Blood profile and cheats

[Chuffy]

Wiggy has posted his blood profile (good for him) and Astarloza has been busted for EPO despite his team saying that his profile was normal.

This, to me, raises a few questions and possibilities.

1. Does Wiggy's profile data (and anyone elses) actually tell us anything of real value?
2. Did Euskatel take Astarloza's data at face value because it didn't actually tell them if he was being naughty?
3. Did Euskatel know that Astarloza was being naughty but on the basis that he'd 'never tested positive and was always available for testing' choose to ignore the signs?
4. Is there a danger that although a rider's profile looks 'clean' they could still be up to no good and hence could publish blood values as a smokescreen? IIRC Rasmussen tried this post-expulsion in 2007 to show that he wasn't being naughty

I'm not pointing fingers, but some of this stuff makes me nervous that we could too easily throw our hats in the air, shout 'hurrah for the passport!' and kid ourselves that everything is rosy. I'd like to see more riders going down the Wiggy route, but I'd need some reassurance that the data really was saying what we want it to say...

Any thoughts?

 

[Noodley]

Chuffy, I have just written a very long and well evidenced reply, but deleted it because I know it would just attract negative comment.

I shall just post the following:

I have a view which I believe is right. I do not need 'proof' within the current guidelines, nor do I condemn without some form of evidence.

I have a great deal of faith in the current British Cycling system.

 

[Chuffy]

Chuffy, I have just written a very long and well evidenced reply, but deleted it because I know it would just attract negative comment.

I shall just post the following:

I have a view which I believe is right. I do not need 'proof' within the current guidelines, nor do I condemn without some form of evidence.

I have a great deal of faith in the current British Cycling system.

It's the faith aspect that niggles away at the back of my mind. Don't misunderstand me, this isn't about Wiggy or the current British cycling set-up. It's more about the worry that 'my blood values are normal' could easily become the new 'I have never tested positive'.

 

[andrew_s]

It's like the 50% haemocrit rule that riders used as a limit on how much EPO they could use.
As I see it, you can still use EPO, but to keep your blood values within limits you have to take less to keep the OFF-score below the limit, and take the small doses more often so your values are steadier.
More often makes it harder to avoid out of competition testing

 

[borsuk]

the more data in the public domain the better imo. i don't have any particular expertise in the field, but i would imagine that having a history of different riders' blood profiles will enable better tests to be devised to identify previously hidden spikes etc.

 

[ufkacbln]

Your blood will vary from day to day, depending on level of exercise, hyrdration, illness and a whole load of other factors.

The question is what do you refer to when you claim a "normal limit"