Road.cc reports that Alberto Contador clenbuterol case decision delayed till the end of January.  This is insane.  How long will it take to resolve this situation?  And will a decision that has been delayed for so long really be justice?For some time now I've been concerned about how clenbuterol levels are set for testing labs, and how this could end up be a lottery depending on which testing lab samples are sent to.I have posted several times on the Contador case.

Velonews reports that CAS is to delay the announcement on their verdict on Jan Ullrich's involvement in the Operacion Puerto blood doping ring. (CAS to delay Ullrich verdict)

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) notified the 1997 Tour de France winner yesterday that it has extended the deadline for its final ruling until February 10, 2012.

Cyclingnews.com today reports that yet again Alberto Contador has had a delay in the announcement by CAS of a verdict in his astonishingly long-running doping affair (Contador Verdict Expected Today | Cyclingnews.com). I cannot believe the ineptitude of all concerned in handling this case, and I'm surprised Contador can maintain his equanimity.My own view is that the regulatory structures around clenbuterol testing are such that for individuals with vanishingly small amounts of clenbuterol in their system, guilt or innocence becomes something of a lottery, depending on which testing lab the sample were sent to - any clenbuterol is enough for guilt, even where the amount found is lower than the sensitivity required of a testing lab.In the mean time, all those blood-doping athletes who were customers of Dr Fuentes (and for one reason or another escaped immediate action) carry on regardless.Update: The announcement is on the CAS web page. Apparently the decision will be handed down on 6th February.  Maybe.  Or maybe not.  The CAS announcement concludes:

A confirmation as to the date and time of the publication of the decision will be given by the CAS at the end of this week.

Since the judgement was sent down (finally) on Alberto Contador's clenbuterol case, quite a few stories have emerged detailing commentators' views on the matter.  The other day the Pez Cycling news website featured a comment article with which I pretty much agree (The Contador Case: What's Missing)

In the welter of knee jerk reactions to judge/condemn Contador and/or criticize the UCI, the real issues of this situation are being missed [...]

The author does, I think make valid points about whether Contador's guilt has been established beyond reasonable doubt, and adds to this the oddly variable sanctions following clenbuterol positives that have  been applied to athletes in a variety of sports (see for example this case of youth footballers in Mexico).I would add my often-stated position that any system where a positive result can be returned for any level level of a proscribed substance, even where the level is below the sensitivity required of a testing lab must necessarily be unfair as whether a sample comes up positive becomes a lottery depending on which lab the sample was sent to for analysis.  This is an issue that will return again and again.

According to Velonews, Alejandro Valverde will be back in the peloton for 2012, riding for Movistar (Valverde confirmed for Movistar return).  Not many of the athletes who deposited blood with Fuentes have ever been properly identified, let alone punished for their nefarious plans to cheat in pro-cycling, but Valv. (Piti) is one of them - he's coming back in 2012 after a 2 year ban.  While I wouldn't want to condone Valv (Piti) in his efforts to get an edge by cheating, there is a wider issue of justice.What of the rest of the riders (and indeed athletes from other sports)?  The Operacion Puerto investigation got dropped by the Spanish authorities - why should some riders get clobbered with a ban, while others get to ride off into the sunset of their careers, clutching their ill-gotten gains?  The degree with which Fuentes appears to have been involved with the professional peloton is quite astonishing.  Many riders must be quite relieved to have made it to the twilight of their careers without being unmasked as blood doping cheats.

This week, Cyclingnews provided an update of the much-delayed CAS hearing on Alberto Contador's doping 'positive' (Contador Doping Verdict Expected In January | Cyclingnews.com).  More delay in finishing with this bizarre case:

Alberto Contador’s fate should be announced in January, according to AP, who reported Monday that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) would reach a verdict in the first month of 2012.

I've blogged here before on this extraordinary case.  Way back during the 2010 Tour de France, one of Contador's samples revealed traces of clenbuterol.  Strangely, the levels detected were below the levels at which a testing laboratory is required to be able to detect.  This seemed to me to be something anomalous, as a rider with such low levels in his system could be found positive or negative, depending on which testing laboratory his sample was sent to.  Wikipedia reports the issues around the positive test thus:

The UCI issued a statement reporting that the concentration was 50 picograms per millilitre, and that this was 400 times below the minimum standards of detection capability required by WADA, and that further scientific investigation would be required. Contador was provisionally suspended from competition, although this had no short-term effect as he had already finished his racing programme for the 2010 season. Contador had been informed of the results over a month earlier, on 24 August. Later the amount discovered was clarified as 40 times below the minimum standards, rather than the 400 times originally reported by the UCI. Contador's scientific adviser claimed that he would have needed 180 times the amount detected to gain any benefit in his performance.

