ScienceBlog.ie

Former Tour champion Greg LeMond has recently challenged yellow jersey holder Alberto Contador to prove he is clean after data published by the Festina Performace guru, Antoine Vayer, showed that he would need a VO2 max of 99.5 ml / min / kg to sustain the speed at which he recently climbed the Verbier mountain on Stage 17 of this years edition of Le Tour de France. In answering, Contador would not be drawn to the subject, giving the banale: “No comment” response.

Pantani winning the epic 17th Stage at Les Deux Alpes in 1998

To compare, let’s look at Marco Pantani, which involves the tragic downfall of El Pirata (The Pirate) due to horrific drugs abuse in the later stages of his career. I had the pleasure of visiting Pantani’s hometown, Cesenatico and visited his grave a number of years ago. I also caught a glimpse of the man’s first bicycle in one of the local bars.

The following graph gives an interesting view over power output over the last few years:

Graph showing winners and their respective power outputs

Here we can see compare the disgraced winners (Riis, Pantani and Ullrich) against the ‘Clean’ riders (Indurain, Armstrong). Note that I am utilising the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the above statement!

Considering Contador’s calculated VO2 max of 99.5 ml / min / kg against Armstrong’s widely reported max of 85 ml / min / kg, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that LeMond is right to be suspicious. If we plot his performance on the above graph, Contador’s Wattage comes in at the level of the disgraced riders. The physiology cannot lie!!!

Taking off my ‘innocent until proven guilty’ hat, surely it’s onlly a matter of time before this Champion-elect is found guilty, especially considering his gargantuan exploits the day after beating allcomers in the Stage 18 Time Trial.

Drugged?

-Brian

brian.c at lifescience.ie

According to the study one in six people of European decent carry two copies of the variant and compared to people with no copies of the gene had a 70% risk of obesity and could be an average of 3kg heavier.

However a more recent study has suggested that the effects of the variants can be counteracted with physical exercise. The research concluded that a person with both variants of the gene would have to burn an extra 900 kilocalories a day to offset the possible weight gain. The average heighted Irish male at 5 foot 9.8 inches, is considered obese at 15 stone (30.3 BMI). Therefore to burn 900 kilocalories is approximately equivalent of walking from the Guinness Brewery to the O2 Arena 3 times, 11.3km or playing a 90 minute game of football every day….

The study also showed that people that had variants of the gene and an average physically active life showed no sign of the effects.

-niamh