complete uber-noob here. gonna be one heck of a first post. Started spinning this spring as an alternative to running all the time, instructor was actually a cyclist as opposed to just an aerobics instructor on a bike. I started before the TdF, and started lurking here. Still trying to gather the money for a first bike.
Comments on the above:
1. Believe as most above that likely everything/everyone is dirty. In the world of testing, it has become a constant back in forth between scientists to develop the latest, best, stuff that avoids detection, while other scientists try to come up with how to detect the other stuff and what not. Same thing in military development. Someone designs a missile with tons new capabilities, maneuvers, anti-jamming computers, etc etc, while the others keep trying to come up with a system/weapon that CAN defeat it.
2. So, given that everyone is dirty, it is a game of avoiding detection. The authority outlines 'limits" and then everyone tries to adjust their body chemistry to be as high as possible for the enhancement without going over the threshhold / positive test. Usually there are some statistical 1-sigma deviations before something is considered a positive test. (i.e. - 10 micro-grams per liter is natural, so they say 20 micro-grams is a positive, so everyone tries to get their body chemistry at 19 micro-grams to be enhanced, without being above the illegal #.)
3. if that is the case, maybe Landis' tactics of whatever supplements/enhancements he used, which would probably put him just shy of testing positive, but perhaps dehydration, jack and cokes, too much pasta, whatever could have irregularly affected the chemistry to make it enough to get a positive test. In his mind, I'm sure it is that "What I took should in no way have been enough to give me a positive test!"
Final comment from this noob, since I am violating every first-time poster rule ever listed anywhere on the internet....
4. Oscar P. is probably just as guilty This analysis is only from a human nature approach. His first response was appropriately delicate..."Hey, it would be a bureaucratic win" and he seemed to defer to just let everything run its course -- very smart, because if he had jumped up and screamed at the "A' test, and then the B test didnt give the same results, he would look like an idiot.
so, watching Oscar in the next week will be interesting. If he comes in understated, really doesnt say much, then it is obvious that he follows the same methods as everyone else (and inarticulately described in point 3 above). If he is truly clean, then he will likely be very vocal about everything wrong with the sport, and his ability to stay clean and still compete, etc etc.
Bottom line when you are truly innocent, you don't need lawyers to craft statements. you get out there and violently deny deny deny. You only have to be careful what you say when you are guilty.
That said, loved watching it all every night, and still can't wait to get my first bike.
Flame suit on.