Clenbuterol.. What do you know about it?

[Illmatic94]

here's a great article I found.


Francisco Vargas, tainted meat and the slippery PED slope in boxing

Kevin Iole

Yahoo Sports May 24, 2016

LAS VEGAS – Regulators attempting to keep performance-enhancing drugs out of sports are modern-day versions of Sisyphus, condemned to pushing an immense boulder up a hill, only to continually see it roll back down.

Chasing the drug cheats is hard but important work, particularly in combat sports where the usage of PEDs can literally be the difference between life and death. And, sadly, they’re often a step behind those looking for an edge.

That brings us to the case of Francisco Vargas, the WBC super featherweight champion who won the title in 2015 from Takashi Miura in one of the year’s finest fights. He’s set to defend his belt on June 4 in California against Orlando Salido.

Vargas, concerned that Salido had failed a drug test in 2006, requested that both fighters be tested randomly by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association.

On April 21, shortly after eating a meal at his mother’s home in Mexico City, Vargas tested positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol. The concentration of it in his system was 1.3 nanograms per milliliter.

Clenbuterol is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2016 Prohibited List and is banned in any concentration at any time.

Vargas, though, is still on track to fight. His manager, Ralph Heredia, made a passionate defense of him on a media conference call earlier this month, and pointed out that in subsequent tests Vargas was given, no Clenbuterol or any other banned substances were found.

According to Heredia, a meal of carne asada with bone cooked in broth was to blame, and the concentration of the Clenbuterol in his system was so low as to be almost indistinguishable.

Heredia pointed out that Vargas passed tests on April 15 and 16, before failing on April 21. He then has passed numerous tests since that point.

Anyone who has followed drug testing in combat sports for any length of time has heard regulators tell fighters they’re solely responsible for what is in their bodies. And Vargas, no matter if it was inadvertent, had a substance in his body that is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency at all times.

Andy Foster, the executive officer of the California State Athletic Commission, is one of the leaders in the combat sports world against PED usage. Surprisingly, perhaps, to some, Foster agrees with Heredia that Vargas should not be pulled from the fight.

“You have to look at intent, I believe,” Foster told Yahoo Sports. “There is a very good argument one can make that this man didn’t intend to cheat. … The quantitative value is relatively low.”

And given that Vargas passed tests both before and after eating his mother’s cooking, the likelihood that Vargas intentionally cheated is low.

Thus, it seems fair to allow him to compete.

That said, in an extremely high percentage of cases in which a fighter tests positive for a banned substance, he/she denies usage and frequently points to contaminated substances.

The testing is done primarily for safety and to ensure clean competition. But it’s also to provide public confidence in the sport.

And that’s where things get tricky.

If a substance is banned at all times in any concentration and an athlete tests positive for it, it seems logical that the athlete should face discipline for the failed test.

But Houston Texans tackle Duane Brown last year found himself in the same situation as Vargas. He went on a brief vacation to Mexico with his wife during the Texans’ bye week and wound up eating 10 hamburgers and two steaks during his visit.

He was tested when he returned home and tested positive for Clenbuterol. That was set to trigger a 10-game suspension under NFL rules.

Brown successfully argued that he’d eaten tainted meat and he shouldn’t be held responsible for it.

As a result, the rules create a lot of confusion. Is an athlete getting a performance-enhancing benefit by eating meat contaminated with Clenbuterol? Even if it is 10 burgers and two steaks’ worth, it’s unlikely.

But in boxing, which doesn’t have a consistent drug testing policy like the UFC, NFL, NHL, NBA or MLB, it puts regulators and promoters in tight spots.

They have to explain a violation of policy that seems clearly written – banned at all times, in any concentration – to a skeptical media and fan base.

Ryan Connolly, the general counsel of VADA, said it is solely an athletic commission issue.

“VADA’s role is limited to assisting the commissions with the nuts and bolts of the testing process (e.g. enrollment of athletes, facilitating the collection of specimens, coordination with the WADA-accredited laboratories that perform the analyses, and communicating results to the appropriate parties),” Connolly said in an email to Yahoo Sports. “VADA does not opine regarding whether sanctions, suspensions, or event postponement/cancellations are appropriate in any given case, nor does VADA adjudicate lab results or evaluate any potential mitigating factors, such as those mentioned in your email.

