Team Sky's Jonathan Tiernan Locke gets 2 year ban for biological passport irregularities

As Andycoventry mentioned, when people dope in sport, it makes a lot of physiological changes to the body that remain for a long time after the period of doping. In studies that have appeared in new scientist, building muscle (which doping allowas you to do more easily as you train harder/faster for longer) changes the muscle tissue, and actually means that it's easier to build muscle again once this has reduced as the types of muscle fibres are different to previously. Probably means that bans should realisticly be for longer than two years (or at least never backdated) and second chances should be much more stricly enforced and final.

You're missing a trick, if you donate blood make sure you head out to the pub after.

Great fun.

'It's a wonder these blokes can ride at all with all the blood they're giving up. I donated blood the day before a midweek 10 once and rode two minutes slower than usual!'

have you any idea how much blood they give? Unless they're going down the blood doping route, it's an awful lot less than your blood donation was...

He should be made to re-pay his prize money and Sky earnings, as he got them by cheating.

The report implies that he didn't have a bio passport at that time because not enough data had been collected to build a profile but at a later date, data was collated including data from back in 2012, to form a bio passport profile. That's what I infer from the text anyway.

maybe he ate a dodgy piece of meat

Quote:

JTL was asked to prove his innocence, which is high impossible as he had no base level to compare to except when he was peaking in time for the ToB victory.

Hung out to dry by his pro team, when he needed their support most!

Now, in the finest traditions of internet armchair opinions, I'm no expert in this... but...

In order for the ban to be lawfull (and this ban has been challenged in a law court which upheld the ban decision) - then the science of blood values, and how they can be changed must be fairly well understood. Otherwise the bans would not stand up when challenged in court.

We don't know the basis of JTL'd appeal - but he does not seem to be talking to the media, so we can only take the courts decision as correct.

Where's Ricardo Ricco on that list?

Were any other teams interested in JTL?

Just thinking aloud here, but if you were a doper about to make the jump to worldtour level, would you *REALLY* think that going to somewhere like Sky or Garmin was the wisest move? I'd be more inclined to look at certain other teams.

Finally some people with intelligent thought that have done research (well done Jimmy Ray Will & notfastenough) it is great to see.

JTL was asked to prove his innocence, which is high impossible as he had no base level to compare to except when he was peaking in time for the ToB victory.

Hung out to dry by his pro team, when he needed their support most!

Off-topic slightly, but check out the size of the row marked 'Armstrong, Lance' on that spreadsheet!

Anyway, congratulations to Nathan Haas for "winning" the Tour of Britain 2012

Good riddance to him i say.

Since he joined Sky, with the chance of better training and equipment to aid him, he has acheived nothing and as people have mentioned he's been under much closer scrutiny with Sky than his previous team.

Regardless of who they are or what team they ride for then if they are caught cheating then they should never ride again and be banned for life.

Real shame, no more said.

Real shame, no more said.

Shame all round. Tiernan-Locke was an exciting rider and it seems now we know how he managed to be so. I think Sky have generally acted well in this case, although not knowing all the facts at every stage of the process it is hard to be sure exactly where the blame is (apart from the rider of course).

In any case does this explain TJ's relative lack of form while in the Sky camp? If he was doping before he joined the team, perhaps under greater scrutiny he just could not be at the same level?

From what I understand - the issue is the difference in Blood values taken when he won the Tour of Britain (under his previous team) and when he joined the 'blood passport' scheme after joining Sky.
As far as I can work out, neither test (on their own) showed a doping issue - but the two tests together showed a suspicious change to the blood.
It was up to JTL to provide a valid reason for the change - but it would seem that he has not been able to do so....

Its a strange case - JTL seemed quite confidant about his defense not so long ago, so it will be interesting to see if he pops up and gives us his side of the story.

Massive shame. I wonder if this could make stepping up to the top level that bit harder i.e. Highlight a risk of acquiring riders from an untested pool?

As for Sky, they'll be pissed but I'm unsure what else they could have done. I don't think I've got to grips with the timeline yet (if he was untested before, when was a baseline established? How do you tell if the baseline is clean?) but given the risk stated above, I think sky's thinking was to get him into the testing pool ASAP in order to mitigate that risk. Or have I got this all wrong?

Given his age, I guess that's it for him now. Time to get a job.

Marginally off topic....

If someone dopes up to the eyeballs, taking every drug under the sun then stops in enough time to pass testing, surely they are stronger and fitter from that point forward than if they had never cheated. Or is that too simplistic?.

If that is true, shouldn't cheats be banned for life.

"In September 2012, he became the first British rider since 1993 to win the Tour of Britain." ....

.... By CHEATING.

Utterly disgraceful. He won nothing. He achieved nothing because what he did was cheat his way through the sport. He should disappear from the sport and never be heard of again. Just like all the other cheaters out there, past and present.

The governing bodies have to be ruthless and excise this cancer that is cheating with surgical precision.

When I gave blood I didn't even get a cup tea let a lone a biscuit and after there is no way I could have ridden very far at all as I felt so faint. The thought of all those needles going in where ever, doping wouldn't be for me.

It's a wonder these blokes can ride at all with all the blood they're giving up. I donated blood the day before a midweek 10 once and rode two minutes slower than usual!

That was a pint though and "that's very nearly an armful!".

We await a response from Mr. Tiernan-Locke. I expect him to deny it all.