Timo

German media report today that Tyler Hamilton has been tested positive during a doping test in the Vuelta.

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,319028,00.html

Any details known?

khuon

Velonews is reporting that it's a possible illegal blood transfusion. Looks like the UCI wised up to all that bleeding he's been doing all over the place. Hmmm... with the amount of blood loss the guy's been exhibiting in each race, they have to replace it somehow.

Smoothie104

https://www.tylerhamilton.com/guestbook94.html

Devil

Damn, you got to it before me.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...p04/sep21news2

Walter

Man I Really hope there's a legit, believable reason for this.

For some reason Tyler doping would bother me more than a positive from any other rider even Armstrong. I'm not one of those who believes that LA dopes, in fact just the opposite, but Tyler testing positive would be harder for me to take.

Tyler tells his DS to stay calm and I will too but I really hope there's an explanation here.

Timo

IMHO it was allways a question of when he would be caught, not if he would be caught. There's no reasoning behind my opinion only a feeling that developed during the 2003 TdF.

Machiavelli

BBC Report


I think the title, especially of this one, is misleading. He's being retested, etc. Is this a possible result of very strenuous activity at altitude (especially for an endurance athlete like Hamilton) ?

rydwhite

I must say that I am a little surprised. He tested positively on 2 seperate occasions in the last 2 months from what I've read. Did he ever undergo testing during the TDF? It looks like he will be loosing his Olympic gold which will now go to Ekimov and Julich gets bumped up to the silver.

brent_dube

Testing is a lot better now. Things have went a long way in just half a decade. (big name riders are being caught? whaaaa???)

My first thought when reading the news was simply "Holy ****!"

NO!

I can't wait to hear the excuses.

qmsdc15

I guess he ran out of his own blood and had to borrow a quart from his neighbor.

brent_dube

Did he not tell all of his fans (and the world) that he swears on the life of his wife and the grave of his dog that he never dopes?

Smoothie104

Raimondas Rumsas let his wife sit in jail for MONTHS! , becuase she was caught with a trunk full of doping products, while he continued to race! HAHAHHAAA...

Timo

...don't they all?

And keep in mind that only a month ago team mate Camenzind was caught too.

lotek 

what is so disturbing to me is the fact that he failed tests on 2 seperate occaisions.
I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but I wonder if Lance could have passed
this test? He repeatedly states he isn't taking doping products, but is "his own blood
cells" (packed RBCs) a doping product? semantics, kinda like Clinton stating he never
had sex with that woman (and no I do not want a discussion of Clinton, politics etc., if
it gets to that I will close the thread!).

Marty (in nomex suit)

brent_dube

UCI tests don't go by whether you say you are cheating or not. They go by what the tests say.

I find it hard to believe Hamilton was this stupid. Knowing he has this Foundation and all...
Homologous blood cells clear up within a few months (they live half as long as regular red blood cells). I'm quite sure that there is no possible legitimate excuse (unless the testing magically went haywire to give him this result).

Smoothie104

I ain't gonna flame you Marty, becuase semantics and loopholes are why the team doctors are employed. To medically prepare the riders as best they can within the rules. Remember the USPS Actovegin scandal in 2000? It wasn't banned, nor did it fall under the category of red blood cell boosters. It speeds up the transfer of oxygen from the blood to the tissues. The UCI ended up banning it, and changing the language to make sure similair substances are covered.

Transfusions are illegal, and the UCI anti doping code covers it in several places

6.1 M2 mentions pharmalogical, chemical or physical manipulation under Prohibited Methods

The UCI defines blood doping as: Administration of blood (including a persons own blood) red corpuscles, or related products to an athlete. This Procedure may be preceded by a withdrawl of blood from an athlete who continues to train in such a blood depleted state.

It is strictly forbidden

Devil

I'm not going to flame you. I think everyone knows where I stand on doping. But Lance did pass this test, on numerous occasions it sounds like. He won 5 (6 if you count the TTT) stages and the overall, and I believe it was ProCycling that mentioned that this testing was in effect during the Tour de France. So Lance did pass.

And like others, I find it hard to believe that these two separate positive results came back due to an operation that Tyler had. A shame, but I believe his career is now over.

