Posted on 08/07/2006 10:47:51 PM PDT by AZRepublican
The controversy surrounding Floyd Landis is actually different then other controversies over illegal steroid use for one major reason: Both his blood and urine has been tested eight times (three blood tests) throughout the French de Tour. These other tests combined are more significant and telling then the single sample test found with an abnormal T/E ratio. As it stands, Landis' single positive test is just a distraction that sheds little light on the truth of any illegal drug activity on his part.
To get any benefit out of an anabolic agent it must be used over weeks, not hours or days. Prior urine or blood tests that failed to detect an abnormal T/E ratio shows he was under no doping regime prior to entering the tour or during. What is most important now is determining what the tests showed following his positive urine test. As I understand the rules, the athlete with the yellow jersey must submit to an a mandatory urine test after each stage, leading to valuable follow-up data in order to determine whether we can have any confidence in the single positive test.
The degree in the drop of the T/E ratio following the positive test would be the golden key. The time it takes for a T/E ratio to return to normal after one stops taking the hormone is not instant, and can take several months, depending on dosage amounts and length of time taken. If Landis' follow-up urine test showed normal ratio, or a ratio consistent with his very first urine test, then we can have no confidence in the single positive test being the result of a sudden intake of a anabolic agent on the eve of Stage 17.
My advice is to stop dwelling over the positive test and zero in on the post urine/blood tests to learn if indeed Landis is either a very foolish cheater, or in fact is telling the truth. Because there are eight known urine tests and three blood tests, puts the French anti-doping council and everyone involved in the chain-of-custody of Landis' urine samples in the hot seat to explain why suddenly one sample tests positive while all other before and after do not.
Somehow I get the feeling Floyd Landis is just a temporary sideshow to a far greater story that is yet to be uncovered.
Not that it will matter.
I understand the test(s) he was given is notoriously unreliable, according to my professor the test requires consistant results over about a a dozen times to determine whether there is increased testosterone in the blood from a drug.
Something doesn't fit. I suspect there are many failures and they are picking on the Americain to create a smoke screen
Many failures from him or just generally amongst the other racers? Perhaps the French in disgust that Americans have won it so many times in a row decided to make the Americans look bad by rigging the tests.
That's why Armstrong was such a paranoid ass most of the time, he knew that they were out to get him.
It could be one of three things:
1) two false positives in a row on the same sample
2) He screwed up his masking schedule
3) He figured since he was 8 minutes behind, and everybody thought he was finished, he took "something."
I had the similar thoughts. I find it very difficult to explain his results over the 3 day period in which he tested positive.( 1 day neg, next day pos., next day neg.)
(1)T/E changes in people daily. If he was high to begin with, as he has said,a couple really tough races would force the body to make more Tes to recover. It would be interesting to see his T/E average over all stages tested(including his +). I would bet that he would be negative.
(2) If he was on the gear. He would be concerned enough to not screw this one up. As it is just as important if not more important than the other.
(3) He would have to be the most stupid person in the world to piss away his million dollar contract with phonak over a TDF victory that where he knows they would nail him. Still how do you explain all the other negatives results. A boost will show up for a long time.
This is an interesting one.
I suspect he was blood doping -- getting a transfusion of blood rich in red cells that he set aside six weeks or two months earlier, when he was using testosterone as a training aid. He probably just got the blood bottles mixed up and tapped the wrong one.
More on blood doping here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2107096/
The thesis of the article is that once a certain amount of doped testosterone is present in the body, it can take a long time for the levels to drop. How does blood doping account for the immediate drop in levels after the time of the positive?
Damn these guys are good!
Except for the one guy.
PS: He wound up being ok.
http://mtbbill.com/videos/milescrash-500k.mpg
The French are pissed that Americans continually win their sporting event.
LOL!! "Oh sh%*!....Uhh,did ya film it?". Ahh, priorities in the digital age.(Glad he's okay.)
It could be one of three things:
1) two false positives in a row on the same sample
2) He screwed up his masking schedule
3) He figured since he was 8 minutes behind, and everybody thought he was finished, he took "something."
-He sure acted guilty at first. Not showing up for scheduled events, initial interviews showed him gazing at his shoes, somber and accepting that the 2nd test would show similar results. I agree, he didn't mask the test enough.
I had no idea they used mtn bikers as live crash dummies!
According to Landis's website, he showed NORMAL levels of testosterone; what skewed the results was an unusually LOW reading for the E value. Thus the popular idea that he was loaded with 11 times the normal level of testosterone is false.
Additionally, the test for synthetic versus natural test. is also a test of ratios of chemical compounds. Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of reports in the media state that he had high testosterone levels, and I have yet to hear a newscast that reported correctly that the test. level was normal and the epi level was low.
Another thought I had was that his reaction to all of this was clearly someone who was completely unprepared to deal with the test result. Seems to me someone who is or has been doping would have already rehearsed or at least thought about how he would handle something like this if he were to get caught.
Just my completely uneducated two cents....
I think someone probably slipped him something in those whiskeys. It's the only logical explanation
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