The Science of Sport

Tour 2009: Waiting for the Alps

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:08:00 +0000

Waiting for the Alps: Tour building to a crescendo (we hope)

The Tour has ticked over (as much as 'ticking over' happens when you ride 200 km a day in a bike race), and we're now on the verge of the big showdown in the Alps. After the relative disappointment of the Pyrenees, the Alps provide the next potential stage for the big showdown for the overall leadership of the Tour.

You'll excuse the lack of posts in the last two days, as my own posting has mimicked the lull in the Tour - I have been doing some reading, and I came across this absolutely brilliant article from SI in the USA. It's lengthy, but really well worth the read. Some of the best quotes you'll read on cycling.

The race - status quo remains

Nocentini continues to look after the yellow jersey for the big contenders, Mark Cavendish has now taken ownership of the green jersey, and the polka dots are on the line from tomorrow onwards where that battle starts to heat up. The radio ban on Tuesday produced what Lance Armstrong called the easiest day ever in the Tour de France, and when you start to factor in the neutralized climbs of the Aspin and Col du Tourmalet, and the "easy" rides through the transitional stages, the big contenders for the Tour should have a great deal to throw down come the high mountains in the next week.

The shake-up in the Alps awaits us

The ride through the Alps really only starts on Sunday, but we have what are called "medium mountains" starting tomorrow. A Category 2 and a Category 1 climb await on a stage that welcomes the Tour to its crucial week. The Cat 1 summit is 60+ km from the finish line, so much like the Tourmalet stage, it's suited to a break and not to a big battle between the top 10. Therefore, it's unlikely to shake up the leader board, though some aggression from anyone (something that has been sorely lacking in the Tour so far) might see yellow change hands.

That would of course be a significant moment in the race, but it is unlikely that any of the podium challengers will be aggressive or be dropped on this day - their battles seem likely to be begin on Sunday, with three consecutive days in the mountains (broken up by a rest day on Monday) including a mountain-top finish on Sunday, a couple of out of category climbs, and a very tough day on Wednesday featuring four Category 1 climbs. That is followed by the Individual Time-Trial in Annecy on Thursday, and so by then, we should have a much clearer idea of where the yellow jersey is destined.

The protagonists remain much the same as they have - Contador and Armstrong, supported by Kloden and Leipheimer, hold the team-aces with Astana. Andy Schleck will count on brotherly support from Frank, while Cadel Evans and Carlos Sastre are quite close to "last-chance" territory and really have to attack to regain lost time. Andy Schleck in particular looked brilliant in the Alps last year, and has featured at the front of climbs in the Pyrenees.

Contador, for his part, said the other day that if Armstrong were to attack, he'd be obliged NOT to respond. That may be part gamesmanship, part truth, but I suspect Contador is staking that statement on the expectation that Evans, Schleck and maybe even Sastre WILL attack first (probably on Sunday), and he can of course follow their attacks. I expect that Evans will be first to attack in the Alps, but that Schleck will be doing most of the early damage when he does attack, probably in response. As for Armstrong and Contador, they'll follow, and depending on the form of Schleck, it might open the door that Contador needs to counter attack and build his lead on the rest of the race.

No indication of form so far

Unfortunately, because of the relatively sedate pace of the climbs, debating who has form is guesswork at this stage. Of course, we know more or less who is going to be competitve, based on the prologue and the way they rode the Pyrenees, but so far, little has been done to really suggest who will come through and who will fade away on the very steep climbs when the pressure is turned up. When a group of 70 riders summits the Tourmalet, you know the pressure is right off.

Similarly, even on Arcalis, where the biggest attacks of the race have come, the race didn't exactly fragment - Cadel Evans threw in an attack that split a group of 40 into a group of 20, and then Contador did break away, but about 10 riders were able to follow Evans in the chase. So, at this mid-way point of the Tour, it's anyone's guess who has the legs.

We will see what the Alps reveal...

Sorry for the lack of data today - just an opinion post. The mountains provide the most food for analysis, so we'll get into that as the peloton gets into the Alps!

Join us then!

Ross

Tour de France 2009: Power estimates

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Power output of Tour champions: What does it take to climb with the elite?

The Tour is currently winding its way through France, in what is another pretty sedate and routine stage so far. It's looking like a sprinter's stage, and maybe the battle for green between Cavendish and Hushovd.

To pass the time, I thought I'd do a post on the power outputs of elite cyclists in the mountains, which is always a nice topic of discussion, especially among those of you who measure power output and enjoy comparing yourself to the pros. So perhaps the numbers below will put into perspective just what it takes to ride at the front of a race like the Tour!

It's also a post that was partly inspired by some of your comments in response to our race report from Friday's racing up to Arcalis, the Tour's first mountain stage.

In that post, I commented that the climbing time of the lead group was around 25:22 (for Contador, 25:43 for the rest), compared to the time of 22:55 when Jan Ullrich won on the same climb back in 1997. Many of you suggested that this slowing of the times was an indication that the Tour is "cleaner" now - the fight against doping is being won, and the slower times are the outcome of having fewer doped riders pumping the pedals powered by all manner of EPO, GH, Insulin, testosterone and who knows what else! That's the thinking, anyway...The same question and debate seems to be doing the rounds in a few chat forums on the Tour, so it's obviously topical.

So today's post is a look back on the Tour, and just how fast it used to be. Unfortunately, I don't have data that span the most important period (2002 to 2006), but it does provide a good starting point for the debate, and a topic of discussion while the Tour rolls over the flatlands before the next big rendevous in the French Alps this weekend.

Is leTour 2009 "clean"?...too early to tell, too many confounders

To begin with, it's too early to answer the question definitively. There are simply too many confounding factors that can't be controlled - the weather, the temperature, the race tactics, the quality of the riders, the race situation - all these things impact on the estimated power output, and given that we've only really seen about 2km of all-out racing on the climbs, it's impossible to infer too much.

For example, if you compared the climb of the Tourmalet on Sunday to the climbs during the period 1995 to about 2006, you'd find an enormous difference - the Tourmalet has rarely been climbed so slowly. But that tells us nothing of the doping situation, but rather the stage profile, with 70km of riding after the summit negating the climb. So one must be careful to avoid the trap of looking at the numbers blindly and in isolation.

I think that if we look back on the 2009 Tour in a few years, it will make interesting reading though. Over a period of years, and maybe 15 to 20 climbs, it starts to become more meaningful to compare times and power outputs, because factors like tactics and weather start to "wash" out and trends become more meaningful than isolated observations.

So let's begin with a dose of realism - Contador and co may have climbed 3 minutes slower than Ullrich on Arcalis, but that ALONE doesn't tell us too much. There are however other factors that contribute to the argument, and we'll get to those shortly.

First, let's look at the power outputs that have been estimated for pros on the major climbs of the Tour in the past. Remember of course that all the above "confounders" or limitations exist for this analysis as well, but by looking long-term, at trends, we can still gather useful information, as I explained above. But race context, environment, strategy - all these things affect it, and I'm well aware of this limitation. I do however maintain that taking a long term view allows interesting trends to emerge, despite the limitations. The mistake would be to zone in on specific climbs, but that's not what this is about!

Power output on major climbs - the Tour champions over the years

Below is a graph showing the estimated power output* for the eventual Tour winner on the final climb of the Tours between 1989 and 2001. In other words, in 1989, Greg Lemond would go on to win the Tour, and what has been done here is to estimate his power output on the final climb of each mountain stage and then average them for that year. Same for Lemond in 1990, then Indurain, Riis, Ullrich, Pantani and Armstrong.

Note that for all years, the power output has been "normalized" by expressing it relative to body weight. This is important, because Indurain, for example, was much larger than Pantani. Pantani at a power output of 350W was thus the equivalent of Indurain riding at around 500W. So, to compare them, one either has to express power output per kilogram, or express it for a standard weight. I've taken the approach of expressing it relative to body weight. I'll post more on the effect of body weight on performance in the mountains once we get closer to Mont Ventoux.
Also, just as an addendum to the post in response to a comment by Will below, I must make the point that all the ABSOLUTE power outputs were calculated using the rider mass PLUS the mass of the equipment (bike and gear, assumed at 9kg for calculations), and then expressed relative to rider weight (see footnote).

It makes for some interesting reading - Greg Lemond averaged 5.7 W/kg on the final climbs during both his Tour wins. Then Indurain started off with an average power output of 5.3 W/kg, followed by 4.91 W/kg, and then it began to climb, so much so that when Indurain won his fifth Tour in 1995, his average power output on the final climbs of the mountain stages was an incredible 6.35 W/kg. (Just to labour the point - if you want to work out the ABSOLUTE power output for each rider, just multiply the power I've shown by the rider's mass. For Indurain, multiply by 80kg and you get a value of 508W)

That high power output was maintained for the next four years, Riis averaged 6.47 W/kg, Ullrich 6.33 W/kg, and then Marco Pantani set the 'record' when he averaged 6.63 W/kg during the 1998 Tour.

In 1999, which was the year after the big Festina scandal, the power output decreased to 5.88 W/kg, and then it began a progressive climb in 2000 and 2001, so that it was back up to 6.3 W/kg in 2001. That, unfortunately, is where the data I have end - see the footnote below.

However, we do know that Lance Armstrong's power output on Alp d'Huez in 2004 was calculated as 495W - this was presented as a scientific paper at the ACSM congress in Nashville in 2005, and I noticed the power output. It equates to 6.97 W/kg (as shown in the graph). It must be noted that this was the time-trial stage and so the climb was performed without other climbs and a day of racing before, and so should be slightly higher. However, what's really interesting to note is that even with this apparent "freshness", Armstrong still only rode 25 seconds faster in the 2004 climb than in 2001, when he won atop the Alp as well (after a long stage). The effect of the fatigue exists, but it's not as profound as I think one first imagines...

Whether the power output was as high as this on other climbs between 2002 and 2007, I'm not sure - if you look at a list of the best times ever recorded on these climbs, you'll find that many were set in this era from 2002 to 2007. Pantani still holds most of the records, but the generation 2002 to 2007 are in amongst the best times, faster than Riis and Ullrich, and so I suspect that the power outputs during this period as comparable to those achieved in the period 1994 to 1998, and 2000 to 2001. Therefore, the power output from 2002 to 2005 at least will be in the same range - 6.3 W/kg or higher. If you have the climbing times, do let me know.

To unpack the graph above in a bit more detail, the table below shows the power output estimated for Lance Armstrong during his three Tour wins in this recording period (1999 to 2001):

What does it take to ride the Tour?

There are a number of ways to interpret these numbers. First of all, it puts into perspective the enormous power output required to be competitive in the pro-peloton in the mountains. Take any of the above riders, and you'll find that you have to be able to sustain a power output well above 6W/kg. Greg Lemond, and Miguel Indurain's first few Tours were won with power outputs lower than this, but ever since, anything less than 6W/kg is not high enough.

In fact, since the mid-90s, 6.2 W/kg seems to be the minimum requirement, apart from the "aberration" of 1999 when the Tour was on full alert after the fiasco of 1998 and Festina-gate. Physiologically speaking, riding at 6.2 W/kg for up to 40 minutes is quite extra-ordinary. Elite athletes are usually able to sustain power outputs between 80% and 90% of maximum for a prolonged time. If a rider is able to sustain a power output of 6.3 W/kg for 30 minutes, then you can infer their peak power output will be somewhere between 7 and 7.5 W/kg, incredibly high.

If you are a cyclist who monitors your own power output, then, work out what 6.3 W/kg means for you (say, 520 W), and next time you are riding on a slope of about 7 to 9%, try to hold that power output for as long as possible. It is an eye-opener, that is for sure.

The doping implication

I'm sure most of you reading this have already made the junction and are asking what is physiologically possible? That is, Greg Lemond was down at 5.7 W/kg, then within 5 years, the power output has climbed by 10%, and then continued to climb, so that Marco Pantani is 15% higher than Lemond. That level of progress is not typical of mere physiology, so it does point to something, and that "something" of course, is doping. Or is it? Perhaps we should be expecting sustainable power outputs of 6.3 W/kg?

I do have to point out the following though - remember that these power outputs are estimated based on time. Therefore, technological changes such as a reduction in the weight of the equipment, stiffer bikes (as pointed out by a commenter), and better components will make a difference to estimated power output, even though the caliber of riders haven't changed at all. Part of the changes you see in that graph can therefore be attributed to changes in technology.

The question is how much does technology explain? That depends what you want to believe, unfortunately! If you want to believe that cycling is clean, or rather, was clean right up to and after the Armstrong era, then you'll say that technology accounts for a 10% improvement. That would mean that the power outputs of 2001 are "expected". Put differently, this argument says that Lemond on the same equipment would also be producing 6.3 W/kg.

Others would say that technology contributes little to this growth. I don't know the answer, but I do think that the impact of technology has been overstated and that the greatest reason for the change you see in that graph is doping. Yes, bikes are lighter, stiffer and therefore times should improve. But, at the same time, we know that Riis, Ullrich and Pantani have all been implicated (or straight out confessed), and so their performances are likely drug aided. Therefore, the fact that Riis, Ullrich and Pantani achieved such high power outputs relative to Lemond is an indication that either:
a) The drugs don't work and technology really is responsible for all of the increase
b) The drugs do help and the technology is not that big a factor after all.

Of course, this itself assumes the these riders were doping, but I think it's pretty reasonable to say that, in hindsight. So my interpretation of the above graph is that in the 1990s, the Tour moved into a new era, where doping characterized performance, and that era peaked in the mid-90s.

The doping 'fingerprint' on performance

I read an article this week, for example, that reports that when the test for EPO was developed, samples from the 1998 and 1999 Tour were used to 'test the test', and 80% of them were found to be positive! The poor researchers thought something was wrong with their assay, because so many samples were being found to contain EPO. There is little doubt that until that test was finally perfected for 2000, EPO abuse was rife in the peloton. The graph above spans that period nicely.

Post 2000, all indications are that the peloton went "back to basics" and blood doping, which is arguably less effective, if only because of practical difficulties around doing it. One would expect the sudden "removal" of EPO to cause a drop in pace in the peloton, of course, while riders used what they could until the teams had figured out how to bypass the systems once again.

The interesting year is 1999 - that was the first year after the Festina scandal, and the Tour was on high alert. I remember police raids of team hotels, and a general crackdown. Not from the UCI or Cycling authorities, mind you, but from the police. So I think the lower speeds of that year were a function of greater policing, quite literally! Then, after that, the speeds just go back up again, as shown in the graph.

Cyclists may have occasionally been forced to regroup and think of how to use drugs without being caught, but they rarely stop because of the risk...Here, I think of Bernard Kohl, who has just recently highlighted just how ineffective testing is (including the passports), by his admission that for years, he used everything - Growth hormone, insulin, EPO, testosterone and blood doping, without being caught.

Now, the really interesting thing - if the mid-90s were characterized by doping and those performances are "assisted", then one cannot help but notice that the late 90s and early 2000s have produced similar performances, taking into account the short-term drop in 1999. Since that, it's been a steady climb upward, and it would be very helpful to see what the performances of 2002 - 2005 are like, so if you have them, let me know.

There are then only two ways to explain the performances from 1999 to 2001 (and beyond, since they will remain similar, or be even better). One is that must believe that one rider is genuinely better than the effect of doping. Or, alternatively, you are left with the conclusion that his performances are an extension of what went before...

Unfortunately, no amount of evidence will prove which it is. Based on this evidence ALONE, I must confess that I would not deliver a verdict either way. You may be the judge...

Looking ahead

All of this is interesting, and hopefully food for thought. It doesn't exactly help us answer the question of "Is the 2009 Tour 'clean'?". That too, I'm afraid, is unanswerable as far as performance-analysis goes.

However, it does lead into the next post, which is a more subjective view of the performances in the last two years in the Tour, and what is my opinion on the state of the peloton. But that is for tomorrow!

Ross

* Note: The method used for all the above estimations comes from a publication from Polar France, performed by two French scientists: Antoine Vayer and Frederic Portoleau. It was published in 2002, and called "Pouvez-vous gagner le Tour?", and it was kindly given to me by David Walsh (yes, that one). The method used was to calculate power output given the riding time, the mass of the rider PLUS equipment, and then all the factors that are typically used (rolling resistance, frontal surface area, air density, gravity, and speed). I've expressed that calculated power relative to body weight.

You'll find a number of different methods to estimate power, but all produce relatively similar values - there is some error though, which explains slight differences between these and other similar estimates. The important thing is consistency in the method, at least in as far as comparing years goes. Unfortunately, the book was published in 2002 (by PolarFrance.fr), and so I don't have the same method to work out the power output from 2002 to 2008. That would be very revealing, I believe. An analysis presented at the ACSM conference in 2005 estimated Armstrong's power output on Alpe d'Huez at 495W.

Tour de France 2009: Pyrenees are over

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Pyrenees are completed - Tour bores its way over the mountains

The Pyrenees, mercifully, are over. I suspect one would have to go a long way back to find a Tour where the Pyrenees have been so inconsequential to the overall race. The days where the main contenders attacked one another to gain time in the Pyrenees are a distant memory, because the 2009 Tour trundled over some legendary climbs today in what resembled a transit-leg, rather than a bike race.

The long and short of it is that Rinaldo Nocentini holds onto the yellow jersey, 6 seconds ahead of Alberto Contador, with Lance Armstrong two seconds further back. A great deal of buzz was generated by Contador's attack on the slopes of Arcalis on Friday, the move which saw him jump Armstrong into role of Astana's team leader (in terms of time, anyway). Some chat rooms are filled with those who say Armstrong would have dominated the climb had it not been for team orders. Others are writing that he would not have kept up with Contador's acceleration even if he did try to.

It's difficult to pin down an objective opinion. Having read many of the articles, I will say that this one, from the Times, is the best piece written about the mountains so far. Well worth a read.

It makes the excellent point that Armstrong was quick to point out that Contador's move was not "to the plan", and how in his role as a team player, his "obligation is to the team", which is why he didn't respond. As valid as that may be, it's brought into focus by a comparison with what happened on stage 3 of the race, when Contador missed the split in the peloton. On this occasion, rather than show the obligation to the team leader who was losing time, it was Armstrong who sent team-mates to the front and himself drove the pace. Presumably "to the plan" is entirely contextual...

A similar opinion from the always excellent summary provided by Cycling Fans Anonymous site, which sums up the details of the days in the Pyrenees better than I would care to.

But, a very brief look at the Tourmalet climb today, and some numbers to put into context just how neutralized it was...

The 'non-event' of the Tourmalet

The Col du Tourmalet is one of the most famed climbs in cycling. At the top, a statue of Jacques Goddard (Tour director 1936 to 1987) welcomes riders to what is the highest road in the central Pyrenees. It has been climbed 47 times, and I dare say it has rarely been relegated to such an inconsequential role as it was by its placement in the stage today, so slow was the pace of the main field up its slopes.

The slowest ascent in years

How slow was the Tour today? Well, back in 1994, the peloton rode the final 12.6km of the Tourmalet in 46:00. For a man weighing about 78kg (including bike and other equipment), that corresponds to a power output of approximately 350W.

That stage in 1994 also featured the fastest climb ever of the Tourmalet to that point, by Marco Pantani. His time? 39:50, a power output of approximately 400W (normalized to 78kg total weight). In 2003, Jan Ullrich recorded the fastest ever ascent, 38:43, which is amazing considering his size compared to Pantani's, and also that Pantani, in 1994 when he set the previous record, was pretty much breaking all records in that Tour - he set the records up Alp d'Huez and Mont Ventoux in that tour (the Alp d'Huez record was broken by him the following year, the Ventoux one still stands!)

