kosherdave

That is actually a pretty thought provoking article. Thanks!

g3ck0

HAHA. First of all, you don't KNOW he didn't take drugs. Second of all, Phonak LET him win, he does not deserve a win.

blue_neon

These pathetic excuses by Landis supporters...unbelievable. First of all you dont KNOW that Oscar took drugs? Let along know one knows...like most of the other riders in the Tour, like a lot of other sports, like everything in this world. You can't live life saying 'well he might have taken drugs...there fore he dosn't deserve to win'. You can't make up comments based on nothing. You comment of Oscar taking drugs is a gut feeling...but Landis taking drugs is a confirmed FACT.

Anytime i have said anything about Landis on this sub-forum i get a huge truck re-buttle crap.

Landis DID drugs...he DID get caught...its HIS fault. Oscar however - innocent until proven guilty.

Whether Phonak let him win or not means jack, he won, he got himself across the line and good on him.

flythebike

+1.

Bike racing is tactical ok. If you take your chances and make your own luck, then you deserve to be rewarded.

Alekhine

Yep. He won the stage and got the yellow that day, and made up a whale of an amount of time to do it. That's a tactical mistake on Phonak's part* to assume the Spaniard wouldn't produce through the rest of the race - they got lucky Oscar didn't do more, considering Oscar still finished within a minute of Floyd in the final standings, even after Floyd's syntho-sack inspired stage 17. Team tactics are part of how the race is won or lost as much as individual effort is, and that was a lemon. Granted, it turned out to be the right move in the end (in a manner of speaking), so not a grave mistake when viewed through the 'hindsight is 20/20' filter, but they still shouldn't have allowed such a gap to a rider who had a history of placing in the top 10 in a previous tour that had stronger overall contenders.

*and for the same reason a mistake on T-Mobile's part for allowing Phonak to dictate a lazy pace in the peloton. Kloeden should probably be the guy looking at the default TdF win right now, not Periero.

domestique

I love the people who one week are praising Landis and the next are cursing his name. Are you so nieve to think that the other GC riders are clean?

Every GC rider dopes... this has been going on for over a century. The only difference is Landis got caught (prolly left his patch on too long...idiot).

p.s. I still like Landis and am waiting to hear his explanation. I just hope he doesn't try to pull a Tyler and make dumb mistakes. I would rather him just come out and say he doped (I would have a lot more respect for him)

rgerve

Any find it hard to believe that someone the size of Backstedt can complete the tour? Without drugs?

domestique

Just look at Boonen, Hincapie etc. who normally do well in either GC or points competions..... it really sucks when your supply of drugs and blood get stuck in a spainsh poice station

lanterne_rouge

I think if you check back you will find that MB did not complete the Tour this year; he abandoned during stage 14. He was also Lanterne Rouge after stage 4, and never higher than 150th in GC after that.

more information here

lr

flythebike

Boonen had a good race despite not winning the stage, held Yellow for longer than anybody else this year, I think. Hincapie missed out on a lot of competition this year after being injured (Thanks Trek!), and he was a fool to try for GC. At least he was smart enough to grab the Yellow Jersey for a day so the Tour wasn't a total loss for him.

I don't know if they all dope or not or what. I have no way to know. But when somebody like Landis returns a positive test then I figure that is good enough for me. He has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

flythebike

Simply a case of misplaced belief meeting a rejection of denial. Very human for those who still believe in heros and have not lost hope to skepticism. I'd rather be 'nieve' than a skeptic.

blue_neon

I've hated Landis since i first saw his face. Sad, but true.

Whether the other riders are clean or not has not been proven, so assuming will not get you anywhere.

gcc0

He cheated, and got caught. Now he should be banned and stripped of his title. Simple.

bbattle

If it is true that Landis' testosterone level is normal but his epi level is low; I'd like to know more about how this could be. Granted, this info. comes from Landis' lawyer but it was also stated earlier by some expert on ESPN after the A sample results were announced. This expert also said this test has not stood up in court in the past.