The muddying of the issues around the level of clenbuterol certainly confused the issue.  But the main thrust of the investigation seems to revolve around the allegation that a blood transfusion may have been administered. My concerns here relate to whether justice can be served when the legal procedures are so drawn out. I'm not taking a stance on his guilt or innocence, but rather whether it is appropriate to call a positive for such low levels of clenbuterol, and whether a doping case to be resolved.  Contador was involved in the Operacion Puerto scandal, though was exonerated by the investigation.  But the whole fiasco around the Fuentes doping ring seems to have resulted in very few convictions against cyclists and athletes from other sports (particularly athletes from other sports).  Strangely, many (if not all) of the allegations linking riders to blood bags could have been resolved by DNA testing.  DNA testing was used to clobber Jan Ullrich and (I think) Alejandro Valverde, but it seems contrary to justice to single out only a few of the accused for this treatment.All this seems to signal a desperate need  for improved and coordinated international efforts  to combat sports doping.

VeloNews has an article saying that a report in Gazzetta dello Sport says an investigation into disgraced cyclist Riccardo Riccò's mysterious collapse earlier this year was indeed due to a self-administered blood transfusion  (Probe reveals Ricco self-transfusion – report).  Having spent this weekend reading David Millar's excellent account of his fall from grace into doping, and his subsequent rehabilitation (Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar), it's just so depressing seeing someone who is quite probably a very talented athlete take themself so close to death.

This is getting ridiculous. Alberto Contador tested positive for a vanishingly small amount of clenbuterol about a year ago. At the time I felt that the small concentration found (which was several orders of magnitude below the testing ability expected of a testing lab) meant that guilt for clenbuterol use might become a lottery of which lab was selected to test a sample (Is Alberto Contador really positive for Clenbuterol?).Now comes the news that the CAS inquiry, already delayed from before the Tour de France until August is to be further delayed till November (Contador CAS hearing postponed until November | Cyclingnews.com).The length of time this case has taken to reach a conclusion is nothing short of scandalous.  Remember that the UCI is seeking to nullify Contador's 2011 results.  Assuming that he's found guilty, of course.

Road.cc reports that a (or, more accurately, another) major clenbuterol doping ring appears to have been uncovered in Spain (Where's the beef? Spanish police seize clenbuterol, and not a cow in sight | road.cc).  It's all highly topical, given Contador's 'get out of jail free' card this week following his positive clenbuterol test last year.  After successive failures at dealing effectively with sports doping, will this lead to greater crackdown?  This doesn't just reflect my unbridled optimism: incidents like the idiot Ricco's home-brew transfusion reveal the dangers inherent in tinkering with one's physiology.Recent news stories have failed to reveal any Spanish cattle containing clenbuterol, while here's a case of a doping ring actually dealing with the stuff.  Oh and EPO too.  Let's get real here, and not prat around failing to uncover the full story (c.f. the Fuentes affair).  And let's get the UCI and its constituent national federations singing from the same song sheet.A bit more information via BikeRadar.com (Spanish police arrest seven doping suspects): those arrested so far aren't cyclists.  But as Road.cc point out, clenbuterol's clearly in use as a performance-enhancing substance in Spain... An interesting point in the BikeRadar.com report touches on how the police got wind of the doping ring (which mostly targetted amateurs):

The operation began in December based on information received from a professional cyclist. The rider, who wasn't named, received an email "from a person he didn't know offering doping substances," the spokeswoman said. No cyclists have been arrested, but police have yet to disclose who was being supplied with the drugs.

Disgraced cyclist Riccardo Riccò apparently wants to make a comeback to professional cycling (Riccò Wants To Make A Comeback | Cyclingnews.com), having retracted his statement allegedly made while doctors battled to save him from his 'mystery ailment'.  The statement, of course, referred his self-administration of a dodgy blood transfusion.Thing is, what team would take him?  With his doping record?