Jump to 2009: The peloton took 54:09 to reach the summit, though this time is measured from a different point and therefore measures the bottom slopes as well. Extrapolating is difficult, because the latter half is quite a bit steeper, but it's about 9 minutes longer, which means that the 2009 group rode the climb some 7 minutes slower than the record, and more in line with what the main peloton rides it. That it contained all the elite men of the Tour is a sign of the "truce" that existed today. Also, the break-away group was in fact FASTER than the main peloton, which is almost unheard of on the final climb of the day in a mountain stage, which tells you just how "shut down" the race was at the front. In terms of power outputs, this year's average is approximately 20% down on that of Pantani 15 years ago and Ullrich in 2003.

Note that this is a correction on the earlier post, thanks to the feedback from a commenter who pointed out the discrepancy in lengths between the climbs, which I initially missed

Now, many will point to this as an indication that doping is under control - we got a few emails and comments suggesting that after I pointed out how slow the Arcalis climb was the other day. That certainly may be part of it, and I've got some data from the history of the Tour to look at that particular question in some more detail. But that's for next week...

I don't think you can infer much from the climb today, because the peloton was completely disinterested in racing up the climb, it was a 'truce' day.

In fact, I would hazard a guess that this must be the slowest ascent of the Tourmalet in many, many years. Sadly, I don't have other numbers, so I don't know how fast Armstrong and Ullrich climbed it in 2003, or what the climbing time was in 2001 - if anyone has this, please let me know.

The stage profile, race route and eliminating the spectacle

However, it makes the point that this year the Tourmalet was neutralized, and the race was denied a real contest, thanks to the fact that there was an extra-ordinary 70km to go to the finish once the summit had been reached.

This, plus the fact that the Tour still has three Alpine stages (which are also pretty non-descript, it has to be said), one individual time-trial, and the climb up Mont Ventoux, meant that no serious riding was done, which is a great shame.

Not that I am blaming the riders, of course, I don't wish this to be criticism of their efforts. From the time this route was announced, this stage (and yesterday's) was always going to be controlled affairs. The Tour organizers take responsibility for that. As for Friday, which was an anti-climax of note, that was the result of the dull Astana tactics, helped along by a team time-trial which has all but eliminated four or five riders from being factors in this Tour.

Of course, the intention of the race organizers in creating this route was almost certainly to ensure that we will have a host of riders in close contact by the time the race hits Mont Ventoux. The "spectacle" of the yellow jersey on the line on the second last day was always the intention. I suspect that will fail anyway because of Astana's dominance and the team time-trial, which means the Tour has, from the point of view of excitement, dropped a notch this year.

And sadly, the desire for that spectacle has meant that the Pyrenees have hardly been a spectacle at all.

Next on the agenda

The race now enjoys a rest day, then a few flat stages where the focus will again be on breakaway riders, the sprinter's green jersey and maybe some time for more scientific posts about the typical Tour rider.

Join us then!
Ross

le Tour 2009: Barcelone - Andorre Arcalis report

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Rinaldo Nocentini spoils the Astana script as Contador goes "against the plan" to attack

The first day in the mountains in the Tour de France is usually a spectacular showdown in which the claimants for the overall title lay down their credentials for yellow. 2009 will probably not go down as such a day...

Stage 7 of the 2009 Tour will be remembered for the following reasons:

It was the day that Brice Feillu recorded a famous victory for France after a long break-away.
It will go down as the day that Alberto Contador ALMOST grabbed the race lead after he attacked with about 1.5km to go, but that he fell short by 6 seconds.
It will be remembered as the day that he lost out NOT to Lance Armstrong, but to Rinaldo Nocentini, one of those riders in the breakaway that produced the stage winner, but who found 6 seconds more than he needed to wear the yellow jersey tomorrow.
It MAY be remembered as the day that Contador snubbed his nose at his own team in order to lay down his marker as the leader of the team and the best rider in the field. That may be ultimately be the event with lasting significance.

But, in my books, this stage will NOT go down as an epic Tour mountain stage, because it was, frankly, an anti-climax, and until the final 2km when attacks finally came, boring.

A conservative approach, a race under control

In truth, most of the final climb of the 10.6km, 7.1% Arcalis was pretty mundane. A break-away out front was well-clear, starting the climb over 6 minutes ahead in what is the usual sub-plot in the Tour. But all attention was reserved for the main peloton, and the hyped up battle on the slopes which would see Fabian Cancellara fight to hold off a pack of Astana riders, while other riders like Cadel Evans and Carlos Sastre fought to regain lost time.

In the end, none of these things happened. Cancellara was dropped from the huge group with about 6km to go, and in the end, lost over 8 minutes in the GC.

Meanwhile, the Astana team rode to the front, set the tempo on the climb (as was expected), and not a single rider came passed: not a single attack would be launched until 2km to go.

Was the pace at the front strong?

You would be forgiven for thinking that the absence of attacks was perhaps the result of the Astana team setting such a vicious pace on the early slopes that no other riders could attack. This is certainly what Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett were saying as they gushed about the "superhuman" effort on the front.

However, consider the following observations:

At the bottom of the climb, the gap to the breakaway was 5:56, and it only came down by 45 seconds over the next 7 km. That is not suggestive of a high pace from behind, and it suggests that in fact, the pace of the main peloton was very, very ordinary today. Reports are already being written about how Astana "kept the competition in check" - not true. The competition just didn't do anything until much, much later, and even then, it was hardly ferocious.

Consider also that the last time the Tour went over Arcalis, Jan Ullrich won the stage, and his time over the final 10km was recorded as 22:55, while Marco Pantani and Richard Virenque rode it in 23:36. Today, Alberto Contador rode the same 10km climb in 25:22, a full 2:27 slower than Ullrich. The rest of the peloton was almost 3 minutes slower.

When Contador did attack with about 1.5km to ride, he was able to cut the gap to the lead breakaway rider (Feillu) by almost 1 minute in the final 1km, when the peloton had only cut the lead by 1 minute in the 7 km before that.

Finally, consider with 3km to go, the elite peloton was over 40 riders large! For 40 riders to survive on an HC climb leading to the first mountain-top finish of the Tour de France is a sure sign that the pressure was in fact turned right down at the front. Therefore, Astana were in control of the race, but they were simply rolling it out to the finish, because that's all they have to do to move their top riders onto the Tour podium.

And this is the 'problem' with the Tour as it currently is unfolding. With the likes of Evans having already lost major time in the team time-trial, the uncertainty of the Tour is disappearing every day, and so the impetus for attack, as we have seen in the last two years, is gone with less than a week gone in the race. The "script" seems to have been approved by all, and so the suspect of previous races is in danger of evaporating, unless something dramatic happens.

A cautious approach with big stages remaining

It doesn't help that the riders are all playing it cautiously, because they still have the prospect of two more Pyrenean days, plus three days in the Alps and the climb up to Mont Ventoux on the second last day. The perhaps unintended consequence of this year's Tour route and the desired excitement of the Mont Ventoux stage is that the attacking instincts of riders has been dampened somewhat.

Finally it springs to life

Finally, with about 2.5km to go, it was Cadel Evans who brought the Tour to life. He attacked, and the race was finally on. Contador responded immediately (with astonishing speed, it must be said), and so did Armstrong, and just about everyone else. By this time, the slopes were not as steep as in the early part of the climb, so bringing back attacks was not quite as difficult as it usually is on these climbs.

Commendable as Evans' move was, it also didn't do much damage. The elite group, which was 40, was cut to about 20. When 20 riders can follow an attack launched by one of the pre-race favourites, it again puts into perspective the ferocity of the racing, though it must be acknowledged that the pace before Evans attacked was so low that most of the men would have had a pretty good reserve at that time.

Another small attack by Jurgen van den Broeck was eventually the catalyst for what was the decisive move of the day in terms of the overall race. Alberto Contador responded to the 'carrot' in front of him and shot clear with about 1.5 km to go. His was the move nobody could follow and within seconds, he had opened up a lead. His ability to accelerate on climbs is exceptional, and from then on, it was a matter of seeing whether the elite peloton would be able to hold him, or whether the lead would continue to grow.

It grew, and behind, a smaller (but still relatively large, considering the context of the day's racing) group gave chase. They would eventually lose 21 seconds to Contador, who himself fell just 6 seconds short of overhauling Rinaldo Nocentini for yellow.

Contador's statement of intent

For Contador, it was at least a statement of leadership of his own team, and he has now jumped into second, so that if, as I now fully expect, Astana keep the race under their thumb tomorrow, it will be Contador in yellow by tomorrow night. Lance Armstrong, for his part, was able to respond to Evan's move today, and was then able to stay with the group that finished 21 seconds back.

Whether or not Armstrong had it in him to follow Contador's move or not, we will never know. He didn't need to, because all he had to do was follow those who grouped together to chase Contador. Then again, 10 others did this too, so whether Armstrong is in race contention shape is still not possible to tell. Telling who among these 11 is in the best condition is impossible, because the relatively gentle slopes at the top of the Arcalis (it is less than 6% at the top) make it difficult to know who is really in great shape. Only when the attacks come on the very steep slopes will we know for sure. The same goes for all those who finished in the bunch, and this includes Evans, the Schleck brothers, Leipheimer, Sastre, Vandevelde, and even Brad Wiggins who rode out of his socks to finish in the top group.

The Contador-Armstrong question: Going against the plan

Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole day, and indeed the whole race is the ongoing debate around whether Contador is receiving the support of his team, which it seems more and more is under Lance Armstrong's thumb. In an interview after the stage, Armstrong said that the Contador attack "wasn't really to the plan, but I didn't expect him to go by the plan, so [it was] no surprise". He goes on to say that his "obligation is to the team. You've got to stay on the wheels", which is his playing the dutiful soldier, even though it really is starting to look like Contador is more a rival than a team-mate in this year's Tour.

Contador's actions betray the situation - a lack of faith in support

I wrote yesterday that I felt the most likely scenario would be that Contador would be instructed NOT to attack but that he could follow moves. According to Armstrong himself, Team Director Johan Bruyneel informed the team to "chill out a bit, slow down" in order to preserve the team a little. So clearly the plan was to ride that tempo, not worry too much about breaking the race open and potentially putting Astana into positions 1 through 4 (not bargaining on the efforts of Nocentini, of course).

So now, the big question is: Why did Contador feel the need to go against the plan? Remember, Contador is not an impulsive, inferior rider, who lacks nous and experience as many have suggested so far - Contador is a sixth-year professional, one of only five men to have won the Vuelta, Giro and Tour, and has been at the very top of world cycling for the last three years. Yes, he is still learning, but he is not a brainless, raw talent that has not shown the ability to withstand pressure and race smartly in stage races before.

Therefore, it's wrong to portray him as reckless, impulsive and lacking logic in his riding, as many media outlets are now doing, and as Lance Armstrong has strategically portrayed him for the last few months. It is right to ask very seriously, why would a rider with that much class do something that goes against team orders? And the answer, I do believe, is that Contador has lost confidence in the team and the support he'll receive from it.

He therefore feels (rightly or wrongly) that he must assert himself on his own team, let alone the race. I would speculate that the attack today betrayed his difficult situation - obeying orders meant sitting in and letting Astana ride Lance Armstrong into eventual yellow, because Nocentini was only ever going to be a single day leader: the domestique in yellow, while Contador, the supposed team leader, is riding second wheel. In response, he felt the need to take matters into his own hands - I would do the same, and I hope he does it again and again with success in the coming days. Lance Armstrong's comments, including the little "addendum" that he "didn't expect him to go by the plan" are telling indicators that Astana's team dinners must be tense affairs.

Looking ahead

Next up is another day in the Pyrenees, featuring two Category 1 climbs and one Category 2 climb. None are at the finish, with the final climb (the Col d'Agnes) coming 44km from the finish. It's an ideal stage for a breakaway win from a good climber who is too far from the lead to be a threat, and doesn't seem likely to be a huge GC stage. Given how almost nothing happened today, on an HC climb leading to the finish line, I would be very surprised if anything happens tomorrow. Astana to control the race, the main contendors to tuck in and form an elite group (which will probably be 30 to 40 large again), reaching the finish line with no dramas.

Then again, perhaps it will come to boil.

Join us for the recap!

Ross

Tour 2009: Into the Mountains

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:32:00 +0000

The Pyrenees await the peloton: First mountain stage preview

The first week of the 2009 Tour has hardly been 'normal', with strong cross-winds, a team-time trial and intriguing team dynamics and the return of Lance Armstrong to the Tour, but tomorrow's first mountain finish represents one of perhaps three or four key moments in determining where the 2009 yellow jersey will ultimately end up.

The stage is a 224km haul from Barcelona into Andorra, and it finishes on the HC (hors categorie) climb of Arcalis. That climb is preceded by a Category 1 climb of the Col de Serra Seca, and two Cat 3 climbs. It's pretty much an uphill stage from start to finish, with the final 70km being a gradual pull to the base of Arcalis, and then the climb.

The stage profile is shown below, and immediately below that, a zoomed in version of the final 10.6 km climb at an average gradient of 7.1%.

A decisive day in the race?

We've become accustomed to these first mountain days being quite decisive in the overall bearing of the race. During the post-Indurain years, it was almost expected that the first day in the mountains, especially when the finish line was atop an HC climb, would be a battle between the "heads of state" (to borrow a term from Paul Sherwen) that would sort out the podium finishers from the "better luck next year" riders.

Whether or not this year will prove decisive is not so sure. I doubt it. Someone pointed out on a recent post that Astana may well have aspirations of taking all three podium places in this year's Tour, and with 4 riders in the top 5, that is a very realistic possibility, especially given how rivals have already lost time on them in week one (Evans and Sastre in particular).

An Astana tempo-train to the summit?

Given their strength, it's possible that Arcalis becomes a hard team ride simply to shed all other challengers and get these four to the top of the climb. If this is the case, then the scenario may be that Astana hits the front on the Cat 1 climb, stays there until the climb of Arcalis and then sets a fast enough tempo to prevent attacks from threats and get to the summit with Astana leap-frogging Cancellara to occupy the top four positions. I sincerely hope this isn't the case, because the Tour is already taking on quite a "narrow" focus - as I said the other day, the team time-trial made it increasingly difficult to see anyone other than an Astana rider winning this. So if Astana hold positions 1 through 4 by the weekend, then I fear it will become a much more controlled race to the finish.

The last few years, post-US Postal/Discovery's dominance, one of the highlights of the Tour has been the unpredictability, the frequency of attacks and the changes in overall leadership. Not withstanding the usual drug busts, the Tour has been entertaining to watch, and this year is just threatening to dampen that "randomness" slightly.

Because of the nature of that climb, as shown above, most damage is likely to happen at the bottom, where the first four kilometers are easily the steepest. So the action will be swift, either riders will fall off the pace quickly, or we'll see a relatively large group finishing together.

Fragmented attacks and aggressive racing?

Another possible scenario is that those riders who have lost time in the first week make their claims for the podium by instigating attacks at the bottom. In particular, the Schleck brothers, Carlos Sastre and Cadel Evans must be aware that this is one of perhaps three or four chances they will have to reclaim lost ground. Mitigating against this happening are that the second last day up Mont Ventoux will make many riders cautious, because most will realise that the Tour won't be won in the first mountain stage, but it can be lost. So I think many are likely to adopt a conservative approach, and that's why the scenario of Astana driving the pace is more likely than it would normally be.

It's really wide-open, but come tomorrow evening, it might have closed up completely (if Astana suddenly find themselves in the top 4 places and rivals have lost more time), or it might remain open a little while longer. I'm hoping for vicious attacks, attrition and high drama, and hopefully Alberto Contador is not under team instructions to hold anything back. I have a feeling he might be instructed to follow, but not initiate attacks himself. We shall see...part of the intrigue of the mountains, I guess.

There is also the expected breakaway, which is likely to come from someone with aspirations of winning the King of the Mountains title, and who wants to bag as many points as possible on the earlier climbs before being challenged. I can't see this succeeding, though it usually provides good theatre on the final climb of the day. Any bets Sylvain Chavanel is one of these riders...?

Power output evaluation - what does it take to climb with the pros?

From a scientific point of view, the mountains also provide great discussion, because it's here that power output stats become most meaningful, and the true physiological capacity is measurable! If you want to compare yourself to the Tour riders, the mountains is the place to do it!

I have some really interesting historical statistics and records of climbing times, power outputs and performance comparisons from the Tour over the years. But, this is a three-week race, and I have to pace myself, so I'll post on those next week, once we're in the mountains!

For now, though, some really fascinating data, and some great insight on them from someone who knows a fair bit can be found at the TrainingPeaks website, and also at VeloNews.

Trainingpeaks is a company based in Boulder, Colorado, and who I had the pleasure of visiting a few years ago. They've produced great software for coaching and monitoring training, logging heart rate, power output, running speed...you name it. You can see it in action through the measurement of two riders on the Saxo Bank team. It really is great for those who love the numbers and quantifying performance (and most cyclists do!). If you want to see the raw data, you have to have their software, but there is a free trial that you can download from their site. It's worth downloading just to play around with the software and see what it can do (you may well find it is worth investing in), but it also gives you a chance to view the Tour through the eyes of a Pro-Team exercise physiologist, since this is exactly what they work with in the teams.

Also on that page is a summary of the riders' stats and power outputs during the Tour so far. You might be interested to learn, for example, that on Stage 3, where the group was split and Contador lost time on Armstrong, the average power output of a rider finishing in the main pack was 188W, and that for a five-minute period, that rider (Nicki Sorensen) averaged 410W.

It's really very interesting analysis - I'm sure that over the coming mountain days, it will become even more intriguing.

Related to that is this commentary by Dirk Friel on VeloNews. Dirk is a co-founder of TrainingPeaks, and a former pro cyclist whose father, Joe Friel, authored the Cyclist's Training Bible (a book I'm sure many have read). It's a really good commentary on the race, also worth following in the coming days.

But of course, if you do visit those sites, don't forget to come back here for recaps and insights, and to see how accurate my crystal ball was on this occassion! And for those power output stats from Tours past!

Enjoy Arcalis!

Ross

Usain Bolt 19.59s

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:09:00 +0000

Usain Bolt blasts to 19.59s in the rain in Lausanne

I keep waiting for Usain Bolt's star to lose some of its lustre, for a race where he looks a little sluggish, where he doesn't look like a completely different athlete to his rivals. And it doesn't seem to be coming any time soon...

Last night, Bolt was due to run in the 200m in Lausanne, and much hype surrounded the race. So you can imagine that when the heavens opened and it poured with rain before and during the meeting, people's expectations were dampened somewhat.

The men's 100m was won in 10.07s - a relatively slow time. The women's 100m was taken in 11.03 - good, but not spectacular. It was not a fast night for sprinting, and quality athletes all seemed down by a couple of percent on their normal times. And when the wind picked up, Bolt was faced with a headwind, it would have been quite acceptable to run anything around 20 seconds.

But Bolt unleashed a 19.59s time, which is absolutely extra-ordinary, running into a headwind of 0.9m/s in wet conditions. His margin of victory was 0.82 seconds, over LaShawn Merrit, the Olympic 400m champion, with other Olympic finallists (medallists among them) trailing even further behind.

You can watch the race here, in case you missed it:

The gap to second is an amazing 4.2%, which is the equivalent of first and second being separated by almost 5 seconds in an 800m race! Of course, that never happens because of pacing and race strategy, but it's an incredible margin of victory over a decent quality field.

About a month ago, Tyson Gay laid down his marker when he ran 19.58 seconds in New York. That still stands as the fastest time in the world this year, and so on paper, anyway, Gay and Bolt have a great duel lined up in Berlin later this year.

But on the track, and in the rain, Bolt more than matched Gay's performance. There seems little that Bolt cannot do, barring injury, and on the right day, his own world record of 19.30s seems fragile. Considering that only a year ago the 19.32s of Michael Johnson was the most "unbreakable record" in track, Bolt has certainly moved the sport forward a few generations.

