Hi folks, I’m not posting this to bash this rider but to ask a question. I’ve read the article and I’m wondering if it’s really difficult to provide your whereabouts for anti-doping rules. She was suspended for not doing so three times in a year.
Is there a system that is used that is difficult to work with? With so much at stake especially in an Olympic year, I was curious why she didn’t provide that info.
Again, not trying to bash the rider. I’m genuinely curious about the procedure.
there is already a thread about this, on Dressage forum. It is thoroughly discussed!
Thanks. I didn’t see the answer to my question though.
Looks like horse abuse - breaks my heart - but there is no mention of checking in with the antidoping organizations. Am I missing something? Could just be a smoke screen for the real reason for the suspension.
You might get answers if you change your thread title to target the question you really want answered. Reads as if what you really want to know is being buried under the troubles of this particular rider.
“What is the protocol for rider check-in for testing for anti-doping rules?”
Something like that. Would be an interesting answer.
If you can find other examples of riders being suspended for ‘not providing their whereabouts’, that would help generalize it beyond this particular rider.
Also, I think it might matter to define the difference between a rider telling them their location, and the real purpose of that information, which I assume is for the agency to arrange a drug test at the agency’s expense. I think that is the real point of providing location? Maybe?
“What is the protocol for required drug testing during the year?” Maybe that’s not clear enough, though.
Great idea!
You can read the US summary of whereabouts requirements here: https://www.usada.org/athletes/testing/whereabouts/
Hopefully this isn’t too much of a random tangent!
I got interested in the cycling doping scandal after watching Icarus. In his book, Tyler Hamilton goes into some of the details on reporting whereabouts and how they got away with all the doping back during the Lance Armstrong years. They had announced and unannounced testing, but they pretty much knew when WADA was in town, it wasn’t really a surprise. It amazes me that none of those guys got caught back in the day - I think all of the riders during that time frame did it or they weren’t competitive. They knew how to work the system and how to work around the whereabouts system. Now it might be different, more stringent after the subsequent scandals, but the directives in the link above are generally the same (I read the book a couple of years ago and the time frame was the early 2000s). The book is good otherwise if you’re at all interested in cycling and/or doping scandals.
I was exposed to a good part of the book Icarus, enough to get a fairly comprehensive rundown of the life of Lance Armstrong, and the doping universe that cycling existed in during those days.
As I remember, dodging discovery by testing was about the medical technology and techniques they were using to stay well ahead of the testing protocol. At that time, the testing was never going to catch them, due to their very sophisticated approach to not getting caught. The testing didn’t test for their methodology.
Armstrong could deny and lie with absolute confidence that testing science would not prove him wrong. Because he knew that testing science wasn’t yet well-developed enough.
It was the leaking of the truth from human sources that finally brought enough to light that investigations couldn’t ignore it.
It is possible that chicanery still follows cycling. Read once that in the world of sports betting, cycling results are some of the most dependent on the athletes, with the least influence by outside random factors such as weather and road conditions, that heavily affect many other sports. All racers are in the same outside conditions, all doing the same basic thing - keeping up, and speeding up, at the right times.
There is a powerful incentive to give oneself more help than is allowed, because it works. It improves performance and placings, regardless of outside conditions. The guy who dopes best is likely to finish very well, even win.
I haven’t read all the files available but the WADA website sets out the testing protocol.
I watched the most recent Netflix season on the Tour and top rider obliterated the time trial and everyone was all up in arms saying it was impossible and could he be doping (I’m sure it was sensationalized for television because nothing came of it). So maybe they’ve found something new and like you said it’s beyond current testing technology. What will they think of next?
That was an interesting series, I think there were two years covered. As someone who knew nothing about the Tour de France I found it interesting. That’s a tough sport!
It was also interesting that one of the coaches in the series was involved in doping (as a rider) during Lance Armstrong’s time, he says “everyone” was doping and that he now regrets it.
Lance Armstrong tried to defend himself by just that argument: everyone was doing it. Re-framing it that therefore he won on a level playing field of doping. So he’s still the winner of winners, the greatest doping cyclist, in a universe of doping cyclists.
This attempt at recovering at least part of his status seems to have done a face-plant with the public. Kind of made it worse, imo.
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