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Jon Tiernan-Locke (picture Endura Racing)Tiernan-Locke blames 33-unit booze binge for doping ban
Jonathan Tiernan-Locke has claimed that a night of celebration with his girlfriend, in which he consumed 33 units of alcohol after going on a drinking binge, was to blame for irregular blood values in his biological passport which has seen him banned from competitive cycling for two years and sacked by Team Sky.
The claim was revealed today when the National Anti Doping Panel of UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) published its official ruling and reasoning behind last month’s decision to ban him from competitive cycling for two years from 1 January 2014.
It also fined him 70 per cent of his gross income during 2012, amounting to £15,400, and stripped him of his 2012 Tour of Britain overall victory and his 19th place in that year’s UCI Road World Championships in the Netherlands, where he was the first British rider across the line following a race in which he went on the attack alongside riders including Alberto Contador.
The mammoth bender the 29-year-old maintains he embarked on took place in the week between that Tour of Britain win, when he was riding for Endura Racing and the road worlds, with the night out in Bristol to celebrate his securing a lucrative two-year contract with Team Sky.
According to evidence presented by Tiernan-Locke at the hearing, he downed the best part of two bottles of wine over dinner with his girlfriend. Visiting several bars afterwards, he said he drank both wine and spirits, including six or seven double measures of gin before moving on to vodka.
The exact amount that the cyclist drank is unknown – both his and his girlfriend’s recollection was perhaps understandably hazy – but he said the volume, while excessive, wasn't unusual and that his "normal off-season binge drinking would include a full bottle of spirits followed by further drinks in bars."
His former manager at Endura Racing, Brian Smith, said in evidence that some leading riders do drink heavily, even during the racing season.
Dr. Kingsley Hampton, the expert who supported Tiernan-Locke's claims throughout the hearing told the panel that the cyclist had an alcoholic intake total of 335 grams - over 33 units - which led to "an acute severe toxic insult to the physiological system."
This, he said, resulted in severe dehydration, inhibiting the release of reticulocytes from the rider's bone marrow, and decreasing the volume of plasma in the blood, reducing his haemoglobin concentration.
The rider said that apart from a few sips of water when he took painkillers, he had nothing to eat or drink the next day when he flew to Maastricht to hook up with the other members of the Great Britain team.
Tiernan-Locke insisted that severe dehydration between the night out on 20 September and a blood sample being taken two days later contributed to the abnormal blood values.
However, the National Anti Doping Panel did not agree with his explanation and concluded that the sample's concentration of haemoglobin and the percentage of immature blood cells (reticulocytes) were well outside the expected parameters for the rider.
It said that on the balance of the evidence presented, while it could not dismiss his account of drinking to excess on the night of 20 September it was unable to accept the explanation advanced by Dr. Kingsley Hampton on behalf of Tiernan-Locke that he was severely dehydrated two days later.
It added that it was “inconceivable” that a professional cyclist set to make his debut in a World Championships would not have made sure that by the time he reached the team hotel, he would have ensured that he had drunk enough water to overcome any hangover.
The report said "the values disclosed in the testing... would be compelling evidence of the use of a prohibited substance or method, unless explained by some other factor."
The panel rejected Dr. Hampton’s assumptions regarding Tiernan-Locke’s supposed dehydration as “not actually substantiated by the evidence.”
It added: “It is the combination of the two factors, both an abnormally high Hb [haemoglobin] and an abnormally low level of reticulocytes, neither of which can be explained, which compels the conclusion that a prohibited method or substance had been used by the rider.”
Tiernan-Locke has the right to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with any such application needing to be made within one month of receipt of the panel's decision.
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79 comments
He has gone up in my estimation, an extra star if he had a kebab.
I remember the US sprinter Dennis Mitchell got caught for doing in the late 1990's; he claimed the positive was cased by his drinking lots of beer and having had sex with his wife multiple times the previous night.! Remarkably the authorities decided the excuse was plausible and he wasn't banned.
We don't have to sit in judgement on this the experts already have and they've poured cold water all over the argument. The argument is not feasible, otherwise you'd get professional sportsmen soaking themselves in alcohol before every event (somebody's bound to talk about George Best and Tony Adams) to get the sort of blood values JTL got....best placed Englishman at the WC they said. Now that's the sort of hangover I'd love.
Shades of Floyd Landis?
It's very easy to dislike dopers and some of them are terrible at lying, but JTL has always seemed like a nice guy with a great back-story and always sounded honest in interviews.
When the original decision was made I wasn't 100% certain it was right with JTL's history of illness and the small number of tests that contributed to the bio-passport. However, having read some of the report it appears that the results of the tests were so extreme that they couldn't be explained away and JTL's attempt at an explanation is laughable for many reasons.
Let's hope he now does the right thing and reveals the names of those who helped him cheat.
1. You have watched too many detective stories
2. You overestimate the rigorousness of the courts
3. You fail to notice that my simile was intended to make a point, rather than give a 100% accurate comparison. You could also argue that using doping is not equal murder or make other comments that miss the point.
