The EPO effect unburied

by veloclinic

January 6, 2013

Video: the EPO effect unburied

the video explainer (in language most of you will understand):

to go with this freeform and somewhat pithy post from Doc’s veloclinic tumblog:

how misguided science buried the EPO effect

This article from Outside, “The Power of EPO: Debunking the Flawed British Journal Study”

is a good start at pulling apart a recent article

that grabbed headlines fer attempting to discredit

the Armstrong truth

fer the link see the outside article

the main issue

(that a grand tour

is a series uv small races at functional threshhold power

(FTP)

buried in 21 multi hour days

uv GC grabass)

is ilustrated by the figure above

the first two columns are the total race time in minutes

(which look nearly identical

despite being the difference between a not even fuggin close 1st n 3rd)

completely dwarf

the second two columns which are the total FTP race time

any differnece they might reveal

the rest uv the columns

FTP

broken down by relevant stage

are completely obscured

this is how this mistake uv a paper

came to the conclusion

that EPO had no effect

by lookin at overall finish times

right then

in terms uv lookin fer an effect uv EPO

the place to look

is at portions uv the race

raced mostly at FTP

where the EPO effect

bout 2-12% depending on era

rises outta the grabass

namely

TTs

finishing climbs

consider the example uv TDF 20$$

where

theoretical doped rider

call him wigg

beats

a theoretical undoped rider

call him nibb

not because uv any natural ability

but just cuz uv dooping

(now the actual riders we got this data from were chosen fer an exmple because uv the difference in their performance not because we know anything bout one being cleaner than the other)

stg 1 Prologue

wigg 7.33 min nibb 7.66 min

stg 7 finishing climb

wigg 30 min nibb 30.12 min

stg 9 TT

wigg 51.4 min nibb 53.52 min

stg 17 finishing climb

wigg 35 min nibb 35.3 min

stg 19 TT

wigg 64 min nibb 67.63 min

total time FTP finish time

wigg 187.7 nibb 194

(yes this based onna true story TDF was realy that fuggin mindnumbingly devoid uv relevant mountain stages)

the cumulative effect

is that

the 3.4% difference from our theoretical EPO doping

(a real world 6 minute ass kicking)

during

portions uv the race

actually

raced at FTP

only results in

0.12% difference

on total finish time

an effect

when looked fer across years

becomes invisible

to even the most statistically sound methuds

note that fer absolute accuracy a 3% diff in FTP power does not translate directly into uh 3% diff in finish time but fer the same uv story telling that point was let tuh slide

* * * * *

veloclinic is the reincarnation of one of our favorite Twitter friends, @captaintbag1, whose tumblr blog posts were a kind of blank verse, Tecate-soaked haiku of truthiness that cut through the slick bullshit and to the very core of what is gloriously fucked up about the sport of cycling. Although the Cap may be gone (sort of), his Doctor tbag/Captain Hyde alter ego lives on, and we’re glad to share his pithy analysis here. Lest you think these are the idiot ramblings of a madman, we’d like you to know that the doc is a legitimate professional in the science of sports medicine, and a savant when it comes to doping analysis. You have been warned.

Commentary, General News, veloclinic - 4 comments

About the author

veloclinic

veloclinic is the reincarnation of one of our favorite Twitter friends, @captaintbag1, whose tumblr blog posts were a kind of blank verse, Tecate-soaked haiku of truthiness that cut through the slick bullshit and to the very core of what is gloriously fucked up about the sport of cycling. Although the Cap may be gone (sort of), his Doctor tbag/Captain Hyde alter ego lives on, and we’re glad to share his pithy analysis here. Lest you think these are the idiot ramblings of a madman, we’d like you to know that the doc is a legitimate professional in the science of sports medicine, and a savant when it comes to doping analysis. You have been warned. Follow @veloclinic on Twitter

3 comments

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TrickyDickyBE

But this analysis, whilst providing a good and proper insight - i.e. FTP is the most relevant measure of performance, not overall ride time in the Grand Tour - there is also a major flaw in the analysis.

It presumes that cycling is an individual activity and that the power generated in the legs of the two named athletes, is the only differentiating factor. And on the basis of this analysis, that Wiggins was able to have 3½% more FTP than Nibbali, then the dangerous assumption is hinted at - that Wiggins could have achieved this gain by using EPO.

But if I remember what I saw in the TDF, was that Nibbali was constantly in front of his team on the mountains, virtually always exposed as a lone climber. And Wiggins invariably was riding on the back wheel of a host of riders, most notably Froome. Of course in the Time Trials, this was not possible, but then again, Wiggins has been a time trialling star for many a year now, so there's no surprises that he was the top performer there.

For any of the above graphs to make any sense, you first have to remove the 'team' effect. Take away any advantage that Sky brought to Wiggins compared to what Liquigas could do for Nibbali. The accumulated additional fatigue that theItalian rider would have experienced could easily be worth a negative 3½ of FTP. I hated the cheating of Armstrong as much as anyone, but this sort of analysis does no one any favours.

veloclinic

@TrickyDickyBE Thanks for the comment. The post is NOT saying that doping is the only factor. It is saying IF doping was the only factor and causes a 3-4% difference, that difference would be evident at the critical points of the race, but could easily be lost if looking at overall finishing times. Cheers DocP.

TrickyDickyBE

@veloclinic @TrickyDickyBE My problem with your IF is that it really doesn't follow the rule of Occam's Razor. Whilst it is internally coherent it is just not the most viable explanation of what happened. I think we all have to be super vigilant about micro-dosing of EPO and the new variants, but this analysis verges on mendacious because what is implied just can not be derived from this data set. That aside, I'm still a fan ;-)

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