Peter Bol's doping suspension lifted - B sample comes back "atypical"

What’s clear is that these tests stink and people should not be at risk for losing their livelihood and reputation using such a questionable technology. I get that everybody wants a zero tolerance policy for doping, but if your tools for enforcement are this lame, that serves nobody. Again, was there anything about Bol’s passport to suggest doping? If the exogenous epo is helping a person cheat, then there should be aberrations of the passport values.

It's been explained several times before. Read this https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/td2022epo_v1.0_final_eng.pdf

These tests don't stink. Here it is unfortunate that it was leaked so early in the process, but we still don't know whether Bol was the first one to leak it or not. So far nobody found an earlier statement from anyone.

Think of the tests as regular spectroscopy that many here will have encountered as undergrads. Each substance has its own peaks, many of which overlap. Sometimes even the peak intensity ratio is not always the same, but it has so many clear applications.

This uncertainty in borderline cases of course helps the doper. If a lawyer can find a scientist disagreeing with the "subjective" analysis, the doper gets off.

Here we have an positive result (AAF) and one questionable one (ATF). So for now, Bol gets no repercussions, but will get heavily tested in the future.

Maybe easier to understand is a comparison with a substance like nandrolone. Image test A of person X results in 2.2 ng/mL. That would be an AAF because it's over 2.0 ng/mL (if not pregnant etc.). Then test B results in 1.8 ng/mL (Shelby's two values were 5.2 and 5.8 IIRC, clear case: both way above the border). The 1.8 would an ATF. Consequence for person X: nothing for now, just more testing in the future.

But it would be difficult for a neutral observer, let alone an anti-doping official, to not consider person X as suspect.

Okay great so 1) first test is deemed as positive and the reason for this is botched testing and 2) the second test is atypical and presumably not botched because it was done possibly with him and/or representatives of his in attendance, and that this is enough to exonerate him? Nothing to see here or this poor guy was the victim of bad/improper testing at least once and when it was done right it was abnormal compared to regular urine? What am I missing here

“Think of the tests as regular spectroscopy that many here will have encountered as undergrads. Each substance has its own peaks, many of which overlap. Sometimes even the peak intensity ratio is not always the same, but it has so many clear applications.”

Oh, I’ve spent plenty of time in the lab and the epo assays seem pretty poor. The bottom line, there’s just not enough of a difference between endogenous and exogenous epo for the assays to have good performance characteristics in light of the severity of the consequences of an adverse finding.

What we are left with is the kids who were bad at science in school all think the doping tests are flawless cause that type of stuff was always like magic essentially and the brainiacs were always right so no need to question them.

The sciencey types who are just interested in this stuff in general and will read up on their own all understand the EPO test is rather a sh*tshow when you consider it's results can ruin a man's reputation and career.

Lord. I don't want to presume innocence now, but what are we supposed to even do? One positive, the other Atypical, that sounds like guilt to me.

Again, I will reiterate that we need a Floyd Landis. I'm sick of being suspicious of every athlete at every level and every performance. Just someone tell the truth.

But it sounds like you're only satisfied if the truth is similar to track being as rife with doping as cycling. What if the truth is that it isn't?

Seeing as the timeline of when the information is in question, I will clarify.

Pete was informed in person of the positive A sample on Tuesday Jan 10th around 8am 9where they asked him to hand over his phone and laptop, which he did).

I had just walked in to the Australian Open to watch the tennis on Friday Jan 20th around 10:30, when I got a phone advising that Athletics Australia was going to release the information re the A sample in 30min. (11:00) They then said 12:00, but nothing came out. I got phones calls from the press from 3:00pm onwards asking me to comment on AA’s press release (which hadn’t yet come out) and they were reading what the release was going to say. AA’s offical response came out around 4:47.

Pete released his statement shortly after, as we clearly had enough time to prepare one, given it was 5hrs after being given the heads up. I followed that up with my comments on the news.

At no point in time did we say we were confident of the B sample coming back with another result, all we ever said is that we are confident that he has never taken EPO and that the testing results must be wrong. We knew nothing about the testing process at the time of those comments.

I saw a lot of statements that were alluding to the fact that you were all waiting for the B-sample, and that (because he's of course never taken anything illegal) will prove his innocence.

Everyone that's been around the sport for any length of time knows that the B-sample being different from the A-sample is a massive hail mary, so the confidence that was shown that it would make a difference was a surprise to me. Usually there's an acceptance that the B-sample would confirm the A and then the usual route is to go down the 'cross contamination from a supplement' or some sort of sabotage defence.

People in the camp knew that they could get him off on a technicality. Makes you wonder whether certain people were aware that this was something that could possibly happen even before the first positive test and they were fully prepared legally to question the legitimacy of the EPO test. Particularly with his manager's history with positive A-samples.

You just went there lol.

Anyway, maybe going out of their way to ensure everything done is above board so they can't be accused of racism, especially by our race obsessed American cousins.

What a joke, mate!

It's posts like this that show why tabloids are so successful.

You and others like you on this thread don't want the truth (whatever it may be); you want him to be guilty.

You would have been very popular in England during the Middle Ages.

That seems totally screwed up that Athletics Australia would release that information. What is the purpose if a positive test has not yet been confirmed? That is damaging to the athlete's reputation.

Who would have access to AA info?

Who has a press background and would know to whom to pass along info prior to any AA release?

Who would benefit by besmirching Bol/Rinaldi?

Those who know the sport Down Under know who is an answer to all 3 questions above.

I don't know if I'm missing your point, but according to the WADA document that's floating around, at least some of the analysis is by PAGE, and PAGE is not like "regular spectroscopy." (it's not spectroscopy at all) Also, rather unlikely that "many will have encountered" spectroscopy as undergrads.

yes, it appears there is a long way to go for EPO testing. As for biological passports, a number of studies and experiments show that microdosing may not disturb baseline values so that test also has limitations.

2022 study shows that the trend to a more effective test continues,

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

EPO and the athlete biological passport: Hematological results from a placebo-controlled, boosting and microdose EPO administration in male recreational athletes - PubMed

Hematological results in the context of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) from a placebo-controlled EPO administration study are provided here. Twelve participants administered eight subcutaneous boosting doses of epoetin...

Open link

PAGE is a standard protein gel electrophoresis assay.

This text is damning from the assessment of PAGE performance:

“In the absence of a convincing alternative explanation for the observed discrepancy in the outcome of the screening and confirmation procedure, variability in assay performance needs to be considered as an explanation as well.”

What is the level of certainty that should be required to ban a person from earning a living in athletics? 90%, 95%, 99%, 99.9%, 99.99%?