I'm not defending Landis but I do have questions and I'd like some answers. Where's that Google button?

Some info. here that says the test hasn't held up in court.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5590269

Bobsledder that had a 16:1 ratio in Olympic test declared innocent. Mary Decker Slaney had a similar incident
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...es/shimer4.htm


The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on the Urinary Testosterone / Epitestosterone Ratio

By Dr Simon Davis B.Sc., Ph.D.

Summary

Intoxicating beverages contain a number of different forms of alcohol, the major constituent of which is ethanol. When a beverage is consumed the ethanol content passes through the stomach wall and digestive tract into the blood stream. Once the ethanol enters circulation it begins to alter the bodies� biochemistry. One such reaction is to differentially increase the rates of testosterone (T) and epitestosterone (E) metabolism. The overall effect of this reaction is to increase the ratio of T to E excreted in the urine.

It has been reported that ethanol consumption can increase urinary T/E ratios by 30% - 277% in healthy individuals. Observed changes in plasma T/E ratios can occur with the consumption of less than 2 pints of lager. The ingestion of ethanol by an individual will increase the T/E ratio observed in a urine sample.

It follows that if the effect of ethanol on T/E ratios is calculated relative to urinary E concentrations, it can be seen that increases in the ratio are exponential as E concentrations decrease. Individuals with naturally low E concentrations could, therefore, experience increases in T/E ratios of ? 940% greater than increases experienced in an individual with normal E concentrations. Calculations estimate that in individuals with low urinary E concentration, ratios of 17 to 1 or higher could have resulted from ethanol consumption without any administration of exogenous T.

The current T/E ratio test as performed by Kings College Laboratory and approved by the UK Sports, the IWF and IOC cannot discriminate between a 13 to 1 T/E ratio resulting from ethanol ingestion or a 13 to 1 ratio resulting from endogenous T administration.

https://www.velonews.com/phorum3/read...93#reply_14893

cyclezealot

Americans have the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. During the appeal process, Americans' are inclined to think this way. I am just not sure the testing procedures are totally reliable. When we are totally sure of his guilt, then we can all jump on him.

rgerve

How did he do in years past?

bbattle

Here's some more:
https://www.johnberardi.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

here is a good chance that Floyd didn't "cheat".

Of course, after hearing about the alleged doping allegations on TV, on the radio, on web blogs, and in chat rooms, one would think this was a cut and dry case. It's just another one of them damn cyclists trying to cut corners, break the rules, dope his way to the top.

Yet after talking with the Landis camp, and knowing a bit about the current drug testing procedures, anyone with half a brain knows that this is anything but a cut and dry case.

First of all, Floyd had at least 6 biological samples collected and tested during the Tour de France. Five of them came back clean. One of them, however, allegedly contained a high amount of testosterone relative to epitestosterone.

(If you don't know anything about this test, check out parts 1, 2, and 3 of my Steroid Manifesto article series here.)

But get this - Floyd was tested on three consecutive days. Interestingly, he was "clean" on day 1, "dirty" on day 2, and "clean" again on day 3. Something sounds kinda fishy, eh?

Now, personally, I don't know if Floyd used banned substances or not. However, I'm inclined to believe that he didn't. Here's why:

1) The Testosterone to Epitestosterone ratio is a poor test that can be affected by a number of factors including alcohol consumption. In fact, alcohol consumption can increase the T:E ratio by up to 300%.

Check out these two studies for more info:
Study 1
Study 2

Sure, I doubt Floyd was getting wasted during the Tour, but this points to one flaw in the testing method. There are more to come.

2) Sample handling is a critical issue with the T:E test. Several high profile cases have been thrown out as the T:E ratio can be profoundly impacted by less than optimal sample handling procedures. Leave the sample out in the sun for too long and you've got a false reading. Fail to chill the sample at optimal temperatures and you've got a false reading. Dehydrate the body (cycling does this, ya know) and you get a false reading. Send the sample to 2 different labs and you get 2 different results. Heck, even urinary bacteria (and other bacteria) can dramatically alter the T:E ratio. Click here to read a nice review of this topic.

