Sanctions in Professional Cycling

In 2005 the Spanish Gaurdia Civil exposed a very sophisticated network for facilitating and providing illegal performance enhancement to endurance athletes.  The so-called Operación Puerto resulted in the seizure of several dozen bags of blood intended to be transfused back to their donors or treated with performance enhancing drugs then transfused back to their donors with the intention of manipulating blood to enhance physiological performance.  The practice of autologous blood transfusions, until recently, has had no reliable test for detection.  Because no reliable test has existed until 2008 it has likely been a very popular method of cheating.  The blood lab was located and operated out of Spain.  The case implicated several athletes, many professional cyclists, and two Spanish teams.  However, little more than scandal and negative press resulted from the case because transfusing blood for performance gains is not prohibited by the Spanish government.  Despite the Spanish prosecution of the athletes involved going nowhere some professional cyclists implicated have been connected to Operación Puerto and their national sporting governments imposed bans.

One rider who has been directly connected to Operación Puerto is Alejandro Valverde.  In 2008 while participating in the Tour de France he had a short stay in Italy.  During that time Italian anti-doping authorities obtained blood and/or urine samples from which they compared Alejandro Valverde’s blood to blood samples shared by Spanish authorities.  Valverde’s DNA matched DNA of at least 1 bag of blood; proving he had at least the intention at one time to transfuse blood in order to cheat.

After the positive math with the Operación Puerto blood the Italian sporting government promptly imposed a two year ban.  Due to the jurisdiction of the case the ban is currently limited to only competition in Italy.  Any further sanctions would require the cooperation of the Spanish cyclign federation, who have not imposed any bans or pursued the issue further.

With the Tour de France soon approaching the case has gained traction in the media because the race briefly crosses the French/Italian border.  With a two-year ban from competing in Italy Valverde, who is a favorite to do well, will be excluded from arguably the biggest/most important race in the world.  The exclusion raises a larger issue of whether or not the Italian ban should be extended into a world-wide ban.

Very few of the riders associated with Operación Puerto have been handed any kind of sanctions for their alleged or proven participation.  A fact that is disappointing, but raises many issues of fairness.  One reason for the unequal treatment is the way in which sanctions are handed out.  Each rider’s respective cycling federation is responsible for pursuing santions for participating in illegal performance enhancement practices.  Many countries simply have not pursued the issue; Italy is one exception.

A recent poll on the website Velonews asking readers, “Should the Italian ban of Alejandro Valverde be extended globally?’ resulted in an ambivalent 47/53 yes/no, respectively.  The issue raises several questions a couple of which revolve around the fairness of punishments from Operación Puerto, but also the purpose of the two year bans.  One could say the ban is a punishment and deterent for the riders who cheat or are prone to cheating.  On the other hand it is also an issue of fair competition for individuals not pursuing banned methods to improve their performance.  In the former I would argue Valverde should be banned.  Very damning evidence from the DNA match associated him with the intention to cheat.  For the latter I would argue the DNA match is also suggestive of previous cheating and possible future cheating.  In the interest of fair competition he should be excluded.  Perhaps the first purpose of bans to act as deterents would prevent Sr. Valverde from pursuing blood transfusions as a way to improve performance in the future.

One Degree of Separation

As a fan of professional cycling I naturally enjoy watching races and follow the passing events in professional cycling.  As a scientist I am sometimes driven to question suspicious activity from a slightly more critical eye.  Finally, as a student I have been studying the history of illegal performance aids in professional cycling over the past 20 years.  The American cycling hero Lance Armstrong naturally comes to mind on all levels of my interest.  The history of using banned pharmaceuticals, drugs, and transfusions seemingly reached its peak in the 1990’s.  A review of champions from the Vuelta a España, Giro d’Italia, and Tour de France reveals many names that were caught during those races, during the same year as their victory while competing in other races, in previous years or had medical records released showing abnormal changes in biomarkers of blood transfusions or synthetic EPO use.  The single most controversial champion is arguably America’s own, Lance Armstrong.  Due to his cancer treatments Lance was absent during the 1990’s when cheating was so prevalent.  Lance’s absence immediately elevates him away from suspicion to a certain level, but many associations and events that would follow his 1999 return cast more doubt than they do eliminate it.