Ross

Late edits & additional thoughts:

I came across this discussion forum on LetsRun, which starts out as a comment on Bolt's 19.59s and then rapidly spirals into a discussion on Bolt's status as either drug-free or doped. This is an inevitable discussion in the sport, sadly, just as it is for cycling, which is our current focus here on The Science of Sport with the Tour de France in full swing.

I say "inevitable", because history has shown that success in sprinting is linked to doping - once bitten, twice shy, so to speak. And the fact that since about 1988, sprinters have been basically been the pin-up boys of doping (take a bow, Ben Johnson) means that Bolt will always be stepping into the same tainted spotlight as those whose place he is now taking.

I must confess I don't know what to make of the debate. If you go through the arguments in the discussion thread, you'll see a number of approaches, some logical, some a little leaner on thought. In cycling, and particularly with Lance Armstrong, so much (admittedly circumstantial) evidence exists that the situation should be evaluated quite differently from how one has to evaluate an athlete like Bolt (though he might, on the basis of this thread, garner a fair amount of this in years to come).

People will invariably spring to the defence of cycling as the only sport that has actually looked at itself closely (this is not really true - cycling wished it could bury its head in the sand, and it was the anti-doping bodies that forced cycling's ugly side to the surface). Perhaps the same spotlight on track would produce the same festering wounds, who knows?

But one argument I can't subscribe to is that if Bolt and Armstrong are both dominant over their rivals, then either both are doping, or neither is. That doesn't work for me, because it looks at performance in two completely different sports in complete isolation, and it doesn't quantify the dominance to begin with. It also ignores the context of cycling in the 90s and 2000s, and the reams of other evidence that have been produced by credible journalists who cover cycling. Are athletics journalists just not as curious (or malicious, depending on your opinion of them) as those who write about cycling? Seems unlikely to me. Finally, it ignores the fact that Bolt, even as a junior, had extra-ordinary talent.

Bolt the junior was so talented that many are now saying "told you so", and they are obviously most vocal in his defence. I actually did a post on Bolt after Beijing, detailing his junior times, and they are quite spectacular. 20.13s at the age of 17 is one such example.

I've often been of the opinion that a great deal of insight can be gained on an athlete's status by looking at their junior performances, and certainly Bolt's did suggest something special. If that junior talent was unaided by doping, then the senior performances may also be. That is the thinking anyway...I realize that projecting senior times based on junior success is a hazardous exercise and it's easy to adopt a "told you so" view now that he's delivered.

That said, I still don't have a definite opinion on Bolt. My gut reaction is that Bolt is so different from the likes of Johnson, Mitchell and Christie, who were big, powerful runners, that I feel as though his speed comes from something other than muscle and brute power, and hence might be achieved without doping. I recall that post-Beijing, I did a post on him suggesting this, and that his advantage may lie in what seems to my naked eye as exceptional elasticity and a neurological difference. He simply looks different at top speed, and that's as unscientific as evidence comes, but I think it's important. Then again, Carl Lewis also looked different, and he's hardly squeaky clean...

Just to add a final thought or two - a lot of people are pointing at the number of tests as a reason athletes are clean. In this day and age, this is completely irrelevant. Marion Jones never tested positive, neither have many other athletes who are known drug cheats. So the number of negative tests is no longer a basis of defence, sadly. It may be that the athlete is clean, but this is not the hook to hang your argument on in a world of designer drugs and undetectable substances or methods!

And then finally, you'll have a laugh at how some people invoke jealousy and a spirit of patriotism as a defence for Bolt. You'll see on the final page of the discussion, one poster is described as an "impostor" for daring to speculate on the Jamaican system. The poster, "X-fit", actually makes some great points, and it's one of the better comments I've read. But rather than discuss the merits (or flaws) of his arguments, the easiest defence is to attack his nationality, label him an impostor and then say that his opinions are down to "jealousy" or being a sore-loser! It seems a fairly common defence, because in that post I did on Bolt after Beijing 2008, the same happened - a lot of very angry people accused me of being "pro-American" and jealous of Jamaica's great performances in Beijing! (and this despite the fact that I was suggesting he was not doped!)

So make up your own mind, and let the debate continue! What I will say, in agreement with X-Fit is that if he is caught, well, athletics would be in free-fall!

Ross

Tour de France 2009: Team TT

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Cancellara hangs onto the Maillot Jaune...by a whisker

Fabian Cancellara has survived in yellow for at least another day. But only just. After yesterday's dramatic split that saw Lance Armstrong gain time on all the other GC contenders, today's team time-trial was always going to be about whether Astana had the firepower to overhaul the starting deficit of 40 seconds, which would see Armstrong, on his comeback to the sport, start stage 5 wearing the yellow jersey.

And Astana did possess the firepower - exactly. For by the time the 39.5km had been completed in Montpellier, Astana crossed the line as stage victors, EXACTLY 40 seconds ahead of Saxo Bank, with Garmin Slipstream separating the two, 18 seconds down on Astana.

Those 40 seconds meant that deciding who got yellow went down to fractions of a second, and it was Fabian Cancellara who hung on, denying Armstrong a return to yellow in the comeback Tour.

There was a moment, on the open road, when Armstrong was in "virtual yellow", when Astana having actually gained a lead of 41 seconds over Saxo Bank, and it was only in the final 9km that Saxo Bank and Cancellara were able to find that half-second that sees him in the maillot jaune tomorrow.

Analysing pacing of the team time-trial

It's always interesting (especially for me with my research background on pacing) to examine how time-trials are paced. Given the very tiny margins between victory and defeat (shown by the tiny gap that kept Cancellara in yellow today, for example), errors in pacing strategy can have huge implications. This is particularly true in a team time-trial, because pacing must take into account the weaker riders' abilities. If the early pace is carried by stronger riders, then weaker riders will experience a much more dramatic slow down in the second half. The general principle in pacing is that whatever you gain by starting too fast is generally paid back in duplicate (at least) in the second half of the trial!

For example, Caisse d'Epargne shot out of the start gates today and have the fastest time at Checkpoint 1, by 7 seconds. By Checkpoint 2, they're down to 5th, and by the finish, down in 7th place, having lost over a minute to teams over the final half of the course.

So below is a basic anaylsis of the pacing strategy adopted by Astana and Saxo Bank in the time-trial today. Remember the course profile, shown below - tough first half, with a lot of uphill sections, and then a tricky second half with descending and tight turns. The strong winds, narrow roads and terrain made this TTT one of the more attritional in recent years - just ask Boygues Telecom who at one stage had four men off the road in a grass field.

Below is a graph comparing the speeds achieved by Astana (in blue) to those of Saxo-Bank (in yellow since they had Cancellara) over the four intermediate splits. In an ideal world, we'd be able to plot power output, not speed, to take into account the variable terrain and wind, but this is mostly for comparison between the two teams anyway, so it's passable. I've indicated on the graph the time difference between Astana and Saxo Bank for each interval, and at the bottom, in black, is the difference between Armstrong and Cancellara on the road, given that Cancellara started the day with a 40 sec lead on Armstrong.

What probably jumps out right away is that the eventual difference between Astana and Saxo Bank was created in the first half of the race. To be precise, Astana beat Saxo Bank by exactly 40 seconds, and 38 of those came in the first half. There was, as I mentioned above, a point at Checkpoint 3, where Cancellara had lost the yellow jersey by one second.

However, as you'll see on the graph, Saxo Bank did the fourth interval 1 second faster than Astana, and it was this 1 second, in the final 9km of the trial, that sees the Swiss champion in yellow for tomorrow's stage. It's difficult to fault the pacing strategy of either team, however. Neither of them "blew it" to the same extent that Caisse d'Epargne did in the second half.

Astana's big move came between 10 and 20km - it was here that they did all the damage, and actually won the stage. Garmin-Slipstream, who finished second on the stage, did this interval in 13 min 8 seconds, Astana did it in 12 min 45 seconds, 23 seconds faster.

So Astana were considerably faster than anyone else in this second inverval on the route, and their stage win was ultimately the result of this effort. Whether this was because the course was particularly challenging here, or the team had decided that this was the moment to turn the intensity up a gear or two, I don't know. If you refer back to the route profile, you'll see that the second interval from 10 to 20km was certainly the most difficult part of the route. The average speeds shown in the graph above confirm this - stage 2 was considerably slower.

Tour momentum builds for the mountains

In any event, the result means that Cancellara can sleep with the yellow jersey under his pillow for at least another night. Given that the next two days look good for sprinters, that Mark Cavendish and his team are hungry for more wins, and that other teams who haven't had a look in on a sprint finish will be keen to do so before the mountains, I don't see breaks being successful.

It therefore seems likely that Friday's first mountains will be ushered in with Cancellara in yellow, and then it will be a battle to see who from Astana emerges. It's becoming increasingly difficult to see anyone other than an Astana rider winning. Today, Cadel Evans lost 2:35 to Contador and Armstrong, and Carlos Sastre 1:37, making their lives very difficult. Perhaps the Schleck brothers have a shot, though I can't see them doing enough in the climbs to make up for what should be time lost in the individual time-trial.

Astana team leadership - Armstrong in yellow equals would have meant more problems for Contador

The real talking point, as many have thought it would be, is how Astana work out team leadership. One man who might be a little relieved that Astana didn't find another half a second today is Alberto Contador. The prospect of hitting the mountains with his supposed "domestique" Lance Armstrong wearing yellow would hardly have done him much good.

The fact that Armstrong and two team-mates were at the front driving the pace on in yesterday's split sent a pretty strong message that any promised support for Contador is entirely conditional, and only if Contador is winning the race clearly will he be able to rely on Armstrong's support.

Had Armstrong been in yellow, and if the race were able to reach the first big mountain stage on Friday with that situation, then the Astana team meetings would be very interesting indeed. Would they have allowed Contador to attack the yellow jersey in his own team? It's one thing to attack when you have a team-mate ahead of you in the overall race, quite another when he is wearing the race leader's jersey. Contador might therefore be a little relieved that this is not the case.

Certainly, quotes by Contador yesterday do not suggest a rider at ease within his own team. He was quoted after yesterday's stage as saying "I don't want to express an opinion on the tactics of the team. I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions".

Your conclusions are welcome!

Next few days

Nothing is predictable in the Tour, as we saw yesterday, but the 'script' for the next few days calls for early break-aways, chasing pelotons, and sprint finishes, which should not be too eventful in the grand scheme of the race. The next big rendezvous is in Andorra on Friday, the first mountain top finish of the race, and time-permitting, I'll do a post ahead of that looking at the power outputs of Tour riders on those climbs.

Enjoy the sprint finishes!
Ross

Tour de France 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:29:00 +0000

LeTour rolls on: Drama on the flat roads as gaps appear and Contador loses time

As I am writing this, I am watching the second stage of the Tour de France, and what was looking like a routine day for the sprinters has just gone 'live' because of a split in the main field with about 28km to go. That split was the result of strong cross-winds, which always causes some drama in the peloton as riders get into echelons to try to "hide" from the wind. Slight lapses of concentration and gaps can easily appear. If the riders at the front are alert to this and they force the pace, gaps can be created pretty quickly. A lack of organization in the dropped group then contributes and what should be a routine day out can have crucial bearings on the overall race.

Those in the 27-strong front group include the Maillot Jaune Fabian Cancellara, Lance Armstrong, and just about the whole of the Columbia-High Road team, who were responsible for the pace at the front, as they tried to put their sprinter Mark Cavendish in for his second stage win to go with yesterday's comprehensive win.

Assuming they stay clear, the odds are that Cavendish will claim win number 2, but it's the time gap to the main field, which includes all the other big names, that is of most interest in the larger scheme of the race. Alberto Contador, pre-race favourite and best-placed of the GC contenders in the opening prologue time-trial, is in the second group, and so the debate around who the team leader for Astana would be is about to be given a little more flavour!

Currently, the time-gap to the chasing group is 35 seconds, with 23 km remaining, and by the time I finish this post, we'll know just how much time, if any, has been lost as a result of the split.

Until then, a quick look back on Saturday's time-trial:

Cancellara supreme, but Contador lays down his marker

The opening prologue was won by the favourite, Fabian Cancellara, which was no great surprise. Most of the attention was reserved for the Astana team, who find themselves with the "dilemma" of having potentially 4 overall race winners in their team. Between Kloden, Leipheimer, Armstrong and Contador, one of the main talking points of this race is how they'll manage the team. The main focus has been on Armstrong and Contador, and team manager Johan Bruyneel announced before the Tour that Contador would be the team leader.

That did little to dispel questions around Contador's leadership, and so when he finally left the start gates after 7pm, the pressure was on to see whether he could do the ride of a leader. Given that by this time, three of his team-mates were already in the top 5, he had to do a great ride.

And he did. The first check-point at 7.5km saw Contador fastest of all by 6 seconds, ahead even of the time-trial specialists like Brad Wiggins and Cancellara. Admittedly, it was an overall uphill section, but it showed that Contador has some great form. He did fade a little in the second half, losing 24 seconds to Cancellara and eventually finishing second about 18 seconds down.

But, he did succeed at establishing the "pecking order" within his own team, at least for the time-being. The gap to Armstrong, incidentally, is another 22 seconds, with Leipheimer 12 seconds down and Kloden only 4 back of his team leader.

It's a marker that the team time-trial will belong to Astana - 4 out of the top 10 says that they should win tomorrow's stage and put their top 4 men into the top 4 of the overall race.

Sastre - the biggest loser

The big losers from the opening prologue were Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre. Sastre, the defending champion, was 1:06 down on Cancellara, and 48 seconds behind Contador. Given that this year's Team Time-trial has no limited time losses (the last two have had a "cap" on the time that can be lost), Sastre faces the real prospect of going into the Pyrenees almost 2 minutes down. That was always going to be the case, of course, a 48 second gap over a 15.5km time-trial is big and damaging to his overall chances.

Contador - too strong too soon?

Contador's ride was excellent, but there is doubt in my mind as to whether he might be too strong too soon. He was the best to the first time-check, and was crowned Spain's time-trial champion only a week ago, both signs of a rider in top shape.

The problem is that we know that in a three-week race like the Tour, you have to be 'underdone' on the start line, because the cumulative training effect of the first week or two leaves you either slightly overtrained by week three, or completely overcooked. Most of the research around the Tour has found that power outputs are about 10% lower by week 3 than in week 1, and so the race is a war of attrition. No one gets better, but without a doubt, some riders get a lot worse than others, and a big part of it is how primed they are in the first week.

For Contador to be that good so early raises some serious doubts about whether he'll be strong at the end. This is particularly true if you bear in mind that Contador was in great shape as far back as Paris-Nice. In that race, Contador dominated the race until he blew completely when he became hypoglycemic. That happens, of course, but the more important thing is to note that Contador was in good condition back in May, and now enters the Tour de France again in great shape. Physiologically, there may be danger signs for Contador.

This tour is especially fascinating because of the climb up Mont Ventoux on the second last day. Ordinarily, the overall GC contendors will rely on the big mountains to do the damage, and then limit time-losses on the last time-trial (which usually comes on the second last day). The biggest time-gaps are created around days 7 to 14, and not day 20, which will happen this year.

So the climb up the Mont Ventoux means that this is a very long tour, and there is a very real chance of massive time gaps being created on Mont Ventoux - they will be larger than the gaps that can be created in a time-trial.

Therefore, it's more important than ever for riders to start the Tour slightly under-trained, so that they can maintain their form during the Tour. The concern for Contador is that he's already there, and has only one way to go. Time will tell...

Stage 2 - the race is "live"

Stage 2 is done - it's been won by Mark Cavendish, his second stage win. But the big news is around the main pack, and Contador, who has lost 39 seconds to Armstrong. So too have Cadel Evans, the Schleck brothers, Carlos Sastre and all the other GC contenders. It is Armstrong who now assumes the position of highest placed rider on his team, and if the Astana team delivers in tomorrow's Team Time-trial, then Armstrong will wear yellow by this time tomorrow.

Team leadership questions raised anew

And so the same questions will be raised anew - Armstrong in yellow, Contador to be the domestique? Or will the team be split in support of BOTH when we hit the Pyrenees come Friday? Many have brought up the great duels between Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault in 1986, when LeMond was the stated leader of the team, and Hinault was meant to be riding in support of him. Hinault had other ideas, and attacked his own team-mate on numerous occasions, unable to contain his own competitive instincts.

Having laid down a marker in the prologue, Contador might have felt that his claims to team leadership were established. Today's time loss did little to retain the pecking order, and as many suspected, the battle within the Astana team might take centre-stage.

In Armstrong's own words, the day before the Tour began, were "If Alberto is better, I will ride for him". Note the conditional nature of the support - "If" is a very loaded descriptor, a loophole that keeps options open, which is precisely why so much doubt exists around the team. There is no commitment there, no guarantee of support, and that means Contador is under pressure from within.

And more to the point, Contador's case for being "better" is a lot less clear cut than it was an hour ago...

Ross

Happy 60th Birthday Tim Noakes

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:36:00 +0000

Happy 60th Birthday, Tim Noakes

In sport, one's legacy is often easily identified as the number of medals or records won in a career - Usain Bolt's legacy, still young, may be his three golds and three WR in Beijing, Haile Gebrselassie's his 30+ world records, Olympic title against Paul Tergat in 2000 and his never-failing smile.

In science, legacies are often equally obvious. Albert Einstein's is summed up in one equation - E = mc squared. Stephen Hawking's, to me as a lay person, is "Black holes and baby universes", and Jonas Salk's legacy is encapsulated by celebrations in the street after the polio vaccine was discovered.

For Professor Tim Noakes, who is my boss, and was both our supervisors when we did our PhDs in Cape Town, legacy is difficult to pin down. Tim turned 60 yesterday, and we celebrated his birthday this morning at the Sports Science Institute. It is appropriate, at such a time, to congratulate him on his birthday and use the opportunity to thank him for what he has done, for us, for the field of exercise science, and for the countless others who have been inspired, informed or influenced by him.

His contribution to science might be found in the 400 research articles when you search for his scientific publications on PubMed. It might be his famous and best-selling book, Lore of Running. Or perhaps it is the fact that he is one of few exercise scientists to have a Wikipedia entry about him!

It's easy to try to sum up a life of achievements in a single, measurable thing like number of publications. But that misses out on what may be even more important, and that is the number of people inspired through his work and personality. And what Tim has done, for us, as well as for countless others, is to make exercise science applicable, accessible and understandable, and in so doing, inspire people like the two of us to pursue it as a career.

Jonathan and I both arrived at where we're at because of Tim's inspiration. In my case, it was reading Lore of Running at the age of 14, since it was the only book on running or science in my local library. A career decision was made then, and my journey to UCT, as well as my PhD thesis topic, was decided for me by that event. For Jonathan, Tim's "pull" was enough to see him leave the state of Texas, and pursue a career of research in fluids, taking on the likes of Gatorade and dehydration.

For both of us, the initial draw to sports science at UCT was followed by many years of inspiration, during which time he taught us the value of critical, logical thinking, how to challenge paradigms, and speaking for myself, the value of translating scientific ideas for those who have an interest in what we do, but who do not have intensive scientific training.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that this website, and the way we are trying to relate science to sport, is inspired by Tim's approach to the world. Those who have seen Tim present his work will understand that merely doing great science is not enough, one has to communicate and apply it for everyone else.

Tim has, over the years, ruffled feathers and even offended many, and I've no doubt some people will view him as almost heretical - his willingness to challenge paradigms, to call out flaws in thinking, and to put himself out with theories has invited much criticism from those who feel most challenged by his views.

