TdF doper

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Anonymous's picture
Anonymous
Anonymous's picture
Mordecai Silver (not verified)
Sigh...
Anonymous's picture
Mike A. (not verified)
Can he be that stupid ?

Knowing full well that it's compulsory for the stage winner, yellow jersey and a few other random riders to get tested immediatley after a stage, could he possibly believe that he could get away with it? For this reason I (for one) refuse to be believe it and won't crucify him until he's had a chance to defend himself. This really does not seem plausible, given how this Tour started out.

Anonymous's picture
Claudette (not verified)
pray for a natural process (nm)
Anonymous's picture
MSB (not verified)
Amen (nm)
Anonymous's picture
jim (not verified)
landis the dope

Why am I not surprised???

Anonymous's picture
Beer (not verified)
Beer

Would any rider be that stupid, considering his comeback and stage win, knowing he would definitely be tested?

Anonymous's picture
Jersey guy (not verified)
It's not stupidity, it's a calculated risk

"I take a very cynical view of all this. I am not an expert on the science, but from what I've read the ways to evade the tests are numerous and, though the tests pick up some of the cheaters, many slip through. The Operation Puerto revelations in Spain was more good police work and an informant's tip than anything else. If most of the top riders are seen to be doping, as I believe they still are, the remaining riders face a tough decision: dope or lose any real chance of winning.

Assuming Landis is found to have used illegal substances (which I hope doesn't happen, as I like the guy and was inspired by his riding), he may have figured he needed the help to win and getting caught was a risk he was willing to take (and could he win without ""help""?) Unless somebody figures out a way to stay ahead of the cheaters, I'm not sure there is a real solution to this mess. It will always be a cat-and-mouse game, and the mice will win more often than the cats."

Anonymous's picture
Jersey guy (not verified)
Here's a disturbing thought

Every Tour de France winner in the past ten years (Ullrich 1997, Pantani 1998, Armstrong 1999-2005, Landis 2006) has faced serious allegations of doping in their careers. You may say, none of that has been proved, but all but Armstrong have been dropped from a team and/or been suspended for suspected doping. Armstrong doesn't look too good, either, based on the Andreu testimony in the insurance lawsuit and the L'Equipe information about the 1999 EPO test. This further fuels the perception: You don't win the tour if you don't dope.

Anonymous's picture
Christian Edstrom (not verified)


It's not the perception; it's the clear-eyed truth.

Anonymous's picture
Author: (not verified)
Unfair

"Andreu was discredited by all the other witnesses, except his wife, and a 7-year old urine sample held in France? C'mon. I'd have been more surprised if it didn't turn up with something in it.

And Lance still had Frankie fired, so I'd watch what you say."

Anonymous's picture
Herb (not verified)

"PARIS (AFP) - Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of American Tour de France champion Floyd Landis following his withdrawal from two races in the Netherlands and Denmark.

The ANP Dutch news agency said Landis pulled out of a race in Chaam on Wednesday evening after medical advice but this reason for not appearing was not confirmed by race organisers.

Agent John van den Akker, who organised Landis's appearance at the race said he was annoyed by the situation. ""We have tried to contact Floyd and his manager but we have not been able to,"" van den Akker told ANP.

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""We are very annoyed. We have invested a lot of money (to ensure his appearance) and we would have expected some kind of explanation.""

It was also discovered that Landis would not be coming to Thursday's Grand Prix Jyske Bank race, the Danish organisers said in a statement.

""It is with great regret that we announce Floyd Landis will not be appearing in the race,"" Danish organisers said.

Landis did show top form however to win the Stiphout criterium in the Netherlands on Tuesday night.

The news of Landis's disappearance comes after the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced a rider in the Tour de France had failed a doping test.

Neither the identity of the rider nor the date the test was conducted were released by the sport's governing body. If the case is confirmed it would be the first doping case from the race.

However the rider who failed the test is not French or German after both of the country's cycling federations denied they had received notification of the test result from the UCI.

