jaxgtr

That is still a huge slap at LNDD that one of the Grand Slam Tennis Tournaments is not using their home lab and shipping the stuff 3000 miles to Canada.

skanking biker

Just cause the guy's jacka$s for a friend did something stupid to try and "help" landis, doesn't mean landis actually doped. Granted it doesn't look good--but it is a non sequitur

skanking biker

Except that in all the "previous" B-samples they tested, the A-samples had come back negative. You are not even suppossed to get to the B-samples if the A-sample comes back negative

tcs

Go back further. LeMond po-po'ed fellow American rider Andy Hampsten in Bicycling magazine after Hampsten helped him win the ToF in '86: "Hampsten will never win a major tour. He's just not a good enough all around rider."

As we all know, Hampsten subsequently won the 1988 Giro.

TCS

"I sent Greg LeMond for tacos."

meb

No, but it suggests he did.

That was clearly private information Lemond shared with Landis yet Landis revealed it to his flunkie and Landis had threatened to reveal that information if Lemond didn't keep quiet.

Even the next day after Floyd knew his flunkie made the call, the flunkie accompanied Floyd to the hearing.

MIkej2244

If you guys have not yet, go buy his book, Positively False....its a great read. Explains most of what this thread discusses and more.

alinko

You could say that Greg was calling it as he saw it, and not trying to be mean and vindicative. Lance has never really heaped praise on fellow American riders, except for Hincappie. And he stated that although he couldn't have done as well w/o George, George was not his successor.

alinko

LeMond has always had a degree of negativity following him that I believe is undesrved. He doesn't seek out attention, but having been the first greatest American cyclist, people seek him out for comments. Greg doesn't sugarcoat his remarks. He openly questioned why Armstrong would have Dr. Ferrari as his doctor back in the early 2000's. He didn't accuse Lance of anything. He was disappointed that the greatest cyclist of the time would cloud his reputation for dealing with a doctor known for helping other cyclists dope. So, how did he LeMond get 'looped' into this? He had a conversation on the phone with Landis after the test results, and after Greg talked about this conversation, he was called to testify. Greg did not, and was not going to 'talk smack' about Floyd. Not until Floyd's goon tried to scare LeMond off the night before testimony. Greg doesn't seek attention. He was a great cyclist; people seek him out.

DMF 

Now hold on! The problem was not abnormally high T, but low EpiT. Remember, the test is for the ratio, not the level which can - and does - vary all over the place.

Besides, the test isn't designed to detect testosterone use. It's designed to detect steroids. Testosterone is a metabolic by-product of steroid use. The thing is, steroids don't have a short-term effect so it makes no sense to take them in the middle of a race.

tcs

Arthur A. Zimmerman, call your office!

TCS

USAZorro

I thought Major Taylor predated Greg, but now I'm not so sure.

urodacus

Testosterone is a steroid. it's just a steroid that the body manufactures (men and women) rather than a 'designed' steroid. it can also be manufactured in a lab.

well, not really in general terms. it might be a minor metabolite of some steroids, but its not a major metabolite of any that i know of. actually, if you regularly use steroids, your own level of testosterone production falls.

well, mostly true, but many athletes calim it improves recovery from exertion in the short term amongst some other short term effects. but you are right that it is normally used longer term, when the benefits sought are different to short term use.

meb

You beat me to the punch.

Also, Phiney predated Lemond in that role very briefly.

jaxgtr

That's my point, what real point was it to bring LeMond to testify? What did taking to him on the phone have anything to do with him doping or not doping. From what I remember, Landis never told LeMond that he doped, but LeMond sure was quick to judge him and told him to say he did.

I can see it now,
FL: "Yea Greg I doped, but keep it a secret ok."
GL: "Sure Floyd, but just make sure you tell the world you doped so I will be the only rider from the 80's and 90's still claiming to be clean that L'Equipe actually believes and never questions cause I speak French like a true Frenchman."

DMF 

Br J Sports Med. 2006 Jul;40 Suppl 1:i21-4.

Testosterone and doping control.


Saudan C, Baume N, Robinson N, Avois L, Mangin P, Saugy M.

Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses, Institute of Legal Medicine, Lausanne, Switzerland. martial.saugy@chuv.ch

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone, modified to enhance its anabolic actions (promotion of protein synthesis and muscle growth). They have numerous side effects, and are on the International Olympic Committee's list of banned substances. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry allows identification and characterisation of steroids and their metabolites in the urine but may not distinguish between pharmaceutical and natural testosterone. Indirect methods to detect doping include determination of the testosterone/epitestosterone glucuronide ratio with suitable cut-off values. Direct evidence may be obtained with a method based on the determination of the carbon isotope ratio of the urinary steroids. This paper aims to give an overview of the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids in sport and methods used in anti-doping laboratories for their detection in urine, with special emphasis on doping with testosterone. ...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...ubmed_docsu m

Then the purpose of a T/EpiT test would be?


And if it was used in that way in this instance (not long term), would not the T level show as high? Yet it didn't.

urodacus

i just wanted to point out that testosterone IS a steroid, as some people seem to think that steroids are different to testosterone. it is in fact the prototypical androgenic anabolic steroid: it is masculinising (androgenic) and it is anabolic (building muscle mass). epitestosterone is made in the same ratio to testosterone by some alternative reactions of the testosterone synthesis pathway, and is an epimer of testosterone, meaning it has all the same bits but assembled in slightly the wrong order. a bit lke putting the left and right wing mirrors on a car on the wrong side. epitestosterone is not active, and is always in about the same ratio.

epitestosterone is also a very minor metabolite of testosterone, but not the other way around (well, maybe, but less than 0.1% of the amount of epi made from test). that was the original point. this is very old science (since even before the 1940s), see for example, https://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/196/1/243.pdf
some people claim that epitestosterone is NOT a metabolite of testosterone at all. see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...t=AbstractPlus
also see for a review https://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/40/suppl_1/i21

the purpose of a testosterone / epitestosterone ratio is to see if it is significantly higher than normal, which would generally indicate a recent input of testosterone. of course, if you also add epitestosterone at the same time, this ratio can be manipulated to remain normal. epi does nothing so its only purpose is to mask testosterone administration. see https://www.clinchem.org/cgi/content/full/48/4/629

there are no synthetic steroids that i know of that have testosterone as a major metabolite.

the isotope assay of testosterone composition will still reflect the presence of synthetic testosterone, regardless of the ratio. the ratio test is the first test performed as it is significantly cheaper than the isotope test, which is a real problem for the drug testing regime (many false negatives appear this way and doping cases get missed).

show me definitive evidence that the T was not high. is there any?. then again, maybe he forgot to add the epi that day....

skanking biker

LeMond allegedly told Landis to "fess-up" for the good of the sport. Landis did not respond by denying he doped but rather said something to the effect of "what would be the point of that."

The implication being that a normal person who was accused of something and was innocent would deny such an accusation.

meb

When testosterone levels are high, the body cuts back on testosterone-epitestosterone synthesis. The rational is low epitestosterone infers a reduction in the body's natural synthesis of testosterone & epitestosterone, so you would see low epitestosterone for a while after the testosterone had returned to normal levels. Also, the absolute levels vary much more from athlete to athlete than the ratios.

I thought the low epi level was briefly discussed in the hearing, but the absolute levels are essentially a triviality as far as positive test vs. exonderation.

skanking biker

So the real question is, what are the odds of a decision coming down before months end?

erader

50-50....it either will or it won't .

ed rader

squeakywheel

I'm calling time on the USADA arbitration hearing. Floyd won.