And of course, he has been incorrect, which he himself is the first to admit - he is fond of a quote saying that "50% of what we know is wrong; the problem is that we do not know which 50% it is". And so, looking back, his theories on matters such as the central governor and fatigue have developed as new information has come to light, with theories from less than ten years ago now left behind as knowledge evolves. Unfortunately, there are many who have refused to evolve with it, and so much of the criticism (and I can relate this from my own experience, having done my PhD in the area) is based on work that we ourselves have moved on from.

Regardless, Tim has pressed on, and his greatest achievements to date include his contribution to our understanding of fatigue, introducing the role of the brain and the so-called Central governor to the argument. He is known for taking on Gatorade, and for challenging the theory that dehydration should be avoided at all costs. He was the first to point out how drinking TOO MUCH was just as likely to be dangerous, even fatal. He is also known by many as the author of Lore of Running perhaps THE seminal book on running, which has no doubt inspired many and informed many more.

But for us, as two former students, he is an inspiration who has pointed us in what we believe is the right direction and provided the impetus to move forward.

So here is to Professor Tim Noakes, a very happy 60th birthday, congratulations and "be perfect"!

Ross & Jonathan

Oslo Golden League preview

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:38:00 +0000

LeTour, and Golden League momentum picks up in a star-studded Oslo meet

It's a great sporting weekend - Wimbledon, Tour de France, the final Lions-Boks rugby match (and a chance to see whether it's even possible for the Boks' coach so say anything more embarrassing than he has so far, because the rugby is not nearly as intriguing), and then the second Golden League meeting of the year.

The Tour is the big one, and for the next three weeks, the eyes of the world will be on the Alps, Pyrenees, and flatter roads of France as the drama unfolds. Every year, the Tour starts amid much hype of how strictly controlled drug testing is going to be, and sure enough, every year a number of riders are caught.

Last year, the King of the Mountains, third overall, and five stage wins were 'nullified' by positive drug results, giving further credence to the theory that success is inextricably linked to doping in the sport. Occassionally, one of them speaks out, as Bernard Kohl did after last year, and the sport is exposed more than ever. In the words of a friend of mine - "cycling makes fools of its fans", and let's hope the next three weeks does not continue that trend!

Somewhere in the midst of all this controvery a bike race happens, and it promises to be one of the most intriguing in recent years, because of the return of Lance Armstrong, and the inter-team rivalry that is threatening to unfold in the Astana team, which also possesses the pre-race favourite, Alberto Contador.

Here in SA, you'd think only one man is riding, the TV advertising has focused exclusively on Armstrong, and not on a host of other characters who it seems are secondary to the plot. He brings a level of interest that the sport has not seen for a few years, and how the team dynamic is shaped in the first 10 days is likely to be one of the big talking points. That does not even factor in the likes of Schleck, Sastre (the defending champion), Menchov and Evans.

Over the next three weeks, we'll see who emerges in the headlines (for hopefully the right reasons), and we'll do our best to add some insight into the race, particularly when the roads head upwards in the mountain stages. So join us then!

Golden League

The first big sports event of the weekend (for us, anyway) is the Golden League meeting in Oslo. It's number 2 of 6 for 2009, the first being Berlin just under a month ago. The focus of the athletics world is Berlin, in August, for the IAAF World Champs, and so a lot of stars are out this weekend.

They include Kenenisa Bekele, Abubaker Kaki, Asafa Powell, Sanya Richards, Meseret Defar, Meselech Melkamu, Augustine Choge, and a host of great field event athletes.

Rather than duplicate an already complete and concise summary, I refer you to LetsRun.com's preview of the meeting, which highlights all the great events, and the head-to-head contests that add intrigue.

For me, the hightlight promises to be the men's 5,000m race, where Kenenisa Bekele has continued with his intention of winning the jackpot by winning all six meetings (either at 3,000 or 5,000m). One month ago, he was perhaps at his most vulnerable, having returned from a stress fracture last year, and an apparent muscle injury only 2 weeks before that in Holland. He was made to work harder than ever before, and it was not the same controlled, dominant performance we are accustomed to.

Yet he was still able to win, and with another 3 weeks added to his recovery/preparation, it will surely be more difficult than ever to dethrone him. A field of no less then 10 men who've run sub-13 will try, and that should be one of the highlights.

We'll bring you any insights if the meeting produces them!

Enjoy the action!
Ross

Oscar Pistorius continued

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:01:00 +0000

A more diverse range of "non heavy-duty" thoughts and opinions on Oscar Pistorius

Well, after what was actually an epic post on the science of Oscar Pistorius yesterday, I decided it might be good to present a less scientific argument on the same topic. As I mentioned yesterday, the in-depth, "heavy-duty" dissection of scientific method was not the purpose of this site, but it was the next step in the ongoing debate over the Pistorius advantage.

I can't stress enough that the type of analysis of the research done on Pistorius should be done for all science, and it should have been part of the CAS deliberations. It wasn't, and so instead of a fair hearing and verdict, Pistorius was, through the combined efforts of science and law, able to hijack the hearing and take the verdict without any scrutiny of the research. That kind of scrutiny, even at a basic level, would have revealed that:

He was compared to distance runners on many occasions, not sprinters
The tests performed on him were not fully explained - the methods seemed to have differed from one athlete to the next, probably because they were done over a long time period and therefore direct comparisons are invalid
His state of training may have been completely different to the athletes he was compared to, which would massively influence the findings and comparison
Those tests may also be unreliable for the purposes they were used - comparing two athletes requires a different approach than generating a database
They are very easy to manipulate, in the absence of independent verification
Comparisons were made with selected athletes, without explanation of why other athletes' data was ignored - at one point, Pistorius is compared to 1 sprinter and 2 distance runners, when in theory, 4 sprinters were available for comparison. Apart from the fact that the comparison is wrong, the lack of transparency represents a major problem in an issue this controversial.
It was concluded that Pistorius was "essentially the same", when in fact the statistical method used by the paper revealed a significant difference

All in all, the paper is fraught with error - above is the short summary, because I know yesterday was a monster post, and so for those who didn't have the time to plough through it, that's the summary - there's more to it, of course, but feel free to spend some time in the epic analysis!

Some other viewpoints

For today though, I thought it might be good to have a more debatable post, more as a filler than anything. So here are a couple of links that might be of interest.

The first comes from a former elite 400m runner in South Africa, and a person whose insight and expertise I really respect and value. Arnaud Malherbe is still the SA record holder at 44.59s, and his blog has described some of the issues around Pistorius and his selection for the World Championships in Berlin later this year. They are well worth reading, because his approach is less scientific, and more legal and logical. His insight is that of a former athlete, someone who understands the sport intimately, and I think the points he makes are valid, particularly regarding selection for the team. It's always interesting to get the views of an athlete, rather than the rather heavy science you had thrown at you yesterday!

Blade Runner Part I
Blade Runner Part II
Blade Runner Part III

The third article in particular deals with the possibility of selection if he reaches a qualifying standard - that currently seems a long way off - a 1.61 second improvement is required within the next two weeks and he's been well off the sort of form required. But, he runs is Oslo this Friday, and the possibility exists.

Then here are some other interesting thoughts from a PhD student, written last year, but only discovered today. Karl Zelik is a PhD student at the University of Michigan. His PhD topic? The biomechanics of locomotion, amputees and the use of prosthetic technology to aid movement. So he is one person who has insight gained from years of immersion in the subject.

He presents some quotes from Prof Herr, who was actually one of the authors one the paper that I discussed yesterday. One quote in particular stands out:

"Nevertheless, Herr has publicly stated that within 20-30 years, he predicts the Paralympics will be faster than the Olympics. To the Boston Globe, he further commented that "Even today, some people pity those with disabilities. In the future, [the disabled] will be physically more capable. And then, being physically unique will no longer inspire pity. It'll be unique. And even sexy."

The research produced by Pistorius suggests this prediction has not yet been fulfilled. But yesterday's post was all about how that research could have, and should have been dealt with in a matter befitting its quality - it should have been discarded through careful scientific scrutiny, not the whirlwind hearing the CAS gave it. Perhaps 20 to 30 years is a conservative estimate. I hope so - I would love to see a 41 second 400m, and then we'll tackle the topic once again, when Pandora's box is open.

That's it for Pistorius (for now). I am hopeful that common sense, scientific validity and correct research will prevail and the issue will again find its way into research labs or courts, this time, the right way. But until then, enough on this topic. The summer sports year is in full swing this weekend - the Tour, Oslo Golden League, Wimbledon, and the build-up to Berlin, so that's where our attention turns

Join us then!
Ross

Pistorius research implications

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:20:00 +0000

Mix and match until you find similarities: Oscar Pistorius research evaluated

It's taken me a couple days longer than I would have thought to get around to this post, analysing the recently published research that was responsible for the CAS' decision to clear Oscar Pistorius to compete against able-bodied athletes.

There are a couple of reasons for this - one is the ubiquitous work excuse. But it's also proven very difficult to sift through the paper and find anything to say that hasn't already been said dozens of times before. I almost decided to simply post up links to all the articles I've written on the subject in the last 18 months, because this latest "revelatory" paper does little to dispel any of those arguments, and does not, in my opinion, introduce many new points to the debate. What it does do is so fraught with method questions that I am not sure what I believe, and the difficult part was sifting through the paper to understand how comparisons between Pistorius and the able-bodied runners had been made.

I also struggled whether to do this as one post or to break it up into a few. Eventually, I decided on one, mostly because later this week, I have another post planned and didn't want to interrupt this one. The result, unfortunately, is a long post (sorry). But if it helps, it's divided into three sections, so you can select to read it in parts if you wish:

1. Broad thoughts on the methods - key implications, problems and questions
2. The results - what was found and what it means
3. A wrap-up - the "collective" evidence

1. The methods and comparison - who should he be compared to?

Upfront, one might as well explain how it worked - the research approach was to measure Pistorius and then compare him to able-bodied runners. If they could find that he was "similar" to able-bodied controls, then they would report functional similarity and they'd have grounds to clear him. The keys then, are the definition of "similar" and the comparison group.

What is similar?

For the purposes of the paper, it's a difference of less than two standard deviations between OP and their able-bodied runners. This is a statistical method used fairly often, though 2 SD is a pretty conservative boundary condition.

The bigger issue is who he is compared to - if their control-group data are not robust, then any comparison is going to be erroneous. If the control is either too small or not well-matched, then you are comparing apples to pears and the criteria for "similarity" are flawed. In this study, then, one would need large groups of 400m sprinters who run between 46 and 48 seconds for the 400m event. This group did not exist.

These able-bodied "control" runners comprised all of FOUR 400m sprinters. The rest were sub-elite distance runners and elite distance runners (we don't know what distance - it is not reported. We only know that one of them is Zersenay Tadese - if you're wondering what he's doing in a comparison with a 400m sprinter, join the club...). We also don't know how good a "sub-elite" runner is.

These things are absolutely crucial, because the comparisons made throughout the research paper are reliant on a valid group to which OP can be compared. That group does not exist. You cannot take only 4 sprinters and generate any meaningful data to which you can compare Pistorius. I suspect (based on some info I was once given) that the initial intention was to use only these sprinters as a comparison. But, as we shall see, OP was very diferent to them, so the re-inforcements in the form of distance runners were brought in. OP was not "similar" to the sprinters, so simply add more subjects until that 2 x SD condition is met...The result is that throughout the paper, it's not always clear who is being compared to who.

Another concern is timing. It seems (and again, I'm not 100% sure what was done, it's explained very "broadly) that the able-bodied controls were not all actually tested with Pistorius. Rather, their data were "historical", in that they existed long before the Pistorius testing sessions took place, and the researchers simply drew from the archives to find them. This is not necessarily a problem, it happens fairly often, provided the methods used are identical and the equipment is calibrated properly. The same thing actually came up in the debate around Ed Coyle's long term research on Lance Armstrong. The problem for this paper is that nowhere is it reported what the time-frames are, how the equipment was used and which athletes are being compared to OP at any given point. That may sound like nit-picking, but when you see how OP was declared "similar", then it has massive implications.

State of training - a crucial factor

And then finally (and I believe this is a crucial factor), the state of training on the subjects is never reported. This has enormous implications for the comparisons, because Pistorius was, according to media reports and his own words, "very unfit and untrained" throughout the period when this testing was done. The stress of the case and all the travel had detracted from his build-up, and this was eventually the reason given for failing to make the Beijing Olympic qualifying mark.

So, we have a comparison between an apparently unfit amputee and (possibly) fit 400m runners, distance runners and sub-elite distance runners. When we look at the results, the measures included VO2 peak, oxygen cost, top speeds, fatigue tests, top sprinting speeds - all factors that would be massively influenced by training. If it is true (and it is likely) that Pistorius was untrained, then he is being compared to trained subjects, and every measurement comparison is invalid. Scientifically, you cannot perform a comparitive study failing to control this aspect.

And, what is more, if he is found to be physiologically similar (as the paper will conclude) then one has to ask what effect training would have - any similarities in variables so strongly influenced by performance will become superior once training effects are factored in. The comparison simply does not work. It must be said - those controls might have been equally untrained, or perhaps Pistorius was trained (I doubt it, based on what Pistorius and our newspapers here were saying), but it is was never reported and remains a question mark in the paper.

2. The findings

A 17% difference in efficiency

Looking at the results, the graph below shows the measured oxygen cost of running.

Very importantly, it is measured using what is called a discontinuous protocol that consisted of running for 5 to 7 minutes at each of a range of speeds (these speeds are not reported, amazingly), with a 3 to 5 minute rest period in between (the exact duration is not reported). A word or two on the methods:

This is not a test that a sprinter should be using - when does a sprinter ever run a sustained bout of 7 minutes, repeated over and over? This is a test suited to an endurance athlete, and as such, will under-estimate values for a sprinter. I recall testing an elite squash player, and we could produce completely different results if we used this kind of test compared to an all-out, shorter duration max test that lasted 10 minutes. Fitness is obviously key to this as well - an unfit athlete (read Oscar Pistorius) would struggle in this test...I do however appreciate that there are issues around aerobic vs anaerobic metabolism.
Second, the speeds were not reported, and nor were the rest periods - was a 3 minute rest standard, or could the athlete take as long as they felt like to recover? Perhaps the recovery time was "selective" to allow OP to continue to higher levels? If it's not reported, it's possible.

The result however shows pretty much the same as what Bruggemann showed when the IAAF did their research - Pistorius is much more efficient than sprinters. Bruggemann showed it during a simulated 400m event, which had some method flaws (and was rightly criticized). The latest results confirm that despite those limitations, the finding remains. Pistorius is actually even more efficient than elite distance runners, which is extra-ordinary. There are a number of reasons for this - one is the reduced muscle mass as a result of not having calves, and this is the only one put forward in the paper, despite the fact that they haven't actually assessed the magnitude this might have on oxygen use.

Others are the passive energy return from the carbon-fibre blades, the improved storage and release of energy by carbon fibre, and reduced work of having to accelerate lighter limbs. These are all reasons for an advantage, and have been discussed many times before, but are not raised in the paper. What this result does confirm is that the theoretical arguments made are at least valid. It does not necessarily translate into a performance advantage, because of the range of reasons that might produce this difference. Actually sifting through these reasons requires data that was either not obtained or not presented.

VO2 peak and peak aerobic running speed

The next measurement of interest is the highest VO2 recorded during the trial. The authors refer to it as a VO2 max, which is incorrect - because of the protocol used, it's not a true maximum. Instead, it represents only a VO2 peak, and Pistorius is measured at 52.7 ml/kg/min while the controls are at 57.0 ml/kg/min, a difference of 8%. This suggests the previously measured 17% lower oxygen cost of running for OP is not simply due to lower muscle mass, and therefore should be taken a little more seriously than just dismissing it as such.

What is very interesting, and the authors hang a lot of their conclusion on this, is that the running speeds when this peak O2 were achieved are "essentially the same" (author's words). That is, OP hits his O2 peak at a speed of 5.0 m/s, whereas the control sprinters hit it at 4.9 m/s (with a SD of 0.02 m/s, which will become very important in a moment).

Now, a couple of issues here. Firstly, the difference of 0.1 m/s translates into about 2 seconds in a 400m race at the speeds reported. That is significant from a performance point of view, if not stats. But even more vitally, in the paper, the Standard Deviation for the control runner's speeds is 0.02 m/s. Therefore, the difference between Pistorius and the control athletes is equal to FIVE Standard Deviations. This is very, very different, and not "essentially the same". Using the paper's own methods, you'll recall that 2 Standard Deviations was classified as different - here we have a difference of 5 SD. Unless we are going to accept that stats should be used selectively to prove a point, the argument should end right here. Oscar Pistorius runs faster than the controls using aerobic metabolism - that represents a physiological and performance advantage.

State of training - why it's vital

Finally, I refer back to the issue of state of training and equal comparisons. The measurement of VO2 peak and running speed are highly influenced by training status/fitness. Are the able-bodied runners and Pistorius equally trained? If not, then an untrained Pistorius is producing physiological results that are comparable to trained athletes. A trained, competitive athlete will achieve higher speeds, a greater VO2 max, but not necessarily improved efficiency. The implication is that Pistorius' VO2 peak will rise, the running speed at which he hits VO2 peak will increase, and he'll look EVEN MORE DIFFERENT to them if the comparison was appropriate. The paper presents a comparison which cannot be trusted - perhaps it's valid, but the critical information is never reported (who are these subjects and how trained are they?). This should have been picked up on for the CAS hearing (and would have been, had this paper been subject to normal scientific process)

Fatigue test results

The next set of tests done was on fatigue, and these are interesting and do actually add to the debate. Here, it seems that OP did a series of all-out sprints to fatigue at a range of different speeds. The methods are actually very poorly explained, and it says only that the range of speeds was from 6.6 m/s (which he held for 89.5 seconds) to 10.8 m/s (less than 2 seconds). There is no explanation of what speeds were completed, how long the rest periods were, or how many intervals were run by each subject (including Pistorius) - "between 6 and 15 tests" is the only explanation given in the paper. The authors do refer to two other published studies in which the fatigue tests are explained. That is obviously good, but the problem remains that Pistorius is about to be compared with a very specific intention of finding either diference or similarity, and so the method used for him becomes absolutely crucial. Even with the method published elsewhere, a comparison of one athlete to that 'database' requires identical methods and process to be followed, and, at the very least, explained in detail.

The implications of this are important. "Between 6 and 15" is an enormous difference. It does not take a great level of insight to appreciate that if you are trying to assess fatigue tolerance using all-out runs to exhaustion, the athlete who has done 6 fatiguing tests will produce a different result to the athlete doing 15 fatiguing tests. So why is the range so large? This is not accounted for in the paper, and the reason for this, I suspect, is that not all subjects have done the same protocol. In fact, the results might well have been collected over a period of years as a 'database' of sorts was formed, with each athlete doing a slightly different protocol.

Point is, if the methods followed are not identical, then one must be careful about making direct comparisons, especially in a fatigue-trial, and especially when subject numbers are low (as they are here). And, any comparisons must be explained in the context of which methods were used for which subjects. In this paper, neither happens - some sprinters were tested, Oscar Pistorius was tested. When and how? These are details the authors seem to have decided are not worth reporting, perhaps because they don't lend themselves to the desired finding.

Yet they're being compared, with only trust to back it up. Given the controversial nature of the subject, and the financial incentives behind Pistorius (Nike, Ossur and co.), independent verification of what was done should have been a pre-requisite for this research to ever be accepted by the CAS. At the very least, the IAAF should have been allowed representation.

The comparison - OP compared to...distance runners

Returning to the fatigue tests, for "similarity", Pistorius is compared to one sprinter and two distance runners - you may decide for yourself if that comparison is valid...

