Doge

A very good comment. That makes the taco meat you eat a real issue (context - USAC memo don't eat Mexican beef) and living in SoCal, that is a real risk. Some substances - caffeine - have amounts.
But if they tested often, sanctioned often (light - 1 month or two - for the whole team) this would clear things up, athletes would change behavior without needing a stigma/cheater label.

caloso

Fun fact that I just learned looking through the WADA site: if you donate platelets/plasma, you are violating the prohibition on blood manipulation.

Doge

"Under pressure from Congress to toughen their drug program, major league players and teams agreed in November 2005 that a third positive test for PEDs would result in a lifetime ban. His 162-game suspension had matched the longest under the big league program, a year-long ban served by the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez in 2014 that originally was 211 games before an arbitrator reduced it."


It think they need to settle down...someone needs to ask how theses harsh penalties are working out for them.
Suspend the team!
Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia 1st to draw lifetime drug ban

shovelhd

Why would you donate plasma or platelets when you are in training?

Doge

So your hematocrit goes up. They remove blood, take the stuff - not the red cells and put it back. In a week or two the hematocrit level will be higher. The 50% limit (for men) is a great rule for this.

Jimmy Phoenix

Can you point me to a study that backs this up? The literature I've seen (start here - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4025150/) only points to an extremely brief (less than 24 hour) bump in HCT values, and then a decrease within 72 hours after plasma donation. The body will normalize hematological values very quickly, too quickly to be of much use.

I've seen some suggestion from WADA that the reason plasma donations are banned is that it can wreak havoc on bio-passport results. There was a lot of hand wringing over plasma donation during the Contador case which I think played a major role in the ban on plasma donations: https://jurisprudence.tas-cas.org/sit...84,%202386.pdf. It is also clearly against WADA rules to re-inject anything even if it doesn't provide any clear benefit... probably a result of the embarassing "maybe we'll get faster if we blast UV light on our blood" scandal.

Doge

It is right there in your reference. It goes HCT goes down as time goes on because the blood volume goes up.
Short term the HCT is higher, but volume is lower - as being dehydrated (no study needed I hope).

wens

But hemoglobin is the more relevant measurement for performance, and its much less dependant on blood volume.


Or to put it another way, I highly doubt dehydrating yourself is performance enhancing.

Jimmy Phoenix

Uhhh... here is what you wrote a few posts back: "In a week or two the hematocrit level will be higher". That is absolutely wrong, so you still need some kind of sourced evidence if you're making the claim that donating plasma somehow leads to an elevated HCT in "a week or two". Enormous difference from a possible 12-24hr minor bump.

Like Wens says, no one in their right mind would donate plasma just to boost hematocrit levels... all you're doing is dehydrating yourself. The 50% rule in the absence of other markers means very little, especially when it is possible to get a pass from WADA if you can show that you have naturally high HCT levels.

Enthalpic

When you remove platelets you can end up stimulating the whole haematopoetic system. All the body needed to do was increase thrombopoiesis but it gets a boost in erythopoiesis too due to growth factor cross talk.

The influence of automated plateletpheresis on systemic levels of hematopoietic growth factors. - PubMed - NCBI

A highly significant increase in erythropoietin levels (initial level: 7.5 +/- 4.0 U/L) was seen after apheresis (p<0.0005 on Days 1 and 2). The level remained significantly elevated until Day 7 (p = 0.004).

gsteinb

Knocked back to six months

The CAS Panel confirmed Lea’s anti-doping rule violation while shortening his period of ineligibility from 16 months to six months. The CAS Panel also upheld the start date for Lea’s period of ineligibility, confirming that his sanction should commence from September 10, 2015, the date on which he accepted his provisional suspension. As a consequence of the CAS Panel decision, Lea will be eligible to compete again on March 10, 2016. Further, as a result of the doping violation, Lea has also been disqualified from all competitive results achieved on August 8, 2015 at the Elite & Junior Track National Championships and on and subsequent to the date in which the provisional sanction was accepted, including forfeiture of any medals, points, and prizes.

Duke of Kent

It's interesting that his ban ends four days after track Worlds. And, he hasn't raced any World Cups.

However, he's still ranked 25th in the UCI's track Omnium. There are 18 slots for the omnium, and "America" gets 6 of them (NA and SA, combined). Europe gets 8, Asia 5, Oceania 2, Africa 1. If I'm doing my math right, he's the number 3 dude out of "America". Also of note: Holy crap, sucks to be from Australia or NZ; 6 dudes in the top 26, and only 2 spots.

https://www.uci.ch/mm/Document/News/N...EN_English.pdf

https://www.uci.ch/track/ranking/

shovelhd

Nothing will change as long as crap like this continues to go down.

gsteinb

It's all about the Olympics

shovelhd

Olympic$$$$$$$

Doge

It matters when you break the rules.
EDIT: And where

wens

Don't you only get one guy per country, and I'm guessing all six of those dudes are Australian/new Zealand, so they'd still be hosed by another rule. Oh the Olympics, where we determine the world's best athletes, as long as we have relatively even global representation, and maybe sure a single nation doesn't sweep the podium, etc.

Racer Ex 

So you can get paid and ride faster. Only thing better is selling a kidney if you're a climber.

Doge

I don't know much about the track stuff. But for Worlds - road (and I think Olympics) counties get point on their UCI standings that determine how many can go. It is different by every discipline. Last year for Worlds as USA juniors are the best in the world, they got 7 for worlds RR, while other countries got just a few.

For Track:
Maximum 2 athletes in individual Sprint and Keirin; Maximum 1 athlete in Omnium; Maximum 1 Team of 4 athletes in Team Pursuit; Maximum 1 Team of 3 athletes in Team Sprint
https://www.rio2016.com/sites/default...cling-en_0.pdf

For Road I think we have two Olympic berths out of 5 possible for road and 2 for TT. It is complicated. https://www.rio2016.com/sites/default...cling-en_0.pdf

Doge

Meldonium goes on the list in 2016. Sharapova has been using it the last 10 years (allowed), but, they didn't catch the changes - she got caught.

gsteinb

who?

globecanvas

Sounds like a russian magic marker.

gsteinb

Sharpaova is the permanent marker Doge uses to write on junior's pit wheels, I guess

Ygduf

painters tape and sharpaova

topflightpro

She's one of the world's top tennis player.

She should have known it was being banned this year. She has the money and management team to stay on those things. Also, the drug is designed to be used for 4 to 6 weeks. It's not a 10-year type of thing, unless you are trying to gain some other benefit.