http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/kohl-confi...nti-doping-labs

I would guess this might be going on a fair bit in the peloton. Unbelievable.

Evidently we saw the news and had the same reaction at the same time ("Quick! Go to DPF!" )

Can't say I'm shocked. Didn't Jorg Jaksche say something to this effect? Perhaps it's Kohl's honesty that's so startling.

I think this changes a lot of the good guys wear white and bad guys wear black a la Old spaghetti western mentality tht passes for analysis of the doping issue in sports around these parts, pardner.
So its not exactly clear then who are the good guys and bad guys.


Lets see, sooooo, if you are saying the inside lab officials can be bought, and their work cant necessarily be trusted, where does that put us with a few American big names who have been popped?

Just for starters.

This does appear hard for some posters to understand, but let's try again.

The bad guys are the ones that do the drugs and those that help them.

When they get caught, they have to pay. This is why people like CC settle lawsuits out of court by paying money.

Sometimes those that do the drugs pay a LOT of money to organizations like the UCI to avoid getting caught. Paying labs to test dopers to help them refine their detectability window isn't new news.

Dave.

Just to be clear, Kohl didn't say the testers who test race samples were bought, he said they bribed other labs to test his samples so they would know how much they could inject without being caught when riding the Tour (or other races). I didn't glean from the article that the lab testing Tour (or any other race) samples was bribed.

This puts "a few American big names who have been popped" right in the same place: as dopers who got caught.

I'm sure this practice isn't new.

And, this practice requires that the labs perform admirably - at least as well as any other lab - in doing what their staff and equipment are cabable of doing; spotting the drugs.

If this practice works, ipso facto the labs work properly.

Dave.

Exactly - if the labs were fundementally flawed wouldn't the cheaters know that and go right to the WADA-accredited labs? I'd like to see the cliental list for the labs that Kohl was using - maybe some of those "witch-hunted/pure-as-the-driven-snow American" riders might have some explaining to do...

There may be truth in what he says but honesty ain't one of his virtues.

If it were, he would hardly have succeeded as a pro cyclist, now would he?

So if you dope and aren't caught or are caught but don't admit to it then it's OK in your eyes? Still having a really, really hard time getting my head around your logic. You continuously say that LeMond was a doper, yet offer exactly zero in the way of even circumstantial proof, yet when a rider confesses and names names AND offers up the first substantial evidence into what many have long suspected, you completely discount him - help me out....

So would you prefer Kohl to shut up and be dishonest or tell what he knows and be dishonest?

So extending this analogy, you would have no issues with organized crime bribing police to find out what tactics may be used against them, and thus give them a competitive advantage over other criminals, while, at the same time, incenting the police to seek out the mob's competition so that the mob is successful and can pay them more money?

You seem to have very rose-colored lenses that only enable you to see only cyclists as bad guys, and the others with only singular motives. I'm sure these lab workers were 100% pure as the driven snow in all the other work they did.

BTW - want to buy some land in Florida?

...Kohl said he had two samples tested, one for EPO and one for testosterone. "Then I knew: I can inject so-and-so much of each substance."

The illegally tested samples were designed to help the athletes determine the dosages for "micro-dosing". As Kohl explained: "You know exactly which dose you need in the evening so that the stuff won't be traceable the next morning."...

Obviously the template to follow if you're tired of being tired.

Are we actually talking about labs being corrupt outside of France? Aren't we to assume it's corrupt individuals who can be bought cheap by undermining their place of employment?











What might help Kohl to appear honest would be to talk about his future aspirations. Cause right now he's saying nothing and continues to be despicable.

Do you mean about any future plans to ride again? He has already announced he won't come back and considers himself retired from the sport.

Susan

Sorry, Steve, but this comes across as a very heavy-handed response.

Moreover, this comes across as a direct attack on me as you are very clearly trying to put words in my mouth. And, I do not appreciate it. And, of course, you are completely wrong.

It appears that the only people posting here with rose-colored glasses are those that naively believe their heroes are innocent. The rest appear to be part of a concerted cover-up campaign. And that is hardly a rosey view.

However, that you have posted on this does remind me of the ongoing disagreement about making lab audit results public. Knowing how the labs work, and looking for any cracks in the veneer, is exactly what Kohl's statements refer to.

