Posted on 07/31/2006 7:29:25 PM PDT by AZRepublican
Nothing is adding up (in my mind at least) with the charges of illegal doping by Landis. Consider the following points:
1) His previous tests were clean.
2) Any kind of illegal doping on the night of his comeback would have zero affect on his performance the following day.
3) Why would anyone who knows they face mandatory testing take banned substances they know very well would be detected?
Me think the culprit in this scandal isnt Landis, but someone or group who wanted to discredit him and bring shame to American cyclists. This is the only motive and explanation that makes any sense.
Still could be a frame-up, though.
A screw up or a frame up. Either way, he would and should be stripped.
Is there any way to check Landis' other samples for synthetic testosterone? If they are clean, then that points to a tainted sample for Stage 17...if they also contain synthetic testosterone, well...then he's a dirty liar and we can all despise him with a clear conscience.
I'm not well informed on steroid masking.
I don't know if I'll even watch the TDF next year...what a major bummer this whole thing is...
Before this landis thing, but after the TdF, a local "free" paper had an article about drugs in cycling, where they talked to a former world class cyclist about it. He basically says that all the top guys do it, and the teams encouraged it. That they have cutting edge scientists making the drugs, making the masking agents, and figuring out how to beat the tests..
I read that, and then 2 days later, this comes out... wow.. major bummer.
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That's it! You've nailed it! It was those damn aliens! When they kidnapped him for his anal probe the night before the race, they must have injected the testosterone! THEY have a PLAN! It's all part of THEIR agenda . . . |
That sounds just like someone who says, "Why are you giving me a ticket? Everyone else was speeding, too!" when they get pulled over by the cops.
Just because "everyone else is doing it" doesn't make it legal or right.
Wow, you should be a judge. You're really smart.
You don't even need evidence, witnesses, a jury, or any of that shit.
You are getting way ahead of the facts here. The 'B' sample hasn't been tested, and in most cases that shows up OK. If it does show positive, the TDF is on the dung heap as a sport.
I wish I was ahead of the facts here. Synthetic testosterone cannot be explained away. Even Landis has said that he doesn't expect the "B" sample to be different. One can only grab the slim reed of a conspiracy and I don't believe that will wash.
Look, if I were innocent I would be on every television program, every newspaper and everywhere 24 hours a day to declare my innocence. He has done the opposite. Even his public statements have been tantative. It's a terminal case and he will lose his title and be suspended two years. You can bank on it.
We shall see. The TDF bureaucracy has quite a lot to lose, too.
Are you a doctor by chance? What you're saying is certainly debatable and is NOT the conventional wisdom among endurance athletes. It may take weeks and months to build muscle using test, but many cyclists and other endurance athletes believe it aids in body's recovery after a long endurance event.
The method is to use a test patch right after the end of a stage. It is a low does and the patch is worn on the male athlete's scrotum for about 6 hours.
How can you say he didn't win the stage because of this? Look at the list of drugs in the Operation Puerto affair and the doping schedules of people like Tyler Hamilton. Not only are they using EPO and other blood doping products to encrease endurance, they are using low dose test patches, stimulants, etc. It is accepted by the athletes that low dose test will indeed help one win these types of races.
As I have always said, if you think that ANY ONE of these cyclists (or any professional athlete) is not doping, you're being willfully ignorant. Your choice.
See my post from May 12th after Justin Gatlin broke the world record in the 100M. Turns out he's a juicer as well!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1631202/posts?page=15#15
Okay...first of all, nobody has even been found guilty of anything...some of the riders involved in the Operation Puerto case have been cleared already.
Testosterone needs to be administered over time to give an advantage...it's not an "overnight miracle". This is not just my opinion, this is well-established medical fact. Numerous physicians and sports medicine experts have already spoken out about this very thing over the past week.
I'm not saying some athletes don't dope. But claims that testosterone works overnight are unsupported by scientific evidence. Believing Landis won Stage 17 because of a testosterone patch on his balls? Now THAT is being willfully ignorant.
