UKC

Its as simple as that.

I don't care about the so called rules that the doctors or team SKY followed, anyone who uses a steroid has cheated. (How absurd that they are allowed to take them for medical reasons) Steroids are a performance enhancing drug. Wiggins has mislead a nation. He doesn't even mention asthma in his book.

So, its seems cycling never really did clean up its act. What a shame.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

A cheat is someone who doesn't follow the rules so he's not a cheat.

He's a doper, certainly, but not technically a cheat.

Then again, they're all on the sauce so what's it matter?

In reply to bouldery bits:


A cheat is someone who tries to get an unfair advantage. You can follow the rules and still be a cheat if there's enough latitude in the rules.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


And if they all "cheat" the same way, within the rules?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:




maybe it's time to let everyone take anything they fancy, as stupid as its sounds it'd probably make it a fairer race.

In reply to Ghastly Rubberfeet:

I guess that's ok. I suspect, in this case, that they don't. And if only one doesn't then that one has been disadvantaged. Very hypothetical though.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Exactly the same rules apply to all competitors in a UCI race.
They are all entitled to the same "advantages" so there is no "cheating"
IMHO

In reply to Ghastly Rubberfeet:

I can't really be arsed arguing it, but if you're saying that the opportunity to rinse the system for whatever you can get out of it is available to all, so it's fair, I disagree. Some people have morals.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I take steroids and so do you. Cholesterol is a steroid so every time you eat a piece of toast with butter on you are taking on a steroid.

Does changing cholesterol level enhance performance? Yes the correct level of cholesterol is vital to the body function.

Every rider on that race relies on steroids in one sense or another. If it was as clear cut as you make it sound fighting doping would be much easier.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

I got the impression he was being sarcastic.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Just reread the OP and I think you may be right.

What can I say my fingers are faster than my brain!

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:
Sarcism or not.

There is a slight difference between eating butter with toast and having an injection to "level the playing field", quote un-quote from Sundays interview with Andrew Marr.

The timing of the injections was telling.

He is a cheat. He knew what he was doing. Nothing more for me to state on this thread.

I think you are simply looking for an argument. lol

In reply to The Ice Doctor:



Thanks for your contribution. Cheerio.

In reply to bouldery bits:


Getting a TUE in order to gain an advantage (rather than for medical necessity) is against the rules.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Yeah obviously there's a huge difference between various types of steroids all I'm saying is there isn't a clear line where doping begins.

As to whether he was cheating I go back and forth if I'm honest. I guess the question is whether we feel like we're watching a cycling race or chemistry test.

Apologies if my post came across as argumentative, it wasn't intended to.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I have very brittle asthma, which includes exercise induced, and no doc has ever offered me corticosteroids - usual being prednisone, or the rather heftier one Wiggy had. I'd quite like to be 'cured' of it.

In reply to beth:
Anyone who gets in my ambulance with severe or life threatening asthma gets IV hydrocortisone, part of the recognised treatment regime. It's not an unusual approach to the illness.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:


It's clear that the one he took is on the doping side, though.

If he genuinely needed it for medical reasons (and there weren't less performance enhancing alternatives) then he's within the rules - letter and spirit. If he took it to gain an advantage he's broken the rules - letter and spirit.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Sir Brad is in a bit of a Jam. It's Madness. I've heard he's Going Underground in a Town Called Malice. He was Mr Clean but it's The Bitterest Pill. Hey Mister. Think of The Dreams Of The Children.

In reply to Dave the Rave:

I love the Clash.

In reply to Tom the tall:


You'd imagine being carted off in an ambulance a week or so before the TdF would stick out enough to make it into someone's autobiography.

Going to your team doctor and saying "I know it doesn't look like it but I'm having trouble breathing" doesn't strike me as a life-threatening situation.

In reply to beth:

You could join Team Sky if they had a women's team...

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


Why'd the TUE committee grant the TUE then? They could have said no.

In reply to Dave the Rave:




This doping stuff usually goes underground. I hope they don't all START!

In reply to bouldery bits:

You know how Qatar got the world cup and all that?

