Hysbrian
01-28-2007, 09:07 PM
I guess the program is called ACE...http://agencyforcyclingethics.org/
ACE, the Agency for Cycling Ethics, is handling our team anti-doping (or more correctly, Bio-Marker) program. Collectively our team will provide over 1200 samples this season, more than the entire USADA program for ALL SPORTS. Divided by riders the breakdown is roughly 2x a week. We’re currently giving blood and urine samples 3x a week, soon going to 2 and then 1x per week with others thrown in for good measure. Unlike the punitive WADA controls our program is establishing baseline values for each individuals’ bio-markers (blood values, testosterone, gh, hormones, etc) and if at any point during the season a marker is off the rider will be quickly tested 3 times in a matter of a day or two and benched. Whether or not the cause is known, rider sits.
Bronchitis? (prolonged problems can elevate red blood cell values) Benched. Crash hard and have a spike in Cortisol levels? Benched. Take EPO or pop in some T? BENCHED.
The idea here is that generally, regardless of cause, a rider shouldn’t be racing and this break provides the agency time to figure out why markers are out of normal. Might somebody miss a focus race? For sure. Is it worth it to prevent a possible false positive, killing a team and dragging the sport of cycling through the mud yet again? Without a doubt.
What is the reasoning behind this venture? Obviously cycling has taken an inordinate share of flack in the world media for doping problems (in actuality cycling has more samples tested than ANY other sport in the world, by a long shot, and broken down by percentage we’re behind such activities as curling and badmitton). We’re bashed on a level far from fair and with every news story sponsors leave and salaries drop. To ensure that cycling continues and hopefully grows on a global level something has to be done. In one sense we’re hoping to lead by example and by probiding complete transparency of information for all of our athletes set a standard that eventually, over time, other teams will have to join us in meeting. Think of what we’re doing as an (albeit expensive) insurance policy to our sponsors that we WILL NOT TEST + and if for some reason there were a false pop we would have extensive data to back up the rider and team against any charges. What team wouldn’t want to do that? Obviously it requires substantial resources but my personal hope would be that some day the UCI simply requires a program similar to this as part of team registration. Will it happen? We’ll see.
ACE, the Agency for Cycling Ethics, is handling our team anti-doping (or more correctly, Bio-Marker) program. Collectively our team will provide over 1200 samples this season, more than the entire USADA program for ALL SPORTS. Divided by riders the breakdown is roughly 2x a week. We’re currently giving blood and urine samples 3x a week, soon going to 2 and then 1x per week with others thrown in for good measure. Unlike the punitive WADA controls our program is establishing baseline values for each individuals’ bio-markers (blood values, testosterone, gh, hormones, etc) and if at any point during the season a marker is off the rider will be quickly tested 3 times in a matter of a day or two and benched. Whether or not the cause is known, rider sits.
Bronchitis? (prolonged problems can elevate red blood cell values) Benched. Crash hard and have a spike in Cortisol levels? Benched. Take EPO or pop in some T? BENCHED.
The idea here is that generally, regardless of cause, a rider shouldn’t be racing and this break provides the agency time to figure out why markers are out of normal. Might somebody miss a focus race? For sure. Is it worth it to prevent a possible false positive, killing a team and dragging the sport of cycling through the mud yet again? Without a doubt.
What is the reasoning behind this venture? Obviously cycling has taken an inordinate share of flack in the world media for doping problems (in actuality cycling has more samples tested than ANY other sport in the world, by a long shot, and broken down by percentage we’re behind such activities as curling and badmitton). We’re bashed on a level far from fair and with every news story sponsors leave and salaries drop. To ensure that cycling continues and hopefully grows on a global level something has to be done. In one sense we’re hoping to lead by example and by probiding complete transparency of information for all of our athletes set a standard that eventually, over time, other teams will have to join us in meeting. Think of what we’re doing as an (albeit expensive) insurance policy to our sponsors that we WILL NOT TEST + and if for some reason there were a false pop we would have extensive data to back up the rider and team against any charges. What team wouldn’t want to do that? Obviously it requires substantial resources but my personal hope would be that some day the UCI simply requires a program similar to this as part of team registration. Will it happen? We’ll see.