I'm no doctor, but perhaps you are??? I can tell you that some athletes believe they shouldn't shave during the playoffs or not wash their socks. I don't know if the test patch works overnight, but the fact is that many endurance athletes believe it does. The method they use is exactly as I described.
Superstitions don't change the laws of physics and chemistry...and the placebo effect only goes so far. That said, Landis may very well be a dirty cheating doper...but we should wait until all the results are in before hanging the man.
Toxicologist says testosterone can have great short-term effect
By Michelle Kaufman
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
MIAMI - A forensic toxicologist in Nashville and author of the book ``Drug Testing in Sports'' questioned the assertion by some experts that it would not make sense for suspended Tour de France winner Floyd Landis to have taken testosterone for a quick boost of energy and strength before his Stage 17 breakaway.
Initial test results showed that Landis had an unusually elevated level of testosterone in his blood after that memorable ride in which he surged from 11th place to third. The day before, he had a disastrous performance, falling eight minutes behind the leader.
Though Dr. David Black stressed that judgment in the Landis case should be withheld until further test results are made public - he was a lead defense witness in the case of former track star Butch Reynolds, who spent two years in court and was finally exonerated - he said an injection of testosterone would have a "profound" short-term effect on an athlete.
"I have injected myself with testosterone in doing research, and I can tell you from personal experience that within hours, you feel a profound psychological change, a sense of well-being, aggression and energy," Black said.
"You feel strong and powerful. And your endurance is definitely improved. So, it's not peculiar to me that a cyclist would take testosterone after a bad day. What does seem peculiar is that an athlete of that caliber would put himself at such great risk, knowing that they test for testosterone."
Then again, Black said, world-class athletes are not normal people.
"There is such a drive to win, and so many people stand to gain financially by an athlete's performance, that athletes at that level push the envelope of what is reasonable, step over the boundary, and the result is cheating," he said. "By the very nature of what they engage in for a living, these are people looking for every little edge, and they push so close to what is legal."
Some studies have shown that alcohol consumption could affect the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio, and Landis revealed that he drank Jack Daniels whiskey and beer the night before the drug test.
Black said those studies are "inconclusive and unconvincing" and he doesn't buy that as an excuse. He was shocked to hear that an elite cyclist would drink alcohol before a race, because it is a diuretic and leads to dehydration.
"I'm very suspicious of that statement because I'd think alcohol would be forbidden, but we just don't know enough yet about this case," he said.
The one thing he does know is that Landis is in for a rough time, regardless of the eventual outcome. Reynolds, whose botched drug test was handled by the same Paris lab as Landis', suffered two years of mental anguish and lost his earning power.
"These cases can drag on for a long time," Black said, "and most people will always associate the accused athlete with drugs, even if it is proved conclusively that he was clean, as was the case with Butch. Depression can set in for the athlete because being accused of being a cheat is a very hard thing to deal with."
I am not an MD, but I do have personal, first-hand experience with injected testosterone (we'll leave it at that), and it does not behave in the manner stated by Dr. Black. Its effects are realized over a period of weeks and months.
Then again, we are not Floyd Landis...his reaction to testosterone is probably different from yours or mine. Dr. Black was also talking about an injection, not a patch..we don't know how Landis took it if he did. If Landis really did take testosterone, then he is a dumbass.
Still doesn't explain how the tests AFTER Stage 17 came up clean, though!
Then again, we are not Floyd Landis...his reaction to testosterone is probably different from yours or mine. Dr. Black was also talking about an injection, not a patch..we don't know how Landis took it if he did. If Landis really did take testosterone, then he is a dumbass.
Still doesn't explain how the tests AFTER Stage 17 came up clean, though!
That may be your experience, but MANY people would disagree and say they have had the opposite experience. Here is an excerpt from an article on performance enhancers published on the Mayo Clinic website. This paragraph is specifically talking about testosterone:
Why are these drugs so appealing to athletes? Besides making muscles bigger, anabolic steroids may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the amount of muscle damage that occurs during the session. In addition, some athletes may like the aggressive feelings they get when they take the drugs.
See the full article here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/performance-enhancing-drugs/HQ01105
Low doses of test leave the body fairly rapidly. Additi@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@tosterone which was also positive in this case.
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