CrueTrue wrote:
Hmm, Danish news quoted AFLD for saying that one more rider will be revealed today.

"I was there because I just wanted to know more about Don Catlin's plans," explained LeMond, who had challenged Catlin and Armstrong's collaboration to make the results of Armstrong's blood values and

testosterone/epitestosterone ratio public. LeMond said publishing the results on the internet was not enough.

LeMond wants to see riders' VO2 Max results; he says power output is a much better gauge of whether a rider is doping. Following the tense press conference, LeMond and Catlin sat down together after Armstrong had left.

"I just hope that Don will look at that aspect of testing as well as 'traditional' testing," said LeMond. "If that could happen, that would be great. I have a lot of respect for Don, and told him that.

I am just amazed by the lack of critical thinking from doctors, journalists... If anybody read half of what's out there about physiology and how you produce power in aerobic sports... It's very simple.

"It's all very well checking blood values," LeMond continued. "But if you're a smart doctor, you just always keep your rider's blood values high. EPO is only detectable within a few days, and that's why it's hard to detect it.

Autologous blood transfusions, however, are not detectable at all – except through a carbon monoxide test, which is something [project co-ordinator of the Science and Industry Against Blood Doping] Michael Ashenden has proposed. It tests the volume of haemoglobin in the body, and can prove a positive for autologous blood transfusions.
That's the kind of testing we must do, along with profiling athletes' natural oxygen intake and watts."

LeMond wants to see SRM-type power meters employed to measure riders' power outputs. "In SRMs, we have a quantitative way to do that, but unfortunately there have only been a few riders who have ever given out that personal information," bemoans LeMond. "I talked to [now former] ASO boss Patrice Clerc about having everyone on an SRM that's sealed. It would be controlled and calibrated by doctors, the police – but not the teams.

"You'd get a continuous output of power recorded during a Tour stage and then if you found someone who had a VO2 Max of 80 and he was doing 500 watts for 30 minutes, you'd know that that was statistically and mathematically impossible to do. So then he's positive – boom! – he's out – that's doping. That's it – it's simple."

When it comes to teams like Garmin-Chipotle, who are attempting, like Armstrong, to be transparent by employing their own anti-doping medical programme, LeMond both praises and criticises such efforts. "[Garmin boss] Jonathan Vaughters is doing a phenomenal job," says LeMond. "What they're doing is good, but really that testing has got to be done by an independent group, and not policed from inside. What good is self-policing? It's like a wolf guarding a hen house. You've got to have a group with no self-interest."
Independent testing

"It should be up to a group like WADA. The riders just want to know that they can trust the system – that's all. If a crime's a crime, you're going to get busted. Cycling is so black and white when it comes to watts and we can have that data now – it's not a mystery. Last year there were climbers doing 450 watts but weighing 58-60kg – that's nearly 8 watts per kilo. That's impossible – unless we've all had some kind of genetic mutation over the past 15 years.

"There are certain physiologists who could blow the sport apart," says LeMond. "But they all earn their living by the sport, too, so they have something to lose, so there's this omerta [code of silence - ed]. That's the thing about cycling – it has its chance to make itself clean, and that's the direction the Tour de France organisation was going in."

mb2612 wrote:
I don't quite understand how this proves people are doping, surely if someone has those same levels of hormones and blood values then they will produce the same results.

issoisso wrote:


Because despite what fanboys keep saying, it's impossible to do 7.5w/kg clean for 45 minutes...

mb2612 wrote:
I don't quite understand how this proves people are doping, surely if someone has those same levels of hormones and blood values then they will produce the same results.

milrbe wrote:
I think that wattage tests would be a great idea to point a finger at riders for blood tests, but a high wattage output shouldn't count as a positive and have that rider thrown out right away. Because at what wattage output level does it cross from a super-human effort because of genetics to a super-human effort because of drugs?

brun sweater wrote:
lol

Wattages will of course never become a parameter for banning riders
It's downright impossible to determine how many watts pr kg is possible on a general scale.