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Rutger Beke Press Release 8 march 2005
Katalyst Multisport Management on behalf of
Rutger Beke and the Arinso Bik Triathlon team have released the following
information to help clarify the current situation surrounding Rutger Beke.
On March 4, 2005, the Flemish Doping Commission handed down an 18-month
suspension to Rutger Beke related to a positive A and B sample at the 2004
Zwintriathlon last September in Belgium. We are dissappointed but not overly
surprised by the Commissions ruling, said Chris McCrary, Bekes agent in the
U.S. Prior to the March 4th hearing, the commission and their team of
experts "applauded" the findings that were presented to them by Beke's
defense team of experts. However, they seemed to have turned a deaf ear to
the overwhelming scientific evidence that was presented and handed down the
18-month suspension for Rutger. Rutger and his defense team immediately
appealed the commissions ruling and will continue to work to clear Rutgers
name of all charges.
Rutger was scheduled to compete at Ralph's California Half Ironman on March
19th, however we have decided that it is in the best interest of Rutger, the
other athletes and the sport of triathlon that he forego his entry and wait
until the dust has settled on this issue. During this entire process and
heading in to the appeal, Rutger's pro license is still active and valid.
It is important to understand that we are NOT attempting to find fault with
the current urine-based EPO test. However, there is strong scientific
evidence (as outlined below) that explains why some athletes in certain
situations will produce a false positive test".
We are hopeful that fact-based evidence we have presented will eventually
assist in reversing the commissions decision and will lead to positive
change within the scientific testing community.
The following text describes the main points used to prove that Rutger Beke,
despite having tested positive for EPO-use at the 2004 Zwintriathlon both in
an A-test and a B-test, is in fact completely innocent. This text is not
meant to be a scientific document. While we spent many hours to understand
the very detailed scientific work undertaken, we have tried here to write
things down in a way that they remain understandable for non-experts. We
thank Professor Delanghe of the Ghent University for all the scientific work
he has done to help us prove Rutger’s innocence.
Fact #1: we can proof that the urine sample of Rutger was contaminated with
bacteria. (The urinary pH rose significantly from 5 to 5.8 to 6.3!!!) During
the 15 hours between taking the sample and the start of the A-test (this is
called the Pre-Analytical Phase), as a result of this contamination, a lot
of chemical reactions happened in the urine. The net result of all these
reactions is that almost all of Rutger’s endogenous EPO in the urine was
destroyed by proteolytic enzymes before the A-test even started. This is
visible when you look at the IEF (Iso-Electric Focusing) picture, which is
the final result of the urine EPO-test. It is known (from research of
Professor Delanghe, see fact #2) that Rutger has continuously an endogenous
serum EPO level that is about 4 times higher than normal. Thus he should
also have about 4 times the average amount of endogenous EPO in his urine.
That would mean that the epo bands in the IEF should stain far more intense
than the ones of the other triathletes tested. However, the IEF shows that
Rutgers bands are the least intense of all other triathletes tested in
Knokke. This confirms that most of his EPO must have been destroyed during
the pre-analytical phase! Six experts in the field of biochemistry and
clinical chemistry independently came to the same conclusion that important
pre-analytical errors were present in this case."
Fact #2: Rutger Beke has particular genetic properties which affect many of
his blood parameters: his endogenous EPO concentrations in plasma exceed
those of a normal individual by a factor of four. He also has constantly
increased levels of sFtr (soluble transferine receptor), a protein that is
confirming his increased bone marrow activity. The genetic character of this
finding is confirmed by the blood profiles of his brother and his father.
All these facts have been measured under the supervision of Professor
Delanghe.
Fact#3: It is quite strange that, despite the fact that most of the EPO in
Rutger’s urine was destroyed, we nevertheless still see typical bands of
exogenous EPO in the IEF of Rutger. How can this be explained?
This is due to the fact that Rutger is genetically prone for exercise
–induced urinary protein loss. Following strenuous exercise (such as an
Olympic Triathlon) Rutger's urine contains an enormous amount of many
proteins (this again has been measured in great detail by Prof Delanghe).
Scientifically this is called "Exercise-induced Proteinuria (mixed
glomerular-tubular type)". One of the proteins that were present in unusual
quantities in Rutger Beke’s urine is called "Alfa 1-antichymotrypsin"
(Alfa1-ACT). Recently, it has been proven in an Australian lab (research
partially carried out under a grant from WADA!!!) that this Alfa1-ACT is
homologous to exogenous EPO (and reacts similarly as exogeneous EPO in the
common urinary epo test). As a result this Alfa1-ACT produces "recombinant
epo-like" bands on the IEF of the urine sampler. This is why the IEF of
Rutger's urine, shows these Exogenous-EPO-like bands. So, to state it
simply: while we think that we see exogenous EPO in his urine, in reality we
see Alfa1-ACT!!!
Fact #4: Wada is aware of the potential problems as described under points 1
and 3. Up to a few weeks ago they had a report on their website: "Evaluation
Report of the Urine EPO test", written by Dr. G. Peltre and Prof Dr Thormann
for the council of the WADA. This report mentions problems with urine
samples that get contaminated in the pre-analytical phase (point 1) and
problems of proteins that could give smears or bands in the zone for
"exogenous" epo in the IEF (point3). One of the results of this report was
that WADA gave research grants to various labs around the world to
investigate the problems referred to in this report and to come up with
potential improvements of the test. As mentioned above an Australian lab
found evidence that the presence of certain proteins (one of them being
ALFA1-ACT) resulted in exogenous EPO-like bands on the IEF. The lab also
proposed an improved test that will be able to distinguish between exogenous
EPO and these other proteins.
Fact #5: We do not intend to prove that the current urine epo-test is not
working!! It probably works fine for most people. What we say, is that for
people in a particular medical condition like Rutger Beke, one should be
careful during the pre-analytical phase and during the interpretation of the
test, so that a false positive can be avoided. First of all it is imperative
to avoid urine contamination (followed by chemical reactions) in the
pre-analytical phase. This is also explained in great detail in the paper of
Dr Peltre and Prof Dr Thormann, mentioned above. Sampling urine prior to the
contest would already eliminate the large majority of Rutger Beke’s
problems. Secondly one should add steps to the analytical phase (in the
doping labs) to discover the difference between exogenous EPO and homologous
proteins that give the same bands in the IEF.
Fact #6: Many people are asking why Rutger, who has all these special things
in his body, did not test positive in other doping tests that he had to
undergo in the past. We believe the explanation is the following: As we
explained under #1, Rutger’s urine that tested positive was contaminated
with bacteria and ended up with very little endogenous EPO left at the start
of the A and the B test. If Rutger’s urine had not been contaminated, it
would have contained an amount of endogenous EPO about 4 times more than
with a normal person. In the IEF picture, this would have resulted in many
very intensely staining bands, almost completely at the left side of the
bands caused by Alfa1-ACT (and mistakenly interpreted as exogenous EPO
bands). When applying the latest WADA rule to declare presence of exogenous
EPO, or applying the previous 80% rule, in both cases Rutger would produce a
negative result! Moreover, the particular conditions at the Zwintriathlon
(ambient temperature, dehydration, intensity of the race inducing massive
proteinuria, poor storage of the sample inducing destruction of the brittle
epo structure) strongly increased the risk for pre-analytical errors.
Katalyst Multisport Management
Written by Herman Beke
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