In reply to Removed User:

Because they have a long and proud football tradition which has been overlooked by the inward looking West?

I take your point - but the fact remains the rules have been followed by Brad.

Either way, as I say, they're all on the sauce anyway so it doesn't matter.

In reply to bouldery bits:


My point is that if his request wasn't genuine then he has broken the rules. (Contrary to your view that he had a TUE so that's within the rules)

In reply to bouldery bits:


I think that is the key question. Is the system of controls doing the job it is supposed to do? Everything else is speculation.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


Should the committee not have a robust review process to ensure that decisions are correct?

In reply to bouldery bits:

Because of the well known moral probity of sports bodies in general, and Hein Verbruggens UCI in particular? The guy responsible for "checking" TUE applications was so dodgy even UCI had to pull him out of the firing line for a while.... Wada, UCI, and the national doping bodies are clearly complicit in TUE abuse (and it is abuse and hence cheating as depot injections of triamcinolon are clearly not covered by the guidelines for TUEs). It really does not matter who in the doping network broke the rule, individual athletes, team doctors, or their accomplices in administration.

CB

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Drugs in sport seems to be the latest soapbox where folk with murky morals (just about everyone) can pontificate in the public domain about other folks alleged murky morals.
Having the murkiest of morals myself, I tend to relax a little about these things.

In reply to birdie num num:

Does Mrs num num have any TUE's?

In reply to bouldery bits:

Since she lost her gonads and had her tuck and roll she has testosterone replacement therapy every Tue's.

In reply to bouldery bits:

Sure they should if that's possible..

Do you still think having a TUE means he didn't break the rules?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Never read suck a load of crap in my life. Wiggo is no cheat.

Do a bit of reading up on what he took and why he took it rather than jump on a soap box.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Even if it not technically cheating Wiggins and team sky definitely did something to gain an unfair advantage and in most people book that is a bit more than just bending the rules. If he was not fit enough to compete on these events then tough luck, train differently and come back next year, the fact is that those other guys were fitter at that moment in time so he/his team felt he needed drugs to beat them.

Though let’s face it, this is the dirty side of cycling to which we are accustomed.

In reply to cb294:
I knew UCI was dirty (since improved?) but I thought WADA was clean.

Was or is WADA equally dirty?

In reply to paul_the_northerner: the training is the problem. I've lived with elite athletes (olympia and IAAF world champs level) and they were close to sick all the time. I personally developed asthma, or something similar and that was pretty usual in my training group. You also have to contend that if Its your 'job', you are going to feel pressures to return to training as quickly as possible. No, It'snot healthy, but elite performance really isn't to do with health.

I would opt for transparent use of TUE's

In reply to elsewhere:

Dave Brailsford's interview was interesting. I don't think he actually said anything that wasn't simply an explanation of the process of obtaining a TUE. And he said "process" more than an Apprentice candidate.

As an aside, I wonder if Lizzie Deignan (nee Armitstead) is having a moment if schadenfreude after Wiggins put the boot into her recently.

In reply to elsewhere:

Do bears shit in woods?

Wada is just there to simulate activity against doping within the sports community, with the dual aims of a) dissuading states from acting (e.g. by passing anti doping laws and then using the police to combat doping associated crimes), and b) of polishing the image of sport for potential commercial partners.

CB

In reply to mark s:


He is a cheat as far as an army of fans are concerned. He maintained a lie about needles and he maintained a lie about the 'need' for his TUEs. That is not the behaviour they are expecting from their 'Mr Clean'.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks: "I go back and forth if I'm honest"

I suspect if he was French, we would all be saying he was a cheat, but he's a Brit and Knight and everyone has invested a lot of time convincing themselves and believing everything Team Sky told them because we are British, and we play by the rules. Ergo, we are clutching at every straw we can to say he has acted withing the rules because otherwise, our cycling dominance looks to be on dodgy ground.