“Such is the responsibility of the appropriate athletic commission, who is the sole arbiter of such issues in the sports of boxing and MMA.”

Jessica Hardy lost a spot on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team and served a one-year suspension after testing positive for Clenbuterol. Through her attorney, she proved the Clenbuterol came from a contaminated supplement and she didn’t have any reason to believe it had any steroidals.

Losing a spot on the Olympic team seems worse than being yanked from one fight.

By the same token, a reasonable person would argue that equity should prevail. If the substance was ingested unknowingly, as it appears to be in Vargas’ case, and won’t give him a competitive benefit, then allowing him to compete is the right thing to do.

What this ultimately points out is that boxing is in desperate need of a consistent drug testing policy. Some states, like Nevada and California, test athletes aggressively; others are lax and appear indifferent.

Until boxing regulators can solve this extraordinarily difficult issue and find a way to implement fair testing with sound procedures and a formal disciplinary process, we’re going to find ourselves in this spot again and again.

[COVID-19]

[oscar9992]

Cycling Champion banned for Clenbuterol, but what is Clenbuterol?


After a drawn-out and controversial case, Spanish professional cyclist Alberto Contador has been found guilty of doping and banned from the sport for two years.

Contador was stripped of his victories at the 2010 Tour de France, the 2011 Giro d'Italia and a raft of other races after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) brought its nearly-two-year investigation to a close.

A sample of Contador’s urine, taken during a rest day in the 2010 Tour de France, contained traces of clenbuterol – a banned substance in cycling and many other sports. Contador claims the clenbuterol in his body was the result of eating contaminated Spanish beef.



So what is clenbuterol? How does it work? And would the amount detected in Contador’s body have had any effect on his performance?

Clenbuterol itself is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has been banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) because of its potentially performance-enhancing effects.

As well as being an effective bronchodilator, clenbuterol can have a range of other effects, including an increase in:

1) aerobic capacity (the amount of oxygen the body can use during physical exercise)
2) the body’s ability to transport oxygen, and
3) the body’s ability to metabolise fat.



This final property leads some people to use it as a potential weight-loss aid and to increase lean muscle mass.

[WesternChamp]

its the meat. my mexican homies say its good but like they shoot that shiiet up with drugs aye. so that shiiet is like constaminated or something like that aye.

[Illmatic94]

Blaming beef is nothing new

Alberto Contador, the clenbuterol, the beef excuse and the traces of plastic

Lionel Birnie

October 5, 2010


Another positive test, another protestation of innocence, another explanation. This time it was the beef. The drugs were in the beef.

Alberto Contador and his advisers have had a month to come up with that. They have had a month to hire some lawyers and investigators to track the meat back to the suppliers, do some tests and present to the world some evidence to support the claims.

Because if you are going to state, as the experts putting the case for Contador have done, that this “is a clear case of food contamination” then you need to provide something to add weight to that argument.

But perhaps Contador wasn’t expecting to have to say anything at all. Perhaps he thought it was all going to go away.

The sample was taken on July 21, the second rest day of the Tour de France, the day before the big stage to the Col du Tourmalet. Small traces of clenbuterol were detected. Tests on the B sample backed up the first test. Contador says he was told on August 24 he had tested positive but was asked by the UCI not to say anything.

Another month passed and nothing had been made public. The UCI said that as soon as the B sample confirmed the A sample, Contador was provisionally suspended. Yet there was no announcement by the UCI until September 29. The Chinese rider Li Fuyu of the Radioshack team tested positive for the same drug after a sample was collected on March 24. By April 22 he had been provisionally suspended by the UCI. Why did it take a month longer to make a statement concerning Contador?

Information about Contador’s positive test had been leaked to a German television station and reporters had been asking questions. The UCI denied Contador had tested positive but it appears that pressure from the media prompted the announcement.

Details have been patchy and contradictory. In the initial UCI statement, it was suggested that the level of clenbuterol in Contador’s system was 50 picograms “which is 400 times less than what anti-doping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect”.

This was erroneous. It was 40 times below the threshold at which WADA-accredited labs must be able to detect clenbuterol, not 400 times. It just so happened that Contador’s sample was tested at a laboratory in Cologne, Germany, with equipment sensitive enough to detect the drug at levels much lower than WADA requires as a minimum standard.