The question I have to ask is why not just give us the comparison with four sprinters? If the data exist, then show it. Unless it does not support the desired conclusion, which, as long as data is "hidden", has to be a possibility in a matter as sensitive and controversial at this. This lack of transparency is a major problem. Ordinarily, science is based on some "trust" that researchers will do what is deemed appropriate. However, the circumstances of this case change the stakes a little.

Pistorius was found to fatigue similarly to these control subjects. That is, he holds the given speed for similar durations. Again, the state of training is a vital aspect here - would a trained Pistorius still fatigue similarly? How comparable are the controls? With training, would Pistorius be better able to maintain speeds, leading to a conclusion that he does not fatigue similarly?

This is another reason why the state of training is so vital, and all reports suggest that Pistorius was untrained at the time of the testing - either that, or he was lying in the media last year when he said the case had kept him from training. Based on his performances in trying to qualify for Beijing, I believe the former - he was untrained, yet still comparable to able-bodied DISTANCE runners for running times.

Another interesting point is that these kinds of constant speed to fatigue tests are very dubious as markers of performance or fatigue. There was a big debate in sports science a few years ago, and the general consensus among performance physiologists (who look at pacing strategy as their main interest) is that you can't infer fatigue or performance from a trial to volitional exhaustion, because they're not repeatable enough and allow too many other factors to influence the result (training is just one of them). You cannot therefore evaluate pacing strategy or fatigue using trials at a fixed speed - they are useful for investigating changes in physiology, but to infer performance is incorrect.

Of course, one obvious limitation is that Pistorius could control the result of this testing by stopping early, given that he knew the theory is that he fatigues less quickly than able-bodied runners. This is why the IAAF should have had representation at the testing - they did not...

Why the selective display of results?

But more to the point, why compare Pistorius to distance runners? Is it valid to ask whether a sprinter fatigues similarly to elite distance runners? And where are the other data? =

You have potentially four sprinters to compare him to! Perhaps they didn't, and only one sprint control existed - this should be reported. Yet they choose to use two distance athletes, and their finding is that he is "similar". In other words, the 400m sprinter shows similar fatigue characteristics to elite distance athletes...extra-ordinary. You'll be aware of course, that distance runners SHOULD show better fatigue resistance, because that's what their events rely on. We know that optimal distance races are evenly-paced, whereas sprinters slow down in the second half. Therefore, to compare a distance runner to a sprinter, and show similar fatigue patters, especially when the sprinter is supposedly untrained (again, this is not reported, so it is speculation), well, that's an incredible finding...

Pistorius' pacing strategy

The authors explain that their finding explains why Pistorius has such an incredibly fast finish in his 400m races. You'll recall that he is the only 400m runner in history who finishes with a faster second 200m than the first. Part of this is without doubt down to his slower start, which has been widely acknowledged. However, what the paper puts forward is that it accounts for all of his unique pacing, which is impossible. Remember, Pistorius has run 10.91 seconds for 100m. That means that he cannot be losing more than about 0.8 seconds at the start (unless you'd like to believe he is a 10second 100m runner).

If he loses 0.8 seconds at the start of the 400m race, it accounts for only part of the time he 'makes up' in the second half. Pistorius runs the second 200m of his races almost 2 seconds faster than the first 200m - only 0.8 s (at most) can be explained by a faster start. Besides, I already corrected for that slower start by relating everything to the 100m time, and it shows the same thing...his fatigue profile DURING COMPETITION is different from other elite athletes.

The Weyand-Herr study puts the rest down to a deliberate pacing strategy, in which case his coach should really be fired, because if that's what he does deliberately, then he deserves the sack, so inefficient is the idea that you should speed up at the end of a 400m race. And in case anyone is thinking that my argument is based on one race - it isn't. I've watched Pistorius many times here in SA, and every race is the same, it's what he does (with the exception of the Beijing Paralympics, but then he said he was unfit and had stomach problems).

On the fatigue front, the jury is out - the comparison with distance runners is flawed, the test is flawed (the manipulation of this particular fatigue test is very, very easy) and the proof of a fatigue advantage will always come from performance, and that speaks very loudly at this stage.

Sprinting mechanics

The final section of the paper looked at Pistorius' sprinting mechanics compared to able-bodied controls. To summarize this section, the graphs below present the key information measured at two running speeds - 10m/s and top speed. (click to enlarge):

To sum up, Pistorius has longer contact times (14%), shorter swing times (21%), shorter aerial times (34%) and a lower peak vertical force (14%) than able-bodied athletes. So what does this all mean?

Well, there are certain similarities with what Bruggemann found back in October 2007. His results, which included energy measurements on the blades, led him to conclude the following:

"Sprinting with artificial limbs is significantly different to able-bodied sprinting on a hard surface. It is a different kind of locomotion at a lower metabolic cost"

In the current paper, the authors conclude that "running on modern, lower-limb sprinting prostheses appears to be ... mechanically different than running with intact limbs".

The one contentious point is the vertical and horizontal forces experienced by Pistorius during running. The graph below is taken from the paper, showing the vertical and horizontal forces:

Compare that to this graph, which was produced by Bruggemann in his 2007 research on Pistorius.

They show basically the same thing - Pistorius experiences lower vertical and horizontal forces. Where it becomes debated is the impact that would have on performance. The latest study suggests that the lower vertical forces might present a limitation to speed, based on previous research looking ath top speed as a function of vertical force generated.

Bruggemann, on the other hand, looks at Pistorius' reduced horizonal force as a distinct advantage, because it means less braking force has to be overcome. Bruggemann's view on the vertical? Well, less work is done on the centre of mass, and his viewpoint, one which I agree with, is that vertical force generation is particularly important during acceleration, but once top speed is reached, it is actually better to have a lower vertical force - the disadvantage disappears. So either way, Pistorius enjoys a mechanical advantage.

What is perhaps most intriguing is that a longer contact time, a shorter aerial time and a shorter swing phase are indicative of someone who is almost "rolling" along the ground. In his 2007 study, Bruggemann found that Pistorius had a lower vertical oscillation (or up and down movevement than able-bodied runners).

The most inefficient part of running is the bit in the air - that's where gravity exerts a negative force on the athlete - followed by the landing, when energy is lost and braking forces have to be overcome. Pistorius spends almost no time experiencing this force, and mechanically, he is moving ever closer to taking part on wheels. Admittedly, that's an extreme analogy, but it's done to highlight just how different Pistorius is. What he does is NOT running. It's never been seen before, but it's not running. So when you next watch him race against able-bodied athletes, you'll be watching seven men running against someone who is not...

Final measure still unaccounted for - energy return

One final aspect that was never covered in the latest research is the aspect of energy return. This was done by Bruggemann in 2007, and you may recall that he found that the energy lost from the ankle joint of a human limb was 41.4%, compared to only 9.3% from the carbon-fibre prosthetic limb.

3. The Wrap-up

What the CAS should have known

The above is a "heavy-duty" discussion of the science presented in the Pistorius paper, and it represents a departure from the 'conversational' nature of this debate up to now. That debate and all the theory behind it is as true today as it was two years ago, and I would say it still holds the theoretical reasons for the Pistorius advantage. This post does not discuss that advantage as much as it dissects research method and study design, which is an essential part of research. However, it was never the purpose of this site to pick apart scientific methods and discussions around Standard Deviations, and so I won't go down this path here again.

Looking back, however, this is the process that should have been followed by the CAS. There is no way that this research should have been allowed to roll into Lausanne in May last year, having never been seen by the IAAF or any other scientist before being presented to the CAS. What is written above is a typical evaluation of scientific method and design, but Oscar Pistorius and his clan managed to bypass it - they ambushed the CAS with the science, and had a group of lawyers deliver a result without the stringent, essential scientific debate that science calls for.

Perhaps the issued raised above are easily addressed - I'm sure some will have "answers" to these questions, or perhaps even more questions. But they are serious questions, some that cannot, I believe, be addressed satisfactorily. For the CAS, however, they were hijacked, and I cannot believe the IAAF would stand by idly and allow that - so this is request to re-open the debate, and present the same arguments above, plus other, probably better ones, in the interests of getting a fair hearing for BOTH sides, not the hijacked hearing that it was...

All in all, the research that saw the CAS clear Pistorius is full of questions, not answers, and the CAS should have waited for this kind of opinion and discussion before throwing a verdict out. The study has too many flaws to ignore, and had any length of time been taken to actually evaluate it, instead of allowing one single day hearing, this might have been discovered.

In conclusion

Given that Pistorius is not actually even running as we know it, I'm not sure what debate still exists. However, to carry on that debate, the latest research published just last week is fraught with what I believe to be significant problems. Pistorius started out as a 400m runner who should have been compared to other 400m sprinters.

In the end, he was declared physiologically similar to elite and sub-elite distance runners, despite having a 17% efficiency advantage. Where he was similar, it is reported, is that his speed at VO2 peak is "essentially the same", even though he lies 5 SD outside the able-bodied average. And all this when Pistorius was, in his own words, untrained as a result of the stress of the travel and trying to prove his innocence. That is no comparison or grounds to declare similarity.

When data is selectively presented without explanation why (where are the other three sprinter's results in the fatigue tests, for example?), when timing is not accounted for, when methods are glossed over with crucial implications, and when comparisons are made between one sprint athlete and all of four sprinters and a host of distance runners, then the theoretical debate goes nowhere.

Where the IAAF research and this latest research DO agree is that Pistorius differs from able-bodied athletes mechanically. It's not running, but a never seen before form of locomotion that is heading towards rolling on wheels. That alone might have been enough to make the right decision. It wasn't, and so I continue to hope that within the next thirty years, another athlete comes along, who, with greater ability, work ethic, and talent, runs 400m in 41 seconds.

Thanks for reading the lengthy post - more general opinion is to follow, and then I hope to leave the issue behind, and prepare for the Tour de France!

Ross

P.S. If you'd like a copy of the paper, just let me know...

Pistorius research published

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:49:00 +0000

Research on Oscar Pistorius, the human kangaroo is finally published

After many months of waiting, and about one year too late to be deemed scientifically credible, the research on the "Blade Runner" has finally been published. Amazingly, the title of the research is: The fastest runner on artificial legs: different limbs, similar function?.

This is amazing because the study finds, among other things, that Pistorius uses 17% less oxygen than elite 400m runners. Incredibly, he also uses LESS oxygen (3.8% less, to be exact) than elite distance runners! Given that this is at sub-maximal speeds, where the differences are likely smaller anyway, it is absolutely extra-ordinary that he used this in his defence.

Further, the study concludes that running on the prostheses is "mechanically different from running on intact limbs" and that Pistorius is "physiologically similar" even though the metabolic costs are 17% lower - that's not similar, Dear scientists. Again, extra-ordinary "science"...and what is even more amazing is that this is the scientific evidence that somehow got him cleared to compete by the CAS. That, unfortunately, is the consequence of allowing legal experts to make a judgement on a scientific matter.

The background and the prospect of some interesting discussion

Those who follow this site, and have followed the argument, will know the development of this story, and you'll know my opinion on it. I have no doubt at all that he receives an advantage from the use of the high-tech, carbon fibre blades that he uses to run on. In October 2007, the IAAF commissioned research in Germany that showed this, and he was banned.

His response was to find scientists in the USA who would support his claim, and Professor Hugh Herr of MIT obliged by doing a study that formed the basis for Pistorius' defence, which was taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, where he was cleared.

Unfortunately, the scientific process, where research is peer-reviewed and evaluated was never followed. And so whereas Pistorius got to view the IAAF research and spend two months preparing a case, the same was never true for Pistorius' claims. His research was presented on one single morning, and a judgement was delivered by a panel that was frankly incapable of evaluating the scientific argument.

At the time, everyone was left speculating as to the nature of this "research" (the quotation marks are used for a reason there). The CAS hearing revealed little, other than that Pistorius has punched holes in the IAAF findings (which was not difficult to do - welcome to science), and that legally, he was cleared.

I heard from various journalists who had insight into the testing and the findings, and frankly, it was appalling what was being reported - systematic selection of control subjects so that Pistorius would look more similar to them than was the case, for example. That was rumour, but now there are facts, thanks to the publication of the research in JAP.

The research shows some extra-ordinary differences - how did they win the argument?

And it's just as appalling, mystifying and extra-ordinary that he got away with it. To borrow the words of Amby Burfoot over at Peak Performance at RunnersWorld.com, "frankly, we don't see how they won the argument. Pistorious apparently uses 17 percent less energy than similar 400-meter specialists, and runs with a stride that is "mechanically different than running with intact limbs.""

I'm going to have a detailed look at that paper, and try to summarize the implications of the findings over the course of the next few days. Having started with this story back in 2006, the next step needs to be taken, and this paper in a scientific journal is that next step.

To end off, a quote from the paper, just to set the scene:

"We conclude that running on modern, lower-limb sprinting prostheses appears to be physiologically similar (My comment: This is not true - his metabolic cost is 17% lower), but mechanically different than running with intact limbs"

Join us in the week, when I'll unpack the findings in more detail. All findings will lead to the same point - Pistorius does not "run" as we know running, and there is no reason to doubt the theoretical basis for an advantage, and the CAS bunged the decision.

Ross

Swimsuit debate continued

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:13:00 +0000

FINA approves the controversial swimsuits: Flick the switch on world swimming

Regular readers will have been following our ongoing discussion around the new range of controversial swimsuits that have, in the estimation of just about all concerned, blown swimming records out of the water in the last 18 months.

The very latest development is that FINA, swimming's governing body, has approved the latest controversial swimsuits, at least until the end of 2009.

As you'll see below, the latest prediction is that the suits will be banned from 2010, which, according to a letter shown below, will represent an acknowledgment by FINA of "its mistake in allowing these suits to be used during 2008 and 2009". This makes it all the more mystifying why these suits have now been approved for the remainder of 2009...

The suits which have reportedly been approved include Jaked's all-polyurethane suit (shown to the right) that helped France's Frederick Bosquet to a world record over 50m earlier this year. On that occasion, the fastest record in swimming was broken by an astonishing 0.34 seconds!
It has since emerged that Alain Bernard's Arena has not been approved and therefore his world record in the 100m will not be ratified, though Bosquet's, drug-testing pending, seems likely to be ratified.

This from a good swimmer, an Olympic medalist in relays, but a man who had never reached an individual Olympic final and had never threatened a world record before. The suit helped propel a swimming "veteran" to a time that is almost a second faster than those who beat him by a second only a year before. At the time, I wrote how this was the equivalent of a 2:14 marathon runner showing up and carving out a 2:06 in their tenth year.

The issues - history and fairness

The problems for swimming are numerous - primary among them is a credibility problem that is caused by a sudden rewriting of the record books, the frequency of records, and the devaluing of records. Not to rehash a debate we've held many times on this site, but there is a fundamental problem when the history of the sport is basically rewritten. Legends of swimming have been relegated to footnotes within a year, men and women who featured in the top 10 of all time now lie outside the top 20 and there is an unnatural distribution of times by era.

But more than this, the problem is that swimming records are now broken so often that they lack all credibility. And while some will argue that the point is the race, not the time (which is partly true), there is a lot to be said for history of sport, and the perception among sports followers (not necessarily swimming followers) when record-holders emerge from nowhere and are replaced only months later by similarly 'unknown' swimmers - the suits have enabled this scenario.

Formula 1 in the water

Pretty soon, the sport begins to resemble Formula 1, which is a currently a sham as far as the ranking of human skill is concerned. Formula 1 is obviously in turmoil right now, but what 2009 has shown is that a driver who was making up the numbers in 2008 can suddenly find themselves almost unbeatable thanks to a few changes in the rules. And the drivers who, from 2005 to 2008, were dominant, are now fighting the traffic at the back of the grid. That is not sport, it is a technological battle - the notion of "best driver" is a farce. Formula 1 has merit as a technological showpiece only, but not as a contest of driver vs driver. You cannot tell me that Jenson Button has transformed himself into the best driver - the car has transformed him.

(I realise die-hard F1 fans are likely to cry foul, and I appreciate that F1 drivers are remarkable athletes. But I'm not questioning THEIR ability, only the fact that we so readily rank them when the 2009 season has clearly exposed that the difference in technology exceeds the difference in driving ability. That is, the best driver may be 2% better than the worst driver, but the best car is 10% better than the worst car. So changing cars is sufficient to re-order the driver's apparent ability. The result is a race between cars, not drivers)

Swimming faces the same issues - is Frederick Bosquet the best swimmer in the world? Right now, yes, but is it the suit, or is it the swimmer? And if Bosquet beats Sullivan later this year in the Rome World Championships, was it the Jaked beating the Speedo? And what about the Arena worn by Bernard?

The point is, the uncontrolled technological explosion devalues the performances of the individual, and because we cannot compare performances by era, we are left only with the doubt that is created as a result of unequal distribution of that technology.

Over time, the discrepancy will disappear. All the swimmers will soon get hold of the new technology, or the manufacturers will catch up, and we'll have 'equal' races. But right now, the sport is in turmoil, and the latest FINA decision has well and truly flicked a switch that says that swimming will henceforth be defined as BS and AS - Before Suits and After Suits.

The World Championships in Rome will provide the first competition and it will be interesting to document how many Olympic champions disappear as a result of out-dated suits, or whether the technology develops fast enough to ensure that they too carve a second of the times they swam in Beijing only 9 months earlier.

Ross

P.S: An appeal to ban world records in the new suits

Ironically enough, it was only a few days ago that I received an email from Forbes Carlile (via Jim Ferstle), calling FINA to ban all new suits from January 2010. The letter, which I paste in full below, strongly suggests that all federations will agree, which means that the suits will be banned. That makes the latest decision to approve the suits all the more mystifying, but anyway...

The other call is for all records set in the new suits to be scrapped, and for FINA to recognize only records set in suits made of woven textiles.

For those who are interested, that letter is below:

Bartolo Consolo, Honorary Secretary of FINA, is asking all swimming federations in a mail vote to agree that from 1 January 2010 competitive swimmers may only use suits made from woven textiles. The federations will almost certainly agree with the Consolo proposition, meaning that all the new generation performance-enhancing suits that appeared from 2008 will be banned from use in competition. FINA will therefore be acknowledging its mistake in allowing these suits to be used during 2008 and 2009.

While this is good news, if Mr Consolo's proposal is adopted that will leave the issue unresolved as to what to do with the unprecedented number of world and other records set in suits which were clearly constructed to be performance-enhancing.

Some of the record times set this year are yet to be ratified and were made in suits which were not approved under current FINA by-laws. However, these by-laws were adopted as a "quick fix" by FINA in March in a move which has since been widely discredited. These by-laws recognise records in the Speedo LZRs but reject those set in other suits used this year because FINA now opts to believe the newer suits may be faster than the LZRs. However the 2009 records set in these later suits rationally should be ratified together with 2008 times.

It has been argued that the East German doping period provides a precedent in that FINA allowed these tainted records to remain without any note as to the circumstances of they circumstandces of they occurring in During the German's doping period. However it should be remembered that whereas it was not known for certain that doping played a part in every record set by an East German, we do know that every record set in the fast suits was performance-enhanced. The argument of precedence therefore is not strictly tenable , and is not a good reason to justify inaction which would allow obvious unfairness, which can be equitably righted,thus preventing staining of the sport.

To honour outstanding swimmers past, present and future; including those who made records in all the performance-enhancing suits worn in 2008 and 2009, the following recommendations should be adopted:

1. All world records which are known to have been set in suits which will be illegal from next year be recognised as records and be marked with an asterisk to acknowledge assisted swims.

2. If the world record has been set in a suit which will be illegal after Jan 1st 2010, then the fastest time made in a woven textile suit (before or after 2008/9) should be noted next to the world record until the "textile" time stands alone as the record.

