This looks bad for Floyd.......

[RoadRaven]

Oh come on peoples...

What happened to innocent til proven guilty
Floyds performance and motivation to win is possibly a huge part of this... he had been training to win for ten years, and this may have been his only shot at it.

As someone pointed out in another thread, levels of testosterone rise in people just WATCHING a sport in telly!


The same day the above article was posted, this one was too.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...terone_testing
It seems much more impartial and definately more factual. It is written by a cycling news doctor - not by a reporter seeking to sell newspapers.
Heres a key paragraph:

This is because the form of the hormone that is available for exogenous administration is chemically identical to what is produced naturally in the body. Only a small fraction (about one percent) of the testosterone produced every day is excreted in the urine. Blood and urine levels increase after taking testosterone. But because the half-life of testosterone is very short, about one hour, blood and urine levels return to normal very quickly. Thus, measuring testosterone levels in urine is not an effective means of detecting steroid abuse.

Please note the bit that says that artificial and natural testosterone are virtually identical.

Now if it was blood doping, or EPO or something like that - well, yes, I would be doubting.
But this is not, its a question mark on a dubious test that has possible natural explainations ... and it has not been verified yet.

And again - another question, WTF would Lance step into the breach BIG TIME unless he was sure - he has too much to lose for himself, his fan base and LIVESTRONG.

Lets stop being so negative - surely you would all want a trial by jury too - not this media spew that is happening... tainting everybody with bile?

[mimitabby]

RoadRaven
what did Lance say about this?

the test to check the carbon isotope in the testosterone takes 2 weeks..
so they do not have the answer to that one yet, right?

[RoadRaven]

mimi... I was just referring to the way in which Armstrong is responding to media questions about Landis...

From memory, Armstrong didn't say boo in support/defence of Tyler Hamilton whom he also rode with for a while in Discovery..

For example, on Larry King Live...

"I thought it was unlike anything I'd ever seen in cycling and I mean that in a good way. I thought it was -- I thought he was tough. I thought the guys behind, who were chasing him, didn't do a great job but he showed a lot of heart and gut and determination that day."

"If we ever suspected anything, if there was suspicious behavior or anything to lead us to believe he was a cheater, then we would have parted ways long before we did. And when he did leave he left for a better offer from another team and we had to respect that."

"But above and beyond everything else he was -- he was one of the toughest young kids that I'd ever come across and we could see that. I mean we'd bring the kids to training camp and I was trying to get fit and trying to win a Tour and you had this young kid with this incredible tough attitude that was challenging me on every hill and at every opportunity. So, we knew then that he was -- he was our kind of guy and he was a tough bike rider."

[Cassandra_Cain]

I don't pretend to understand all the science, tests, and details - biology wasn't my subject.

So let me pose this....if a guy has naturally high testosterone, then wouldn't it always be higher than 'normal/average'? Rather than just spike up at some odd moment? Wouldn't said rider with high testosterone always or at least most of the time, test above the 4:1 ratio they've established?

Also, I'm reading the Landis and his lawyers are saying they don't expect the B sample to be any different than the A sample. I'm inferring if that's the case then he will lose the TDF title and possibly prompt a long, drawn-out appeal process.

The biggest loser in all this, as Oscar Pereiro mentioned a few days ago, has to be the entire sport of cycling.