In reply to GrahamD:


Do you speak for this army? Let's not pretend we speak for others when we express our personal opinions.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

My view would be exactly to the same if it was Romain Bardet, Warren Barguil or Thibaut Pinot. I guess I might be slightly more suspect if it was Thomas Voeckler.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

There's definitely a bias for riders of a home country. I really don't want to fall into the Armstrong trap of being so desperate for a story to be true that we can ignore any evidence that contradicts it.

I don't think we'll ever know whether he took the drug as a performance boost, as a medication or perhaps a bit of both.

Personally I think publishing TUEs but under an anonymous system would help the transparency of the sport. So for example we could have seen that rider 132 is taking a steroid injection before grand tours and people could decide before the race if they're watching the real thing or not instead of after.

In reply to The New NickB:

Just a hunch, but I'm thinking if Brad was narrowly beaten by a foreign rider who later turned out to have had muscular injections of a powerful steroid for asthma before the races which he had denied ever having used a needle or having asthma, then a lot more people over here would be screaming "cheat" rather than defending it as totally legitimate behaviour within the rules.

Having read a lot of press and comment and spoken to a few medical types...

I think Wiggins is guilty of hubris - he played the clean card a bit too forcefully.

He's not guilty of doping. A few medics I have spoken to have said that a single intramuscular injection has been an accepted treatment for severe asthma and allergy suffers for years. It's being replaced with less intrusive, more efficacious treatments, but it's a recognised treatment nonetheless.

Travis Tygart has gone on record to say he does not think Wiggins or Sky undertook anything illegal or performance enhancing.

The questions are:

1) did Sky / Wiggins do anything that was in breach of UCI / WADA / UKAD regulations. The answer is no

2) did they do anything that was "underhand"? If the protocol was followed, As Brailsford says, with a Dr's initial recommendation and approval from 3 medics at the UCI then no.

3) Was there a more cynical use of the injection. Possibly, though i think the intent was treatment not enhancement.

4) I think we need to be led by the medical community on this one, not bitter ex dopers or even Millar - who I like but should stick to designing hats.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I seem to recollect it wasn't a 'steroid' as in anabolic, but a corticosteroid which is an anti-inflammatory. And as such wouldn't have aided in physical recovery from exertion.
Only saying, as i think it seems to be the case that' Uncle Tom Cobbley' and all are suddenly experts on sports physiology/doping.
IMHO there's a case to answer for sure.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Some of us cycling fans have always assumed that Team Sky were dirty, given their ownership.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

If we allow that Wiggins TUE was to treat an illness, with a possible performance enhancing benefit, but still think it should be banned. What about other "treatments". For example Contador's bandage on his after the Veulta crash. Should this have been banned as it was probably performance enhancing, as he wouldn't have been able to race without it.

Many treatments for valid medical conditions may also be performance enhancing. Should all treatments be banned? Maybe a better approach would be to declare publicly all medical treatments that riders receive.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

the only bit that raises alarm bells now is that there are many athletes who never seemed to have a long history of asthma, now being given steroids as treatment. It seems like everyone is at it, so it's still a level playing field, if all are allowed TUEs.

In reply to lummox:

Ha, maybe...who knows? That's the problem with the whole sport. It's pushing the level of human endurance to coffin corner so my default setting is to be suspicious which I find hard to shake.

In reply to lummox:

Much I dislike Murdoch snr, dirty doings are not the preserve of octagenarian free marketeers.

Plenty of your socialist utopias perfected the art of giving 14 yr old girls larger and hairier bollox than yours

In reply to The New NickB:


Actually its not my personal opinion since I wouldn't have classed myself as a Wiggins fan, but what's your view ? all those people who voted for hinm on SPOTY - you think they would do that now knowing he lied about using needles and he lied about his health either to get the TUE or in his autobiography.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:




That seems to contradict the guidance published on indications for that treatment posted by other contributors to these threads.


And other medics and sports scientists have expressed concern.



Unless they lied or exaggerated symptoms. Wiggins says in his book that he was healthy leading up to the 2012 Tour. He'd also won a shit-tonne of prestigious races in the lead-up. Hardly the presentation of a man needing a treatment indicated following hospitalisation from the symptoms of asthma. Also suspicious that he only seemed to have the most severe symptoms before his big race of the year, even when that race was in a different country at a different time of the year.


