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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
I see where you are coming from but sadly that's not the conclusion. The reasoned decision explains that his argument was he got so pissed that when the sample was taken he was hungover, thus dehydrated and this apparently inhibits the production of reticulocytes and increases haemoglobin. Thus his results were 'wildly abnormal'. However, the science espoused by JTL's doctor is bobbins. UKAD state that he probably took EPO before the Tour of Britain and stopped 10-14 days before the sample.
However, what I can't understand is why no trace of EPO was found in his samples? Can someone explain that bit?
Because EPO is metabolised rapidly by your body. The foreign rhEPO is pretty much gone within 12 hours, so far as being able to reliably detect it with a test goes. The effects of EPO, stimulating blood cell production, can last much longer - blood cells live for months, so it can take a good number of weeks for the body's normal balance to be restored.
Reticulocytes are young blood cells. They are produced in the bone marrow and take about 7 days to mature into blood cells. Taking additional EPO hyper-stimulates reticulocyte production, so the %age of reticulocytes in the blood increae, and ultimately this leads to increased concentration of blood cells in the blood - which is what helps performance. Your own body will suppress its own EPO production in response of course.
When the athlete stops taking the foreign EPO, that leads to a period where their own EPO hormone production is suppressed, as the body seeks to restore the balance in blood values. As a consequence, the %age of reticulocytes in the blood can drop dramatically. It takes longer for those additional mature blood cells that were previously produced as a consequence of taking EPO to die, and for blood values to go back to normal, of course. E.g. haematocrit stays raised for at least a couple of weeks, if not longer.
JTL's value of 0.15% is pretty low. Values outside 0.5 to 1.5% would be a bit unusual, and normal values are more around 1%.
---
And then dont drink any water for the day afterwards while on your way to a 260km race.
Just read the report that farrell posted and Im chuckling....
Fair amount of info on here:
http://www.ukad.org.uk/anti-doping-rule-violations/download-decision/a/6605
Because no young athletes ever show poor decision-making when hung over?
This bit seems like a sideshow (dehydration should have effected other things that point 49 says it didn't) and I'm not doubting the rest of the result but "inconceivable"???
He'll be blaming it on his phantom twin next...
His twin has already protested his innocence.
I can't help but think that he's grasping at straws. Blood tests will either detect raised hemo levels or specific chemicals, and I doubt alcohol could throw things that far out - or pro teams would ban it outright - something along the lines of asthma inhalers.
ratattat: I don't think the ADOs can publish the nitty gritty details, it's quite personal data. JTL could publish it if he wanted though.
Is any information available on what levels were irregular? Or do they not publish this ??
The Secret Pro
I'm not sure whose version of events that supports.
Unfortunately, the quoted paragraph kind of highlights the ignorance of the author... I remember beating JTL into second (check me the feck out!) at a circuit race in 2008. He didn't worry about the result as 2nd earned him his Elite licence... So he's been back on it for at least 4 seasons before his stella season.
My understanding is that Jon has always liked partying, so I can imagine after winning the TOB and signing with Sky, he'd have gone on a massive bender... His ride at the Worlds did seem muted on reflection... That isn't a justification of the reading... just that he probably is telling the truth about the bender.
The brutal reality of pro cycling and pro cyclists is that whilst we love to think of them all living like monks, the truth is, they are just rich (relatively), young men, full of testosterone, an extremist attitude and sense of immortality... They are seriously that good that they can do with a hangover what we can't even imagine doing with the best prep in the world.
Tovarishch: The Secret Pro (or combo of sources) are presented as a WT rider, and supposedly an Aussie at that. I doubt that whatever JTL was doing on the UK scene back in 2008 registered one jot...
Is it me or has that SP post been removed from Cyclingtips? Clearly TSP talks about different things in a single post, but I wonder why...
No-it isn't you- it seems to be have been removed- wonder if it was due to the JTL stuff or the quote about Froome "going after blood" in the Vuelta which could be open to all sorts of interpretations.
Well now you're just teasing, I haven't read it! Google's content cache couldn't seem to provide it either.
Edit: got it, I don't think google likes the old browser version my work laptop...
Surely the effect of consuming alcohol on 'blood passport' samples could be quite easily tested? Probably wouldn't be short of volunteers to be 'tested' either.
So that's:
33 single shots of whisky or
11 pints of beer 0r
16.5 glasses of red wine
or any combination of above
Maybe he should have taken some advice from Brad on managing his alcohol intake
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