Professional Cycling For the Fans - ?? Are the irms tests blind?

Does anyone know if the labs are again given a bunch of samples with numbers on them to run the irms tests? IMO, it would be nice if the person(s) running the tests did not know if there sample belonged to Flandis. I'm not saying that it is likely that they would fudge anything. I'm just curious about what controls are in place to prevent it.

Of course they are blind. The B sample will probably not be though, as there will likely be representatives of Landis present.

Well, they did say that the irms test is not done unless the T:E ratio was high. The media made it very clear that the lab had only numbers on the samples. However, it is not obvious that the IRMS test would be blind.

Uless the lab protocol has changed the tests are at best sort of blind. Each rider has a control number. Since Tour leaders and Stage winners are always tested anyone at the lab would start to have at least a good idea whose sample it is. Even someone trying to not pay attention would click to the fact that they have seen that number before ant that this means it is one of the 'important' riders.

Uless the lab protocol has changed the tests are at best sort of blind. Each rider has a control number. Since Tour leaders and Stage winners are always tested anyone at the lab would start to have at least a good idea whose sample it is. Even someone trying to not pay attention would click to the fact that they have seen that number before ant that this means it is one of the 'important' riders.
You forgot the daily random riders and the control numbers are changed every day.

So, when the need to do an extra test (i.e. irms), they just do that before passing on the T:E ratio to UCI?