See above. Although Brailsford's would describe it as a "process", about 8000 times...


There is more evidence of the latter than the former, although we can't know. Plus, the intention becomes almost irrelevant if the effect is the same - there is a good chance that he did have his performance enhanced by it whether he intended to or not, which taints his victory. There's a good reason why the MPCC teams don't allow their riders to compete on corticosteroids. And, indeed, a good reason why they're banned in competition.


Millar is quite arrogant but a thoughtful and intelligent guy with a passion for the sport and extremely relevant knowledge. He knows what he's talking about. You can't quote "the medical community" as if it's one voice on the issue, because it clearly isn't. What the "bitter ex dopers" say about racing with triamcinolone accords exactly with my experiences with prednisolone, another corticosteroid, so I'm inclined to give it some weight.

In reply to GrahamD:

I suspect most would not care Graham, outside of cycling fans.

Given typical half time treatment in a football match is enough to get a cyclist banned for life, a couple of "hayfever shots" won't cause a murmur...

In reply to wilkesley:



I think the issue there is the specificity of the treatment. If you put a cast on a broken leg, you're treating the symptoms. If you inject someone with triamcinolone, you're subjecting their whole body to a range of effects, some of which enhance performance.

In reply to GrahamD:

I reckon most people won't scrutinise the facts enough to make an informed opinion, and will think it's all above board if they liked him, as we've seen on these threads already.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

Wouldn't take much for them to be bigger than mine John. However, I think Rupe's dirty shennanigans are somewhat more recent than East Germany's, given it hasn't existed for over a quarter of century.

In reply to lummox:

I doubt old git could pick Brailsford out of a line up.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:


I suspect that the people who would care most about being misled about needles ("no needles" actually means some needles and "I had no problems with my health prior to the TdF in 2012" means actually I required fairly drastic asthma/hayfever treatment prior to the TdF) are precisely the people who don't follow cycling and saw Wiggo as just a breath of fresh air. Looks a bit same old same old cover ups in cycling looked at with laypersons eyes.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


I'm not talking about whether the TUE was above board, though. I'm talking about the 'clean, no needles' image. Irrespective of whether it was within the rules or not, it wasn't done in a squeeky clean open manner - which then leaves open the question in people's minds of what else we don't know. Neither Brailsford or Wiggins when interviewed could answer why "No Needles" didn't mean no needles or why there was not a hint of this serious condition in the autobiography. At best its very bad PR.

In reply to GrahamD:

I agree. BW covered some of the issues in his interview, but in an extremely unconvincing manner, and DB just swerved them. DB basically told us what the process was for getting a TUE. 2 seconds on the Internet can tell you that.

In reply to The New NickB:


And what is your view?

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:










Disagree with all except your last point.

Specifically, concerning 3): Not at all plausible. If his condition merited IM depot injections he would have been hospitalized beforehand. Wada rules state that the minimal therapeutic intervention must always be pursued, but choosing this treatment was the nuclear option for the alleged "hay fever".

and more importantly, 1) and 2) combined: Banging on about Sky or BW not breaking any rules completely misses the point. Sky did not even have to to break any rules themselves as long as they were confident that the tame TUEC panel would do this for them. At least on of the TUEs is in direct contravention of WADAs own rules guiding asthma/allergy treatment and should thus never have been approved by the TUEC (unless the true purpose of the procedure was sticking a legal fig leaf on PED abuse, which unfortunately seems to be the case)

CB

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


My view is that without detailed knowledge of the probity of the process that Sky went through and the controls in place by the UCI and WADA it is all speculation. Those are not questions that can be answered with the information currently publicly available, or by second guessing medical advice. As things stand, Wiggins acted in accordance with the rules and so did not cheat.

In reply to cb294:

Chris Froome has just tweeted his position on it, which in essence is that until the procedure for TUEs is tightened up, it's up to the riders to follow the spirit of the rules.

