Manuel Beltran tested positive after Saturday's stage
 

Here we go again...

http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/a...beltran-tested

He is on my Kenda team. :(

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/tdf200...ory?id=3483087

Read that one. I don't trust the testing. It doesn't seem reliable to me, from what I've read.

Hey, another former Postal Tour rider gets nabbed.

Who's turn is it next? Popo?

Lance?

I kid, I kid!....sorta.

It depends on whether it was detected in his blood or urine.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...-EPO-Study.php

The urine test is the one that may not be reliable, and its important to note, that its mainly not reliable in detecting EPO when its known to be there.

The blood test is a different story.

Okay who had stage 7 in the pool?

The EPO tests require a lot of interpretation; also, since EPO is now available as a generic, there are lots of variants out there. However, false negatives are a much bigger concern - and apparently more common - than false positives.

Beltran may well be innocent; as hard as it may be, hopefully everyone (including ASO) will wait for the "B" test until making a judgment, particularly if it involves bouncing the whole team.

According to Velo News, it appears that the urine test was used.

Gives "Going Postal" a new meaning.

At this point, if you get caught doping you're just an idiot.

Shhhh... you might awake his lawyers!!

or on Astana, former Postal, or former Discovery...

Nice one :D

i agree. if you can't not dope by now, it's time to retire.

Yet another one of Armstrong's boys. Add Beltran's name to the rest. Hamilton, Landis, Haras , **********?

Beltran had very high Hct Values just prior to the start of the tour, so he was singled out for extra testing, and bingo!! liquigas is serious about racing clean, that why they hired ivan basso a few months ago


I was at work today, thinking " i wonder when the dope scandals will start?" and was going to post a thread to that... the french testers beat me to it... I have been out of the loop for a while but what i gather is that the UCI is not doing the testing, the french anti doping people are, correct? That will be beltrans and liquigas first excuse.. that the french have a vendetta against the spanish/italian etc... then they will say that the uci tests were better etc.. hahahaaa!!

or maybe the Frenchies decided to start tossing guys out so they look like they are tough on dope, but no frenchies will be tested.. slick kinda what the belgians did several years ago on a TdF stage that finished in Antwerp. at the last minute the testing was done by flemish labs, and no belgians were tested that day, not even the Belgian Stage Winner Mark Wauters, who also took the Jersey that day.... hmmmm.....

Excellent point. Welcome back by the way. The Tour forum could use a junkie.

Michael

Of course Liquigas is serious about the fight against doping -- they're a cycling team.

Fixed.

Don't teams understand that if they dope, sponsors will pull out? It's pretty simple.

teams do understand that, but riders understand if they dont dope they will lose their job if they cant get results naturally.

I may be in the minority but I was a little dissapointed to read on cyclingnews that Liquigas is going to stay in the tour, considering that Astana and Confidis getting the boot last year. It's always on the rider, but not the management. Liquigas seems to be in the doping spotlight more often recently, with the Di Luca issues last year, then they signed Basso and left the AIGCP a couple of months back, and now Beltran.

Sure, the anti doping mantra gets a little old after a while, but it's better than headlines like this, right?

he IS tricky, no?
I for one would love to see everyones hematocrit level at the start of the tour. how many 50%ers do you think?

From cyclingnews.com:

"While reports initially stated that should Beltrán's B sample come back positive, the team would be forced to withdraw from the race, the German television station ZDF received confirmation from the Amaury Sport Organistion (ASO) that the team could remain in the race.

"The station also reported that the team will escape the 100,000 euro penalty which was part of the ASO's anti-doping contract signed by all teams prior to the Tour, because they removed Beltrán immediately after the positive A-sample.

While I'm not nearly as critical of the testing and the French labs, this bothers me. While I realize false positives are rare, they can happen. But if a team has a rider with a positive A, it's quite clear that they do not have time to wait around for the B sample to be tested.

It doesn't specify which test Beltran failed-it states he was one of the group of riders that urine tests were taken from Saturday. The earlier article stated ALL 180 riders were given a blood test that day. Beltran may have failed either or both.

What I don't get is why Astana was singled out for the non-invite to the tour. In my view, if the tour is serious about fighting doping, they should have non-invited Confidis and Rabbobank as well as Astana.