According to a report at road.cc (Valverde loses Swiss appeal, considers taking case to European Court of Human Rights), Alejandro Valverde has failed in his bid to get his ban overturned.  The ban was for his apparent involvement in the Fuentes blood doping ring.  A blood sample taken while he was racing in Italy apparently matches DNA in one of the bags of blood found in Fuentes' fridge, helpfully labelled 'Valv. (Piti)' - Piti supposedly being the name of Valverde's pet pooch (names of pets seems to have been the code names used).So, assuming the DNA work was done correctly, it would seem to be an open and shut case, and one wonders why Valverde will continue to take the case to ever higher courts.  Of course doping athletes do seem to press on with delusional self-belief in their innocence beyond the evidence.  Examples (not related to the Fuentes affair as far as I know) include Tyler Hamilton (and his vanishing twin), Floyd Landis, and the fabulous tale of Richard Virenque (who famously came clean and confessed in court).  It's a shame they don't all take the rap for doping as openly as David Millar.Still, I have some sympathy for Valverde.  Why have so few athletes faced justice over the Fuentes affair? And I don't just refer to cyclists.  It doesn't seem right for only a handful for Dr Fuentes' clients get taken down, when all the others can just carry on.

With news announced this week that the Spanish Cycling Federation is to hand down a one year ban to Alberto Contador for testing positive for clenbuterol in a sample taken during the 2010 Tour de France, I believe there is at least one issue that raises a concern about justice in this case. At the time news of this positive test result broke (see for example Alberto Contador Positive For Clenbuterol - BikeRadar), I noted one aspect of the case that worried me. A spokesman for the UCI is quoted as saying

"The concentration found by the laboratory was estimated at 50 picograms which is 400 times less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) must be able to detect," it said, adding that testing of a second "B" sample taken at the same time confirmed the result.

I have to add that, as I recall, the UCI later revised this from 400-fold to 40-fold.  Nevertheless, I believe this to be problematic in delivering justice in dope testing, chiefly because of the sensitivity in testing.Let's assume that Joe Bloggs, a cyclist in another team entirely was tested at a different event. He has a similar (very low) level of clenbuterol in his urine as did Contador.  However, the organisers of his race send the samples to a different testing lab, one which can only detect clenbuterol to the level specified by WADA.  Under these circumstances, Contador comes out positive, but Bloggs does not.Is that fair?  It does seem to me that where WADA make a specification of the testing sensitivity that accredited labs must deliver, that has to be the limit above which a result is declared positive.  This is important as analytical techniques and equipment continue to be improved, delivering greater sensitivity.I don't know whether Contador did dope, and I do applaud the efforts of the UCI, WADA and race organisers to weed out doping, but I do have concerns about how these cases are handled.

One of the reasons I think modern doping in sport needs to be treated more harshly is that increasingly the doping products of choice are likely to be risky. Not only are many of the products biologically active hormones (such as EPO, growth hormone, testosterone), with unpredictable long term effects of the athlete, but it seems to me that practices such as blood doping are in themselves particularly dangerous.Hot on the heels of news that Riccardò Riccò (who has only just returned from a doping ban) had collapsed with kidney failure while out training, comes further revelations that he's to be investigated fro blood doping (Italian Police Investigate Riccò For Blood Doping | Cyclingnews.com).These practices can have dangerous consequences, and it's a shame that the Fuentes blood doping ring wasn't fully prosecuted by the Spanish authorities.I don't know whether he has been blood doping and in any case I hope Riccò makes a good recovery, but I also hope that if he is found guilty of blood doping he gets the life ban he'd be due.Update (0): Velonews reports that Italian media report Riccardo Riccò confessed to transfusion.Update (1): Road.cc reports that the Italian Olympic Committee is to begin a Doping Investigation into sick Ricco.

It's been quite a few weeks (or perhaps months) since dear Valv. (Piti) - aka Alejandro Valverde's doping case graced this blog.  Today, CyclingNews.com reports that Alejandro Valverde has lost the final appeal against his doping ban (Valverde Loses Final Appeal).This of course follows one of the few instances in which DNA fingerprinting led to a correlation between a pro cyclist and ablood bag recovered from Dr Fuentes' stash.  I guess the DNA profiling was felt to be rather incontrovertible.  Oh, and the barely concealed code name on the bags.He's now banned until the end of 2011.  He was formally banned from the first of January this year, but kept on racing for a while.  But the bottom line is - why couldn't the Spanish authorities succeed in getting more of the blood bags sampled for DNA fingerprinting?  How many riders got away with it?  And is it fair to clobber just a few of the cyclists involved?

