Four-year doping ban for Swiss cyclist who tested positive for three banned substances

But how do you know you, and many others, aren't buying contaminated supplements? I assume your local anti-doping agency aren't regularly turning up at your house demanding blood and urine samples?

A colleague's husband is an elite runner and he buys more expensive dietary supplements that are all batch tested to ensure purity. Worth a few extra quid if you know you're going to be giving someone your wee in the near future!

mdavidford wrote:

But how do you know you, and many others, aren't buying contaminated supplements? I assume your local anti-doping agency aren't regularly turning up at your house demanding blood and urine samples?

I think the implied subtext is that Mr Rude is not noticing much up-tick in his performance despite the supplements.

Because only CHEATING BASTARDS end up with contaminated supplements. You really think the supplement industry is putting oral steroids, etc in supplements when the reality is they're making it as cheaply as possible. 

The motogp rider Andrea Iannone tried the contaminated food one recently but the steroid was pretty designer and not the stuff farmers would use if they were even going to do that. Once again CHEATING BASTARDS. That's what I'm getting at. I'm astounded anyone would believe there are expensive PEDs in suppplements. 

As has also been mentioned, if in doubt stick to a WADA or whatever approved list. 

So your evidence that there are no contaminated supplements is that only cheats end up consuming PEDs, and your evidence that only cheats end up consuming PEDs is that there are no contaminated supplements.

Seems a little circular.

To be fair, Rude's 'evidence' ('arguments really) that there are no contaminated supplements is that the alleged contamination being more expensive and esoteric than the supplement makes it unlikely - you don't tend to find a cheap product 'contaminated' by significant amounts of a more expensive product.

So the people who end up claiming they innocently used a "contaminated supplement" must be cheats, because the supplements didn't contaminate themselves.

Not sure that washes though - nuts are (relatively speaking) quite expensive, and you find all sorts of cheaper foods coming with warnings that they could be contaminated with them. Trying to make things as cheaply as possible is exactly when I would expect the potential for contamination, if the two things are being manufactured in the same location.

Performance enhancing nuts? Clutching at straws now.

Hmm - I think you know that's not what I wrote.

OK, you rumbled me.

But, you see, for your food industry example of a nut-free food being contaminated with nuts to be illuminating here, we would have to assume a manufacturer of legal dietary supplements also packages illegal performance enhancing drugs alongside (with a warning on the label - may contain illegal performance enhancing drugs). In your example the nuts are the analogue of the PEDs. Hence performance enhancing nuts. Unlikely.

Hence the 'if' clause in my comment. I'm assuming that's how the people involved are claiming that the contamination has occurred. How likely that is I don't know - I'd leave that up to the relevant authorities to decide. It doesn't seem entirely out of the question to me though - a lot of these PEDs are only 'illegal' in the sporting sense, and a pharmaceutical company could conceivably be producing both sports supplements and therapeutic drugs.

then I'd expect a warning on the label at the very least. It's sounding like a non-starter to me: Wizzo-whey-protein...may contain banned substances.