The news of Michael Rogers’ positive test for clenbuterol is a perplexing one for cycling fans.
A second positive test in China a few weeks later by Belgium’s Jonathan Breyne, who subsequently attempted suicide, has reignited discussion about this substance.
On the one hand, weariness and cynicism about doping continue to pervade the sport; but digging a little deeper into clenbuterol reveals the sporting world needs to have a serious discussion about this substance’s handling by authorities.
In cycling, the most famous case of clenbuterol doping is of course Alberto Contador, who was stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory after testing positive and claiming that it was caused by eating a contaminated steak.
What’s often forgotten is the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found that Contador had most likely ingested the clenbuterol accidentally in a contaminated supplement, and because of WADA’s strict liability rules he received a two-year backdated ban.
The CAS panel found that both Contador’s claim about contaminated steak, and the UCI’s contention that it was the result of a blood transfusion, were possible, but equally unlikely.
Cases of clenbuterol contamination in meat seem to be vanishingly rare in Spain, and CAS ultimately found Contador’s excuse to be unsatisfactory. You can read the CAS judgement here.
It’s worth pointing out that even the UCI and WADA didn’t allege that Contador had deliberately doped with clenbuterol, probably because there was so little of it (apparently 50 picograms) found in his urine.
The proud dopers over at Steroid.com suggest a daily dose of 40-140 micrograms per day, for men. This puts the amount of clenbuterol found in Contador’s body at approximately 1/1000,000th of an active daily dose.
The recent cases involving Rogers and Breyne will be very interesting, because clenbuterol contaminated meat in China is a different matter to in Spain.
Clenbuterol contamination is a well known problem with Chinese beef, due to its widespread use during beef production, and WADA and sports governing bodies have been warning athletes about the risks associated with eating meat in China for several years.
Indeed, Chinese Olympic athletes were apparently banned from eating meat in the lead-up to the London Olympics, such was the risk of positive tests.
Professional cyclists have no excuse for not being aware of this, and exercising extreme caution.
I haven’t seen reported anywhere the amounts of clenbuterol found in either of Rogers’ or Breyne’s samples, so we don’t know whether their respective positives are similarly low doses to Contador’s.
Both riders vehemently protest their innocence, but of course we’ve been there before.
However, I haven’t seen any serious commentators arguing that these riders were deliberately doping with such an easily-detectable substance, whose main benefit seems to be weight loss (not often a problem for cyclists at the end of a long season), for a relatively meaningless late-season race.
Why would a cyclist use this substance?
According to Wikipedia:
“It causes an increase in aerobic capacity, central nervous system stimulation, blood pressure, and oxygen transportation.
“It increases the rate at which body fat is metabolized while increasing the body’s BMR. It is commonly used for smooth muscle-relaxant properties as a bronchodilator and tocolytic.”
All of which seems useful for an elite athlete, and cyclists in particular, but some reading around some of the less ethical parts of the internet – bodybuilding sites – indicates that clenbuterol is used mainly for weight loss, particularly after an anabolic steroid cycle so that food intake can remain high without worrying about getting fat.
Keeping lean just after you’ve stopped taking steroids is not the kind of use case you would expect from an elite cyclist during competition.
Especially when it’s possible to detect 1/1,000,000th of an active dose in urine.
You would have to be a complete moron to take clenbuterol as a professional cyclist.
Sure, we’ve seen some pretty stupid acts by dopers in the past, but the risk:reward payoff for this substance is absurdly stacked in favour of getting caught.
I just don’t believe that Contador or Rogers are that stupid.
What we do know is that stories of clenbuterol contamination in Chinese food seem highly plausible. Lee Rodgers pointed this out in his piece earlier this week that a WADA-accredited laboratory found that 22 out of 28 recent travellers to China tested positive to clenbuterol.
If 78 percent of the (admittedly small) sample tested positive, it seems clear that the chances of ingesting some clenbuterol from Chinese meat are well beyond “possible” and verge on ‘very likely’.
It’s fair to ask why these riders were eating meat at all. It’s also worth asking how teams with their own chefs, dieticians, and staff (at least in Rogers’ case) could allow something like this to happen.
There is nothing in Michael Rogers’ statement to indicate whether or not he followed guidelines on avoiding meat. It’s possible he went ‘off-piste’ and ate a meal outside of the team environment. Perhaps he only ate in team hotels. We don’t yet know.
But there needs to be a serious discussion about whether eating a meal should be enough to ruin someone’s career and reputation.
At the moment, we have a situation where the rules about substances like clenbuterol (there is no allowable amount and testing for it is phenomenally effective) are extremely strict, but the known risk of accidental positives is high.
Riders are understandably not happy about this.
Garmin-Sharp’s young Australian rider Lachlan Morton put it succinctly on Twitter:
How do you know how your meat was prepared on the road?
— Lachlan Morton (@lachlanmorton) December 19, 2013
I'm worried.
— Lachlan Morton (@lachlanmorton) December 19, 2013
Robbie McEwen was similarly blunt:
i reckon the UCI should take some responsibility & suspend UCI sanctioned races in China #clenbuterol #nocoincidence #$$$$
— Robbie McEwen (@mcewenrobbie) December 19, 2013
McEwen also pointed out that there’ll be a long queue of riders trying to avoid racing in China next season:
i'm saying cover ALL the angles #clenbuterol #racinginchina one thing for sure – not many riders will put their hand up to race there in '14
— Robbie McEwen (@mcewenrobbie) December 19, 2013
The problem is that World Tour teams are compelled to race in the Tour of Beijing, so somebody is going to have to race there. The UCI has too much invested in China to simply stop racing there.
So what can be done?
In the short term, teams might have to go temporarily vegetarian while in China.
Failing that, they may have to bring their own meat supply in from Europe (or indeed Australia).
But these are just band-aid solutions to a deeper problem regarding banned substances which are known to be used in food production.
WADA needs to urgently investigate whether it’s appropriate to introduce a minimum threshold for returning a positive test for clenbuterol and other similar substances.
It could be far below the level of an active dose, while still remaining high enough to avoid positives from trace amounts found in food.
There is precedent in establishing accepted ranges for particular substances, particularly naturally-occurring substances like testosterone, or several blood cell values.
Clenbuterol does not occur naturally in the body, so this would be setting a precedent for synthetic substances.
For both Contador and Rogers, there is a sense in some cynical circles that this is an ‘Al Capone’ bust: they may have got away with plenty in the past, so getting them on a technicality is some kind of rough justice.
I understand the frustration with doping that engenders this attitude, but I don’t think it’s right to leave doping booby traps around for random riders to fall into.
We need to avoid a repeat of the situation this week, where a young rider (Breyne) attempted suicide because of a positive test that looks reasonably likely to have been caused by food contamination.
Riders who are genuinely trying to behave ethically deserve some protection.
Bogus positives also serve to undermine the trust of riders and fans in the anti-doping movement, and this should be avoided wherever possible.
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