UKC

According to a doctor from Sheffield University, called as a witness in the JTL case, binge drinking and dehydration can produce a similar effect on your blood values as taking EPO

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/jonathan-tiernan-locke-blam...

OK I might be over-simplifying things, and anyway that defence was thrown out, but the best cyclist amongst my mates is also the heaviest drinker, despite being the skinniest. And he never drinks much water. And he was born and bred in Sheffield!

Didn't Floyd Landis try to explain his positive on excessive drinking too ?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I expect that a few ladies - or men, for that matter - may be able to give us the benefit of their opinion regarding excessive alcohol consumption, as a PED, where their male partner is concerned?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Maertens used to like champagne in his bidon for that extra push..
He would abstain before though for max effect.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I gather drinking brandy etc was used on long climbs 'back in the day' but as an anasthetic for the pain rather than actual performance booster.

In reply to malk:


And the bubbles would make you lighter, so just what you need on a mountain stage

In reply to Chris the Tall:

From experience, 2 pints with an excellent Ploughmans lunch makes your knees very wobbly on the next big hill.

It was only the threat of being passed by a tandem that kept me going - my mate had already given in half-way up!

Mild dehydration from the morning's efforts might have had something to do with it, though.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

You have to wonder why any pro athlete would drink so heavily just before a race.
I find booze only enhances performance if you consume enough to distract you from the pain and the reality that you're actually crawling along at the pace of a 5 year-old on a tricycle.

In reply to gethin_allen:


I can believe that someone with an alcohol problem could start drinking and be unable to stop, regardless of what commitments they have the next day. I could also believe that a pro-athlete could have a drink problem. And that a pro-athlete could get drunk celebrating with his girlfriend, be hungover the next day and want to hide it from his team-mates.

But 33 units ? I suspect that even in my student days I wouldn't ever had half that. And you don't expect an athlete, having the best year of his career, to build up the sort of tolerance where you can have that much without throwing up. And once you sober up, and realise you've got this massive race coming up, you'd do the one thing that you know could help - drink water (actually I find tea better!)

Then again, wasn't this sort of behaviour common amongst footballers until recently ?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I may have misunderstood the original post. Are you suggesting that 'as alcohol dehydration can give blood readings similar to EPO' it might have similar performance benefits?
In which case: No. (but I'm sure it was mostly a joke)

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:
My knowledge of biology is pretty basic and although I did read the full transcript of the judgement (can't find the link I'm afraid) I was pretty quickly out of my depth.

However my understanding is that JTL's defence was that dehydration following a very heavy drinking session caused his haematocrit percentage to be high - mainly reduction in plasma due to dehydration, but possibly inhibition of (white blood) cell creation due to the alcohol.

Of course "similar readings" and "similar performance effects" aren't the same, but how often do we see people make just those sort of assumptions, especially in cycling. E.G. Team sky are controlling the race in the same way that US Postal used to do, so they must all be on EPO.

So yes it was a joke, but with a bit of satire thrown in

In reply to Chris the Tall:

My own feeling about JTL was that I wanted to believe he was innocent and that it was all a mistake. Unfortunately once I realised the defence he was giving I started to think it much more likely he was guilty: Eerily similar to the defence given by some rather dubious characters.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Me too and reading the bits from the ruling either drugs or so foolish he shouldn't be allowed out without stabilizers on his bike. Such a shame and whatever really happened what's the old saying, if you can't be a good example then you can be a warning or something along those lines.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

We are going to see the bio passport put under intense scrutiny if Tinkoff takes them to court over Kruizeinger. One issue is that most people with sufficient knowledge in the field are involved in the analysis, so getting an independent expert is difficult.

It would appear that the board didn't accept JTL expert's claims on the effects of alcohol on the blood - it was more hypothetical than based on rigorous testing (I'm hoping Sheffield Uni doesn't start giving students 33 units of alcohol to test their blood !). But even so, they still didn't believe that JTL would have drunk that much, and then so little water, so close to a big race (in which he did pretty well).

In reply to Chris the Tall:

If I had as much as him riding on the outcome I'd be back out in Bristol drinking with a couple of UCI chaperones before repeating the blood test to show some basis for my defence. Then he could perhaps say look same result, no drugs except alcohol.

Otherwise he looks just like all the other dopers even if he really is clean.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Being of a scientific ilk I decided to critically examine the properties of alcohol as a PED so I went to the pub and had a few beers.
I remember significantly less about the ride home than the ride there so I must have been quicker on the way home.

So there it is, scientifically proven.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


It doesn't sound like the most sensible/likely behaviour before a race.
I remember a sprinter claiming the high testosterone in his blood was due the copious beer consumption, combined with mammoth love-making session, he had the night before the most important race of his life(!)

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Didn't someone comment on one of the dopers who claimed to have naturally super high testosterone that if it were true there would have been no virgins within a hundred miles of the race.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:


Dennis Mitchell, whose claim that his positive was down to making love with his wife 4 times - "It was her birthday, the lady deserved a treat" - was actually believed by USTAF (always willing to give their athletes the benefit of the doubt) but rejected by the IAAF. And of course Mitchell was later implicated in Balco.

I wonder if JTL will ever come clean and reveal the supply line ?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Just read the report, oh well.

I'd write a book, the Amateur Cheat it would sell in the current climate.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Chris the Tall:
Doesn't sound very plausible. By this logic, every cyclist that's overdone post-tour celebrations would be in danger of blotting their bio passport. By his own admission, Wiggins went on a right old jolly in the last quarter of 2012, so why isn't he facing the same problems?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I often feel strongest when I got out on an early afternoon hangover recovery cycle

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:


Yeah Simpson had something like half a bottle in his stomach when he died...

In reply to Trevers:

I sometimes perform better than expected after a 'session' but I think that is 'better than expected' not better than I would otherwise.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Deserved a life ban for the "...deserved a treat" line.

In reply to IainRUK:

One of a few factors that may have contributed to his death I guess...

In reply to Chris the Tall:

will he still be dope tested until he returns next year?