Heroes, Dopers, and Superhumans

 As I noted in my last post, the Tour de France has begun, meaning that it is also time for the annual hand-wringing and head scratching about sports doping issues.

The last issue of New Scientist has an interesting article on the topic:

Each extraordinary performance in the race will, however, generate suspicion as well as admiration. Allegations of doping have plagued the Tour for so long that any rider who excels now inevitably attracts talk of drug use.

But what if a superhuman performance itself could be used as evidence of doping? That's the thinking behind a new strategy, which asks: "Is this physiologically possible without the aid of drugs?"

The idea is straightforward: work out the boundaries of human ability, based on what we know about physiology and its maximal capabilities. If an athlete's performance lies outside this limit, they are highlighted as a potential drug-taker and given more frequent and extensive drug screenings.

 The article notes that, prior to widespread EPO use, Tour winners' average power output was 380 watts on big climbs, with none exceeding 410 W.  From 1994 onwards, when EPO use became more widespread, about six riders per year averaged over 410 W.  Levels then dropped at the end of the decade as EPO testing improved, then rose again after 2000. Similar advances have been seen in VO2 max measures. (The Science of Sport also has some good posts on point here and here).

The article asks:

 

Do these high levels reflect a leap in human achievement, or are they a signature of artificially enhanced physiology? . . .

 

On the basis of a person's physiological measurements alone, it is impossible to say otherwise. "Doping can never be inferred from performance only," says Schumacher.

 

During last year’s tour, I blogged about sports doping, the suspicions raised by Contador’s record-breaking climb on the Verbier, and about the differing takes of Michael Sandel and Richard Posner on the sports doping issue (which I just reposted yesterday).   And I’m sticking by my heretical contention that the Tour is less interesting in the absence of doping – it’s precisely these types of superhuman efforts that we love to watch. As I said in that post, Vive Le Tour! Vive Le Dope!:

We loved Contador’s heroic feat on Verbier – it was exciting.  Just like we loved Floyd Landis’s epic 2006 comeback; Tyler Hamilton’s superhuman 142 km solo breakaway, stage win, and fourth-place GC finish with a broken collar-bone; and Vinokourov’s spectacular mountain-top breakaway.  Because, as Phil says in this video of the relevant Vino footage, “everyone loves a fighter.”

 

. . . Until we found out they were all doping, that is.

 

Maybe the Tour exists because – not in spite – of doping.  And it’s a wonderful spectacle. Vive le dope! Vive le tour!

Photo: me (or, at least, my hand) showing off entry passes to the Nike box on the final 2008 stage on the Champs-Élysées (thanks Martha!)

Image Source (AG2R La Mondiale rider Lloyd Mondory of France gestures after he crashed near the finish line of the 1st stage of the Tour de France cycling race from Rotterdam to Brussels yesterday).

Comments

[anon]

Doping isn't using drugs. As I understand it it's just giving yourself a transfusion that raises your red blood cell count.

[Kim Krawiec]

I think you're a bit confused anon -- you might start with the Wikipedia blood doping page. Though it's rather beside the point, as the type of enhancement is not relevant to the question raised here of how we enforce doping rules.

[anon]

I was a bit wrong; I just looked at the blood doping page.

Anyway, "autologous blood doping" is where I think most of the cheating happens--you put your own red blood cells back into yourself (a few days or weeks) after your body has replenished its stores. As wikipedia says, there's no test for that...I don't know why any athlete would take hormones if they can just do that. You can truthfully claim to not use drugs or performance enhancing substances.

On top of all this, caffeine is widely-used enhancement--they even take it mid-race in their gels. And, speaking of unnatural, it's not illegal for athletes to sleep in high altitude chambers either...not sure it works, but some do it for training.

[LM]

Anon - Autologous blood doping has become more common since tests for EPO and for heterogeneous blood doping have been devised. Before then, blood from another person was often used in the 1980s since it didn't result in any downtime for the rider (and didn't require planning ahead, as with the 1984 US cycling Olympic Team). EPO was the choice in the 1990s since it's easier and more effective than traditional blood doping and doesn't have the potential for causing illness that heterogeneous doping does (as long as you stay fully hydrated, that it). Heterogeneous blood doping made a resurgence once EPO was testable, but testing for that is now available as well. The problem with autologous blood doping from a competitive viewpoint is that it restricts the rider's ability to race and train for the 30+ days it takes the body to replenish the removed cells, must be done months prior to the competition, and there is a limit to how much blood can be banked for any given rider.

Also - caffeine is regulated - more than about 1 1/2 cups of coffee (or that used to be the limit if I recall correctly) yields a positive test. In fact, birth control pills were illegal at one point, but what is and isn't legal changes based on the rationale for the ban (e.g., birth control pills became permissible once a test for the steroids they masked was devised I believe). Hyperbaric chambers, on the other hand, like living and training at altitude, are legal.

One of the interesting questions for me is why substances for which there is no test are illegal - at that point, drug control is relying on evidence from the doctors and other personnel involved in, for example, the transfusion to come forward and that historically has been rare in bicycle racing and very difficult to corroborate even where someone like Landis (and Paul Kimmage and a very few others before him) comes forward. There's a clear signal that the substance shouldn't be used, but no real means of enforcement. In addition, when it's autologous blood doping that's banned, it's really the technique (transfusion) that is banned, which seems different to me than banning a substance, potentially requiring the development of novel forms of testing.

[Kim Krawiec]

Thanks for this TM -- very helpful info. You raise an interesting question about the illegality of substances for which there is no test. Have any theories? The normative statement? Perhaps to maintain the flexibility (as you note -- rarely exercised, at least in cycling) of prosecuting flagrant violations where there is a lot of secondary evidence?