The UCI said on Wednesday they had sent the result to the federation of the cyclist concerned but FFC president Jean Pitallier told AFP: ""We have received nothing from the UCI.""

And a German cycling federation (BDR) spokesman said: ""We have received nothing from the UCI whether it is by post or email.""

On Wednesday, the UCI said in a statement: ""The adverse analytical finding received this morning relates to the first analysis, and will have to be confirmed either by a counter-analysis required by the rider, or by the fact that the rider renounces to that counter analysis.

""The World Anti-doping Code and the Anti-doping Rules of the UCI do not allow to make the name of the concerned rider public, as well as other information that may allow identification.""

The test was carried out by France's national anti-doping laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.

This year's Tour was rocked by a drugs scandal on the eve of the race which saw 13 riders, including pre-race favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, barred from taking part after they were implicated in a Spanish blood-doping ring.

It was the latest in a series of high-profile drugs controversies to tarnish cycling over the past decade, with the Tour de France being particularly hard hit.

"

Anonymous's picture
Ted (not verified)
He's just a stud

Of course his testosterone levels are high.

Anonymous's picture
jeff (not verified)

4 things to consider:
Floyd had already been tested, as he had already been in yellow, without problems.

testosterone isn't like an amphetamine, with short term, short acting results, like improving a single stage.

the standards here are arbitrary, just as are the hemocrit standards, and will generate 'false positives' as well as carefully documented exceptions. The recent change from 6:1 to 4:1 might be the problem. Here's a recent case involving the same test: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/5191942.stm

There are 'A' samples and 'B' samples for a reason--verification is necessary.

Anonymous's picture
a fan (not verified)
floyd

what a drag....

Anonymous's picture
Alan (not verified)
"Positive ""A"" Sample"

I've become cynical about the top pro riders too, but I find it hard to comprehend that in this environment, and after all the doping allegations in Operation Puerto, that any top rider would still be doping in this year's TdF. I'm wondering whether Floyd's bonk in stage 16, coupled with the fact that he apparently lost considerable weight during the Tour, affected the concentration of his normal blood chemistry. I come to that conclusion (disclaimer: I am not a biochemist) because to my limited knowledge, testosterone (or any hormone) takes a while to have the effect of increasing muscularity, etc. So presumably if he was doping it would have shown up well before stage 16.

Anonymous's picture
Mike A. (not verified)

Sounds good! Let's run with that.......

Anonymous's picture
Alan (not verified)
A little Internet research...

"came up with the following (from sarugby.co.za):

Supplement Group A: This group includes supplements and sports foods that provide a performance benefit in sport-specific and individual-specific situations or provide a useful and timely source of energy and nutrients in an athletes diet or are of medical/therapeutic benefit

bicarbonate, beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB), caffeine, calcium, creatine, carbohydrate powders and gels glucosamine and chondroitin, intramuscular iron, phenylephrine, intramuscular vitamin B12, liquid meal replacements, melatonin, recovery formulas, sports & energy bars; skim milk powder, sports drinks, specific vitamins and minerals.

Supplement Group B: This group includes supplements currently lacking substantial proof of beneficial effects or have no proof of beneficial effects in sportspersons. This group contains the majority of supplements including many herbs and herbal extracts* promoted to sportspersons. These supplements enjoy a cyclical pattern of popularity and use, but have not been proven to enhance sport performance. In some cases these supplements may impair sports performance or health:

arginine, bee pollen, branched chain amino acids (BCAA’s), colostrum, CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), carnitine, cordyceps, cytochrome C, coenzyme Q10, chromium picolinate, choline, Echinacea, ferulic acid, ginseng, glycerol, glutamine, ginkgo biloba, gamma-oryzanol, intravenous iron, inosine, lysine, ornithine, pro-biotics, Protivity (Microhydrin), pyruvate, ribose, vitamin B12 injections, spirulina.

...