I've just been re-reading passages of BW's book. He is so explicit in his statements about his good health leading up to the Tour, it defies belief that he can now claim to have been suffering so badly with allergies and asthma that he needed a treatment only indicated in the most severe cases.

"There had been no upsets, no major setbacks, barely a day's training lost for any reason, which is rare when you are pushing your body hard for nine months. There had been two glitches, but they were not big ones"

The more I research it and think about it, the more I'm convinced it all stinks, which is a real shame.

In reply to The New NickB:


You don't think there's enough information available to make an informed opinion? Do you find it suspicious at all?

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:





I hadn't heard of him, so I googled his name and BW and his name with Team Sky and the most recent thing it came up with was from 2012. I did however read something he'd said about the potential to abuse the TUE system.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
Suspicious that there isn't enough information?

Or suspicious that TUEs are used?

In the first instance it's a leak, I don't expect the full picture.

In the second, I'm not surprised at all. It comes down to the controls, which we don't have full knowledge of.

In reply to The New NickB:

Suspicious that BW's TUEs were for more than clinically indicated control of a legitimate medical condition. Suspicious that he and/or Team Sky manipulated the TUE system to get an unfair advantage.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I think I covered that with regard to second guessing medical advice.

In reply to The New NickB:


You're ducking it then?

In reply to The New NickB:


And that is where you are wrong. The whole point of the TUECs, and the detailed written guidance they receive, is to avoid a free for all "just because the doctor ordered it". It is their job to second guess medical advice. Since the committees are apparently not up to this job and cannot be trusted, one has to do the second guessing oneself.

Fortunately, the interviews, leaks and autobiographies make spotting inconsistencies and outright lies rather easy. I do not even know for sure that BW received the depot injection he got the TUE for, FWIW he may have used the TUE to mask continuous inhalation throughout the tour. I don't even need to know what happened exactly, but the fact that there is a dodgy TUE vindicates my suspicion that Sky is not as squeaky clean as claimed (although my first bet from simply looking at their riders would have been some novel metabolic regulator similar to the highly toxic AICAR stuff tried by others a few years earlier).

CB

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


No, I'm going off the evidence available. Unlike some on this thread I'm not assuming things I don't know.

In reply to The New NickB:

You seem to be ignoring the solid medical evidence provided that this injection was way, way over the top for the problems it was prescribed for.

In reply to The New NickB:

Suspicion - a feeling or thought that something is possible, likely or true. It's not the same as proven beyond reasonable doubt. I can't help thinking if you assess the totality of the evidence - the timing of the TUEs, the nature of the treatment, the guidance available on when that treatment should be used, the views of other experts including his former team doctor, the content of his book, his racing history in the season prior to the Tour, the information provided by former pros, the interviews given recently by DB and BW - and it doesn't arouse suspicion it shows a surprising lack of curiosity.

In reply to The New NickB:

Did you also close wilfully close your eyes and ears, and sing along to the mantra of "no positive tests" when the net was slowly tightening around Armstrong? Maybe even after the positive retests of the old, orphan b samples?

There is a difference between carefully evaluating evidence, which would be commendable, and throwing everything out that points in a direction you do not like.

Cycling is one of the sports I love, but it cannot remotely be trusted. I used to hope for a clean restart after every single scandal, from Festina to Armstrong, but have essentially given up. We still have teams with the track record of Astana around, and Sky merely appears to be a different flavour.

CB

In reply to GrahamD:


I am a Wiggins fan. I still am. In truth I suspect that all true cycling fans know in their heart of hearts that their "heros" are on something. What they hope and pray for is that they aren't on something illegal or doing something illegal. If I can accept oxygen tents and high altitude training then I can also accept TUE's but I agree that I would like transparency.