Forbes Carlile

Cardiac events during sport on TV

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:48:00 +0000

The dangers of WATCHING elite sport - health checks needed!

If you're reading this (or are a regular reader), then you're probably also inclined to spend fairly large periods of time actually watching sport (and wondering where we've been lately, but that's another story).

Being sports fans, you probably make it a point to follow coverage of your teams whenever possible, and live and share in the emotions of the game. People follow sport differently, of course - some dress up in the playing kit, scream at television sets and referees, and feel more anxiety and stress than the players they are supporting. Others (and I'm in this group) tend to be more dispassionate and 'cool', watching with a more analytical eye.

Uncertainty and enjoyment

Regardless, the enjoyment comes largely from the uncertainty. In marketing terms, sport on television is classified as an "instantly perishable product", which is to say that the value of sport perishes instantly once the outcome is known. Few will watch a game with emotion and enjoyment if the result is known, though of course, there are other reasons to watch matches over and over (game analysis, for example).

But what if that uncertainty is also the cause of medical problems? I have no doubt that those of you who fall into the first group - the screamers who live and breathe every moment - have been told to calm down or you'll damage your health.

Well, it turns out that this may be true! A study published in 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine (very prestigious) looked at the incidence of cardiac events in Germany during the 2006 Football World Cup, and found that spectators are almost four times more likely to suffer cardiac events when their team played, and particularly, when they played very close, high-stakes matches.

The reason this is topical, of course, is that my country, South Africa, is gearing up for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and is currently hosting the Confederations Cup (though I must say, when we play, the uncertainty in the outcome is perhaps not as great...!). We're also hosting the British and Irish Lions rugby team (a team picked every 4 years from the best of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales). Yesterday was the first test, and it probably gave a few people cause for some cardiac events....!

The study - a spike during matches

The study was done from Munich, during the World Cup in Germany, and it tracked the number of cardiac events reported during German matches, during the World Cup when Germany did not play, and during a control period that was made up of about 4 months in the years before and after the 2006 World Cup.

The graph below shows the spikes that occurred when Germany played, indicated by numbers on the red line. The blue and yellow lines represent the control periods of 2003 and 2005.

In particular, games 5 and 6 are the ones of interest - those were knock-out matches where Germany first defeated Argentina in a penalty shoot-out (Game 5 - huge tension for fans), and when Germany were defeated by Italy in the semi-final (Game 6). More than 60 cardiac events per day were reported, compared to the average of about 15 per day! (Match 2, by the way, was a group game between Germany and Poland - the stakes in that game are high because it's something of a local derby, with some animosity between the teams)

Once losing that semi-final, Germany played Portugal in the 3rd-4th play-off, and you'll see how there was no spike, which confirms that the 3rd-4th play-off lacks any tension or interest! The final (not involving Germany) produced more cardiac events than this game.

This was of course the final where Zidane infamously head-butted Italy's Marco Materazzi - this was an event that probably produced its fair share of cardiac events back in France...!

Breaking the numbers down a little further, the graph below shows the number of cardiac events reported during the three stages, separated into men and women's totals. The average number of cardiac events during German matches was 43 per day, compared to only 14.6 per day during the control period (and 18.2 during the World Cup when Germany did not play - the die-hard football fans, perhaps).
Differences between men and women

Perhaps not surprisingly, the increase in cardiac events is much greater in men than in women, with an almost four-fold increase in the number of events for men during German matches, compared to a two-fold increase for women.

This is further shown by the graph below, which shows the calculated incidence ratio of cardiac events for men (in blue) and women (in magenta) during German matches, during the World Cup when Germany does NOT play, and during the control period.

Just to explain, the incidence ratio is worked out on the basis that the chance of a cardiac event during the control period is equal to 1. For example, if there were 20 cardiac events a day during the control period, and 40 during matches, then the incidence ratio would be equal to 2 - effectively, you are twice as likely to have a cardiac event during a match. In this particular study, the calculation is complicated a little by the fact that the researchers adjusted the incidence for environmental factors such as barometric pressure (which is why you won't quite get the same values as these if you do the calculation yourself).

So the graph above shows that men are 3.26 times more likely to have a cardiac event during a German match than on another day, whereas women are only 1.82 times more likely. My first reaction is that this is pretty easy to explain - men tend to follow the game more and experience the stresses that would trigger heart attacks more than women (a generalization, certainly). However, there are a couple of other possibilities - one is that men have pathophysiological differences that make them more vulnerable to heart attack, or that they are more vulnerable to emotional triggers. I'd still suggest that TV viewership stats will reflect that men are perhaps 4 times more likely to be watching the game than women, which would explain the finding almost entirely.

The point is - preventative measures needed

So the point of all this is not simply to tell a story about an interesting scientific observation. It has some very serious implications. The spike caused by live sport (and there is no reason to think this is unique to soccer, though of course a World Cup is likely to produce the greatest spikes) is significant, and something needs to be done, quite literally, to save lives.

The authors suggested options such as taking or changing the dose of beta-blockers (drugs that block the stress response and potentially protect the heart), drugs including anti-inflammatories, anti-platelet drugs like aspirin, and behavioral therapy to counsel fans on how to cope with stress. One observation that is significant is that almost 50% of those who had cardiac events were diagnosed as having coronary artery disease BEFORE the heart attack, and so simply pre-screening will identify people most at risk, and they can then be counselled or treated to further reduce the risk.

So without wishing to throw a wet blanket on your baseball/rugby/soccer/cricket watching activities, try to reign in the stress - it might be life-saving. And it's just sport, after all!

Ross

Sports science and management strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:55:00 +0000

Science IN sport: Search for meaning and higher performance

This post is long overdue. It might even turn into a series, there is so much to say. But for the last week, every time I have sat down to work on this topic, I have discovered a form of writer's block, where I'm unable to properly express the point I would like to. So this is my latest attempt, and it will probably develop into a series, personal (even autobiographical) in nature. But it is my take on where science fits and contributes to high performance sport.

A series with a purpose

Many of these thoughts are inspired by my recent experiences with the South African Sevens rugby team, now the world champions, with whom I've toured in the last few months in a sports science and strategy consulting role. Their success was the result of a strategic plan developed by coach Paul Treu almost four years ago. It borrowed from business, science, strategy, philosophy and half a dozen other sports and represents the most complete, professional and advanced strategy put together for national sport in South Africa. It should (though it won't) serve as a template for other sports in South Africa (my local interest), but hopefully lessons from it will also be of interest to you reading this, regardless of whether you follow the sport of Sevens rugby or not!

I don't wish to dwell exclusively on this experience though, and will also share some of the insights gained from my other experiences in South African sport. Sadly, the Sevens success is an isolated one, a rare occasion where the expertise of people, from the coach down to players, was valued and implemented. For the most part, South African sport remains the domain of the fragile egos who recognize not expertise but process, not vision but individual incentives, and who reward mediocrity rather than excellence. But more on that later.

And then finally, I hope (without being presumptuous) that this series of posts can inspire each reader to strive for "higher performance", regardless of their occupation. A scientist, a marketing manager, a triathlete, a cyclist, or a runner - wherever you fit, hopefully you'll find this series relevant as a guide to how you can find the next 1% towards your own high performance goals.

Not science, but expertise

The very first, and perhaps most important principle about seeking higher performance, is that the answer lies not in science per se, but in expertise. And expertise is brought by people. So Principle number 1 is get the best intellect involved, and don't limit your search to scientists. So this series is not a punt for sports scientists to take the reins of high performance sport, not for you individually or for sport. And if you're a cyclist or a runner seeking to improve your own performance, don't be led into believing that sports science holds the answer simply because it is sports science.

The far more important factor is the expertise and the insight that underscores the application of sports science. This crucial logic means that simply "doing sports science" is not good enough. It also means that people with no scientific qualification CAN make a bigger contribution than those who do, because the stringency of their thinking and their insight adds the value, not the content of their knowledge. I have had the pleasure of working with consultants from the world of business, who have developed skills and tools that make them far more valuable to elite sport than their scientific counterparts often are.

Therefore, for the duration of this post and series, I will refer to "intellect" rather than sports science, for the simple reason that sports scientists do not necessarily bring world class intellect to the system!

I will never forget that a certain high performance athlete here in South Africa once went for a laboratory test at a certain high performance institute, only two months before the Olympic Games. The test consisted of the usual VO2max test, and the report which was given to the athlete's coach said the following: "The athlete displays a VO2max that lies in the average range. It is recommended that the athlete work on endurance in order to improve the VO2max and running ability".

Turns out that athlete was Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, who would go on to win the silver medal in the Athens Olympic Games only 2 months later! And yet scientists sometimes wonder why their work is not respected by coaches...

The "no compromise principle": Your Ferrari is not the same as my Toyota

What has happened in South Africa in the last year or so, since our disaster in Beijing (one silver medal), is that people have "recognized" the need for expertise in sports. That's the good news. However, they fail to recognize that expertise does not simply equal sports science for the sake of sports science. And so, much political lobbying and grandstanding has created a situation where everyone is following "sports science principles" (whatever that means). "Yes, we're doing sports science now", is the call from the executive authority. "We have roped in our sports scientists". The atheltes are all seeing dieticians, psychologists, having regular tests and assessments, doctors and so on. Problem solved then? Well, no, unfortunately not.

I drive a car - it has four wheels, a steering wheel, an engine, a gearbox and brakes. So does your car. But you drive a Ferrari, I drive a Toyota. In the world of SA sport and the application of sports science, they're the same car. Your Ferrari is the same as my Toyota, because "sports science is sports science", after all. This kind of logic, exposed as ridiculous by the analogy, is where we stand in SA today.

The competition principle for intellectual support to athletes

In elite sport, an Olympic Games competition between athletes is the culmination of many months or years of preparation. Science is part of that preparation, and therefore the quality of the intellectual support (which includes coaching and science) is heavily responsible for the standard of the 'finished product'. When that intellect is sub-standard, then the athlete takes to the line with little chance of success, regardless of their talent. And the epicentre of the system, the "sun in the solar system", is the coach, who incorporates the science in such a way that it adds value.

You cannot allow a situation (as we have in SA, or rather, which we are currently allowing), where the athletes sit on the start line behind the wheel of a Toyota (0 to 100 in 12 seconds), while the elite from around the world drive Ferraris, thanks to the level of intellect. It may have wheels, engines and gearboxes, but intellect, like all athletes, is not created equal.

This is not the case across the board, mind you. Some of our sports have some remarkable people driving them - rowing, for example, has set out in the right direction with the right people, and needs only the support of the funders to give those people every opportunity to succeed. That is because it has the best people already - support the best and they will deliver. In the famous book Good to Great, author Jim Collins explains how getting the best people on the bus is crucial to success.

That is what rowing has. Sadly, they are there only through the initiative of a few people, not the system. Isolated success is possible when the best people are involved. Sustainable success comes from getting the best people involved as part of a longer-term strategy. Either way, the best people must be involved, and all it takes is a strategy that ensures their ongoing involvement.

Unfortunately, for reasons that range from stupidity and incompetence to hidden agendas, the chances of this happening are slim mostly because those in charge at the top don't recognize the value of people and so isolated success rarely becomes sustainable. It's happened for SA Sevens, thanks to Paul Treu. Hopefully it will happen for rowing. Triathlon and canoeing are trying to do it, but the higher up you go, the less common it becomes. The "soldiers" may be worthy, but the generals often are not.

So Principle Number 2 in seeking higher performance is that compromise destroys performance, and "elitism" is crucial to success. This is true for athletes and for management, but mostly for coaches and those providing the "intellectual capital" in the elite sports system. Wherever there is competition, if you compromise on quality, you lose. If you fail to dedicate every single resource towards excellence, you lose.

And the take-home message for you reading this (unless of course you're an SA Sports administrator, in which case the take-home message should be obvious), is that whether you're trying to shave 1 minute of your 10km time, or trying to qualify for the Hawaii Iron-man, then you cannot compromise on the quality of the expertise you seek and use.

The scientific process: It's not WHAT you know, but HOW you learn it

The point is, the CONTENT of the science is far less important than the MEANS by which it is developed. It's not WHAT you know, but HOW you know it. I could list for you the ten enzymes involved in the glycolytic pathway that converts glucose into ATP, and I could explain to you the energetics underlying the enzyme reactions and why the re-oxidation of NAD+ is required to allow the process to continue, even though lactate forms as a result. Blah blah...that's not relevant to the high performance athlete in that form. Their coach will be able to work out exactly what training is required to improve the glycolytic enzyme capacity of the 1500m runner so that more energy can be produced, without such a level of "expertise" ever being involved.

So my point is this: The value of science lies not in the content it brings to the coach and athlete, though this is of course still valuable if applied correctly. What is infinitely more important is that the person who is applying content appreciates HOW they know what they know, because this gives them the ability to develop hypotheses and critically evaluate their observations.

And that is what good science TENDS to deliver and create in people - the ability to ask questions, measure variables and then answer the question. This SHOULD be a quality that good science adds to the athlete. Sadly, as we show in South Africa, it doesn't happen often, and the sports science we have created rather tells elite athletes that they are average because their VO2 max is not as high as it should be.

The model for integration

Where is all this heading then? Well, the model below is my illustration of where sports science fits into the elite sporting system. The key point in this whole system is that of "intellectual immersion" - you cannot relegate intellect to the role of a "service provider", to whom you outsource a few of the peripheral support functions. The best coaches bring their own level of intellect, which drives the whole pyramid and performance, precisely because it is immersed. The same should be true of those in the support team, from management down to sports scientists.

But in creating a support team, you must surround yourself with people who are excellent at what they do, and then simply step aside and let them do those things. That is true of business as well - small teams, working with freedom to innovate and grow will change the world. Boring old services, and the idea that "sports science is sports science" never will. It brings only failure, as we'll discover in SA over the next few years.

The SA Sevens Team have, in my experience, most closely achieved this model, and that's something that testifies to the value of having a coach who understands how important good people are. Paul Treu surrounded himself with scientists, management experts, business strategists, psychologists, and other experts, and then set about developing a strategy that would ensure sustainable success.

One of Treu's key mottos or principles is that "Better people make people better", and that's perhaps the take-home message of this whole post. There is a great deal to be said about what actually underscores the on-field performances of the players, and the mind-set that the high performance environment requires, but that's a topic for future posts.

The margins are too small not to care about this: A game of inches

Perhaps to end off, a video from the movie Any Given Sunday. I've no doubt that most of you have seen or heard this speech, but probably never connected it with sports science and high performance. Of course, there is a lot more to it, but it helps explain just how vital that expertise is. Some of the language is coarse (for sensitive readers), but the speech makes the point that "inches" matter. It inspires the players to seek inches, because those inches, when added up, "make the difference between winning and losing".

Sports science is involved in the quest for those inches, not necessarily on the field during the match, but in the training, during the hours of preparation, and the times when the cameras are not rolling. Consider that Michael Phelps won the 100m butterfly title by 0.01 seconds. Consider that the margin between winning and losing in shotput is 1 degree in the push-off angle. Consider that 9.69 seconds of 100m sprinting is the culmination of thousands of hours of training. Or that winning a Sevens world series, which might take 7 minutes of play in the final, actually comes down to thousands of hours of work, discipline and effort. Then you realise that if you fail to seek those inches, and if you fail to pursue every last millisecond, then whether you're an elite athlete or a marketing assistant at a shoe company, you're failing to achieve higher performance. Cue SA sport...

Next time - a new approach to sports science: Away from the VO2max: Lessons from the SA Sevens Team

A final somber word for a great player and a great person, who experienced a tragic turn of events in the last few weeks. Vuyo Zangqa was one of our great stars of the 2008/2009 Sevens season. He emerged and grew progressively as the season developed, and electrified the world of Sevens during the last four tournaments.

He's also one of the team's characters, a leader and an inspiration, and one of the most genuine, committed and passionate people I've had the pleasure of working with. Last week, while up in Johannesburg, Vuyo was involved in a car accident and received serious facial injuries. Two days ago, he underwent surgery to his left eye. At one point, the eye was going to be removed, but they are now holding out that it can still be saved. The implications of this are obvious for his playing career, but that is less important now than his general health and quality of life.

So here is to Vuyo Zangqa, a special player and person, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, and we'll see you on the field bringing the magic in no time...

Ross

Frence Open climax

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:54:00 +0000

One down, one to go for Fed

So Roger Federer made it (squeaked it) against del Potro yesterday, and now stands one match away from the title that it seemed might elude him in his glittering career.

Standing between him and that title is Robin Soderling, who rallied from an apparent slide to beat Fernando Gonzalez in his own five-set thriller. Soderling was all but buried, having led by two sets, he let slip the third and fourth and then found himself trailing 4-1 in the fifth before winning five games in a row to make his first final.

For Federer, I believe it was the best possible result. Can Soderling muster up any more great tennis, having already dismised Nadal, Davydenko and Gonzalez in such epic circumstances? I doubt it. For him, the achievement of reaching the final, by far his greatest achievement, changes the stakes. Also, I think Gonzalez had more weapons and might have beaten Federer, Soderling does not.

And so Federer has seen yet another (potentially) favourable outcome on the other side of the draw, as though the stars are lining up for him. I think, based on yesterday's match, that Federer will now feel that the worst is past, and he'll win the final comfortably...

Then again, perhaps the pressure will be too great, and he'll simply try too hard to finish what many expect, and what he wants so badly.

I gave my thoughts on the pressure in yesterday's post, so I won't do it again. I will however steer you towards another excellent piece that I read in the Times this morning... (this is the fallback plan when I find I haven't watched enough to post myself!)

One of the perks of spending the week in London is that I've been able to read some of the journalism here, which is just world-class compared to what we have in SA, sadly. OK, some of the writing is quite self-indulgent, and either overly hopeful or overly critical of English sport (depending on the occasion), but on the neutral topics, it's absolutely brilliant.

And this article, by Simon Barnes, is one such piece. It's a great read ahead of the Federer-Soderling match, and is the last word I'll leave you with before the men's match tomorrow.

The women's final

A cursory word on the women's final - I noted that earlier this week Serena Williams said that women's tennis is far more exciting than men's tennis, because of the personalities and characters involved.

Apparently, I've been watching the wrong version of the women's game, because I find women's tennis to be in something of a rut at the moment. Obviously, this is the marketing/management hat that I wear speaking, not the science, but I think women's tennis needs an injection of something to regain parity.

There was a time, perhaps 5 years ago, when it was the other way around. The men's game was completely dominated by Federer, Nadal's rise was only just beginning, and Murray, Djokovic and co were not nearly up to the challenge. We' d moved on from the Sampras-Agassi and Sampras-Courier rivalries, and the game had become a little boring.

In contrast, the women had the Williams sisters, Sharapova, two Belgians in Clijsters and Henin, Davenport and a mix of Russians who could win any tournament. Before that, diverse playing styles of Sanchez-Vicario, Hingis, Graf, Seles, and the Williams sisters created compelling viewing precisely because of the characters.

The situation is now different on both sides. While men's tennis is extra-ordinarily strong, with some of the greatest rivalries ever fuelling some of the greatest matches ever played (think Nadal-Verdasco in Aus, think Nadal-Federer in Aus and Wimbledon), there are no great rivalries in the women's game, and there seems to be a general lack of suspense.

There seems little consistency in the characters (who are the same as in previous years), because top players seem to be on a carousel of injury, recovery, retirement and loss of form. The overall hierarchy seems to have been flattened, the result being that new players can emerge, win big matches, and then disappear again. For example, name the Romanian who beat Jelena Jankovic this week in Paris? And will she feature again this year? I doubt it.

Speaking of, wasn't Jankovic a world number one once? Then again, so were Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Amelie Mauresmo, Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic and now Dinara Safina. As I was saying, it's something of a carousel.

