Re: your comment about “sophisticated masking techniques”. I was thinking just after learning about Vinokourov today that those who are inclined to cheat surely must have learned from Landis’s mistake last year. I presume they learned to apply the testosterone patch in a different place or for a shorter time or made it smaller or something else to raise the T level but to just below the testing threshold. Vinokourov must be the exception.
I have to admit a certain amount of naivete’ with respect to cycling and the methods used to enhance performance so I’ve a lot to learn about the sport. Still, it is a major disappointment to see how pervasive it apparently is. It is as you say, the teen ager’s lament, “Gee, Mom, everybody else is doing it” but the rest of that answer is, “well, if everybody else is going to jump off the bridge, are you planning to as well”?
What makes this situation particularly bad is that this kind of blood transfusion isn’t something that’s done on the spur of the moment, or while you’re hiding in a closet. It takes planning and cooperation, and it’s hard to believe team management was unaware of it. Maybe that’s why the whole team withdrew. Astana might go the way of Phonak, and I’m glad I’m not Johan Bruyneel trying to scare up new sponsorship for Discovery. “Scare” might be the operative word.