The ingestion of testosterone precursor hormones may result in a positive doping test. This is defined as a testosterone:epitestosterone (T:E) ratio 4:1 and constitutes a positive test. (Note: According to Velonews, The Swiss-based team said on its website that it was notified by the International Cycling Union (UCI) on Wednesday of ""an unusual level of Testosteron/Epitestosteron ratio in the test made on Floyd Landis after stage 17 of the Tour de France) Recent research has found that supplements in categories A, B may be contaminated with testosterone precursors. If testosterone prohormones are ingested inadvertently, the T:E ratio may remain elevated for up to 24 hours.



"

Anonymous's picture
Christian Edstrom (not verified)

Yeah, I'm sure he inadvertently ate some skim milk powder. That seems like the reasonable conclusion to me.

Anonymous's picture
Alan (not verified)
Cynic!

You may well be right -- it may be that he was doping and taking calculated risks. But it may also be that with his body weight dropping over the course of the tour, and with him taking an admittedly aggressive approach to eating on stage 17, his body chemistry changed just enough to show a little change in the ratio.

Anonymous's picture
Christian Edstrom (not verified)

No offense, but are we even watching the same sport?

I consider myself a casual fan, and have only been following cycling since the early to mid 1990s, but the totally overwhelming presence of doping in the peleton has been clear since long before then.

I mean, it might be that he was injected by the steroid bunny while he slept, too. Maybe Tugboat did it!

Anonymous's picture
Author: (not verified)
Ha! Thanks Christian. Laughed out loud twice now.

Congrats Pereiro (winner) and Sastre (podium)!

Anonymous's picture
David Hallerman (not verified)
Not That

"CE writes:


""Maybe Tugboat did it!""



Hey, no maligning golden retrievers...they know how to play without drugs."

Anonymous's picture
Alan (not verified)

Your jokes are funny, and as I said before you may well be right. But as widespread as doping has been, I'm not ready to give up yet. Besides, why should we beleive that Pereiro is clean? He'd never finished that high in the GC before this year, and what did he use to power himself to a 30-minute lead -- paprika?

I would like to see the sport cleaned up. But I think there are still some serious issues about testing, laboratory security, random variances and other explanations that have not yet been satisfactorily resolved. And I don't think that the governing structures now in place are competent to deal with them. Look at the announcement the other day from WADA that they want to ban hypoxic tents, while admitting that you can get the same benefit from training at altitude and that they were powerless to ban that. It looks as though they are merely trying to impose a lot of litmus tests without actually improving the sport or its cleanliness -- indeed, you could argue that they are merely providing an incentive to riders to figure out how to get around the rules.

If Floyd cheated, he should be stripped of the title and should go away in shame. But there are a lot of biochemical variances that can show up on drug tests that do not actually indicate cheating. People have been disqualified for taking antihistamines that contain pseudoephedrine when there is widespread agreement that it is not performance enhancing. Some over-the-counter medications can show up as showing marijuana use. So I'm suggesting that while careful scrutiny of lab results is appropriate, it may not always be what it seems to be at first.

Anonymous's picture
Christian Edstrom (not verified)

I agree with your general premise that the UCI and WADA need to do additional work to clean up their procedures and test mechanisms.

But faced with the overwhelming evidence of doping in the peloton, I've resigned myself to the fact that the top GC contenders (and likely most of the domestiques) are, in fact, doping. They do an impossibly hard job, and their earning their living is nothing like our weekend rides. Basically, they're elite athletes, and once they've worked harder than almost any of us can legitimately understand, and still need that extra oomph to break into the very top, they make the assessment the gains that they can get from PEDs, which will allow them to continue the sport or prosper within it, outweigh the risks of getting caught.

But I hope the sport cleans up too. And I think the only way that it will is if one of the big name riders comes forward and tells it like it is.

- Christian

Anonymous's picture
Alan (not verified)

"It's a very interesting dilemma. It's ironic, too -- if you accept the premise that every significant GC contender and their domestiques are taking PED's, then presumably the relative benefits are eliminated, assuming that everyone takes the optimum level of PED and gets the same relative benefit. Now I realize that's a facile argument and it is likely much more complex than that.