So when I read Bradley's book I took it with a pinch of salt. And I can somewhat understand why he chose to "lie" about the no needles and TUE's because, while he was playing within the rules, to try to explain some of the nuances of those rules to a generally ignorant public might just backfire. So why bother to expose yourself to potential critisism when there is no real incentive to do so? (I accept the irony of this now)

Am I dissappointed? Hell yes. But only because something I've suspected all along has now been exposed. That they aren't doing this on 3 pints of IPA and a bacon butty (like I try to do) and that the ability to perform at this level requires something a little more exotic than what a good dietician can provide.

I can't believe that Nairo Quintana won the Vuelta without a little help and while Chris Froome's TUE's might appear to be more palatable they still involve him taking a banned substance that might have performance enhancing properties.

So I don't buy this "Bradley is a cheat" shit because you can only call him one if you speculate about his motives. His mistake is in not owning the TUE but who knows what instructions he was placed under or what direction he was given.

In reply to The New NickB:

My son would like to have you as his Dad. He would have a field day nicking biscuits, sweets and hiding the remote so I can't turn the telly off.....

Crumbs around his mouth? Not enough evidence to come to any conclusions . We simply don't have an accurate account of number of biscuits in tin this morning to make a solid judgement.
Chair moved to below cupboard where sweets are kept out of reach? Possibly a poltergeist or the dog moved it.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

That made me laugh)))

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:





I blame the parents.

In reply to MG:

No, I'm just not second guessing it. There are medical professionals also saying that it isn't a particularly unusual treatment and not having details of the case made by the specialist that BW saw, or BWs symptoms I'm not going to make assumptions without more information.

In reply to The New NickB:

Touche

In reply to cb294:
I'm not closing my eyes. The Festina stuff was before my time, but I was suspicious of Armstrong, but then there was much more evidence of actual rule breaking.

In reply to Removed User:


AFAIK he said that the book was ghost written and he didn't proof read it, so it wasn't him choosing to lie, it was the ghost writer being ill-informed (both about the no-needles and him not being ill apart from colds).

Anyway, I wouldn't buy one of his bikes from halfords, they were probably ghost-designed and he's lied about the frame weight....................

In reply to The New NickB:


can you provide a link to that?

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:


Couple of references to it on the other Wiggins thread.

My main point is that without details of the exact case made, we are guessing and whilst some people seem happy to guess, I'm not. I'd like to know more though.

In reply to The New NickB:

are you sure? i only had time to do a quick skim, so i may have missed them; but the only links i could find were Yanis' to Jeroen Swart expressing concern over it; cb's showing that it would not have been allowed by WADA for asthma at all; and mine, to various guidelines and articles which showed that, while technically allowed in clinical practice for hayfever, it was restricted to unusual circumstances, and frowned upon even in these by a literature review.

i don't think i've seen any doctor expressing anything other than surprise and concern over it; which is why i'd be interested to see one that did, and the reasons that were given.

as to Wiggins' individual circumstances- none of us know, and so its fruitless speculating in this area. All we can do it look at whether the treatment as described is one that is used in clinical practice these days to any extent, or whether it represents something from a previous era that still exists, but is no longer done. The links i cited seem to point in the direction of the latter, but i don't really know- hence a link to a supportive doctor explaining why depot steriods for hayfever was an unusual, but nevertheless routine, treatment, outside the context of athletes preparing for major sporting events, would be interesting to read about.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

I've just been through the other thread, the references I thought were there weren't, I must have read them elsewhere, so apologies for that. A number of medical guidance sites are suggesting the use of injected corticosteroids for asthma and allergies, mainly US and Australian for the English language sites, including for moderate cases or just asthma that is not under control. This doesn't prove anything apart from that fact that it is possibly not as unconventional a treatment as it is being portrayed by some.

Personally I want details of the case made by the specialist Wiggins saw, who was it for a start, but also his / her reasoning. I also want details of the approval process that the UCI followed and any input that WADA may have had in the process.

In reply to The New NickB:



Look at the links at the bottom of the other thread, some of this is answered in a way I find unbelievable: Approval of TUE before the examination, or so far for before the actual administration of the drug that the TUE actually named an already completed tour!

CB

In reply to The New NickB:


Either he took it to gain an advantage, in which case he broke the rules. Or he didn't. So, as things stand, you don't know whether he acted in accordance with the rules.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:
He either had approval to take the medication or he didn't. We know the answer to that.