Reviewing the historical events of European bike racing surrounding Armstrong’s post-cancer return overwhelmingly sink him into a deep hole of doubt.  In 1999 Armstrong won the Tour de France.  The first runner-up Alex Züle was competing after being suspended for abnormally high blood values in 1998 after his team, Festina, was exposed for having an organized program of supervising and organizing illegal performance enhancing practices.  Armstrong’s second runner-up was Fernando Escartín, was competing with the Kelme team.  Kelme in 2006 was shown to also have a systematic program of blood transfusions and synthetic EPO use under the supervision of Eufemiano Fuentes.  The winner of the previous year’s Tour de France and Giro d’Italia was Marco Pantani.  In 1999 he nearly won the Giro d’Italia again before he was ejected for returning abnormal blood values in the penultimate stage.  The eventual 1999 Giro winner, Ivan Gotti, had his medical records subpoenaed when his doctor was being investigated for facilitating illegal performance enhancing.  Gotti’s blood values were shown to abnormally and dramatically change several times in his visits with Dr. Conconi.  A fact that is consistent with blood transfusions and/or synthetic EPO use.  In 1999 the only grand tour winner who was not exposed at some point for cheating was Lance Armstrong.

By no means are these facts proof, but the shadow of doubt becomes much darker when cast in the light of the historical context.  In addition to the Kelme team, Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes was also the team doctor for Active Bay Sports Management.  Active Bay was the team that operated under the trade name Oncé, Liberty Seguros, and finally Astana.  While run by Manolo Saiz with Dr. Fuentes employed by Active Bay known users of performance enhancing aids include Alex Züle, Abraham Olano, and Roberto Heras.   After the Operacíon Puerto scandal in 2006 Saíz stepped down as manager and subsequent riders, Alexandre Vinokourov and Andrei Kasheshkin would return non-negative blood values and be sentenced two-year bans.

Although the surreptitious activities of Active Bay provide a suspicious context in which Armstrong is placed the suspicious connection comes from the fact that Armstrong’s long-time director, Johan Bruyneel, was a member of the Active Bay team.  In 2008 with the collapse of the last iteration of the Active Bay team, Astana, following the second major violation after Operacíon Puerto Bruyneel was the director to take over.  Bruyneel brought with him former Active Bay member and Fuentes patient, Alberto Contador. Bruyneel and Active Bay have a much stronger connection than one might realize.
The strongest suspicious connection is with Armstrong’s former doctor, Michele Ferrari.  Dr. Ferrari was a mentor of Dr. Conconi who was found guilty of facilitating illegal practices in several professional cyclists.  Dr. Ferrari himself has the patients, Floyd Landis (positive for testosterone in 2006), Abraham Olano (positive for EPO 2009), Filippo Simeoni (admitted to and implicated Ferrari in doping), Patrik Sinkewitz (positive out-of-competition test 2007), and Alexandre Vinokourov (positive for blood doping 2007).

And finally, the most direct evidence comes from the positive test for a banned corticoids, which were part of a prescription drug and the positive test for EPO from 1999 urine samples.  While the former was excused because of a prescription the practice of using banned substances establishes a pattern of behavior consistent with more egregious offenses.  The latter was eventually thrown out because the test was conducted much later and in a manner not compliant with the practices and standards set forth by the World Anti-Doping Agency.  A question that remains regarding the positive EPO test is whether or not the testing procedures invalidate the test or if they simply did not follow the practices.

In summary, Armstrong has never been caught violating a doping regulation.  However, many of his closest competitors at one point were found guilty and many of Armstrong’s closest colleagues were caught or involved in very suspicious activities.  Physiological tests of Armstrong following his cancer treatment revealed unusually improvements in aerobic and metabolic efficiency.  Improvements that are not suspicious or consistent with illegal aids, but certainly abnormal.  I would like to believe Lance Armstrong is the greatest American cyclist, but the context of his win along with many of his associations are very dubious.