1/x Thread. It was six years ago this week that Chris Froome was cleared of doping by the UCI. This thread explains in simple and chronological terms what happened.
2/x In Sep 2017 Chris Froome won the Vuelta a Espana. What was not revealed is that he had tested +ve on Stage 18 for the beta2 agonist drug Salbutamol. The level found was among the highest ever seen in tests. (Though it would later be revised to cater for possible dehydration)
3/x The hidden positive test was leaked to both The Guardian and Le Monde in December 2017 and caused shockwaves through sport. Immediately after the leak, Sky media sought to downplay the event, claiming that Salbutamol was not performance enhancing. https://news.sky.com/story/chr...
4/x Salbutamol opens the airways to aid breathing. It is banned by WADA for a reason. Several studies have shown that it can assist athletic performance, including in certain circumstances making athletes less prone to exhaustion in endurance events.
5/x In Jan 2018, L’Equipe reported that Froome’s lawyers planned to argue that his doping failure was caused by a kidney malfunction. His kidneys had stopped working, storing Salbutamol metabolites, which were then released in one go (Stage 18). https://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclism...
6/x The PR machine for Froome continued to work, albeit subtly. In Feb 2018, the Wikipedia page for Salbutamol was edited to remove the statement that the drug is performance enhancing. 👀🤔
7/x May 2018: The Times reported that Froome’s legal team had changed tack and would now argue the futility of Salbutamol testing, which might only be 85% accurate. The research came from the Centre for Human Drug Research, Leiden ... who have since argued most PEDs do not work.
8/x In June 2018, a UCI leak revealed that the CHDR study would not be entertained because the subjects used were dogs and not humans. The UCI refuted the researchers' assertion that the results could be “extrapolated to humans using allometric scaling”. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sp...
9/x In July 2018, days before the start of the Tour de France, the UCI announced that they were dropping the case against Froome, citing the “significant number of expert and scientific reports" put forward by Froome's legal team as the principal reason. https://www.cyclingweekly.com/...
10/x Team Sky themselves did not say much on the case, but stated that Froome had always taken the same amount of puffs on his inhaler and had suffered “acute asthma symptoms” during the race. https://www.france24.com/en/20...
11/x Of his inhaler usage, Froome had said the following in 2014: “I don’t use it every time I race, normally only when I know I’ve got a big effort coming up or something." https://www.thetimes.com/artic...
12/x It was revealed in 2021 that the UCI and WADA blamed each other for Froome’s acquittal. The UCI claimed it closed the case based on “WADA’s position”. WADA countered that it was “disappointing” and “wrong” that the UCI should claim that its hands were tied by WADA.
13/x Froome's acquittal appears to be unique. Three months later, pro Mauricio Ortega was banned for 9 months by the UCI for exceeding the Salbutamol threshold. The case did not receive publicity. In fact, it is almost impossible to find any internet record of it.
14/14 The final comment comes from Alessandro Petacchi, banned during his career by the UCI for also exceeding the Salbutamol threshold.