William Fotheringham reports in The Guardian today that Alberto Contador has been provisionally suspended after positive test taken during the second rest day of the 2010 Tour de France (Alberto Contador provisionally suspended after positive test).Apparently traces of the banned drug Clenbuterol were found in a urine sample: Clenbuterol is a bronchodilator used by asthmatics (clinically) and illicitly by athletes to improve breathing and enhance weight loss (presumably the latter's not an issue in a Grand Tour).  So Contador has been 'provisionally suspended', whatever that means.  Interestingly Fotheringham goes on to write:

Contador was notified of the finding on 24 August, his spokesman said yesterday. A statement from cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union, issued this morning said that the concentration of clenbuterol found in Contador's urine was 50 picograms*, 400 times less than the threshold required by a World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory, and that investigations were in progress.[*50 picograms = 0.05 nanograms = 0.00005 micrograms = 0.00000005 milligrams = 0.00000000005 grams]

Leaving aside the observation that 50pg is not actually a concentration but an amount, why is there a case to answer here if the amount detected is 400 fold less than required by a WADA accredited laboratory (presumably to call a positive).  What, one wonders, is the UCI's doping limit for clenbuteral?  And furthermore, presumably Contador had tests on other days of the Tour - if he was doping, wouldn't clenbuterol have shown up in those?  A WADA representative is quoted as saying

The issue is the lab has detected this. They have the responsibility for pursuing. There is no such thing as a limit where you don't have to prosecute cases. This is not a substance that has a threshold.

Which kind of contradicts the earlier statement in the article. This really comes across as a mysterious case.  I await a UCI statement about the matter.  From my science-based viewpoint, there have to be limits below which sanction will not be taken: as analytical methods improve in sensitivity, one might expect to see all sorts of false positives, ranging from contamination to just confused results.What should happen if an athlete recorded 0.5pg?  Or less - maybe 0.5 femtograms (which is 0.0000000000000005 grams - I think - all those zeros get confusing! 50 pg is usually written as 50 x 10e-12,  0.5 fg would be 0.5 x 10e-15)I guess this one's going to run for a bit.I read an article in the journal Science around the time of the Landis positive, which made for interesting reading concerning the possibility of a false positive occurring during multiple tests of an individual during a three week event: this concerned the EPO test, which by it's nature has an arbitrary cut-off for a positive to be called.Other relevant posts in this blog

Velonews reports more on Contador's "doping violation" (Former French doping chief says there have been rumors about Contador since July, quoting Pierre Bordry (former head of the French anti-doping agency AFLD) as saying rumours had been flying since July.  Interestingly, he says of the small concentration detected (40 times less than a lab is required to be able to detetc - not 400 times, as widely reported) that

“It doesn’t matter how small the quantity is. Clenbuterol is on the banned list,” Bordry told RTL radio. “Contador can do what he wants to make a defense, if it had entered his system one way or another, but he cannot avoid that it is a banned substance.”

That's all fine and dandy, but raises the possibility that an athlete's guilt or innocence might depend on which testing lab his/her samples go to and how far below the reuired sensitivity thay are able to take the detection.Hardly seems fair to me.In the meantime, accusations have been flying that Contador had taken an autologous blood transfusion on the rest day: Contador has flatly rejected those accusations (Alberto Contador denies receiving blood transfusions).

I'd been pondering the discovery of plasticiser in Alberto Contador's doping control sample, when I came across an excellent overview at the VeloNews site (The Explainer: Plastics - VeloNews).  It's well worth reading to put the latest accusation in perspective.It would not seem to be an open and shut case.And furthermore, the issue of the sensitivity of testing lab procedures really needs to be addressed.  If WADA-accreditation requires a particular detection limit for clenbuterol, than that needs to be the limit for consideration as a positive test result.  Otherwise dope-testing becomes a lottery where some riders escape sanction because their samples were sent to a laboratory with less sensitive equipment.

I see more about Valv.(Piti) in Cyclingnews.com (Valverde Accuses UCI And CONI Of Vendetta | Cyclingnews.com).  Perhaps to celebrate his rise to the top of the UCI points table, Alejandro Valverde has accused UCI and CONI of engaging in a vendetta against him, or more accurately exhibiting “an institutional and personal viciousness” against him.  He goes on in time-honoured athlete style to say:

No banned substance has ever been detected in my body and my biological profile is flawless.