Look at Operacion Puerto as well. Obviously something was going on with some riders -- you don't get caught with blood, transfusing equipment and EPO unless you are actively engaged in doping. But step back and think about it for a moment: Why would the doctors involved keep such detailed and identifiable records of the athletes involved? Wouldn't it make more sense to code data in a way that is less decipherable than, for example, coding Tyler Hamilton as ""Haven""? Or is it just hubris and the conviction that they will never get caught? I read all the opinions in the Tyler Hamilton case and, frankly, I thought he was hubristic to the extreme in the arguments he was making. (A chimeric twin, showing its effect 30 years later????)

Maybe they are all cheaters. Maybe they are not. I'm sticking to caffeine, Gatorade and GU gels."

Anonymous's picture
Alan (not verified)

"There is also some scientific researtch that shows that exercise can stimulate testosterone production. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9506793&dopt=Abstract "

Anonymous's picture
Christian Edstrom (not verified)

(Capt Renaud) I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! (/Capt Renaud)

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bikesherpa (not verified)
Sometimes Accusations Turn Out to be False - Astana 5 Cleared

"Something to think about before coming to conclusions about Landis:

Astana 5' cleared by Spanish courts
By Andrew Hood
VeloNews European correspondent
This report filed July 26, 2006

Five Astaná riders who were forced out of the 2006 Tour de France because of alleged links to a blood doping investigation have been formally cleared by Spanish courts.

Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal, Sergio Paulinho, Allan Davis and Alberto Contador have all received a written document officially clearing them of any links to the ongoing ""Operación Puerto,"" the Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco reported Wednesday.

The five riders received a legal document signed by Manuel Sánchez Martín, secretary for the Spanish court heading up the ""Operación Puerto"" investigation, stating, ""there are not any type of charges against them nor have there been adopted any type of legal action against them.""

The five were among nine riders from four teams who were forced out of the 2006 Tour because of alleged links to controversial Spanish doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes.

Other riders forced out were pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla (T-Mobile), Ivan Basso (CSC) and Francisco Mancebo (Ag2r). Comunidad Valenciana lost its wild-card bid after one of its assistant sport directors was among five people detained in May.

Race officials and UCI representatives huddled before the start of the 93rd Tour to study evidence from a 39-page summary of a police investigation into alleged doping activities to make the extraordinary decision to eliminate any riders under the cloud of suspicion.

The remainder of the Astaná team, including pre-race favorite Alexandre Vinokourov, were not allowed to start the 2006 Tour because banned riders were not allowed to be replaced. With only four riders remaining - Vinokourov, Andrei Kashechkin, Carlos Barredo and Luis León Sánchez - the team didn't meet the six-man minimum requirement and they didn't take the start.

According to El Diario Vasco, the riders can now make legal claims in Spanish courts against damages caused to them or their team.

The news circulated among the peloton before the Clásica de Ordizia in Spain on Tuesday. Astaná riders were not participating in the one-day race because of complaints from ex-sponsor Würth, which didn't want its name on team jerseys after it pulled out of its sponsorship deal in the wake of the Tour expulsions.

The team is still officially registered as Astaná-Würth with the UCI ProTour and could face future complications as members of the Kazakh-backed sponsorship team are trying to acquire rights to the team from ex-manager Manolo Saíz, one of five people detained by Spanish authorities in May.

The news helped clear the way for Discovery Channel to sign Paulinho as part of three new riders, along with Levi Leipheimer and Thomas Vaitkus, joining the team for 2007.

"

Anonymous's picture
el jefe (not verified)
Very sad

"And here's what a mainstream writer thinks of cycling:
http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_ylt=AtCwH3.Kq6gaeNpxoNSrgkR.grcF?slug=d...

Even sadder:
So does Oscar Periero get to yell ""Yeah! I won the Tour!"" in his living room? Does he get to play a tape of the national anthem on his Ipod? How about Sastre -- does he stand on a dining room chair and make believe it's the podium?

I'm embarrassed to be a bike racer."

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