Final Results from EWS Finale Ligure 2021

 I don’t get comparing Maes to Rude here. Rude “accidentally” drank from his buddy’s water bottle - yeah ok. Maes had a major injury that was treated trailside for infection and disclosed the drug used right away. The whole thing was done at the behest of a doctor on his recommendation. These things are not the same.

 @Vlad-Putin: ah yes because he's been so terrible since his comeback there's no way he could have been telling the truth...

 @ksilvey10: I don’t doubt Richie’s a top guy either way.

 Vlad-Putin: Please stop regurgitating the GT/Maes talking points about the probenocid incident for Maes.

He still had a detect in Derby Australia >17 days after he supposedly stopped taking probenocid. Based on drug half life and excretion timelines it is impossible that he would have continued to test positive that far out. So his official story is BS and mountain bike media have made no attempt to get clarity. To assert that Maes was a victim while Richie was a villain is just a ludicrous as Richie's "accidentally drank story".

Also keep in mind that when Richie and Jared tested positive, they were a select set of only a few riders that were tested and this was one of the first times ANY EWS riders were even tested for dopinge. The most likely conclusion is that the prevalence of doping in EWS prior to this point was likely much higher across athletes. At least now testing is done with some actual frequency!

 @ppp9911: below is the statement from the doctor who prescribed probenecid to Maes. Do you think the doctor is lying?

I am a Specialist Emergency Physician, and have been practising Emergency Medicine for over 15 years. On March 8th -10th 2019, I was acting in a voluntary role as a event doctor on the New Zealand Enduro, a backcountry mountain bike race in Marlborough, New Zealand.

On the afternoon of March 8th 2019, I was reviewing and treating a number of riders who had been injured in the day’s racing. Mark Maurissen approached me, and asked me to review Martin Maes, who had sustained a significant laceration to his right pretibial area (lower leg) during the day’s racing. Martin had sustained an approximately 5 centimeter long vertically orientated burst type laceration to his lower leg. There was significant soft tissue damage, and the wound was grossly contaminated (conditions were particularly muddy that day) I irrigated and debrided the wound extensively, applied a topical antiseptic solution, and sutured the skin using 4 x interrupted sutures. I was concered about a significant risk of infection given the wound location, tissue damage, and initial contamination. At that point I dispensed a course of flucloxacillin (an antibiotic) in a standard dose (500 milligrams 4 times a day for 3 days with a goal of preventing infection). I gave Martin standard wound care advice, and planned to follow him up in 2 days

On March 10th 2019 at around 10 am, I reviewed Martin’s wound. At that point, he had a clearly established serious infection surrounding the wound, despite the prophylactic antibiotics. This infection had developed over the last 24 hours. I removed 2 of the sutures, draining a small amount of pus, and irrigated and further debrided the wound. A higher dose of antibiotic was clearly indicated, as the infection was significant enough be life or limb threating if left unchecked. My standard practice in a case like this is to give a higher dose of flucloxacillin in combination with a medicine called probenicid. In this case, probenicid acts to reduce the excretion of penicillin type antibiotics from the kidneys, thus boosting the blood levels of antibiotic. These higher levels of antibiotic are particularly important for treating serious infection, and I do not believe Martins infection would have resolved without them. The only other option would have been hospitalisation for intravenous antibiotics, which carries its own set of risks and costs, and would not necessarily be more effective than adding probenicid.

I provided Martin with a prescription for 2 grams of flucloxacillin 3 times a day for the next 2 days (dropping to 1 gram 3 times a day for a further 5 days), and probenicid 500 milligrams 3 times a day for 7 days. I discussed all of this with Dr Julian Balance, an Orthopaedic Surgeon also volunteering as a race doctor. He agreed with the management plan as above.

Both Martin and Mark asked if the medications I were permissible for racing. I informed them that probenicid has no performance enhancing effects, and as far as I was aware was not a prohibited substance for racing. I checked this with Dr Balance, as well as Dr Sam Grummitt (another of the race doctors), neither of whom were aware that probenicid was a prohibited substance. There was no cellular data coverage at the event to enable us to check this. Martin began vomiting that afternoon, likely as a result of the higher doses of flucloxacillin, which often cause significant gastrointestinal upset. At that point we discussed referring him to hospital, and elected to give him a trial of an anti-vomiting drug prior to this. I dispensed 4 milligrans of ondansetron, which settled his vomiting, and enabled him to take the prescribed antibiotics.

I understand Martin made a good recovery, and was able to race 2 weeks later. I also understand that Martin returned a positive urine drug test for probenicid at that event. I have subsequently learned that probenicid is on the UCI prohibited substances list, and has previously been used as a masking agent, although it has no performance enhancing effects.

The probenicid I prescribed Martin was clearly medically indicated and I would do so again given the same clinical scenario. I believe he would have experienced a significant impairment to health had I not prescribed it, with the potantial for life threatening spread of infection. Had I known it was a prohibited substance, I would have been happy to fill in a therapeutic exemption form. I am confident that there was no performance enhancing benefit from the prescription, and in fact the severity of the infection was likely to have been detrimental to his performance in the next few weeks—Dr Tom Jerram

 @ThinkTank45: Whether the doctor is lying or not I can only speculate (the entire clinical rationale is very dubious however). Regardless, the doses and dosing timelines in the "Story" you listed, combined with the known rate of drug metabolism/excretion (4-8 hours) available to any clinician/pharmacist enable you to calculate how long probenocid would have remained in Martins blood. Based on the "story" he would certainly still have tested positive for a masking agent due to probenocid at Rotorua. However, there is no way he should have testing positive at Derby unless he was taking the probenocid significantly longer than the official story.

 @ppp9911: Are you a doctor or just a keyboard expert?

 @ppp9911: I've no skin in the game here but I can't see what's to be gained by taking probenecid. It hasn't been an effective masking agent since the late 1980s as far as I know. It would be a really dumb thing to take if you were trying to cheat.

 its the same for everyone...

 and that one stupid rock! and that other rock!

 That Tree has some roots in the area. Maybe it's been there longer and didnt want to move

 Where do you even find footage? I find the EWS impossible to follow during the actual races.

 @Vlad-Putin: youtu.be/AhQg90RbW4w

You can barely see the tree, but it’s a doozy!
Not live, but from yesterday’s queen stage.

 @SteepJobs: that’s an interesting one. I bet when it was taped it wasn’t as pronounced. Then once one guy blew the berm it only got worse… Kasper Woolley did a funny pirouette on the section down from that as he got hung up on a tree as well.

 If you're going to start cutting trees down for enduro events, where do you stop?

Leave the tree alone, it was just minding its own business.

 EWS is run by idiots. They had a real opportunity to build something back in 2016/17 when Sam Hill joined and everyone went enduro mad now we’re here four years later and EWS is dead and forgotten. They could have built the next World Cup series. Such a shame.