Now, some may say this is a sign of strength, and in a sense, it can be viewed positively. It means that there is great parity among the top 10 players. The trouble is, it doesn't lend itself to popularity and creation of affinty among spectators for recognizable, consistent performers.

The French Open final this year will be played between Dinara Safina and Svetlana Kuznetsova, world number 1 and world number 7. In the semi-finals, two relative unknowns were knocked out - Samantha Stosur and Dominika Cibulkova. The men's final, while featuring a player who was not expected to be there, also features one of the game's great players. Even the progress of the unknown Soderling has been marked with suspense, great matches, huge interest and drama. Women's matches rarely reach the heights of the men's game - finals are routinely won in straight sets in one-sided contests, the winner barely leaving third gear.

So Serena may feel the game is more popular, but I'm afraid she's either watching the wrong men's game, or has lost sight of what is possible for the women's.

So for the women's final, my interest levels are too low to even warrant a prediction. Hopefully Safina wins, as number 1, it would at least lend some credibility to the rankings.

Bring on the men

Ross

French Open history looms

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:57:00 +0000

Federer's big chance

At long last! A post!

Rugby 7s triumph - dissected soon

Apologies again for the lengthy absence - the IRB Sevens Series is now a thing of the past, and so I can't even use it as an excuse for not posting this week! However, I've spent much of the last week catching up on sleep, and had a few failed attempts at posting (call it writer's block) since the final tournament in Edinburgh last weekend!

The Series was duly wrapped up, for those not following the game, and South Africa won its first World Series title! I'm not going to allow the opportunity for a post or two on it to pass, don't worry - I'm just waiting until next week when I've had time to sift through the thoughts (and emotions) of the season's victory, so that I can post something objective and meaningful to those who perhaps don't follow the Sevens game closely! So that's on the way.

Roland Garros - history looms for Roger Federer

For today though, it's less a proper post than a short comment on the big sports happening of the weekend, the French Open.

I guiltily confess that I haven't been able to watch a single shot from Roland Garros, what with the rugby and the subsequent travels. So, my "expert" opinion is based on nothing more than what I have read or heard in news reports.

Pretty much everyone will know that Roger Federer has been given the greatest opportunity he'll ever have to claim the elusive clay court Grand Slam. Before the tournament began, those standing in his way included Novak Djokovic (this year's second best clay court player), Andy Murray, Fernando Verdasco, and of course, Rafael Nadal.

Twelve days in, and not a single one remains. It was Nadal's defeat, at the hands of Robin Soderling of Sweden, that sent shockwaves through the tennis world, since it was Nadal's first loss ever in the French Open. Not much time was spent dissecting that defeat, because attention immediately turned to the Swiss champion, who has, year after year, found a Spanish street-fighter from Mallorca standing between him and the career Grand Slam.

Semi-final, final, final, final, and four defeats must have created in Federer the perception that a brick wall stood between him and the title. That wall is now gone, courtesy Soderling, and Federer has two matches left to win the title many must have thought he never would.

Standing between Fed and the title are...

He plays del Potro in the semi-final, and then one of Fernando Gonzalez (hand of stone, for his big forehand) or Soderling in the final, and both are matches you'd expect him to win. Yet this is not quite the same Federer as in years past, and he stuttered past Haas and Mathieu earlier this week before finding form against Monfils in the quarter-finals. If he is anything close to his best, he should claim this one.

The problem, however is pressure. As I mentioned, nobody gave too much attention to dissecting Nadal's loss (which, by the way, I believe is the result of playing too much tennis, because Nadal's game at 95% is not effective. He starts leaving balls short, denying himself time and giving more time to the opponent. He needs to rethink his playing schedule, in my opinion)

In any event, the focus switched entirely to Federer's quest to win the tournament now that his nemesis was gone. Federer must surely recognize the magnitude of the moment, and while he is downplaying it, he will tackle these matches knowing that this opportunity may not come around again. That's not to say he won't win it, of course, but he'll be desperate to do it now.

And pressure does funny things to people. Here, I can relate a story from the SA Sevens triumph - we went into the England tournament well clear in the overall world series, and needed only 13 points to clinch the overall title. Yet the pressure was enormous, and deny it as much as we wished, it became a factor that very realistically affected performance.

The focus among elites in such situations is to stick to the routines, focus on small targets that have formed the foundation for success for so long, and don't allow the mind to drift onto the big picture, but this is very nearly impossible. Focus on each step, the small essentials that sum to produce performance, is the goal, but under pressure, it's very difficult to achieve.

That pressure, which for Federer must be even greater, is a key factor that will influence the outcome of the matches. Not only for him, but for those he plays against, because they will enter an arena loaded with meaning that is not normally present.

Some will rise to it, and raise their games, others will be weighed down by it. If Federer encounters a challenger who rises to the occasion, and plants doubt in his mind, it might unravel very easily. If he gets on top, and stays in the moment, then he could walk it comfortably, with the perception that "destiny in on his side". Either way, it could go quickly. My very brief exposure to a similar pressure is that rather than denying it exists, it should be embraced and channeled towards making sure that performance is not compromised. Time will tell how Federer handles it!

The good news (for me, anyway), is that I'll actually be able to watch the final, and so might even comment with a little more insight than the big picture come Sunday!

Enjoy the action, and join us soon! We should be back on track now!

Ross

P.S. For an excellent piece on the tennis, check out this article by Dan Nicholl of iafrica.com. One of the funniest sports writers around, he also knows a thing or two about sport

High pressure period notice

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:19:00 +0000

Sorry for the silence, but...

I just wanted to drop in a short post today to say apologies for the silence over the last week, a week which saw the Comrades Marathon being run. Normally, that would be a staple diet for us here on The Science of Sport, but this time was different. Jonathan is in the USA, where coverage is non-existent, and I've been in the UK where it is equally comprehensive! So the Comrades came and went, and, not surprisingly, was won by foreigners. The only surprise was that the men's winner was not Russian, but Zimbabwean, Stephen Muzhingi taking the title in 5:23:26. It's a super fast time, and that's really all I can say about it, since I've seen only one report on it!

I've been with the SA Sevens Team for the last week, and we still have one week to go in the World Series, with a tournament in Edinburgh to come. Those who are following the sport will know the situation - within touching distance of the world series win, and so it is an important week. Time is limited, as is internet access, so bear with us during this period of "quiet"! The situation is that the team needs to win only a point in the final tournament to claim the title. However, we're going out for all 20 and the tournament win. If you asked the players to honestly assess what it would take for them to return to SA satisfied (not happy, just satisfied), not one would say that a Series win alone would be sufficient - we lost in the semi-final against NZ yesterday, and it was a sign of where we've come that this was a huge disappointment, such are the expectations of the players.

I'll do a post on the trip, the science behind it, and other sports news, as soon as the dust has settled!

Until then, if it's news and good commentary on running you'd like, don't forget to tune into LetsRun.com - they miss nothing and report it better than anyone else!

We'll be back soon, because the European athletics season starts now, and the French Open builds towards its climax! Join us then!

Ross

Sports News snippets

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:43:00 +0000

Bolt breaks the 150m world record, Nadal loses on clay

A short post today on some sports news from the weekend.

First, and perhaps most exciting, Usain Bolt, he of three world records in Beijing, the fastest man in the world, has added the 150m world record to his 100m and 200m world records, by blasting a 14.35 secs in a specially organized street race in Manchester yesterday.

For those who did NOT see the race, here is a video of Bolt destroying the field by 0.7 seconds (note the graphic at the end of the race says 14.36s - it was rounded down to 14.35s)

Despite cool temperatures, and a reported lack of fitness thanks to a few minor injuries sustained in a car-crash about a month ago, Bolt's first big showing on the world stage in 2009 lived up to the hype (Bolt's love of speed extends beyond the track, apparently. The Jamaican taxi drivers are reported to have a nickname for him - "lead-foot").

The 150m dissected - splits and projections

Bolt's running is anything but lead-footed. He ran the first 100m in 9.90 seconds, which is an extra-ordinary time and a sign of things to come. But even more amazing, the final 100m (from 50m to the finish line) were clocked in an astonishing 8.72 seconds! That is being reported, though it's so fast I'm almost sceptical. The splits, as recorded during the race, were:

50m - 5.64s (this compares to 5.50s in Beijing, by the way)
100m - 9.90s (a split of 4.26 s. In Beijing last year, Bolt's last 50m of his 100m was 4.19s, including the infamous celebrations)
150 - 14.35s (split of 4.45 s)

I have tried hard to find the analysis we did on Usain Bolt's 200m win in Beijing, because I am almost certain we looked at his splits from that race, but unfortunately I can't seem to find the post in question. However, I'm pretty sure his last 100m was not as quick as 8.72 seconds (it would mean his first 100m took 10.58 seconds, which is much too slow). But the last 100m can be misleading because of the different race distances, and so to me, the first 100m in 9.90 secs is more intriguing, because few others have produced that form so early in the season.

Bolt has said he can take the record down to 9.4 seconds - it's not exactly unusual for guys (especially sprinters) to make predictions about themselves (every sprinter worth his salt knocks a tenth of his time in order to hype himself up), but Bolt certainly has a lot to live up to, with hype and attention that has rarely been given to a track and field athlete.

Comparing races - what can be read into the 150m WR? Is Bolt already in WR shape for the 200m?

Much will no doubt be made of Bolt's time and what it means. The 8.72s is spectacular, for sure, but I believe the more telling stats are the 9.90 for the 100m, and also that second 50m interval at 4.26seconds, which is slightly slower than in his 100m final in Beijing (where he celebrated to lose time). Both splits are incredibly fast, but neither is quite up to the heights he reached in Beijing.

Therefore, when fellow athletes say he is already in 19.30 s shape in May, I believe they are incorrect, or getting carried away. Bolt is in awesome shape, yes, but he is 0.2 seconds/100m off the form he had in Beijing, so one should not become too eager to project times of sub-19 for the 200m just yet!

Also, it's not quite the same comparing this 150m race to a normal 200m race - distance counts a great deal at this speed - adding 33% to the race distance impacts on how it is paced. Also, bear in mind that this 150m time was achieved on a straight, without the hindrance of the bend, so any translation UP to 200m is slightly flawed (apart from the obvious distance increase). Finally, I must confess that I'm not 100% convinced about the track surface - remember this track was set up in the city especially for the race and I can't vouch for how it compares to a standard tartan track.

All these factors impact on the performance, and so I would caution against getting too carried away with the actual time in a rarely run event. However, Bolt is clearly carrying some awesome form into the season, and it augurs well for what might be a spectacular season.

So Bolt is back, his off-season antics and growing status as a off-track superstar clearly not slowing him down too much. Whatever your opinion of Bolt - his partying, his celebrations prior to finishing Olympic finals, his general approach to the sport - there is no doubt that he is very, very good for track and field. It has been a long time, perhaps never, that we've had an athlete who is able to garner so much attention OUTSIDE the sport's enthusiasts. Bolt transcends the sport, he is its biggest promotional tool, and hopefully, his on track form can continue to support his off-track persona!

Now, we just need Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay to step forward and turn this one-man entertainment vehicle into a great sporting rivalry, and then athletics will be the winner!

Nadal on clay - a rare defeat

Speaking of great rivalries, Roger Federer managed to turn around a losing streak of note against his great rival, Rafael Nadal, by winning the Madrid Masters Series event. For Federer to beat Nadal is rare enough - he'd lost their previous five finals. But to do so on clay is an enormous achievement for him.

However, before fans start to claim that the tide has turned and that Federer has regained his status as the man to beat, it must be pointed out that the last time Nadal lost a final on clay, it was to Federer, in Hamburg, and only a few weeks later, he went on to beat Federer in the final of the French Open. I suspect that the same may happen this year, only I'm not even sure that Federer will be the man to be beaten in that final.

I'd say the big favourite for the French Open remains Nadal - he's been beaten once all year on clay, but has played more matches than any other player. He played every single match of Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome and Madrid, and in the end, was a victim of his own schedule. Many are pointing to the epic semi-final he played against Djokovic on Saturday as the reason for the loss, but I think it can be traced to the whole season, not just one match.

Nadal looked tired, sluggish, and lacking his usual sharpness. He made more errors in each of his last four matches than he has made in some tournaments in the past, and generally was well below his best. I'd put him at about 70%. And in the last three matches in Madrid, he was, to be blunt, poor (by his standards). He plays too often, given his game, and if he wants to be around and winning two Grand Slams a year in five years' time, I think he'd be wise to curtail his other tournament appearances.

I think a week off, then the itinerary of matches in Paris, with a day off between matches, will see him much more difficult to beat, and I think he'll win the French Open comfortably.

The second favourite is not Federer, but Novak Djokovic, who I think would beat Federer 7 times out of 10 on clay. Second to Nadal twice this year, I think Djokovic is the form player, playing even better than Nadal (it's just that Nadal off form on clay still beats everyone on form). Then the third favourite, jointly, would be Verdasco and Federer. In fact, I'd even give it to Verdasco, because he is a left-hander and his natural top-spin forehand plays on the Federer-single-handed backhand.

So in my opinion, the battle for Paris will be fought between Nadal, Djokovic and Verdasco. Obviously, the draw makes a huge impact, because if Federer ends up on the same side of the draw as Djokovic and Verdasco, then there's very little chance he'll win it. If it's Nadal, then maybe, just maybe, they'll push the Spaniard hard enough that he finds Federer a challenge. I doubt it though...

That's it for today, just a news-type post, some opinion. Hope you enjoyed the video of Bolt, and we'll see how it sets up the rest of his season.

Ross

Swimming's drama continues

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:47:00 +0000

If it's not the LZR, then it must be Arena.. Or Jaked....swimming's farce becomes even more farcical

Regular readers of The Science of Sport will be well aware of what transpired in the pools of the world last year, when Speedo's LZR battled Arena's Powerskin for pool supremacy!

In the end, the LZR (or should that be the swimmers wearing the LZR?) triumphed, as swimming saw an unprecented number of records broken. Only 2 events managed to survive Beijing with their Olympic Records in tact, and never before had so many world records fallen.

At one point, just after the Beijing Olympics, I calculated that the average age of a swimming world record for men was 1 year and 1 month. For women, it stood at 8 months. By comparison, the average age of track and field records was 8 years 11 months or 14 years 9 months for men and women respectively.

You can read that post here.

Different year, same situation

But, the madness has not stopped. The first part of 2009 has seen the record glut continue in the pools of the world, as we build up to the world championships in Rome. Just last month, both the 50m and 100m freestyle records were smashed by French swimmers. First Alain Bernard destroyed the 100m record in a suit that was still awaiting ratification by the sport's governing body. Then, only a few days later, the 50m freestyle record fell, this time to Frederick Bosquet, wearing a suit that had been ratified.

His, made by the company Jaked, can be seen to the right. It's pretty flashy, of course, but the secret to the suit, apparently, is the polyurethane material that covers it entirely. You may recall that Speedo's LZR Racer had strategically placed panels that reduced drag. The new suits represent an improvement, the theory goes, because they provide full drag reduction.

They also, according to critics, improve buoyancy, which would make them illegal according to FINA rules of last year. However, pinning down FINA's rules, and how they are enforced, is apparently more difficult than it must be to get into one of these suits.

And so to date, despite what I suspect must be a very straightforward measurement, FINA has not stamped out the use of any suit, and as they are entitled to do, the manufacturers have gone crazy in their efforts to gain a performance advantage (cue running shoes and Oscar Pistorius here)

So good are the new suits, that Bosquet, a man who had never, in 7 years, made an Olympic final, managed to smash 0.34 seconds off the old world record in the shortest event in the pool. The magnitude of the improvement, from a swimmer who has stived for a decade to improve but not done so by more than about a 1 second range, is suddenly swimming nearly a second faster than those who beat him only 3 years ago. Over one length, he has improved by almost a second compared to ten years of performances. That is like a 2:14 marathon runner suddenly improving to 2:06 after ten years of trying. It just doesn't happen.

But it's not the suit - yeah right

Yet he still denies the suit is assisting his performances, pointing instead to better training methods and preparation. This is incredibly insulting to those in the sport, it has to be said. It's as if there was a sudden epiphany among coaches in late 2007 that saw the 2008 performances jump ahead a generation in a few months. Great swimmers of only 5 years ago are now relegated to footnotes of swimming history, their once-great world records not even managing to feature on lists of top 20 performances in history.

Swimming is a complete farce right now, thanks to the toothless, rudderless (apologies for the mixed metaphor) leadership that failed to clamp down on the suits last year, and given plenty of warning, has failed again this year. Critics abound - read this latest article on the Bosquet-defence for an example. And at the bottom of this post is a letter that was written by Professor Brent Rushall, a respected sports scientist at San Diego State, in which he is scathing of the FINA leadership that has allowed this situation to develop.

Sadly, a sport like swimming needs all the support it can get. It lies somewhere in the second tier of sports when it comes to global popularity (apologies to swimming fans, coaches and athletes), but the truth is that the sport needs to reach out to its non-followers, the neutral observers. Unfortunately, when it degenerates into the farce that is world-swimming at the moment, it becomes difficult, if not damaging for the sport. Few people can appreciate the intricacies of the sport, but everyone can see the ridiculous situation that FINA have allowed to develop with these suits.

Sadly, it was predictable from a long time ago, yet we find ourselves debating the same thing, with no end in sight. A ruling is expected in Lausanne tomorrow, but it is not the first meeting to discuss suits. I dare say it won't be the last.

We'll bring you more news as it develops.

Until then, the letter below by Brent Rushall expresses what is pretty close to my opinion. More to follow I am sure!

Ross

Perhaps the best strategy to solve the problems in which swimming now finds itself would be to call for the complete dissolution of those holding positions in the current FINA Bureau. While it has been in "power", it has manipulated events in such a way that the reputation and popularity of the sport of swimming is under grave threat.

In the late 1990's when bodysuits came onto the scene, one manufacturer (Adidas) advertised its suit as "equipment" (which is a synonym for "device"). At that time, FINA should have acted on both Rule 5.0 to cover the device factor and Rule SW10.7 to cover the also advertised performance enhancement of the equipment in suits . Similar claims were made by other manufacturers, the general implication being that their "devices" produced unnatural phenomena that enhanced performance. The magnitude of the enhancement claims far exceeded any improvement that would be possible from using any performance-enhancing drug, and the reprehensibility of that action is well recognized and accepted.

FINA's intransigence about the intrusion of artificial assistance has distorted the sport to the point where now it is subject to considerable ridicule rather than admiration. The failure of the Bureau to uphold the laws of the sport and to act on behalf of "swimming" (all competitors and officials associated with practicing and competing in the activity) and to seemingly cow-tow to manufacturers and their profit motives is a clear dereliction of duty. Those responsible for allowing the intrusion of artificial aids in a once pristine and admired activity, a "pure" sport, should be held accountable and dismissed.

The current complicated, manufacturer-friendly, unsatisfactory three-phase procedure that is supposed to correct the situation is seen by most persons actively engaged in the sport as being ridiculous and failing to address the problems and growing concerns of the majority of serious swimmers and swimmer-representative organizations. The ridicule-deserving action of the Bureau, and its steering of "decisions" through various FINA bodies to make it "official" is one of the most blatant insults perpetrated upon serious sportspersons in Olympic sports.

In less than 10 years, a grand history of human physical endeavor has been undone by a few individuals. It is obvious that the current FINA executive and Bureau are incapable of controlling swimming to make it the test of the human vs. human it has traditionally been.

Why haven't FINA acted to save the sport from the intrusion of technology that makes competitions unfair? What is FINA's motive? One can only speculate on a range of motives from incompetence to undisclosed personal incentives.