Thing is, that's true of many dopers.  Until they got caught.  And the biological passport which would yield a biological profile was only introduced in 2008.  The antics of Dr Fuentes were exposed as the investigation into Operacion Puerto got under way in May 2006, so whey would Valv. (Piti)'s biological profile be affected by any supposed blood doping that occurred prior to Mat 2006?.What the report doesn't do is clarify Valverde's explanation for the match between his DNA profile and that of the blood labelled Valv. (Piti).  Is there a match?  And if so, how come a wider ban hasn't been applied?

As reported over the last few days (Cyclist Alejandro Valverde banned two years for doping - USATODAY.com; Valverde suspended for two years world-wide, keeps results - Cyclingnews.com), Alejandro Valverde, aka Valv. (Piti) has been banned for two years effective 1/1/10 over the Operacion Puerto blood doping affair.  Not before time.  As I've said before, the ridiculous length of time it's taken to deal with the fallout of the Fuentes blood-doping ring has been bad for justice, not just for those who have been punished, and for those accused (mistakenly or otherwise) but for the non-dopers whose careers will have been affected by those who've doped.Of course, the Valverde supporters are now out.  Valverde's team mate Guitierrez has written an open letter (see Gutiérrez responds to Valverde ban - Cyclingnews.com) in which it would seem he takes the usual head in the sand approach to doping issues.  Let's not forget, there's DNA evidence that the blood bags labelled Valv. (Piti) did contain Valverde's blood.The bigger injustice is that the remaining cyclists involved in the Fuentes blood doping ring have not so far been punished.  And that other sports seem to have gone silent.

There have been a couple of stories over at Cyclingnews.com on the general theme of doping. In the first, Frei Explains The Motivation Behind His Doping | Cyclingnews.com, BMC's Thomas Frei explains his motivation behind doping with EPO.  He failed an EPO test, and declined to have his B sample tested - admitting guilt, he seemed to be relieved to have the truth out.  In this article, he touches on the motives behind getting involved in doping.  While I appreciate that there is always the possibility that his public statements may to an extent be self-serving, they do seem to me to be quite illuminating.

"Of course I would have gone on doping. The money tempts you, it is the same for everyone," said Frei in an interview with Swiss website NZZ.ch.

As for his slide into doping, this comes across as something straight out of Trainspotting:

As for himself, he said that he started his pro career clean. "Then came the hard stage races, and I learned that infusions were used for recovery. Everything was legal, but I still didn't want any of it. But at some point it started [for me], because everybody does it. The doctor gives you the first shot, and then it isn't long until you give yourself the first illegal shot."He said he took EPO, because "you stand in front of a huge mountain and don't know how to get over it. Your ambition eats you up. After all, you want to become more than just a helper."

The section I find interesting is how the teams work.  While they aren't directly saying to the riders "You must take this to be competitive" (well not since the days of Festina), there does seem to be a tacit acceptance.  Teams never enquire why a rider shows a sudden and dramatic improvement in form, and of course where not only is survival through long hard stage races an issue, but pay and future contracts reflect performance, the temptation to dope will always be present.  Frei finishes with:

"From the bosses you only hear, 'We don't want any doping cases.' But what they really mean is something else."

And this seems to be key. It seems to me that riders are victims as well as culprits complicit in doping. The teams want strong athletes that can deliver performance, and in the face of (probably hard to eradicate) doping practices choose to turn a blind eye in favour of disowning the rider when he's caught.  To my mind the teams end up being complicit.  While there's ostensibly a new anti-doping breed of cycling teams out there, the cynic in me wonders "says who?" - who can we believe in a murky world of black market doping, where investigations get shelved with only partial justice (e.g. Ullrich busted, Valverde still riding while dodging investigations), or cases where justice and retribution are so long coming that an athlete may well retire before punishment.A second story, High profile Italian doping case close | Cyclingnews.com, seems to indicate that a high profile Italian cyclist may be busted before the Giro d'Italia gets going next week.  This follows widespread analysis of blood values - the "biological passport".  So far, five Spanish and Italian riders have been busted for blood value manipulation.It does seem as though the response of the dopers (and one might surmise in the light of major doping rings) the doping industry has been less in the direction of stopping, or trying new products and more in the direction of fine-tuning the doping process with the objective of making detection less likely.  Much of this focusses on what's probably the most effective drug for an endurance athlete, EPO.  Strategies for evading detection have included microdosing (as in the case of Frei), and the use of modified EPO derivatives such as CERA.  CERA, of course, was being pushed as an undetectable form of EPO, a promise happily unfulfilled as the rash of offenders detected over the last few years testifies,