Must-read of the week: The Doping Ordeal of Lizzy Banks

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by benb

ADHD drugs absolutely have a history as illicit abused drugs and as PEDs for academics and STEM fields. There is a reason they are Class II controlled substances.

Most people here probably have never had to fill a controlled substance maintenance prescription on a monthly basis.. just know it is a huge PITA.

My son was having problems in school pretty much from K-5th grade. I could completely empathize as it was exactly what I went through. I was trying to help him by explaining what I did to deal with things, but I started remembering that, oh right, I wasn't really good at dealing with them either.

At end of 5th grade we had him go through a big evaluation for ADHD (out of pocket, not covered, $4k, I think it was 5 hours total eval time). I'm still not clear on exactly what they decided he was (ADD?) but basically they needed to speed up part of his thinking, to match the pace of the rest of his brain (that's sort of how I viewed the explanation).

(tangent - the coolest thing to me had to do with a line drawing. It was basically an abstract fish but with various patterns and extra lines. He couldn't draw the fish a minute or two after seeing the drawing, but he drew it really well something like 45 minutes later. The fact that he was better at the long term recall blew me away.)

After he started taking his med, the change was incredible. Literally within half a day it was noticeable. And this school year has been completely different.

He's the same kid but better able to process things, better able to assimilate information and emotions. What's ironic is that I realized that he's (much) better than me at dealing with certain situations. My wife realized this a while ago apparently, because apparently these were things she saw in me 20 years ago, and she suggested that maybe I should get an evaluation done as well (lol). So we've started that process.

In the meantime, yes, the meds are hard to get. It's $300/month if done through insurance (they cover part of it), it's $100 if we pay out of pocket. We were paying out of pocket but they no longer have it in stock, so we have to go through insurance and get the $300 version of the same drug. We have to drive around to get it, often our regular pharmacy doesn't have it in stock.

[redir]

I first started reading that article like here we go again, another doper making all the same excuses but she really does make a logical point with two things. Dopers would most likely choose one of the many masking agents with the longest half-life, chlortalidone and secondly that the tests going to such insane low levels are also out of the scope of what a doper would have in their bodies.

Going back to my cyclical side though is, why doesn't this happen to a majority of cyclists then?

[Nomadmax]

I write anyone off who has two positives and their defense is "I dunno". Anyone who is the business of sport, especially one where they're tested, had better take steps to know EVERYTHING that goes in their body or suffer the consequences.

Don't be mad at the testing system. Be mad at the frauds who elevated the cheat game that elevated scrutiny. Now there was an American guy, I can't recall his name, who was apparently pretty good at doping/cheating and lying about it. It was a real high profile case.

[trener1]

I am far from an expert and I don't really know if she doped or not, BUT what really erkes me is how the english speaking cycling media has given her a complete pass because she is one of the "cool kids", and a native English speaker and other riders with similar transgressions that don't speak english are crucified and every time they are in a race the media trips over their high horses making sure that we know they dislike "dopers", the double standard makes me puke.
Here is just one example
https://escapecollective.com/wheel-t...f-lizzy-banks/

I believe that "The Cycling Podcast" had a similar take, because well of course she was a one of their hosts, meanwhile they did a whole podcast last year about what a terrible guy Veleverde is.

The BS from the cycling podcast and escape collective is just so obvious and off the charts.

[benb]

That English media bias is huge and it's super apparent. I think with cycling we see it more cause we just see so much British cycling content and influencers.

Same thing is pressent 100x more in F1 since the sport is ridiculously British a lot of the coverage and even the officiating seems to have a British bias sometimes.

For cycling it's like anyone from an Eastern European or South American country or Spain is automatically assumed to be guilty. F1 kind of operates that way too, sometimes it's insane to watch.

[zap]

edit

Originally Posted by benb

Same thing is pressent 100x more in F1 since the sport is ridiculously British a lot of the coverage and even the officiating seems to have a British bias sometimes.

Maybe. There was a time when many thought Ferrari was getting preferential treatment......a team that is very much Italian.

[benb]

Originally Posted by zap

edit
Maybe. There was a time when many thought Ferrari was getting preferential treatment......a team that is very much Italian.

I'm no Ferrari fan but I have huge respect for them not being a British team pretending to be an Italian team. (Like the British teams pretending to be German and Austrian)

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by trener1

I am far from an expert and I don't really know if she doped or not, BUT what really erkes me is how the english speaking cycling media has given her a complete pass because she is one of the "cool kids", and a native English speaker and other riders with similar transgressions that don't speak english are crucified and every time they are in a race the media trips over their high horses making sure that we know they dislike "dopers", the double standard makes me puke.
Here is just one example
https://escapecollective.com/wheel-t...f-lizzy-banks/

I believe that "The Cycling Podcast" had a similar take, because well of course she was a one of their hosts, meanwhile they did a whole podcast last year about what a terrible guy Veleverde is.