The woolly wording caused confusion too, with many people assuming that it meant the levels of the drug in Contador’s system were way below that required to announce a positive test.

That was not the case. Clenbuterol is not permitted in any quantity. It is not something that occurs naturally in the body so there is no threshold, as there is with testosterone, for example. Whether it’s a little or a lot, it’s a positive test.

And under the World Anti-Doping Agency’s rules of strict liability, an athlete is responsible for the substances in his or her body. If it got there because of contaminated food or other supplements there may be a case to plead for a reduced ban, as the swimmer Jessica Hardy did. She tested positive for clenbuterol and managed to demonstrate she had taken a legal supplement that had been tainted. Her two-year ban was cut in half.

Clenbuterol is not a new drug. It’s been around for 30 years. Experts say the level of the drug found in Contador’s system suggests it would have had no performance-enhancing effect. But as a drug that improves breathing, increases oxygen transportation and helps the body to burn fat more quickly, it is just the sort of thing athletes seeking an edge would find beneficial.

Contador says he asked a friend to bring some beef from Spain and that he ate the meat for dinner. Alexandre Vinokourov, who was also dope tested and was negative for clenbuterol, did not eat the beef, Contador claims.

The Spanish meat industry is not happy with Contador’s claims, issuing a statement that said: “It is a clear case of a gratuitous attack on Spanish beef producers without any basis.” Clenbuterol injections have been used to increase meat yield in cattle but the practice was banned a number of years ago by the EU.

And the meat excuse took on even greater importance when the French newspaper L’Equipe reported allegations that traces of a plastic residue the same as the type used to manufacture blood bags were detected in Contador’s sample taken on July 20. This hints at the possibility of Contador having a banned blood transfusion using his own blood.

That may also explain the low levels of clenbuterol the following day. The theory, which Contador denies strongly, is that he used blood extracted earlier in the year after a training block during which he used clenbuterol. The screening equipment he had at his disposal was not sensitive enough to pick up the traces of the drug.

The test to detect traces of plastic has been around for a year or so but it has not yet been validated for use. The New York Times has reported that the levels were abnormally high. Even though the test has not been ratified, it may contribute to the case the anti-doping officials are seeking to build.

The problem for cycling is that those who follow the sport are becoming tired of the UCI’s Keystone Cops administration of the sport. And those with a broader interest in sport will have seen the headlines: “Tour de France champion tests positive for drugs” and would have barely raised an eyebrow.

In fact, the over-riding reaction is one of mockery and scorn at Contador’s explanation which sounds like it was plucked from the manual of excuses where it lies next to “the dog ate my homework”.

Contador can plead his innocence and fear for his credibility. He appeals for the benefit of the doubt but what has he done to earn it? This isn’t his first brush with doping controversy. It has not been proved one way or the other whether the initials AC in Dr Eufemiano Fuentes’s documents refers to him or not. But Contador was riding for Liberty Seguros in 2006, the team run by Manolo Saiz, the man at the centre of the blood doping scandal with Fuentes. Contador said it was an unfortunate coincidence.

I prefer to think of an occasion when Contador was given a clear opportunity to speak up for clean cycling, to banish all the doubts once and for all.

We were sitting in the press room a few kilometres from Mont Ventoux on Saturday, July 25, 2009. Contador was wearing the yellow jersey. With one day to go, he had his second Tour de France title secured. It had been an impressive performance despite incredible tension inside his Astana team.

My colleague Edward Pickering asked an unequivocal question that demanded an unequivocal answer.

“Can you assure us that you’ve never taken any banned performance-enhancing products, nor used any banned methods, and can you take this opportunity to make a strong statement for clean cycling?”

Contador replied: “I’m available 365 days a year, which is something I accept with good grace for the sport I love. I will continue to have this attitude.”

Why do so many fall so short when given the chance to strike a blow against cheating? Does the omerta really preclude a cyclist from saying: “I did this completely clean and I am very proud to have done so.”

So what happens now? If the letter of the law were to be applied, Contador would be suspended for two years. He could appeal and if his “meat excuse” stood up at the Court of Arbitration for Sport his ban might be reduced.

