SallyAnne
02-13-2009, 09:03 AM
Cycling Teams’ Internal Testing Is Drawing Criticism
By JULIET MACUR
Published: February 12, 2009
SACRAMENTO — Even though Lance Armstrong’s personal antidoping program never got off the ground, scrapped because of logistics and costs, he is still subject to testing by a number of antidoping entities, including the internal program of his professional cycling team, Astana.
But some antidoping experts say that program, and others like it, are virtually useless in proving that a rider is clean.
“I don’t think the public can have any confidence in a program that is being run privately,” David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said in an interview last week. “If the testers are being paid by the team, they are not independent. If it’s not open to public scrutiny and if we cannot see it, we must be suspicious.
“How do you show that there is no cover-up unless you are exposed to an independent agency that can monitor the tests?”
Armstrong, who is racing at the Tour of California that begins Saturday, said it is no wonder that some antidoping agencies like WADA dislike internal testing programs. “It’s essentially saying that you can’t do the job, so we’re going to get someone to do the job,” he said at a news conference here Thursday.
The main internal antidoping programs in professional cycling are run by the Danish scientist Rasmus Damsgaard, who works with the Astana team, and Don Catlin, who works with the Team Columbia and Garmin-Slipstream teams. Catlin, the former chief of the U.C.L.A. Olympic Analytical Laboratory, was supposed to run Armstrong’s personal antidoping program until they abandoned the effort this week.
Howman said the existence of those internal programs shows that some teams are trying to stamp out doping, but that the programs are far from the ideal.
The main objection is that the analyses of the riders’ urine and blood samples are not done at a laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. That means that any positive tests would not have to be reported to antidoping authorities. Also, any positive results could not be used to possibly sanction an athlete.
Still, teams like Garmin-Slipstream, which had the first internal testing program in professional cycling, are trying to prove to the public that their riders are clean.
Garmin-Slipstream’s internal testing forms a biological baseline for each of its riders.
Any variations of those baselines over time may be an indication that the rider had used performance-enhancing drugs, so that rider would be pulled from competition before he wins races.
Jonathan Vaughters, the team director, said internal testing saves the team and the sport from dealing with a situation like that of Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winner.
Landis, who is returning to professional cycling this week at the Tour of California, was stripped of his Tour title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone.
“We’re doing what we can to save our sport, which includes making all of our test results available to the public,” Vaughters said.
However, Vaughters chose to withhold the results from the Internet.
“We wanted to safeguard that information from manipulation,” he said. “If we published it online, what’s preventing us from controlling that information and changing it? We wanted the public to know they could get the information without going through us.”
Now if someone in the public wanted to see the profiles of any Garmin-Slipstream rider, they would have to provide a letter to the team, saying they have someone, like an antidoping scientist, who could correctly interpret the results. Then, Vaughters said, that person would be put in touch with Catlin, who would release the results.
In an attempt to be transparent with his test results, Armstrong posted seven of his recent test results on his Web site, www.livestrong.com, after his personal antidoping program fell through.
Armstrong’s agent, Bill Stapleton, said that Damsgaard is in charge of the compiling and posting of that information, which was gleaned from tests done by Damsgaard and the International Cycling Union.
“We want to put it all out there,” Stapleton said of Armstrong’s biological information.
The results of six blood values, including hematocrit and hemoglobin, are listed on the site.
Christiane Ayotte, the chief of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s accredited laboratory outside of Montreal and the scientist who will run the drug-testing laboratory for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, said she “had great difficulties” with private antidoping laboratories conducting tests if they are paid by the athlete or the teams.
“It is not the best situation,” she said, pointing out the case of the Agency for Cycling Ethics, which used to run the internal program of several cycling teams before it folded last year.
The co-founder of that program, Paul Scott, became one of Landis’s most vocal defenders in Landis’s case against the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Scott subsequently left the antidoping company.
“The program and the people in it must be totally independent of the athletes, the team and their interests for it to work,” she said. “The intent behind these programs is very good, but I know of no human being that is not one day prone to having false judgments about something — maybe a test result — because of money, pressure or just wanting to have their name in the public.”
Last week the Danish cycling team Saxo Bank, formerly CSC, ended its internal antidoping program run by Damsgaard, saying that the extra testing had become obsolete.
A spokesman for the team said the International Cycling Union’s tests, which include blood screenings to establish a biological profile of each rider, were thorough enough.