So, while I continue to respect your call for openness, I still hold to the argument that certain things must be kept out of the hands of those who are explicitly looking for any way to exploit them.


Only where you work?

Dave.

The key facts are that the anti-doping labs performed illegal tests for money. Tests which they would have known actually aided doping cyclists. That's not just corrupt, it's hypocritical and immoral.

Just trying to correctly characterise the anti-doping labs here.

I guess my mistake in the past was to assume obviously sloppy and invalid lab work as a sign of incompetence. Turns out it was quite possibly satotage. Six and half a dozen, I guess. Same result.

No, I think it comes across as dead accurate and uncomfortable for you since it summarizes your two posts pretty neatly.

And coming from someone who puts words in other's mouths all the time here, well, I'll just let you explain exactly how an analogy is a direct attack. Probably seems like one because you got caught out.

But I'm wrong, because you said so!



This is that part that is completely wrong. Kohl wasn't interested in how the labs did their work. He was interested in what he could get away with, and he did it be reverse-engineering: sending them samples he knew to be contaminated and bribing them to test them (through his agent - plausible deniability!).

So while I continue to respect your opinion that certain things must be kept from the proles because Bad! Things! May! Happen!, I've yet to see a demonstration of them actually happening.

UPDATE: One more thought: How exactly does releasing the results of the intra-lab blind testing tell an athlete how to cheat the system? It's just a list of results (who detected what in which sample), not methods.

So yeah, I think that there's some magenta-hued viewing going on here if you (and to a lesser extent Tom T.) think that the people willing to accept bribes to run covert anti-doping tests (and participate in a program to avoid doping detection) wouldn't do other things to help continue getting funded by the rider's who are bribing them.

Question for Hombre, Ali, and vp: does the "sloppy and incompetent" lab work and the corrupt labs etc etc only apply to certain American riders, or also to Valverde, DiLuca, Vino, Schumacher, Ricco, etc? Just wondering.

I truly struggle to see how anyone's nationality has anything to do with this disturbing and despicable development.

That there are labs and people willing to do this is not surprising. That it was so cheap is. Begs the question which labs?

Er, I'm assuming that folks here actually read the article:

"In addition, Matschiner said that these forbidden tests were done in labs in central Europe. According to Kurier, labs in that region are in Prague, Czech Republic; Cologne and Kreischa, Germany; Lausanne, Switzerland; and Seibersdorf, Austria. Kurier reported that the Austrian lab was not involved, and Kohl said that he did not know which lab tested his samples."

It is left as an exercise for the reader to observe and compare:

http://www.wada-ama.org/en/dynamic.ch2?pageCategory.id=333

ZKYDKY:
Exactly. +1, as they say.

I don't understand your condemnation at all. You can't single him out for doing things most of the cyclists are doing. Nor can you criticize him for speaking out about his doping regimen. The fact that he is still lifting the veil on current doping practices while continuing to be a target for the cycling world's outrage takes a lot courage.

Thank goodness for the Berni Kohls & Jorg Jaksches who shed light on the shadowy underworld of doping. Cycling owes them respect & gratitude, not character assassination.

And we should remember the old days, when the Manzano's, Delion's, Basson's, Gaumont's, even more recently Wiggins, etc were shunned and demonized for saying pretty much the same as what the Kohl's and Jaksche's are saying today. It's good to see that riders are no longer afraid to speak up.

Does "anti-doping lab" equal "WADA lab"...?

Isn't Dave saying that the lab processes are apparently accurate enough to help riders calculate dosages (when bribed), which is an argument that the labs are in fact capable of accurate testing? Which supports the idea that positive tests are trustworthy. I didn't think he was saying it's appropriate for them to be doing this. Bribed lab employees, are, I agree, very worrying, though I doubt there are employees bribed to produce a positive test; the b sample is highly likely to be tested by someone else, making this very risky for the bribe taker.

Sounds to me like anti-doping legislation and /or WADA rules needs to include the testing for banned substances outside of sanctionned testing. But I imagine that might be problematic because labs need to test blood and urine for epo and other doping agents for legitimate reasons. What a tangled web we weave...

All the while, cycling organizations fail (with some exceptions) to present a positive alternative to cheating.

