and you'll inevitably get people who toe that line too far and step over. I don't give a shit if its enduro or checkers, somebody somewhere will find a way to sneakily cheat, and have some excuse ready to go if they get caught.
Rude doesn't exactly have a physique that fits with an endurance athlete - He has way more body mass than virtually every other professional bike rider, from road biking to bmx to downhill, most riders are pretty fucking lean, and he's a pretty significant statistical outlier. Is it really that hard to see a super driven person with his body type using some blood doping program to increase his O2 intake? Don't both of these drugs leave the body pretty quickly? Hypothetically had they been tested mid race, wouldn't these numbers be significantly higher?
Graves meanwhile is older than the average racer and is clearly at the tail end of a career that he has long been used to being one of the fastest guys if not the fastest. Is it really that difficult to see somebody in such a position start scrambling for any supplemental advantage they can find that may or may not be strictly legal as long as it knowingly leaves the body quickly?
I've enjoyed following their careers and riding, and I wish Jared nothing but the best in his fight against cancer, but might be appropriate to drop some long suspensions or bans on them.
Fuck the spirit of enduro. Any time you start putting financial rewards on the line for physical accomplishments, people will start scrambling to do some shady things, if not outright banned things, and you'll inevitably get people who toe that line too far and step over. I don't give a shit if its enduro or checkers, somebody somewhere will find a way to sneakily cheat, and have some excuse ready to go if they get caught.
Have you seen the purse sizes for checkers? I haven't either, but I imagine they're pretty fucking small compared to the NBA. And I'd be willing to bet that if somebody has found a way to cheat on the professional stage, than cheating has happened on the professional stage.have you seen the prize purses for enduro racing?
It's an opportunity to make a living racing bicycles and seeing the world. And honestly, its probably as much an ego/respect thing of being "the fastest" as it is about money. Point is, there's enough money to make it enticing (more than $0) to cheat, and can you honestly say that any of these riders might not have made bike racing the focus of their lives?
Hell, you could probably start charging people money to race professionally, and somebody would still cheat. Purse size is irrelevant.
You think Rynopower is providing counterfeit supplements to their athletes?
Is Sarah Sanders providing your talking points?
deliberately no, but counterfeit product has been inadvertently distributed by other manufacturers. there's a lot of touch points in the supply and distribution network where this can (and does) occur.
Come on. Look at Graves' final quote in his interview. These guys knew they were toeing the line and they ended up with a toenail over.
And if this is what they're taking while racing, I'd love to hear what's going in their bodies when there's zero threat of an OOC test.
As Barelli said, these weren't the only two pushing the limits. With the threat of testing and real repercussions, it will be interesting to see if podiums have/do change going forward.
And if this is what they're taking while racing, I'd love to hear what's going in their bodies when there's zero threat of an OOC test.
As Barelli said, these weren't the only two pushing the limits. With the threat of testing and real repercussions, it will be interesting to see if podiums have/do change going forward.
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oh there's no doubt that many (if not most) will be taking things that aren't banned.
