4 Strikes you are out

Jim has spend some time looking at the data behind the alleged doping violations by Lance Armstrong and there seems little room for doubt:

Michael Ashenden in a recent article “The Armstrong Triangle” (http://www.siab.org.au/58dgETdx002ag/ArmstrongTriangle.pdf ) spends a lot of time discussing the payments made by Armstrong to the UCI.

 In amongst the broader discussion on the payments he details on page 3 the accurate situation in regards to the fact that rider’s samples from the 2001 Tour of Switzerland were suspicious for the use of EPO. These samples included Armstrong.

 He has always contended that he never failed a doping test. Furthermore this incident has turned up in other accounts eg Tyler Hamilton’s book that Lance had failed an EPO test but it seemed to disappear.

Ashenden explains P3.

If a person takes an injection of EPO, they will have both syringe- and kidney-derived EPO circulating in their system. The sooner a urine sample is collected after an injection, or the larger the injection received, the greater the preponderance of the syringe-derived EPO will be relative to the kidney-derived EPO. When the test was first applied circa 2001, laboratories were only allowed to declare a sample positive if they found more than 80% syringe-derived EPO in a sample.

The scientific research that underpins the EPO test has established beyond any doubt whatsoever that a person who is positive immediately after an injection will transition from ‘positive’ to ‘suspect’ and eventually ‘negative’ as the syringed EPO gradually disappears from circulation. Because EPO has a half-life of 8-12 hours, typically the detection window of the EPO test is a few days. As an example, an athlete ‘positive’ on Day 1 may be ‘suspect’ on Day 3 and ‘negative’ by Day 6.

The biological clearance times and the transition from positive through to negative were well understood at the time of the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. Indeed, it was mandatory for the scientists to have demonstrated their knowledge of these processes in order for the test to be accepted at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. There is no question that Martial Saugy understood that biological signature, as he played a key role during the test’s approval process.

Subsequently, when Martial Saugy discussed the suspicious sample with the UCI, he must have realised that there were grounds to believe that Armstrong may have used EPO. According to the USADA Reasoned Decision, Saugy’s own representation is that the sample would have been considered positive using the improved positivity criteria in place today. Because the UCI discussed that sample with Saugy, and revealed that it belonged to Armstrong, both Saugy and the UCI must have realised that Armstrong may have used EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.

In light of this, I find Verbruggen’s comments on 8 June 2010 to be disingenuous. In an interview with Associated Press, when commenting on EPO cases from 2001 through 2003, Verbruggen was quoted as saying:

“We have never had a positive case of Lance Armstrong. We’ve checked and checked and checked again, but we are absolutely positive about that”.

Verbruggen gave this interview in response to Floyd Landis’ allegation that Armstrong had bragged to him that one of Armstrong’s results had been covered up at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. I accept that Verbruggen is likely technically correct. But given that it has since been acknowledged that Armstrong had been called into a meeting in Aigle to discuss a suspicious result for EPO provided during the 2001 Tour of Switzerland, I believe Verbruggen’s statements should be viewed with cynicism, if not righteous indignation.

In summary EPO was present in his sample, but based on the time the sample was taken that presence had been diluted and in accordance with the prevailing protocols it now constituted “suspicious” rather than a “positive” test result. So technically correct that never failed a doping test.

But in reality despite all the other circumstantial evidence we now know that:

·       2001 Tour of Switzerland he had EPO in his blood but at “suspicious” levels

·       1999 Tour de France subsequent tests of blood samples undertaken in 2005 confirmed EPO in the samples. The newspaper L’Equipe made the match with the samples and Armstrong by linking the paperwork for Armstrong’s samples provided by the UCI with the Numbers on the samples used for the test results.

·       1999 Tour de France he had cortisone in his blood (subsequently said to have been because of a prescription for saddle sores)

·       2009 Tour de France Dr Michael Ashenden states “There are 2 damning features present in Armstrong’s blood values during the 2009 TDF. First, the haemoglobin values did not decline by the 10% or so this is typically found during three week stage races. In the Pellizotti case, the publicly available CAS decision shows that CAS found that this characteristic demonstrated the use of blood doping practices. Second his reticulate levels were below average for the rest of his reported results. Both of these are consistent with the use of blood transfusions” (Quoted in VeloNation 9 October, 2012).