Moral of this story is don't ride pissed or just lay off alcohol all together. If indeed he is telling the truth and he didn't dope - what a dipstick. This is what happens when you have a double barrelled name …………….
I take issue with this piece. I am not a mammoth bender.
33 units. Interesting approach to carb loading.
I think the whole problem could have been avoided had he finished the night off with a kebab and a fight
I think the whole problem could have been avoided had he finished the night off with a kebab and a fight
Face it people JTL's reasoned argument is about as plausible as OJs 'gloves don't fit' and Oscar Pistorius screams like a girl (but can't do it in court) excuses. He and his advocate have shoe horned an excuse to fit the facts. I'm not saying he didn't have a drink, but anytime that results in world class blood values you have to ask was it the drink or something else....
Basically the experts were professional enough not to say what a complete lying bastard he is, politely debunked the theory. But you don't have to give it credence because JTL says it's true.
Never mind the doping... what's a pro athlete doing drinking that mutch???? Also, seem to remember him criticising Lance Armstrong on the Cycling Show a year or two ago!
Was he criticising LA for getting absolutely rat-arsed while out 'celebrating' with his missus?
I've always found alcohol to be a performance unenhancer. In so many ways
I thought it was routine for in competition samples to be tested for EPO, but JTLs samples when he was in the leader's jersey at the ToB in 2012 were not. That is quite incredible; is it because the assumption is that riders are not stupid enough to macro-dose, and micro-dosing can not be detected?
In general these days, is EPO then not tested for in every sample taken?
Interesting. I think things have changed with the Lance Armstrong saga. Previously I think anti-doping agencies always had the hand-cuffs on. But with WADA and the National ADAs the decisions to prosecute an athlete becomes less political and more factual. Let's not forget that LA pulled a post-dated TUE from his butt and Verbruggen said 'fair enough' and buried the whole thing.
It is interesting to read some of the responses here. Some people sound like they can't quite believe that a professional cyclist doped. It is sad that he did, sad for him and his family. From what I read his family still believe in him. But the evidence seems heavily weighed against him.
You failed to notice that Simon_MacM has comprehensively dismantled your argument and dismissed your post for the worthless drivel that it was. End of.
What about a fight?
Agreed. To be honest the fact that he came up with such a piss-poor (if you'll pardon the pun) and laughably implausible excuse of an 'excuse' is actually embarrassing. If that's the best he could come up with then he should have just manned-up and told it how it was. If he'd have fessed-up and co-operated with the authorities he would probably have had a more lenient punishment.
Blimey you're a hard nut. My experience working with a lot of elite athletes over the years is that they live like monks for the most part but when they let loose they really put their backs into it. Plus I think he's exaggerating to make the bender sound more like something that would bugger him up enough to fail a dope test.
I have a feeling it comes down to expense and possibly how easy it is to evade....12 hours and it is pretty much out of your system.
Agreed. To be honest the fact that he came up with such a piss-poor (if you'll pardon the pun) and laughably implausible excuse of an 'excuse' is actually embarrassing. If that's the best he could come up with then he should have just manned-up and told it how it was. If he'd have fessed-up and co-operated with the authorities he would probably have had a more lenient punishment.
Paolo, EPO micro-dosing does still give a performance advantage. Less than with high doses riders could use back in the day, of course, but there is still a slight gain. Maybe 1 to 2% depending.
Edit: Oh, of course, if the EPO is being used to control reticulocyte values to counter-act the effects of blood transfusion doping and outsmart a blood-passport, well then I guess most of the gains are from the transfusions.
A very sad waste. Nuff said.
Nearly 17 pints after a race? Aye right...
It wasn't the booze that did for him, it was the fry-up that he had next day with meat from Contador's butcher.
Back in my partying days, I've drank enough on Friday night to nurse a hangover for the entire weekend. My colleagues and I in the forces would do just that the day before working on some heavy duty kit (including weapon systems), but we weren't directly reliant on body fluid levels to produce demanding physical performance. We really shouldn't have, but we were young and stupid. I guess the question is, are the pros that good that talent-wise, they could get away with it (the dehydration etc)? Stories abound of riders of yesteryear getting pissed and going clubbing in the middle of a grand tour.
JTL's bender does lie at the outer realms of feasibility. Just. It's possible he had 17 pints in one sitting, but to do so when you're a featherweight pro-cyclist rather than a 20 stone rugby forward is really pushing it.
What I find unbelievable is that he appeared to then have no water the next 2 days before his next test. Really? By then he should have been so dehydrated his urine should have been the consistency of a banana. Literally.
Yes, but did you decide that you were too ill to drink any water for 32 hours afterwards? Whenever I've been on the bevvy I have drunk gallons of water.
His story sounds extremely implausible to me, and that ignores the part of the decision that says that the dehydration hypothesis still probably doesn't explain the test result!
I certainly didn't, and I'm inclined to agree with both you and Gordy748 in that respect. The following day usually consisted of as much food and fluids as I could cram in. Would you still be on your feet if you abstained from fluids for that long? Presumably when he travelled to the Worlds he didn't do so on a stretcher!
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