The BS from the cycling podcast and escape collective is just so obvious and off the charts.

I observed this during the Lance Armstrong era. American/English speaker = good guy. Everyone else = trouble. Honestly, it even went back to the 1980s.

Yeah, it’s a thing.

[benb]

There's definitely a hierarchy based on where the rider is from.

American riders get a pass in the US but are definitely pretty far down the hierarchy as far as treatment in the EU and by the EU media.

[72gmc]

Originally Posted by trener1

The BS from the cycling podcast and escape collective is just so obvious and off the charts.

I haven't listened to the latest episode of the CP Feminin, but I'm guessing it will be sympathetic since she is one of their hosts as you say. I have to say I don't recall the Valverde criticism, but I do recall Richard being pretty even-handed about doping allegations despite his long tenure with the sport. I felt he took care to step back into "just the facts" mode as much as he could. I also see concern for the individual riders regardless of nationality in Orla's contributions.

I did reach the point where I just couldn't listen to another fawning CP episode about Sky or Sir Dave, however, and I am admittedly not listening to much else in the way of pro cycling coverage these days--so there's some bias in my perception.

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by trener1

I am far from an expert and I don't really know if she doped or not, BUT what really erkes me is how the english speaking cycling media has given her a complete pass because she is one of the "cool kids", and a native English speaker and other riders with similar transgressions that don't speak english are crucified and every time they are in a race the media trips over their high horses making sure that we know they dislike "dopers", the double standard makes me puke.
Here is just one example
https://escapecollective.com/wheel-t...f-lizzy-banks/

I believe that "The Cycling Podcast" had a similar take, because well of course she was a one of their hosts, meanwhile they did a whole podcast last year about what a terrible guy Veleverde is.

The BS from the cycling podcast and escape collective is just so obvious and off the charts.

I can't stand to listen to The Cycling Podcast, and Escape Collective's racing coverage is routinely more focused on who they personally like than on helping a reader better understand the sport, so this isn't surprising to me.

[trener1]

To respond to a few of the above posts.

I am only a very casual F1, so I don't really have any reference points, but good to know.

As far as the cycling podcast goes, yeah Richard was great, I was a huge fan of the Pod and was a paid member but since Richards untimely passing it has gone down hill, Lionel was also pretty good, but now the Danial is the main guy I pretty much stopped listening, he is very pompous and full of himself, and very much pretends to be on some moral high ground until he isn't.
Yeah they had a whole episode last year dedicated to throwing Velverde under the bus, but I not much regarding Wiggo's Jiffey bag or Froome's TUE's, which lets be honest if Enric Mas was caught with a Jiffey bag they would probably dedicate 3 episode's "investigating" it.

As far as Escape collective, I am a paid member, and like what they are trying to do but yeah their racing coverage is lacking, and for a organization that stakes it's claim on fair and unbalanced journalism, it's pretty obvious that it's neither fair nor balanced, when they throw Quintana under the bus without giving a thought, but now that one of Abby's friends has an issue they are throwing the UKAD under the bus without a thought.

[stefthehat]

Firstly as a Brit I’ll admit I view the whole article very cynically [I read it in the the actual newspaper the day it was published],usually the Brit media is super critical/cynical of other nations ‘ tainted supplements’ defence but very recently the banned Olympic athletics sprinter Cj Ujah has had his ‘tainted supplement’ defence officially accepted by British athletics and by proxy British Olympic association to allow him back into the fold and a potential Paris place ,so our media is fertile ground for this kind of thing [ha ha though you won’t see them doing an article on tennis player Simmons Halep’s case].The most important part of Banks case that is mentioned but doesn’t get mentioned much in the bashing of Wada etc is/was the huge gap in her getting tested and then being informed which meant she couldn’t present any medication or supplements to be tested for contamination

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by trener1

As far as Escape collective, I am a paid member, and like what they are trying to do but yeah their racing coverage is lacking, and for a organization that stakes it's claim on fair and unbalanced journalism, it's pretty obvious that it's neither fair nor balanced, when they throw Quintana under the bus without giving a thought, but now that one of Abby's friends has an issue they are throwing the UKAD under the bus without a thought.

Yeah, I do find this point a little weird about them. They bend over backwards to show independence on the tech side of things, but a lot of their racing coverage is just "these are the riders we like, these are the riders we don't like." In addition it bothers me that their articles don't even have disclaimers where there are financial conflicts of interest.

Also, while I didn't like what happened to CyclingTips, after the purge, the new Velo(news) actually seems to be producing substantially better content than it was several years ago.

[JWB475]

Originally Posted by prototoast

" In addition it bothers me that their articles don't even have disclaimers where there are financial conflicts of interest.

They are 100% member funded, what are these financial conflicts of interest?