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.
Could he have been set-up? Someone put testosterone in his water or food during breaks or rests? I believe he was framed. ............
I dont think he did anything wrong.
I believe he was set up.........
How do you explain the fact that the synthetic testosterone, nor in fact any elevated levels of testosterone, have shown up in any other samples either before or after this one? If he had been taking synthetic testosterone it would have shown up in multiple samples. To show up in one and no others looks a lot more like sample tampering than anything else.
As always, your posts are very lucid and I thank you for saying the things I'm thinking about.
Unfortunately he doesn't address the issue which some here at FR have raised, which is: if the sample taken after the incriminating Stage 17 sample (it was clean for elevated T/I levels according to UCI) also came up clean on the mass spectrometer reading (i.e., no synthetic test present) wouldn't that PROVE lab tampering? Supposedly the mass spectometer picks up everything, and if exogenous testosterone had been there 2 days before, traces would still be detectable in the later sample.
The Landis people need to carbon test that sample immediately.
Because they didn't test for synthetic testosterone in the other tests. They tested for the T/E ratio.
So...are the samples from the other stages still available, or were they discarded?
I still don't buy the "instant boost" effect of testosterone that some people claim. I took testosterone years ago and it does NOT have that effect AT ALL. It increases the gains from weight training, but it takes weeks and months to show results. It is not the overnight miracle some make it out to be.
I wonder if Marion Jones will claim that the French set her up? Or perhaps it was "whitey's" fault?
Get it right...it's Bush's fault...
That's true...but he's also whitey!
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