by 
The script has been flipped and Alessandro Petacchi will not be at start line of this years Tour de France. Oh, my head is spinning around in circle. He’s in, he’s out, in, back out. Are we set yet?
Alessandro Petacchi lost his spot on Milram’s Tour de France team on Wednesday after being charged with doping by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), according to Agence France Presse.
CONI’s anti-doping prosecutor, Ettore Torri, asked the Italian cycling federation (FCI) to ban the 33-year-old sprinter for one year following a “non-negative” doping test after the third of his five stage wins at the Giro d’Italia.
Source: velonews.com
by 
no kidding…
are there any big guys left? Magnus has been left off the roster, Petacchi out…
top it off with cyclingnews “selling” out (for the second time even) and that whole Keith bit and ya got yourself one ripe fine positive spin on the stinky heap of shit out there.
Just for the hell of it……Dick Pound.
Petacchi’s situation has made me think about this “anti-doping” declaration the UCI is encouraging and that Le Societe is forcing riders participating in Le Tour to sign. Sounds like more bullshit designed to railroad the riders and let the “irreproachable” team management walk around with innocently little halos over their heads….cause we all know innocent or not Petacchi is getting fucked out of a years salary….ah screw it….he’s probaby guilty as sin.
why do these pubs like Velonews et. al always leave out the stinking shit sandwich center of the knowledge???
In this case, it is, If you use an inhaler for Salbutamol, how many puffs would you need to be over 1000 nanogram per milliliter or whatever it is?
The implication is that he took it orally or injected it in far larger amounts than some puffs?
Salbutamol can really kick up explosive power, so did he take like 100 puffs? Or did he just syringe up? … He tested at 1320, right?
But they NEVER fucking fill in the MEAT of these stories.
It’s left to DC to go out and collect up some doc who knows the deal and can give us a perspective.
in order to get your levels up to 1320 you would have to take your inhaler, shove it up your ass and do 1,320 squats, making sure to make contact with a solid surface with each dip down in order to dispense the precise amount of salbutamol, Once it is spritzed into your colon, it is absorbed into the bloodstream, carried north and then fired into your lungs like electronic fuel injectors. trust me, i may not be a doctor but this will make you feel like a keith richards/lance armstrong hybrid. that and i did stay at a holiday inn in the last week.
tick tock tick tock which rider’s neck is next placed on the butcher block?
chopper
you funny
and speaking of placing riders on the chopping block …. yeah … it’s that way .. all the price is paid by the rider, nothing is paid by 1) Dick Pound for talking shit, 2) the labs for fucking up sample runs and employing chimps with crayons to run the analytical machines 3) the teams for hiring the docs that run the doping ….
on and on …
A rider, led around like a turkey, then one day in November …….
C’mon…we need someone with doctorly type knowlege to tell us if Petacchi could have innocently used too much of his inhaler or if, as Chopper says, “in order to get your levels up to 1320 you would have to take your inhaler, shove it up your ass and do 1,320 squats, making sure to make contact with a solid surface with each dip down in order to dispense the precise amount of salbutamol”…anyone? Fuk it…gotta go get my EPO shot so I can slay all the pannier geeks on my bike path route to work.
According to Kinderman, 2007 (Journal of Sports Medicine) who reviewed and
analyzed 19 studies from 1988 to 2004 concerning ergogenic effects of
inhaled Beta2-Agonists, e.g. salbutamol, no performance enhancing effect is
found in 17 of the 19 studies, with portions of the other two showing some
improvement (<3%). Performance degradation is found in 2 studies.
Scheizer et al., 2004 (Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine) found that the
limit of 1000 ng/ml could be exceeded by inhalation alone. They
recommended leniency from the 2 year ban for levels not conclusively linked
to oral of subcutaneous administration.
Additionally, from Ventura et al., 2000 (Therapeutic Drug Monitoring):
“Salbutamol administration in athletes is permitted only by inhalation, for
the management of asthma. The authors discuss different criteria for
suspecting oral use of salbutamol, taking into account the data obtained by
application of two conventional screening procedures for doping control: gas
chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent
assay (ELISA). Urine samples obtained after administration of oral and
inhaled salbutamol to asthmatic and nonasthmatic swimmers were analyzed
using both analytical approaches. As expected, concentrations obtained by
the ELISA rest (detection of total salbutamol) were higher than those
obtained using the GC/MS procedure (detection of nonsulfated salbutamol).
After oral administration, the ELISA test detected significantly higher
salbutamol concentrations than those detected after inhalation, reflecting
the greater doses administered orally. Urine samples with total salbutamol
greater than 1400 ng/mL were obtained after oral doses, bur no sample
reached this value after inhaled doses. Higher concentrations of
nonsulfated salbutamol have also been detected after oral intake, although
there is an overlap between the distributions of concentrations after oral
and inhaled doses.”
So did he dope? My guess is probably not [with salbutamol…]. From the
sound of the last source, any oral or subcutaneous administration would
result in a positive test – particularly as he won the stage and would be
tested. With the sophisticated heights that our sport has reached in
doping, I can’t imagine good ol’ stupidity being the cause for the
positive. More likely, the prolonged allergy season in Italy combined with
the multi-day nature of the competition led to a greater-than-normal use of
the inhaler and hence the over-the-limit salbutamol levels.
thanks Nathan
I’ve been prescribed this medication, under the name “ventolin”. Go figure. Big jonny’s a doper.
Some dosage info:
“For the relief of acute asthma or before exercise 100-400mcg. The recommended dose for maintenance treatment or prophylactic therapy is 100-400mcg three to four times a day. Maximum dose is 1.6mg/day.”
From: http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/datasheet/b/Buventolinhalpwd.htm
It certainly seems as though one could go over 1000 ng/mL with an inhaler. But you’d be puffing like all hell do to it. And since “maximum serum concentrations occurring within 2-4 hours” he’d have to be puffing during the race. And a lot at that.
Piepoli getting popped makes me think “inhaler” too, since the only demonstrated effect of oral/subcutaneous salbutamol that I’m aware of is a substantial increase in ~30s power – mainly beneficial to a sprinter (read: not Piepoli). Even if you consider attacking on a climb, after 5+ minutes near or at VO2 there’s not much in the sprint tank. I can’t make up my mind if that’s for (another person suffering worse-than-normal EIA) or against (50kg Piepoli would have higher levels per ml for an equivalent dose yet shows similarly positive result – plus Petacchi is a sprinter and would benefit from oral salbutamol) Petacchi. I suppose if he is a doper I’m glad he go popped and he’ll go down. If he didn’t do it, he probably did something sometime with Stanga at the helm these last couple years.