MeyerBros

landis scandal update

we probably won’t have the official results of floyd landis’ B urine sample until later this week, but things aren’t looking good. the testing lab has leaked that his A sample tested a testosterone:epitestosterone ratio of 11:1 (normal person is around 1:1, bikers are allowed up to 4:1), and the IRMS test showed that there was exogenous testosterone (synthetic testosterone that wasn’t made naturally by his own body) in his body in the A sample. the test is thought to be inaccurate by some analysts, but apparently the world cycling association trusts it enough to use it. there are still a few questions about whether his thyroid medication, cortisone for his hip, beer he was drinking, or simply the amount of strenous exercise he was doing could have affected the test. for those of us who were hoping that “the world’s dirtiest sport” had perhaps become slightly cleaner, it’s not looking good.

my theory is that 80 or 90% of the riders in the tour de france (at least most of the team leaders) are all taking something illegal to boost their performance, but 70% or more are still getting away with it. maybe you can’t compete in professional cycling with doping anymore, so your choice is either to not dope and to suck, or to dope and be on “equal” footing with everyone else. hmm…

don’t worry, i’ll keep you posted.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006 at 10:02 am by jonny and is filed under tour de france, sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “landis scandal update”

Christian Says:

August 3rd, 2006 at 3:20 am

I’m not one to believe in “conspiracy theories”. However after watching a couple interviews after the positive “A” test hit the news, and doing some research both technical and historical. I have come to think there are only two possibilities. 1.) sabotage of the urine sample 2.) he flat-out did do it and would be guilty.
Hmm… sabotage, why? who? the answers to this will/would take awhile and it might not even be possible to prove. However there is motivation in that WADA just lost a major trial with Armstrong that made Doug Pound and WADA look like imbicles. So they “have a need” to prove their methodologies. Several teams and others working at “The Tour” knew that Landis was strategizing to attack on the first climb for stage 17 and even comfronted him about it that morning. Floyd was tested a total of six times over the three week Tour de France and strangely the only one that came-up positive was the winning day. A day in which he knew that if he did his best he had a very great potential to win and knew he would be tested. Seems unusual. There are most definitely some uderlying politics that haven’t even been reported yet, that could point tampering or sabotage.
As for the possibility of him being guilty, considering that the story hasn’t looked too good so far. If he did take something illegal he wouldn’t have ingested the night before stage 17. It takes a little longer than 12 or even 24 hours for something like that to have a beneficial effect. He would have taken it at least two days before that stage. And since most people have a “down day” right after taking these types of performance enhancements current statements would point to something like the evening of stage 14 or 15th which makes a case for his dismal ride on the 16th stage. What boggles me is why we haven’t heard these two scenerios yet. They are the most possible out comes in any case. Good Luck Landis. I want to believe that something is wrong with the samples, but for now I’ll just wait to hear/see this play-out, try not to get too jaded by the media and take the bitter with the sweet.