Smoothie: I remember that. Rumsas is a real classy guy. Are he and his wife still together?

Smoothie104

Not sure about Rumsas, but I would have liked to have heard the conversation on the ride home from jail. HAHAHAHAA!!


If Tyler did have surgery, and had to have blood administered. He is a fool for not

a. clearing this with the UCI first,
b. informing them of it immediatley afterwards.

My gut feeling? Where there is smoke, there's fire.

Remember, up until a few months ago, only heterogeneous transfusions were detectable, but not homogeneous. Perhaps testing technology is closing the gap to the dopers.

lotek 

From what I've read Red Blood cells have a life expectancy (is that the
correct terminology?) of 120 days, and are replaced on a continuous basis.
The new test calculates the percentage of immature red blood cells to the total
hemoglobin count (or something like that, I've been trying to wade through
medical terminology and to tell the truth, thats why I'm not a doctor!).
I did read in one article (velonews?) that the Tour ran this test this year
so that negates that question, must have missed that.
One thing I did find out
homologous is mixed blood cells, i.e. from different donors (sound like what Kelme
rider was describing?) as one would see from anyone who received a transfusion.
Autologous (which is next to impossible to test for with todays testing) is transfusion
of individuals own blood cells (as in centrifuged them out and kept stored frozen,
they last about 5 weeks).

Marty

sailor

Man, I hope it isnt so. Unfortunately, I too think that where there is smoke there is fire, and the fact that he failed two seperate tests doesnt bode well at all.

Smoothie104

I hope this dosen't mean no release of his IMAX film, I was so looking forward to that.

Will it be renamed "Blood Power"?






Tyler Hamilton will be lining up Saturday for the team time trial to kick-start the Vuelta a Espaņa, but told VeloNews he won't be racing the world championships a week after the Vuelta ends.

Instead, the Olympic time trial champion will be traveling to the cols of France's Basque Country for a week of filming with an IMAX crew and 200 extras that include some pro riders to re-enact Hamilton's stage victory in the 2003 Tour de France.

"They will have a crew, some of my ex-teammates at Team CSC, even Bjarne Riis will be coming in to re-enact the stage I won into Bayonne," Hamilton said. "It should be pretty interesting. I will wear my old CSC jersey, ride my old bike and do the whole thing again. They want to get some different shots they couldn't get during the Tour. They even have 200 extras to stand on the side of the road at act as fans."

Hamilton is the focus of the IMAX film that's using the 2003 Tour de France as a backdrop on a film about the human brain and how it reacts to different situations. Filmmakers decided the Tour was the perfect setting to tell the story.

Throughout the 2003 Tour, IMAX crews filmed Hamilton and his struggles with a broken shoulder he suffered in the first stage. The gritty New Englander endured searing pain to win 16th stage in France's Basque Country into Bayonne with an epic solo attack over the final steep climbs of the centenary Tour.

"We're going to be going up on the Col Bagarguy and do some shooting there," Hamilton said. "The film is going to be great. It's going to be great for our sport. People will be able to see the climbs, the descents, the speeds we race at. I'm excited."

Production company officials said the film is expected to be released in the fall of 2005. Once filming is completed, Hamilton will return to the United States where he's scheduled to appear at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas.

brent_dube

Did Hamilton ever have a bone marrow transplant?

lennyparis

I guess this is good news for Floyd Landis as he can be the GC Leader of Phonak.

Devil

I think they'll want Santiago Perez to be the GC leader, the way he's riding.

Floyd can be his lieutenant, perhaps.

edited: can't forget about Oscar Pereiro, either. He showed good form in this year's Tour to make the top 10.

Hornbiker

<For some reason Tyler doping would bother me more than a positive from any other rider even Armstrong. I'm not one of those who believes that LA dopes, in fact just the opposite, but Tyler testing positive would be harder for me to take.>

I'm with you here. I'm just sick about this. I've had the utmost respect for Tyler Freakin' Hamilton, especially aftering watching him gut out a stage win with a broken collarbone in TdF 03. And his denials about drugs never sounded like carefully worded responses checked over by a team of lawyers. Unlike LA---I'm really not making any accusations here, but a simple "no, never" from him would make me feel a lot better!

Makes me wonder how many denials from the pro peloton are based on semantics...