Sigh.

edited for clarity

No Steve, I never said they wouldn't do other things to keep getting funded—of course they would if they're already taking bribes. And has it been established that these labs used by Kohl are otherwise involved with cycling? The only conclusion I reached from the article is that Kohl used these labs to help him determine how much he could inject without getting caught, and it obviously didn't work. I also think it's probably a common approach among the more well-funded top riders.

It looks like the labs that Kohl paid off to determine max levels for micro-dosing did some "sloppy and incompetent" work during that little exercise.

Does he get a refund?

Or perhaps it worked well until CERA came on the scene.

I guess there may be other symptomatic behaviour which highlights those labs which may indulge in this practice ... you know, things like routinely failing to follow the rules and leaking results to the media ?

Now, it would appear that such practice may not have been due to an overzealous desire to out dopers, but a response to a bulging brown envelope discretely slipped across the desktop. Absolute class !

Classic!

So a doper paying labs to test his samples to help him beat the tests suddenly becomes this widespread conspiracy where someone bribes a lab to spike a sample to result in a positive result.

Suddenly it's so obvious...

Or they just screwed up.


It's the only reasonable explanation for Armstrong's six EPO positives, Hamilton's various positives, and Landis' positives. Well, the only explanation other than that those guys were doping.

Steve - I am confident that if I were putting words in other people's mouths I would be taken to task for it. But, as you have now accused me of this (no question mark, no conditional tense) could you please explain the double - and unprovoked - attack?

As for rose-colored glasses - I have argued with virtually everyone here, including folks like Lister - and do not shy away from raising concern over obvious conflicts of interest (e.g. Scott) in those that promote themselves as anti-doping facilitators, yet appear to be anything but. If I can be criticized, it is almost certainly more along the lines of if/where there is evidence of some foul play I will typically comment on it.


Thanks Lister.

The fact that, for example, ASO took matters into their own hands, and away from the UCI, during the '08 Tour and actually nabbed a few folks is also part of the problem. It appeared to be a partial solution, but only exposed a bigger part of the problem. That there are black and gray activities going on here is no surprise (whether some choose to read this part of my post or not).

I am also hoping that RH might weigh in here.

(not for taking sides, but to offer further insight... lest anyone <ahem> be confused)

The idea that non-WADA 'anti-doping' labs and programs has been a source of fundamental concern about all of the independent programs. (Has it not?) This goes back to at least Willy Voet and the fact that Festina was lending the testing authorities its equipment.

RH has posted on this topic frequently and eloquently.

The lab/commercial activity that has thus far caused the greatest eyebrow raising is/was ACE. But, there have been and continue to be questions about Damsgaard. Though it is not possible to determine if those assertions are well-founded or part of a campaign that seeks to establish credibility of known or probably dopers by smearing others.

Dave.

I just sent these guys an email .....analyses@afld.fr

I told them to come out of the lab and give up now! A six pack of Saint Arnolds and myself have them surrounded. I am currently eating a red lobster and waiting for a reply!

Hey Kiwi, I did read it. I just didn't know if that meant they were some kind of local lab that had nothing to do with anything, or if they were labs that the UCI or WADA uses. I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of how the testing system works.

I think Steve is saying that there are accredited labs in the areas mentioned--still not sure if they're the same labs.

I wonder how Matschiner knew which labs were amenable to payments.

Don't you mean "they were American"? Still haven't heard from Ali et al about their spirited defense of non-'merican speaking riders who were obviously framed by bribed and/or incompetent labs...

Ali (VP; Hombre), you guys there?

Yeah, I was a bit confused too as to whether they were necessarily WADA labs. From the list posted by Steve there is a total overlap, which suggests they are one and the same. Maybe there are other labs, though.

Hmm, other labs -- that's an idea. Could any medical lab perform tests for EPO & testosterone? Like the ones your general practitioner sends your blood work to?

("Good news, Berni, you were negative for EPO, testosterone, and Lyme disease. And your cholesterol is down too!")

Yes, but he misses the other side of the coin. The supposition that I read (and I'm perfectly willing to be wrong here) is that we should implicitly trust the labs, that the ridres are the bad actors here, and I think that that is 50% wrong. There is the additional problem that, if this story is true, that WADA-accredited labworkers aremay be involved in this. And that those workers have incentive to then ensure a continued supply of cash by fudging other tests of competitors who don't pay them covertly to test samples. It appeared to me that he hand-waved over all of that: let's just go get the riders.

