Froome

He said he's had asthma since a child but only mentioned it in the last 3-4 years, didn't mention it to David Walsh who wrote his autobiography but wrote chapters on Bilharzia, a disease he had for years which is used to explain why he was a donkey for years and then suddenly transformed into the greatest cyclist in history in the space of 2 weeks in Aug/Sept 2011. I find it very strange that he didn't mention his asthma before then but mentioned another disease as holding him back in his early career. It took years for him to cure his bilharzia despite the treatment being a single dose of pills and very straightforward.

I doubt he has asthma but I think he uses asthma drugs to lose weight in between races and here he also withdrew blood out of competition while he had large amounts of salbutamol in his system. He lost time to Nibali in the Vuelta the day before he tested positive and reinfused that blood that night to ensure he won the race. He was a different man and gained back all the time he lost and more the following day, when he tested positive. I think he forgot about the salbutamol in his blood (bag) and used an inhaler on the day in question, using what he thought was the permitted amount but the salbutamol in his bloodstream from the blood bag pushed him up to twice the legal limit. It is nigh on impossible to take the amount of salbutamol he had in his system from an inhaler alone. That is what Joerg Jasche, a former blood doper cyclist, thinks and it's the most plausible story imo.

He is the biggest fraud I have ever seen in any sport but he will probably be able to weasel his way out of a 2 year ban by muddying the waters by either blaming someone else like a doctor or with legal argument and get a ban short enough to allow him to compete next summer.

seems a lot of the sky team have the affliction !!!!!!!

Was it Tyler Hamilton who nearly died after he had someone else's blood transfused in error?

I remember those 2 days in the Vuelta. He looked like a dead man on the day he lost time to Nibali, the following day he looked as fresh as a daisy

Hamilton said he had one transfusion off Fuentes which turned his urine black but I don't think it was life-threatening and no reason was given as to what went wrong (contamination was always a risk).  It was quite common to transfuse someone else's blood of the same type - it had the advantage of having no period where your own blood count was low (post-withdrawal).  Eventually testing was able to detect transfusion of someone else's blood and Hamilton got caught in the olympics (which led to his infamous "vanishing twin" excuse)

I think it's very unlikely that Froome's high salbutamol result was due to an infused blood bag.  When you consider that even after an infusion, 90% of your blood is what was originally there, so whatever the concentration of the drug in the bag it will be ten times less after infusion. Also salbutamol has a very short half-life and the transfusion would have been probably 18 hours earlier.  He would have needed to virtually have salbutamol for blood at the time of withdrawal.  99% likely Froome took salb orally or via nebuliser to get a reading that high (both methods prohibited)

Misuse of TUEs or not that was 1 of the greatest cycling performances and fantastic to watch.

The spectacle of an old school attack from a long way out was terrific , risk adverse modern races rarely see anyone attack outside last 5 k of a climb........did not enjoy any other aspect of this .

Reminded me a little bit of Floyd Landis stage 17 win , obviously not as superhuman an effort , but still a pretty incredible ride

Incredible Stage today

Floyd Landiseque.

so it turns out he only had 19% raised levels and not double as reported and commented upon by all and sundry - some who clearly had/have a point to prove and should know better? There's a shock!

It was Sky who said it was double   Maybe it was more

As just a casual observer, it seems to me many riders use drugs and try and stay within legal limits.

Also having asthma seems quite helpful to a pro cycler.

Froome/Wiggins and who else knows. I doubt they have it, but the treatment sure does help.

Will they have won any of the Tour de France without these treatments? Who knows.

Is it within spirit of sport? For me personally no.

Very difficult to know who  is clean, who is using performance enhancing drugs for non illnesses and staying within legal limits, and those just plain doping.

Strange Froome has never mentioned Asthma before he got caught (i guess he thought public opinion may turn against him), he still is using the treatments.

I suspect many pro athletes also use the same treatments and abuse the system.

All cyclists/athletes should declare all medication they use and why and when, let this be public knowledge. The public can then decide if they are competing fairly.

A journal online they update daily or weekly for any medication taken or transfusions etc etc. Anyone can log on and see who is useing what.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/froome-free-of-parasitic-disease-bilharzia/

From the link above Froome was open about his bilharzia treatment several years ago but forgot to mention the asthma that was also holding him back...cough