By JULIET MACUR
Published: February 12, 2009
SACRAMENTO — Even though Lance Armstrong’s personal antidoping program never got off the ground, scrapped because of logistics and costs, he is still subject to testing by a number of antidoping entities, including the internal program of his professional cycling team, Astana.
But some antidoping experts say that program, and others like it, are virtually useless in proving that a rider is clean.
“I don’t think the public can have any confidence in a program that is being run privately,” David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said in an interview last week. “If the testers are being paid by the team, they are not independent. If it’s not open to public scrutiny and if we cannot see it, we must be suspicious.
“How do you show that there is no cover-up unless you are exposed to an independent agency that can monitor the tests?”
Armstrong, who is racing at the Tour of California that begins Saturday, said it is no wonder that some antidoping agencies like WADA dislike internal testing programs. “It’s essentially saying that you can’t do the job, so we’re going to get someone to do the job,” he said at a news conference here Thursday.
The main internal antidoping programs in professional cycling are run by the Danish scientist Rasmus Damsgaard, who works with the Astana team, and Don Catlin, who works with the Team Columbia and Garmin-Slipstream teams. Catlin, the former chief of the U.C.L.A. Olympic Analytical Laboratory, was supposed to run Armstrong’s personal antidoping program until they abandoned the effort this week.
Howman said the existence of those internal programs shows that some teams are trying to stamp out doping, but that the programs are far from the ideal.
The main objection is that the analyses of the riders’ urine and blood samples are not done at a laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. That means that any positive tests would not have to be reported to antidoping authorities. Also, any positive results could not be used to possibly sanction an athlete.
Still, teams like Garmin-Slipstream, which had the first internal testing program in professional cycling, are trying to prove to the public that their riders are clean.
Garmin-Slipstream’s internal testing forms a biological baseline for each of its riders.
Any variations of those baselines over time may be an indication that the rider had used performance-enhancing drugs, so that rider would be pulled from competition before he wins races.
Jonathan Vaughters, the team director, said internal testing saves the team and the sport from dealing with a situation like that of Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winner.
Landis, who is returning to professional cycling this week at the Tour of California, was stripped of his Tour title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone.
“We’re doing what we can to save our sport, which includes making all of our test results available to the public,” Vaughters said.
However, Vaughters chose to withhold the results from the Internet.
“We wanted to safeguard that information from manipulation,” he said. “If we published it online, what’s preventing us from controlling that information and changing it? We wanted the public to know they could get the information without going through us.”
Now if someone in the public wanted to see the profiles of any Garmin-Slipstream rider, they would have to provide a letter to the team, saying they have someone, like an antidoping scientist, who could correctly interpret the results. Then, Vaughters said, that person would be put in touch with Catlin, who would release the results.
In an attempt to be transparent with his test results, Armstrong posted seven of his recent test results on his Web site, www.livestrong.com, after his personal antidoping program fell through.
Armstrong’s agent, Bill Stapleton, said that Damsgaard is in charge of the compiling and posting of that information, which was gleaned from tests done by Damsgaard and the International Cycling Union.
“We want to put it all out there,” Stapleton said of Armstrong’s biological information.
The results of six blood values, including hematocrit and hemoglobin, are listed on the site.
Christiane Ayotte, the chief of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s accredited laboratory outside of Montreal and the scientist who will run the drug-testing laboratory for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, said she “had great difficulties” with private antidoping laboratories conducting tests if they are paid by the athlete or the teams.
“It is not the best situation,” she said, pointing out the case of the Agency for Cycling Ethics, which used to run the internal program of several cycling teams before it folded last year.
The co-founder of that program, Paul Scott, became one of Landis’s most vocal defenders in Landis’s case against the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Scott subsequently left the antidoping company.
“The program and the people in it must be totally independent of the athletes, the team and their interests for it to work,” she said. “The intent behind these programs is very good, but I know of no human being that is not one day prone to having false judgments about something — maybe a test result — because of money, pressure or just wanting to have their name in the public.”
Last week the Danish cycling team Saxo Bank, formerly CSC, ended its internal antidoping program run by Damsgaard, saying that the extra testing had become obsolete.
A spokesman for the team said the International Cycling Union’s tests, which include blood screenings to establish a biological profile of each rider, were thorough enough.