We are watching the most rapid decline in the concept of fair and natural performance in the sport's history. Swimming medals, once determined by 1000ths of a second of natural talent, now are determined by the suit/equipment/performance-aid of specific makers. Manufacturers are now aggressively escalating the violation of the sport's traditional competition ethics while the Nero-like FINA members sit idly by, seemingly frightened to act in the Circus that continues to unfold.

Clearly, those acting as the power-brokers in the sport and taking responsibility for the actions and inactions that have been witnessed have much to answer for and deserve condemnation and removal from involvement in the sport. The longer they stay "in charge" the worse will be the problem, the more difficult will be the reversal of FINA's transgressions, and the longer will any rectification take.

A new Bureau, a new FINA is in order!

Brent S. Rushall Ph.D.,R.Psy

Doping = success?

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:39:00 +0000

The science of doping - positive means nothing, negative means nothing. So what to do?

Last week saw some interesting debate around doping and sports achievers, inspired by Jonathan's post on the start of cycling's first Grand Tour of the year, the Giro d'Italia. The shift to the Grand Tours usually serves as the catalyst for doping discussions - sadly, few races will go by without a big doping story. Even before the Giro began, doping hit the news. And I suspect that the next few months may well stimulate further doping debates on this site, as well as others that cover the sport of cycling.

In response to that article, we got some pretty interesting comments and opinions from readers, and those have been fermenting in my mind for the last few days, inspiring this post. Then, this morning, I came across a journal with some discussion around the "science of doping" and it seemed a good marriage between the discussions.

The problem with performance: Is doping non-negotiable?

To begin with, the post last week discussed the recent positive tests of Rashid Ramzi and Davide Rebellin, and mentioned that the environment we find ourselves in compels us to question pretty much every athletic performance. A winner in sport (particularly cycling and athletics) not only receives medals and prize money, but now also inherits a mantle of suspicion thanks to what is a growing history of doped up champions. So, we watch the men's 100m final and see an incredibly dominant victory by Usain Bolt. Sadly, we are almost compelled to ASK (not judge, take note) whether the performance is believable? Yesterday, watching the first mountian-top finish of the Giro, I felt myself asking the same question of just about every cyclist attacking off the front.

Because we've been shown by case after case that success is often achieved thanks to doping (remember for example that 4 out of the last 6 100m champions have tested positive, and every winner of the Tour de France since 1996 has either confessed, been implicated through investigative work, or tested positive despite some denials), we tend to lapse into a "guilty" verdict all the time.

In response to this post, we received the following comments - I've taken the relative bits out of two of them, but you can read the originals here:

I agree with Cassio. Bolt is obviously doped.

If he can do a lot better than previous doped runners, he is doped too. Of course he is very talented, and his junior results show just that. But I see that as an explanation of his amazing results, if he wasn´t talented, with or without doping, he would never be able to get those far superior times.

I'm sure of two things: Bolt is an amazing athlete and person, very talented guy and makes people happy. Second: Bolt is very, very doped, if it is possible to be more than just doped...

I concur, Anonymous. I'm always amazed that our sports scientists (seem to?) think that many champions & gold medalists are completely clean. Is this attitude wide-spread among your colleagues or are you the only optimists hoping that people can break world-records without doping?

Personally, I've heard sport MDs (e.g. Moosburger) claim - quite to the contrary - that it is unlikely that any records have been broken without doping in the last 40 or 50 years. That's pretty much the same I keep hearing from different people practising competetive sports & doping themselves.

Both comments are fairly (very) cynical. As a scientist, I applaud your cynicism! These viewpoints represent the far extreme of opinion on a spectrum that extends all the way from "believer" to "complete cynic". So there are people who believe the all winners and sportsmen are clean. I once received an email saying that professional sportspeople love their bodies and respect their health and so they would never dope! On the other extreme is this view, which pretty much states that success REQUIRES doping, and therefore the only requirement to catch a dope cheat is to observe who wins!

Neight extreme is particularly "selective" in how it approaches the problem, and I think most people will appreciate that this is unlikely to produce a very fair or accurate assessment. Either you believe that no-one dopes and wins, or that everyone must dope to win. The first case of an athlete who does not fit the model disproves it and so not many would have such a dogmatic view.

Flags and pointers

Instead, most would (we hope) recognize that it's unlikely to be that clear-cut either way. Our approach, speaking now as the above mentioned sports scientists who are involved in sport from both a scientific and sports-coaching perspective (and marketing, in my case) would be to evaluate every case on the collection of evidence for it, thought this is obviously very difficult to do. Too much misinformation, too much deception, denials in the face of strong evidence, and evidence that is often questionable all complicate matters.

One of the most telling (or suspicious) factors is a sudden improvement in the performance. People were suspicious of Rashid Ramzi for this reason - nowhere one year, double world champ the next. Erratic performances outside of major championships are another - again, Ramzi is a case in point - between the odd world championship gold he did little or nothing in major meetings.

The trouble with both arguments is that they exclude athletes who either develop later (admittedly, a small group), or because those major performances could just as easily be attributed to a "periodized training programme" and a focus on only a few races. That's one we've heard a lot in cycling and the Tour de France in recent years. So it's easy to say "I told you so" in the case of Ramzi, because people's suspicions seem to have been confirmed. But they may well be incorrect in other cases.

Even evaluating a historical progression of performance poses problems. In the aftermath of Usain Bolt's remarkable Beijing performances, we looked at his times as a junior when he displayed remarkable talent from a young age when drugs were almost certainly not a factor. Problem is, some people looked at the same performances and said he IS doping, we said it suggested he wasn't! So the same numbers produce two different conclusions!

Similarly, many of the top east Africans emerge as teenagers running times that clearly set them apart as world-class, and with training and maturity, their normal progression could be to the status of world record holder. Here, the problem is that we are never 100% sure that their ages are reported accurately, and we just don't know where the ceiling exists - projecting times forward is very difficult to do. And so performance reviews are fraught with difficulty.

Doping control - proof of innocence and guilt?

And this brings us onto doping control, where it gets really interesting! In an ideal world, athletes would be tested, and the results from the infallible laboratory and willing athletes would tell us that an athlete can be believed as clean or disqualified as a dope cheat. Unfortunately, that is a dream that belongs in the past.

Doping control became so flawed in recent times as the testers fell behind the cheats that drugs were being used with zero chance of being detected. Methods to avoid detection, drugs that were undetectable, and conspiracies and collusion to cover up positive tests mean that the ideal is far removed from the reality. The world was made aware of this when a designer steroid called THG was discovered only because an anonymous tip-off from a coach sent a syringe to doping authorities. Without personal rivalrly and jealousy leading to this tip-off, there is no telling whether we might still be celebrating the performances of Marion Jones, Dwain Chambers and Tim Montgomery.

I have heard quotes from some experts to the effect that for every banned substance we CAN test for, there is another we can't. Others say, perhaps with some hyperbole, that there are 100 undetectable products! Last year, the Tour de France threw up a test for CERA, a newly designed third-generation EPO, which was supposed to be undetectable, but for the collaboration between WADA and the pharmaceutical company that made it. The question is - how many CERAs exist where collaboration has NOT discovered the test?

Marion Jones would be a multiple gold-medallist, one of the greatest athletes in history and perfectly clean in the eyes of those who advocate that "when you pass a drug test, it means you are innocent". To this day, Jones has never failed a drug test - it was only the "manhunt" that ensued when the BALCO affair began that exposed her.

Similarly, cyclists who claim to be clean and point to their record of being tested often are proving nothing. Being the most tested athlete or sport in the world does not mean the same thing as being a dope-free athlete. So sadly, we can't believe the negative tests.

Positive tests - do they mean anything?

Even more sadly, according to some experts in recent times, we can't believe the positive tests either! In 2008, a paper in the prestigious journal Nature called into view what was called the "fallacy" of the current doping testing practices. The paper, written by a bio-statistician, asked the question "When an athlete tests positive, is he or she guilty of doping?" He went on to answer his own question with the following: "Because of what I believe to be inherent flaws in the testing practices of doping laboratories, the answer, quite possibly, is no."

The article, which you can access with a subscription (or feel free to email us if you'd fancy a copy), was the catalyst for a whole series of comments and debates around the general principle of doping control. Papers have been published (and criticized) calling WADA to task for their ability to accurately test for drug use. Court cases are usually the result of these flaws, because any athlete worth his weight in legal fees recognizes that when a possible weakness in testing exists, it must be legally challenged. Why confess when you can get off on a technicality?

Unfortunately, technicalities do happen, and that makes enforcing doping control very difficult, if not impossible. People have called for life-time bans for drug cheats - this is impossible unless the system to catch dopers is 100% accurate. It isn't, though I'd like to think it is improving (based on what I have heard from colleagues).

The reality is that testing neither proves nor disproves doping. It provides a guide, certainly, and perhaps the introduction of the blood passport system will see the status quo change. I'm sceptical myself, mostly because everything is still so clandestine.

Wikinomics, jury duty and all available evidence

Regular readers will recall that I advocated what I called "Wiki" doping control a while back, based on a book called Wikinomics, which itself is a symptom of the latest trends in how the world operates. The days of narrow hierarchies and chains-of-command have been replaced by open-source, collaborative efforts. Without rehashing the book and business principles, I believe doping control should consider means to spread the knowledge in order to become more responsive to the problem, and this means secrecy is not an option.. Sadly, it's very secretive, and may well find itself falling further and further behind the modern "organization" that drives doping.

In any event, where does this leave us? When we assess performances, like those of the Giro winner (whoever that may be) or Usain Bolt, we have to make the best possible call based on ALL the evidence. I think we are headed for an era where doping sanctions are handled like legal court-cases, and the admissable evidence is not limited to a doping test.

Rather, they will be run like a criminal trial where all the evidence is weighed up and a verdict delivered. Where this kind of process would leave those athletes who remain in the "dock", I don't know. If I were on the jury, I certainly know what verdict i'd be reaching!

There are no answers to these questions. What I do know is that there are elite athletes who succeed without doping, and there are plenty of successful athletes who are doping without getting caught. The doubt is pervasive, and sadly everyone is tainted by it. Your thoughts are, as always, welcome, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to give them.

Ross

Marathon running: The next generation

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Wanjiru vs. Kebede: The future of marathon racing?

The Giro is now underway, with young Mark Cavendish wearing pink for now, but the first serious mountain stage is not until Tuesday, so while the sprinters have their way on the flat stages we thought we would double back on the marathon season and take a closer look at the two stars that have emerged: Sammy Wanjiru (KEN) and Tsegaye Kebede (ETH). It was not so much an emergence as staking a claim on the future, because over the past 18 months these two have asserted themselves as future of marathon racing with serious times and performances. Hopefully we can expect more battles like the one we saw in London this year, so it is interesting to see exactly how they match up head to head so far.

Ethiopia vs. Kenya: Part I

The 1990s was full of epic duels between Gebreselassie and Tergat as those two chased each other through the ranks, besting each others WRs along the way and producing incredible racing when they met head to head (think back to the 10000 m final in Sydney!). We have written previously about the differences between the two countries systems and how currently Ethopia leads Kenya in head to head competions, and it is timely now that as these two legends begin their swansongs two younger runners are waiting in the wings to keep the rivalry alive. But before we look ahead, let's look back for one second at how Gebreselassie and Tergat stack up:

Ethiopia vs. Kenya: Part II

Before we get ahead of ourselves, don't misunderstand us---both Gebreselassie or Tergat, while at the end of their careers, are far from being washed up. In fact Gebreselassie has bucked the commonly held belief that a runner's best marathon performance comes in about the third or fourth attempt, because has has now run about eight or nine and the last one was his fastest! So both will still be competitive for a few more years and due to their experience and pedigree one can never truly count them out, but in Wanjiru and Kebede we have the potential for the next generation of head to head performances. Interestingly, the two youngsters are incredibly similar on paper:

The first big difference between their predecessors and this next generation is that both Kebede and Wanjiru are running marathons at the same age that Tergat and Gebreselassie were still running cross country and/or track. Kebede does not even have a 5000 m time on record, and although he is matching Wanjiru in the marathon now he has a 10000 m PB of "only" 28:10. However this does not demonstrate his full potential over that distance because he is running much faster in the marathon than plenty of runners, for example Meb Keflezighi who has a 10000 m PB of 27:14 but only has 2:09 best marathon. So had he stayed on the track he likely would have run sub-26:30 before moving to the road in his late 20s or early 30s.

The youngsters' progressions

Both Kebede and Wanjiru debuted very close to each other in 2007, with Wanjiru's first marathon in Fukuoka '07 and Kebede running Paris earlier that year. Both have now run four marathons and both have progressed in a similar fashion:

So if we exclude Beijing, which was unusually warm and a bit of a different race anyway, both men have lowered their PB with each marathon attempt. Kebede had more to gain as he debuted at 2:08, but recall that in London '09 he stayed with Wanjiru until after 40 km, and was 2nd only because he conceded 10 s to Wanjiru over that last 2.2 km. So both men appear to be quite evenly matched, although it took a few races to get there, but it now sets the stage for their next showdown.

Wanjiru is slated to run Berlin in September, but Kebede's agent must still be shopping him around or negotiating details with one or more races. Rumor has it that Gebreselassie's contract with Berlin specifically exlcudes certain runners from lining up against him, but we cannot confirm that. He has always been keen to push the limits and has never been afraid of trying to set a new record, so is that why he is not "afraid" of Wanjiru? The young one seems to have the ammunition to challenge the Great One, but who knows how it will play out down the stretch? Could Geb effectively end up pacing Wanjiru to a new record and the second man under 2:04?

Wanjiru is keen, stating earlier this year that he thinks he can eventually lower the time to 2:02, so it will be all eyes on Berlin in September for this head to head time trial. If Berlin looks after Geb with an army of pacers as they have in the past two years, and they do not replicate the poor pacing in London thus year, then the smart money will be on a new WR.

The Giro d'Italia: Mountain-top finish on Tuesday

Meanwhile the Giro promises to heat up as early as Tuesday, when we see the first mountain-top finish. Of course European readers can watch it live on television, but those of us in the USA can catch it live on the internet over at Universal Sports and then tape-delayed (Tivo, anyone?) later in the day on their cable channel. If you need to keep one eye on work don't worry---Cyclingnews.com will be doing live text updates as the race unfolds so you can keep up with the attacks. And even if you miss the action, we will post on the racing and give you the insight and analysis you have to come to expect from us!

Jonathan

PS---let's not forget the smoking hot performances from Doha and Japan this weekend, which we will get to in due course!

Giro d'Italia 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:36:00 +0000

Good news, Bad news prior to start of Giro centenary

This weekend see the start of the 100th running of the Giro d'Italia. It is notable for many reasons, first because it is one of the grand tours and has a significant place in cycling history, legend, and mythology. This year we can add to the hype because Lance Armstrong will be making his Giro debut, so all eyes will be upon the race to see how it goes. Many questions remain about his goals, how he will perform, and whether or not he or Levi Leipheimer will emerge as the Astana team leader. But as always with cycling, we have to talk about doping. . .

The bad news

It is now being reported on Cyclingnews.com and other sites that the first "non-negative" test has been returned even before the first stage. It turns out that Austrian National Champion Christian Pfannberger (Katusha) returned a non-negative out-of-competition test on 19 March. It has not been released yet what substance produced the result, but according to ProTour rules the team must suspend any rider until all samples can be analyzed and his name cleared or he is officially suspended by the UCI and/or his national body.

A couple of things are noteworthy here. First, Pfannberger served a previous ban from June 2004 to June 2006 as he tested positive for testosterone. He served that ban, fair enough, but the question must be asked regarding the deterrence of bans and testing. On this case alone we must conclude that the benefits of doping outweigh the risks of getting caught. This point was first argued by Michael Shermer at Scientific American and is an eloquent approach to understanding doping in sport.

Second, Pfannberger is a national champion (2007 and 2008) and was a top ten finisher in 2008 at The Amstel Gold Race (6th), La Fleche Wallonne 9th), Leige-Bastogne-Liege (5th), and the UCI World Champs (8th). Clearly he is an ambitious rider trying to be competitive at the top and not just sacrifice himself for a team leader in big races.

The good news

In the end we are fans of cycling, so let's try to look on the bright side of this. A cheater has been caught even before he started the race. Furthermore, if his "non-negative" is confirmed he will face a lifetime ban by the UCI for a second doping violation. As more athletes are caught it can only be a good thing for the sport, although cycling is a long way from being declared "cured" of doping.

Looking ahead to the next few weeks as the Giro unfolds, we should expect more positives, and we should be cynical of exemplary performances. Does this make us pessimists? No. Simply put, the history of cycling dictates this. Last year during the Olympics we wrote that it is legitimate to question Usain Bolt's amazing performance in the 100 m, because there are no major sprint champions in the last 30 years who have escaped suspicion, and many have been caught or confessed.

Just a note on this - if you check the comments below, you'll see an interesting comment or two - we just have to emphasize that we're not casting doubt. In fact, if you read the article we wrote at the time, you'll see that we've in fact stated that we believe Bolt to be legit. You can read that article here. However, it's still appropriate to wonder, which is what we're saying here - the history of the sport has forced on us a suspicion and mistrust, which is perhaps the most unfortunate consequence.

So like it or not, doping is a part of the cycling scenery and must be kept in mind as we go forward. Having said that, however, you can still enjoy the racing, and way back in 2007 we gave you some reasons why you should still watch the racing.

Looking ahead: try to watch the TTT

The first stage this year promises to be spectacular, a 20.5 km team time trial set in Venice with St. Mark's cathedral looming in the background. It is a dead flat course on a sandbar so the guys are going to be "low flying" on their way to the finish. Team Garmin-Slipstream has targeted this stage once again and will try to place one of their riders in the maglia rosa like they did with Christian Vandevelde last year.

We will be following the race a bit more this year due to its elevated "newsworthy" status, and we will also try to work in our much-anticipated commentary on Andy Shen's interview with Michael Ashenden, so stay tuned as we swtich over from running to cycling for a bit!

Jonathan

The Beauty of Human Movement

noreply@blogger.com (Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:03:00 +0000

What can't the body learn to do?

As exercise physiologists we are trained to understand and explain the physiology of human movement. Together with that, how the body can adapt to training stress and improve performance is of great interest to us, and in most cases "performance" means running or cycling or some other endurance sport (save our annual forays into tennis, soccer and rugby).

But it never ceases to amaze us how the body can adapt and learn. Again, mostly we look at how it "learns" to run faster or pace better by making adaptations to the muscular, neuro-muscular system and other physiological systems. The result is beautiful because it is an outstanding performance or a world record or just an amazing race (see the London men's race for all of the above!).

However part of understanding exercise physiology and how the body responds to endurance training is also understanding how the brain controls movement in the first place, because after all exercise is just a complex series controlled movements that produce running or cycling or swimming or anythign else, for example how it can activate the muscles in my hands and fingers in such a manner that I can type this post you are now reading. So any way you slice it, human movement and the adaptations the body makes are amazing on many levels.

I came across an amazing video that illustrates just how amazing the body can be. It is of "trials rider" Danny MacAskill and has been doing the rounds on several blogs and probably forums. The sport consists of riders jumping/leaping/riding in all sorts of manners on and over all kinds of obstacles----really, anything is game. I suspect that anyone who watches, regardless of their background, can appreciate the level of fine and gross control it takes to pull off these kinds of movements.

Call it part of our (belated) birthday celebrations, or call it a positive view of cycling, but from time to time we try to depart from the doom and gloom of doping (especially now in light of the recent CERA postives from Beijing), or the current sporting news cycle, or the performance analyses that you have come to know, and take a lighter look at exercise physiology.

So enjoy the video and hopefully you are inspired by what we can do!

Jonathan