But the damage is done. In the eyes of the world, the three-time Tour de France winner has tested positive for drugs and that is that.

It was the beef, it was the Jack Daniels and beers, it was the pressure from team management, the drugs were for my dog, my mother-in-law, it’s a witch-hunt, it’s a mistake. It’s all very tiring.

[Illmatic94]

Boxing should take notes

MERIDIAN ATHLETES BANNED

September 8, 2017

Five athletes who competed at the 2017 Meridian Regional have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and received four-year bans.

None of the sanctioned athletes—one female and four males—placed high enough to earn a trip to the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games, but all five have received disqualifications from the 2017 season after positive results from directed drug testing. They will be prohibited from participating in any CrossFit-sanctioned events through the 2021 season.

The disqualified athletes are:

Stella Christoforou, who tested positive for clenbuterol

Andrea Barbotti, who tested positive for clomiphene

Paweł Leśnikowski, who tested positive for clenbuterol, modafinil and elevated testosterone levels

Gianluca Occhino, who tested positive for tamoxifen

Ľudovít Czókoly, who tested positive for clomiphene

In July, after reviewing test results from the qualifying athletes from all eight Regionals, CrossFit disqualified one Games-qualifying individual athlete and two Games-qualifying teams. Drug tests for the five non-qualifying Meridian athletes, who competed in the third week of Regionals, required additional testing and time for the appeals process to conclude.

CrossFit conducts drug testing on all Regional and Games podium finishers, select members of qualifying teams, and additional non-podium athletes chosen at random. In addition, athletes may be randomly or directly selected for testing throughout the year—both in and out of competition.

The Meridian disqualifications are a result of directed testing, which means that CrossFit had information it deemed reasonable that led to screening specific athletes and increasing the total number of tests for performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs, in that region.

“Drug testing at the Regional level is an important prerequisite for advancing to the CrossFit Games,” CrossFit Games General Manager Justin Bergh said. “Based on the behavior of certain athletes and allegations made through our support channels, we decided to change the timing and total number of samples collected from athletes outside the top five. There can be no tolerance for athletes who use PEDs at any level of competition, and the results from this will immediately affect our testing plan for subsequent events.”

The CrossFit Games are the world’s definitive test of fitness, and a level playing field is an absolute necessity for crowning the Fittest on Earth. A strong drug-testing program, such as the one CrossFit has implemented, is a requirement to ensure fairness and accuracy. CrossFit partners with Drug Free Sport—the organization that conducts drug testing for the NFL, NBA, MLB and NCAA, along with 300 other sports and athletic organizations—to administer tests. A laboratory approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency processes blood and urine samples.

Athletes may be sanctioned for a number of infractions besides positive test results, including tampering in any way with samples; evading, refusing or failing to submit to a drug test; or attempted or successful trafficking of any prohibited substances or methods. CrossFit may also recognize violations, including positive tests, reported by other anti-doping organizations, such as the United States Anti-Doping Agency, in its in- and out-of- competition testing within other sports.

The use of PEDs negatively impacts the legitimate athletes who compete fairly under the CrossFit Games Rulebook.

“Use of performance-enhancing drugs is a reality in many professional arenas. We’re committed to being the exception,” Bergh said. “We will provide the resources necessary to expand the depth and volume of directed testing in and out of competition, and will continue to use information gained from our global community to weed out those who would cheat.”

The organization is committed to disclosing information about infractions as soon as its investigations are completed and the athletes’ appeals have been considered. The full 2017 Drug Testing Program policy can be found here. CrossFit is committed to ensuring it’s a drug-free sport and will work to eradicate the use of PEDs for competitors.

[Mammoth]

Canelo takes it to cheat

[Beercules]

It's used in taco beef for every single Mexican fighter.

[Cutthroat]

I know Morales tested positive for it vs Garcia and he did not look like a fighter that was on steroids. I won't rule out Canelo eating tainted meat when it's been found in 6 different Mexican cities and unknowingly sold by vendors

[BoxingTech718]

Clen doesn’t add muscle but it helps you shed fat and increases metabolism. It’s a beta agonist. Its a great drug in many places it’s legal even. It barely has any side effects.
I’d love to try a cycle of the stuff myself to get shredded.