Testosterone

[Triskeliongirl]

Yeh, but he did have a lot to lose, his reputation. I would have respected him more for finishing at any place with his bum hip than finishing and then being found out as a cheat. He knows the tests they do. He knows the stage winner and yellow jersey are tested. Yeh, its a gamble to be the other 'random guy', but not the stage winner............. But, then maybe it was the testosterone talking. Maybe he was supposed to re-claim a bunch of time, but not actually win the stage....... I rememeber them saying something was wrong with his earpiece as he was fiddling with it at the end of the stage. Maybe he ripped it out to stop the shouts of his advisors to keep from winning the stage. If the mass spec analysis confirms there is exogenous testosterone in his B sample then I will be glad he is caught. Yeh, I know some of you wil slam me cuz we don't have the results of the B sample, but even the Landis camp has been warning us to expect no difference. As a professor of biochemistry, I believe the mass spec results, so short of sample tampering which doesn't seem to concern Landis, mass spec doesn't lie. I am really upset about this because Floyd was my hero. I too have a bum hip from a cycling accident. I too am hypothyroid. I know how these things slow me down relative to 'normal' cyclists, or how much pain I need to put up with to not have them slow me down. But seeing Floyd win that stage and win that tour was so inspiring. Seeing the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity is inspiring to anyone. Now we have to face the reality that no, it was simply greed (remember that 2.5 million dollar bonus from phonak) and arrogance (that he was above getting caught) that let him bring down not only himself, but the sport we love. But, maybe we can't blame Floyd. Maybe it just is what cycling has turned into. Maybe its the only way to win in a climate where everyone cheats, and maybe this will be the last straw that allows the formulation of new policies that truly clean up the sport.

[Triskeliongirl]

My concern is that the lab which is doing the testing is the same one the claimed Lance had tainted blood in 1999-which he contested and won.

So, consider the source and who is doing the testing.
The next week should give us something more definitive.

Lance was let off, not cuz he didn't do it, but because the sample was never supposed to be used for that type of analysis, it was supposed to be used for research purposes, not to out a rider. Since there was no way to prove they didn't tamper with it, there were no rider protections in place, he was let off. Its just like Tyler getting off cuz they messed up his olympic B sample, but be outed in the Vuelta. Does that mean Tyler didn't also cheat in the Olympics? NO, just that they can't PROVE it in a way that protects the rights of the rider.

I too have a problem with the fact that someone in that lab leaks information, but it doesn't mean they can't perform a test correctly. Landis will have the opportunity to watch them open the vial they sealed in his presence, or have his expert witness the idea procedure. So if the B comes back positive for exogenous test., there will be no more questions.

[Bad JuJu]

Yeh, but he did have a lot to lose, his reputation. I would have respected him more for finishing at any place with his bum hip than finishing and then being found out as a cheat. He knows the tests they do. He knows the stage winner and yellow jersey are tested. Yeh, its a gamble to be the other 'random guy', but not the stage winner............. But, then maybe it was the testosterone talking. Maybe he was supposed to re-claim a bunch of time, but not actually win the stage.......

I couldn't agree more, on both points.

I've been involved with drug testing, in another context but with similar high stakes, and time and time again, people would turn up positive even when they KNEW the risks and the testing procedures and what they stood to lose. I usually chalked it up to the drugs "talking," as TriskelionGirl says--the same stuff that makes a person feel good/perform better can also make him believe he can't get caught.

And I already had enormous respect for Floyd, riding so hard even with the bum hip--practically no hip joint left, according to the reports. That respect would have remained, even if he'd lost. But now...well, I'm still holding out some hope that he'll be able to clear himself, but it's looking less likely every day.

[mary9761]

just out of curiousity (yes, I know what it did to the cat) was the sample taken directly after he finished the stage or after the night he was drinking? Could something hypothetically have been slipped into one of his drinks to implicate him? Sort of like slipping someone rufies to take advantage of the person, could someone have given him something in a drink that he unknowingly took?

[cherinyc]

mary brought up a good point - COULD someone have slipped something into Landis' drink? I mean, I know from personal experience that some people are severely lacking of conscience - and even though they could've been pretending to be Landis' friend/friends - what's to keep them from wanting to sabotage him?
could be some kind of conspiracy. some people have nothing better to do with their time than try to make life miserable for others.
i would much rather believe that someone did this TO him rather than find out he cheated.

[mimitabby]

heck, they could have put testosterone cream on his bike shorts!
that's a common way to apply it; through the skin.

[Nanci]

Experts Say Case Against Landis Is Tough to Beat
By JULIET MACUR and GINA KOLATA

After spending several days in New York, Floyd Landis has returned home to Southern California, where he will await his fate as Tour de France champion. But antidoping officials working on his case already have evidence that some experts say is convincing enough to show that Landis cheated to win the Tour, regardless of further testing or appeals.

Landis, 30, provided a urine sample after winning Stage 17 in the Alps with a long solo attack. That day, he climbed back into contention for the victory after a miserable performance a day earlier.

The results of two types of tests have thrown Landis's status into doubt. One of them, a sophisticated measure called a carbon isotope ratio test, will be difficult, if not impossible, for Landis to refute. The test examines the atomic makeup of testosterone in the urine and can determine if it is natural or synthetic.