3) The T:E test has so many problems that a newer test - a test that determines whether an athlete has exogenous testosterone in his/her body - has been developed. This techinque is called isotope ratio mass spectrometry.

I'm not really sure why this technique hasn't been used yet while the flawed T:E test is being used - but that's for cycling officials to address. If this test comes out containing exogenous (external) testosterone, then the case is more certain. If not, then we're looking at a potential false positive.


The only source for the radio isotope test being done on Landis' A sample is from the NY Times and they cite an unnamed UCI source. Oh, and L'Equipe newspaper.

"The New York Times reported Monday that tests on Landis' "A" sample show some of the testosterone in his system was synthetic, putting his defense into question. The report cited a person at the UCI with knowledge of the result.

McQuaid said he had not seen the lab findings, and could not confirm the news report. He and other UCI officials said the union's rule book restricts release of such information.

"It's big news, certainly, but it doesn't change the protocol," McQuaid said. "It's not our policy to give out details about such cases."

UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani insisted the results of the test are confidential and no one at the governing body would have leaked results to the Times."

https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...blandis01.html


More speculation on the case: did Landis' handlers mess up his masking regimen during the time of his positive test? Possible, but not likely.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...mnistfront-hed

geraldatwork

Let Landis take a lie detector test. While not 100% accurate (are the doping tests 100% accurate?) if he failed the test it would certainly not make him look too good. OTOH if he passed it maybe it would give some credibility to his assertions that he didn't cheat.

barba

I would guess a lie detector is far less reliable than the drug tests.

Karlotta

Note to bbattle: The bobsledder's overturning of the result was prior to the advent of the carbon isotope ratio test (IRMS)... and BTW, that test was done, and the positive results confirmed in the B-sample analysis. The UCI does not release test data. The teams may do that, or the individual, or perhaps it will com out officially in the USADA process.

From an article in Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/...ap2929445.html


Basically, your information assumes that the T:E ratio is the only evidence against Landis. That appears not to be the case.

lala

What if the team docter doped him with out his consent?

Jarery

Its always a probability, although doubtfull.

When you consider winning can amount to millions in new contracts, endoresements, etc. And all the support staff's livelyhood is directly related to their man winning, well then its always possible that someone didnt want to see their meal ticket disappear and snuck into floyds room at night and applied patches to his balls.
(yes I know it could be administered other ways)

The possibility is always there. Its low probablity, and pretty much impossible to prove. Even if they managed to have some support staff confess that they did it without floyds knowledge, everyone would think it was a paid off scapegoat.

So the end result is pretty much the same. Unless some miraculously believable reason can be shown, he'll go down as guilty.

erader

my buddy thinks landis pi** was spiked. i think he envisions some sort of vast french conspiracy .

i told him that i could possibly accept that far-fetched notion if i did not believe they all dope.

ed rader

DogBoy

First off, I think he's probably guilty, but that said, I'm curious about the actual test results. I've heard from "leaks" that the IRM test was positive, but nothing official. Do we really know that the IRM test was positive? From Floyd's comments on his website it appears that the IRM test may not have been at issue.

I'm quite confused about the whole thing. How long until we get to hear the results of the lab tests? Will they ever be released, after the appeals process, before...when do we get to see them?

I guess a part of me wants him to beat the wrap on this...partly because he's from the US, partly because of the way he "won" the race, and mostly because I think all the pros do it and singling him out seems "unfair."

Also, why do the teams get to just wash their hands of the matter. I'm guessing it is usually team doctors setting up the doping strategy, shouldn't the team face the same consequences as the rider?

Karlotta

1) Floyd's personal physician Dr. Kay confirmed the positive IRMS test on the A-sample.

2) Don't know if the entire test packet will ever be released.

3) Floyd knew the rules. You get caught, you don't win. No one else got caught.

4) The team doctor didn't get a check for 500,000 euros for "winning". The team won't get any of the winning salary. And they've lost a major rider. But I agree they should be held more accountable.