So who won the tour from 1999 to 2005

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OnTheFeastofSailorSteve Dec 2017 8:22am, 13 Dec 2017 702 posts	0 OnTheFeastofSailorSteve Another one for the asthmatic para-Olympic category.
Derby Tup Dec 2017 8:22am, 13 Dec 2017 24,013 posts	0 Derby Tup Very
SPR Dec 2017 8:39am, 13 Dec 2017 25,394 posts	0 SPR Except he's had asthma since childhood. Not sure this is worth getting worked up about but we shall see.
While Raptor Knitted Socks by Night Dec 2017 8:57am, 13 Dec 2017 37,280 posts	0 While Raptor Knitted Socks by Night Salbutamol is a very conventional treatment for asthma and it's plausible that if a rider's asthma was triggered by riding hard/air quality and they were given nebulised salbutamol - which is also conventional medical treatment, though I'm not sure of its status in sport - they could have higher blood levels than you'd get with normal inhalers. It's not in the same league of Not OK as clenbuterol or intramuscular/IV triamcinolone. I'm going with "innocent explanation" in this instance.
stuart little Dec 2017 9:08am, 13 Dec 2017 1,409 posts	0 stuart little I'm in the wait and see camp. From memory (I looked it up when I was prescribed salbutamol) it's banned for anything other than inhalation, and tue required at around double what my dosage is.
Chrisull Dec 2017 10:04am, 13 Dec 2017 12,022 posts	0 Chrisull SPR - Except Petacchi got banned 12 months for the same offence in 2008 and stripped of 7 stage wins... cyclingweekly.com
The Teaboy Dec 2017 10:08am, 13 Dec 2017 15,078 posts	0 The Teaboy Except if you read Jeroen Swart's twitter thread on the subject, it makes no sense. He has a TUE and the supposed performance effects of Salbutamol doses higher than the prescribed limit aren't proven in the literature. So if he was doing it for a potentially non-existent performance gain, it's a really stupid reason to fail a drug test.
Chrisull Dec 2017 10:44am, 13 Dec 2017 12,023 posts	0 Chrisull Nice tip Tb, here's a link to Swart's thoughts on it: twitter.com My thoughts are (and I'd imagine many here would have similar?) 1) I don't believe Sky cheat/dope - EPO/testosterone etc 2) BUT I do believe Sky indulge in highly questionable activity with TUEs, and pushing the bounds of what is acceptable (see Wiggins) - which you could argue is pretty much the equivalent of 1) and therefore... 3) If they were pushing the boundaries on TUEs consistently, sooner or later they were going to come a cropper. So here they cannot win. Either they clear Froome, he gets it overturned for acceptable biological quirks from increasing his salbutamol intake, and the whispering campaign intensifies, or he gets banned. Either way he's tainted, and Sky by association are not looking good.
Chrisull Dec 2017 11:23am, 13 Dec 2017 12,025 posts	0 Chrisull Everyone's favourite room divider, Ross Tucker (typos and all): "how much care do you need to take to miss a target by 200%?" More seriously, a mid race increase in dosage large enough to cause that result suggests either: a) extreme disregard for TUE integrity (not for the first time by Sky, either, lets be fair); b) extreme incompetence (for the attention to detail & world class expert specialists) And then technically, how much do you need to take (and how) to exceed the thereshold by that much? Impossible to be specific because of intrinsic (athelte) factors, and without knowing timing. But to trip up an already high threshold by a lot? Takes work, or terrible luck." which goes back to my point 3)....
The Teaboy Dec 2017 12:24pm, 13 Dec 2017 15,079 posts	0 The Teaboy The Bilharzia-asthma link. Or not... theguardian.com