Landis failed that test, according to a person inside the International Cycling Union with knowledge of the results. Landis's personal doctor, Brent Kay, confirmed the finding.

The cycling union said it expected the results of a test on Landis's backup urine sample by Saturday morning, Paris time. If that test comes back positive, Landis would be stripped of his Tour title and would probably be suspended from cycling for two years. If the test comes back negative, the case would be dropped.

A screening on the backup sample will also aim to confirm the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in the urine, which is the other type of test used in the case. The initial testing found a level of 11 to 1, well above the World Anti-Doping Agency's limit of 4 to 1.

Several experts said the carbon isotope test ultimately mattered more than the T/E test because it shows that some of the testosterone found in the sample came from an outside source, not from a natural process in Landis?s body.

'It's powerful evidence that's pretty definitive,' said David Cowan, a professor at King's College London and the director of the Drug Control Center in London, which is accredited by WADA. 'That in itself is enough to pursue a case.'

In Landis's case, the French national antidoping laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry performed the testing, not Cowan's lab.

Still, Cowan said, most lab directors are careful to build a case against an athlete on much more than just one positive test, no matter how definitive a single test might be. A doping case in sports is treated like a criminal case, he said, with carefully gathered and documented evidence. He said the scientists at his laboratory retested a sample several times before announcing their results to the athlete and the authorities involved. He said they wanted to make sure their positive result was correct before moving on to the backup sample.

Landis said last week that he was expecting the worst because backup samples, or B samples, almost always confirm the initial result. But Kay said the B sample could come back negative.

'The carbon isotope was only mildly elevated,' he said. 'We know, from a statistical standpoint, that the first result could have been a false positive.'

Testosterone can be administered by injection, pill, gel or time-released patch, like those mentioned in the Spanish doping scandal that implicated nearly 60 cyclists and others in the sport before this year's Tour. Landis has denied using testosterone or any performance-enhancing drugs.

Nonetheless, Dr. Gary I. Wadler, an antidoping expert and associate professor at the New York University School of Medicine, said the evidence against Landis, taken as a whole, 'would be hard to beat.'

He added: 'Phase 1 was finding evidence from his body fluid that a doping violation occurred, and we have that. I don't know how he will get around that.'

The carbon isotope test is used to look for testosterone abuse, and it came into use about six years ago, when companies produced equipment sensitive enough to do the test in urine samples.

It can cost about $300 more to test an athlete's urine sample, but antidoping labs routinely use it when they have reason to suspect that an athlete was taking testosterone.

The test starts with an isolation of testosterone from the athlete's urine. Then chemists determine the makeup of the carbon atoms that form the backbone of testosterone.

Ordinarily, carbon atoms are made up of six protons and six neutrons, giving them an atomic weight of 12. But occasionally, they have an extra neutron, giving them an atomic weight of 13.

By chance, soy plants are the source of most pharmaceutical testosterone. They tend to have slightly less carbon-13 than other plants that are more abundant in the human diet. Humans make testosterone from the food they eat, so their testosterone typically has more carbon-13 than the testosterone that drug companies synthesize from soy.

But these differences are tiny.

The test determines whether the testosterone in the athlete's urine has less carbon-13 than another naturally occurring hormone in the urine, like cholesterol. The test is considered positive when the carbon isotope ratio (the amount of carbon-13 compared to carbon-12 ) is three or more units higher in the athlete's testosterone than it is in the comparison hormone. It is evidence that the testosterone in the urine was not made by the athlete's body. Landis's difference was 3.99, according to his own doctor.

'For me, that would be it,' said Donald H. Catlin, who runs the Olympic drug-testing laboratory at U.C.L.A.

The test could not, however, determine if someone had tampered with the urine sample or was negligent.

The lab that conducted the testing on Landis's samples has previously been criticized for its handling of samples.

LÉquipe, a French sports newspaper, reported that samples taken from Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour de France were analyzed at the lab. Several of those samples, which were supposed to be used for research purposes only, later tested positive for EPO, an endurance-boosting drug.

The International Cycling Union commissioned a report that later cleared Armstrong of the doping allegations, partly because of the way the lab had handled the results. Armstrong lashed out at the lab, too.

But Christiane Ayotte, director of an antidoping lab in Montreal, said that the standards were lower for handling samples for research.

'It's not fair to criticize them because of that,' she said. 'When we're talking about a routine analysis, the lab in Paris does high-quality work.'

[xeney]

Maybe Eddie Merckx put something in Landis' whiskey! There were reports that he put 100 Euros down on Landis after Landis' big bonk but before the comeback stage ... maybe he placed the bet because he had doped Landis up so he knew he'd win!

I'm kidding. This is the sort of conspiracy theory I think people want to hang onto, and I understand the impulse. I'm so disappointed by the news coming out, I can't tell you; I've decided not to even read the conspiracy theories, though, because they just depress me more. I tend to think that most of them are dirty. I don't know what happened so that Floyd was dumb enough to get caught, but I am mostly disappointed in myself for getting all wrapped up in the romance of the comeback. Professional sports always seem to let me down.