I’ve been wondering to what degree other countries give random out of competition drug tests. For example, Astana was flying two seasons ago at the beginning of the season and winning everything. Do they do winter training camps in Kazakhstan with zero fear of doping controls? I wonder the same about the Colombians training in the outer reaches of their country. Or the Bahrain team training on the kings private island. Or, the UAE guys doing training camp in the UAE. The Spanish have never seemed that concerned with doping and the French or Italians haven’t been breaking doors down lately or doing police raids.
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I would infinitely prefer that police resources were directed towards making our roads safer 
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I’ve heard the same… H7379, hemaglobin booster of some sort. Available quite easily for about 50 Euros per gram, it’s a protein which would mean it starts to work instantly but use it for a long time and you can get some sort of immunity so the benefits decrease. 1g is 0.1mol, 10mmol/l blood and a normal hemaglobin level is 60mmol/l or 0.06mol/l blood so with 1g you can juice yourself up quite a bit. 1g would almost triple your hemaglobin level.
Synthetic Oxygen Carriers (SOCs) for folks who want to google and learn more. HBOCs and PFCs
This is not my field of science, but PFCs are pretty darn cool. Cool outside of athletic cheating of course.
I disagree with that assertion, especially your last paragraph.
Everyone who posts here has an ownership stake in this forum, and if I want to pop into your thread, see what you’re posting, and comment with my opinion, then I have every right to do so, as you do with mine.
My opinion is most of this is just innuendo and no better than tabloid gossip. If factual information comes out to say otherwise, about current Tour riders, then sure, I’ll buy that, but other than that, it’s just a guessing game that goes around and around in circles.
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I’ve heard it described that if you’re serious about how you go about doping the testing is nothing more than an intelligence test and not a real hindrance.
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Maybe you’ll have a better chance at your silly question if you learn that it’s COLOMBIANS not Columbians. Bye
Thank you for being the spelling police.
Wondering what doping can be hidden based on nation state is not a silly question IMO.
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I doubt it’s state sponsored but doping certainly is a worldwide phenomenon
“Colombia’s recent national champion, Aristóbulo Cala, has tested positive for doping and has been provisionally suspended by the International Cycling Union (UCI)”
This same guy won the 2017 Vuelta a Columbia, and now the top 8 from that race have all been busted for doping.
And one of their top sprinters is in trouble as well;
“Edwin Ávila has been provisionally suspended by the UCI. In a doping test, traces of boldenone were found in the Colombian sprinter from Burgos-BH. That’s an anabolic steroid”
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It can be…see The Russians as an example.
However, it can be nothing more than lax / loose doping protocols or enforcement. Spain in the early 00’s was well-known as a “safe” place to live because of that. So while it may not be “state-sponsored”, it is certainly a systemic issue in some countries.
My recollection is that Colombia is one of those countries…
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Speculation - Woods sucks at descending. Gossip - its because he’s a runner.
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I’m not sure that’s speculation
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I wasn’t claiming that ‘all’ juniors across the universe were clean.
I was simply pointing out that I currently know and have ridden with numerous incredibly strong juniors, who are absolutely NOT doping. These kids I’m talking about can’t even afford proper bikes, yet they’re now spending thousands on complex illegal cheating? Please.
Yes, MANY professional and amateur athletes cheat. However, many don’t cheat.
This constant speculation that every great performance is totally impossible is so damn tiring.
It’s usually some washed up amateur master/veteran struggling to amount to anything in cycling. They struggle to get strong. They see the numbers that exceptional athletes make and instead of being further motivated, they feel jealousy. This rampant jealousy turns to anger.
Cue the inevitable baseless speculation on the internet.
I wonder, if these sad individuals actually knew Pogacar personally. He was their life long friend. They knew his actual weight, not what was written on Wikipedia. Would this person still attack them with horrible accusations without even a sliver of actual proof?
I doubt it.
Because, without concrete evidence, it’s just mindless drivel on the internet by sad people, who for some strange reason, think it’s okay to ‘speculate’ using the persons actual name.
Speculate by all means, but calling a rider out by name?
Why aren’t these same people calling out Sepp Kuss and Wout? Both had remarkable performances recently.
Or are these people just attacking riders they don’t like?
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If you have to ask these questions, you clearly haven’t followed this thread at all.
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Thing is, though, no one’s making that argument. Super-human performance is the ante that gets you into the WT club. These guys aren’t weekend club riders who “Take All The Drugs” and turn into GC contenders. Every one there is a phenom from an early age.
Right? At the end of the day, you have to respect the right of cycling fans to not know.
I see someone who is a self described cyclist of two years telling us what is possible and not.
Pog had a few killer days, with most of his competition dropping out.
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I’m curious if you’ve read any of the in-depth confessions from the last 15 years (e.g. Hamilton’s book, etc…) If so, what changed so radically so that no top-tier rider is even tempted to use illegal enhancement? Seems a bit naive.
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I think for me, what is the threshold of what is clean and not, seeing how sports across the board aren’t tested to the same degree?
I’ve pointed out the fallacy of some of these arguments and how they don’t stand up to scientific rigor, not really worth repeating.
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