And "offer a positive alternative to cheating?" There's one of two or three (or several together) things going on here: riders know there is cheating, and thus feel justified to cheat; riders are cheating and feel guilty about it; and/or riders are not cheating and feel cheated. I don't think education is the answer here: the fact that people cheat (and in all sorts of ways besides doping) has been occurring since two humans raced out of the primordial ooze. I hardly think that grown men need to know that the alternative to cheating is not cheating. The problem is that they'd be (in at least some cases) not cheating without a job racing bicycles - and they don't have the moral character to say "If that's what it takes to not cheat, then so be it."

I wouldn't want to be defending the lab workers too overtly here, but how are they going to get a continued supply of cash by fudging (assuming you mean false positives) other tests?

Who's paying them to do this?

He seems a bit lost and reckless. IMO his motivation affects his credibility. Presently there is nothing to his words but a few vague tidbits that reflect poorly on him and damage the reputation of all labs because of a lack of specifics.

Why he claims so many labs were involved in providing a couple of parameters to mask doping doesn't add up.





Kohl as anti-doping crusader doesn't seem genuine. So what's he doing?

Rider A pays you to help him avoid doping detection. Rider B does not.

When rider A's and Rider B's sample comes in to your lab, who's going to test positive if you have a reasonable chance of identifying the samples (say, one comes in one day after Stage 3 that rider A won, and the other came in one day after stage 8, which rider B won). With one test, you eliminated some of rider A's competition, thus making him more profitable, and ensuring that when new drug C comes out, and he want's to know if there is a test for it, he'll pay you for that information. And how to avoid the test (by testing his new samples!).

The mafia analogy is apt: It's from real-life. Bribed cops in Chicago would get marching orders to hinder the rival families / gangs businesses to make the briber's more profitable.

Simple point.

If these labs took money from any outside source to do any testing to either aid in doping or look the other way etc.,,,,,EVERYTHING they touch from then forward is useless crap.

The End.

I was thinking more about planting (and tending) the thought that riding clean is desirable, vs naive. We all had to be taught the myth that fighting-cancer-makes-you-holy, and the one about caring about your dog makes you a good guy.

In fact, just about any major social effect rests on a myth that is widely accepted, be it a pop star, the american dream, or even democracy. I think we need reminders that that clean competition is what is desireable and honorable, and makes money, so that idea (ok, myth, I admit it, you're right about the history of cheating) isn't forgotten. Is that really any more hokey or unrealistic than personifying the fight against cancer or that loving your dog makes you trustworthy?

I seem to recall another rider using a similar vaguely worded smear approach re: labs after he got popped for 6 positives. Guess it really does all depend on the individual in question.

I'm not for one moment suggesting that nobody dopes. That would be absurd. The problem now is that how can we have any confidence in the results claimed by scientific "guns for hire". For example, why was Dick Pound so outspoken before the testing process in the Landis case was complete. In fact, if Landis hadn't been found guilty, Pound would no doubt have been forced to resign. Hmm, the head of WADA requiring a certain outcome from a WADA lab to retain his reputation and career ... purely conjecture of course, but given that WADA labs accept bribes to support dopers, one could conclude that doing a favor for the head of their accreditating body would be ... a no brainer ?

No, but I believe in those things, so you run smack up against eh question of "How do you instill a belief in a person." And I think it starts much earlier than when a rider enters the peloton (or even racing for that matter), and is incredibly hard to de-program. Win-at-any-cost comes very early in some peoples life, and stay around for a long time through societal pressure (quick: who finished 2nd in the super bowl last year? A: the first loser! We have all kinds of derision around finishing second in this world. If you don't believe me, look at what Armstrong got for finishing third.) I don't see this changing at all let alone anytime soon, therefore, a better system, both of reward and punishment, has to come to the fore. The continual escalation of the doping / anti-doping war is not working. The Slipstream / Columbia models seem to offer some hope, but there are many who are so cynical that there is doubt as to exactly going on there as well. And that continues to further the problem as well.

Big difference between side testing for dosage adjustment and faking a positive. The second is much, much harder to do.