The checks and balances in place where suitably robust or they where not. We don't know the answer to that.

In reply to The New NickB:



He either lied and exaggerated his symptoms or not. We don't know that either, but his his book and pre-Tour race results are pretty illuminating.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

youtube.com/watch?v=__3GGrBFIlQ&

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


So you are assuming he did.

I've just read the link in the other thread, if true it certainly raises questions about the probity of the process. The doesn't actually provide any evidence to back it up, hopefully it can either be verified or proved to be incorrect.

In reply to The New NickB:


Yes, but still, he either cheated or he didn't. Having approval is something you might see as evidence suggesting he didn't cheat - but it doesn't prove that he didn't.

Your argument is like saying that if someone takes a dive and wins a penalty then he's not cheated because the ref approved it.


Sure. But that's besides the point. Even the most 'robust' checks and balances will not work all the time. Regardless of how robust said checks and balances were, the fact remains that he either took it to gain an advantage or he didn't.

In reply to The New NickB:


Not at all. I'm saying that version looks the more likely at this point given all the available evidence.


I haven't found that info elsewhere, but if true it's extremely damning for Wada and the UCI, and in my view, for anyone who sought to take advantage of the laxness of the system.

In reply to malk:


I don't know if that link is rendering correctly on my phone- all I can see is a man with a stethoscope talking about the injection. Set against the review I linked to in the Drug and Therapeutic Bulletin, it's not very persuasive. Id need a bit more context of who he was and what organisation he worked for. ...

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:


Indeed it's weird that you could get the drug for hay fever (a pain in the arse) that is only indicated for asthma (life threatening) in the most severe cases.

http://www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/230935/Triamcinolone%20in%20adults%20Difficu...

"INDICATIONS FOR USE IN ASTHMA
1. To improve asthma control and/or act as a steroid sparing agent in patients with severe, chronic, difficult to control asthma who are not responding to high dose inhaled steroids/oral steroids (step 5 level) characterised by:

i. Continued repeat hospitalisations despite intensive treatment
ii. Objective evidence of poorly controlled asthma (E.g. FEV1<75%,
FeNO>50ppb, ACT <20)
iii. Excessive absence from work"

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

It appears from a brief search (Netdoctor) that it's not offered by the NHS for hay fever anymore because of side effects. I haven't verified that though.

In reply to The New NickB:


The asthma angle is a red herring; according to the Guardian at any rate, the TUE was for hay fever, so only guidance for that is relevant. I think depot immunosuppression for hay fever sounds pretty extreme, given the potentially very serious adverse effects of corticosteroids, speaking as a hay fever sufferers whose symptoms are poorly controlled on oral/topical treatment I would absolutely not have that for myself. The only published paper on it I found says it shouldn't be done; that doesn't preclude its use, but it does say that it's somewhat outside the mainstream as an option, and should warrant even closer scrutiny than usual.



I entirely agree with this. i accept it's still possible that an acceptable case could have been made; but given the unusual nature of the case, and the risk it poses to trust in the system of TUEs, transparency would be helpful.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Except the guidance differs quite significantly in different countries it seems.

I'm going to leave it now, at least until some more information comes out.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

It looks to me like a 'legacy issue' from prescribing habits of a different era; and that its been tightened up in asthma, but no one has got round to doing guidelines for hay fever yet. I don't know though; perhaps an allergy specialist could clarify.

Did Sky apply marginal gains theory to TUEs and find an indication for corticosteroids that was hard to disprove the need for and had escaped regulation? Or did wiggins have such unpleasant and uncontrolled rhinitis that he would have got the steroids if he'd seen his GP as a punter off the street?

I have no way of knowing; but given the implications for the TUE system, I think there should be curiosity about this.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2357775/Desperate-hay-fever-suffe...

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Ive just looked at the BNF from 2012 (wife works in a pharmacy) and is says systemic therapy with corticosteroids is required "for the emergency treatment of severe acute asthma"