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5050. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 9:09:39 PM What I don't understand is if the mass-spec test is so much better, why the result was released before they have a definative answer. What's up with that? 5051. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 9:32:33 PM Cap'n Dirty sez, "As I figgered, Armstrong said today he's just a naturally high testosterone guy, (like The Cap'n)." 5052. alistairConnor - 7/28/2006 9:46:40 PM What it is : they only released the fact that one rider had a positive test on that particular stage. The authorities said nothing about who it was. Then Landis abruptly cancelled his scheduled races, so speculation focused on him, and it was his team that finally let the cat out of the bag.
You're right : either he will ask for the definitive test, and we'll know. Or he won't ask for it, and we'll know. 5053. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 9:58:40 PM My understanding is that all men, except for Saudi harem guards, test positive for testosterone. There is a bell curve range for testosterone level in the blood within which nearly all men fall. Is it not possible that Landis is naturally at the high end of the range. I wonder what the limit is for athletes? I'll try google for more info. 5054. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 10:11:28 PM All you need to know about testosterone. The normal testosterone range for men is 300-1000 ng/dl. I wonder what Landis's result was? [The Cap'n's is 999.] 5055. alistairConnor - 7/29/2006 5:11:50 PM That's not strictly what they are testing. They are interested in the ratio between testosterone and epitestosterone. If there is not much epi- compared to the T, that is taken to indicate that the T is of unnatural origin.
The silly thing is, it's easy to fool this test by taking both E and T in proportional amounts. This is the sort of test that, in my view, was carefully designed to let cheats get away with it. i.e. it's quite likely that Landis and other riders have been using synthetic T throughout the tour, but masking it by taking synthetic E. So Floyd's reaction, of a man unjustly accused, is quite likely of the good old "everybody does it" variety.
One of the theories doing the rounds is that he messed up the dosage of E on that particular day.
What we don't yet know is the level of T that was detected. Everyone presumes it was abnormally high, as well as out of proportion to the E.
The moment of truth is whether Floyd asks for the mass-spec test, which can distinguish natural T from the synthetic stuff. If he asks for it, we can expect that it will clear him. 5056. PelleNilsson - 7/29/2006 5:39:18 PM But if we look at the plain facts, we have a rider who hit the wall on the last climb of a tough a mountain stage and lost 8 mins. To assume that he could bounce out of bed the next day and win the next tough mountain stage by a minute without chemical assistance is to strain credulity. 5057. alistairConnor - 7/29/2006 6:16:19 PM No Pelle, the history of the tour is full of stuff like that. True gutsy heroics. (well possibly aided by amphetamines, in the good old days.) 5058. PelleNilsson - 7/29/2006 7:44:57 PM That's my point. 5059. wabbit - 7/31/2006 5:41:09 PM  Michelle Wie had a two-shot lead after 11 holes and seemed poised to answer all of the questions about when her first professional win was going to come. Then the 16-year-old from Hawaii bogeyed the 13th hole. That was all Karrie Webb needed.
Webb became the first woman to win three events this season after shooting a 4-under 68 in the final round of the Evian Masters on Saturday, denying Wie her first LPGA Tour victory. Webb finished at 16-under 272 for the tournament, one stroke ahead of both Wie (68) and 42-year-old Laura Davies (67).
Corey Pavin found the winning formula again: precise putting, a lucky bounce and his old caddie to show him the way. The 46-year-old Pavin won his first PGA Tour title in 10 years Sunday, closing with a 3-under 67 for a two-stroke victory over Madison native Jerry Kelly in the U.S. Bank Championship.
Pavin, whose last win came in the 1996 Colonial, earned his 15th tour victory by averaging just 26.5 putts per round and getting a timely eagle on the par-4 eighth. He finished with a 20-under 260 total. Kelly also closed with a 67. Jeff Sluman (64) was 17 under, Frank Lickliter (69) and D.J. Trahan (69) followed at 15 under and Woody Austin (65), Joey Sindelar (67) and Billy Andrade (68) were 14 under.
5060. wabbit - 7/31/2006 5:42:34 PM  On Saturday, Justin Gatlin acknowledged he had been informed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that he had tested positive for testosterone or other steroids after a relay race in Kansas in April. The revelation came just two days after Tour de France champion Floyd Landis' victory was thrown into question for allegations of similar doping violations. Gatlin said he did not know why the test came back positive and promised cooperation with USADA, as it continues with the case. While his coach claimed Gatlin's positive drug test was a result of sabotage, the leader of the World Anti-Doping Agency on Sunday called for the American sprinter to be banned for "up to life" if the results are confirmed. Gatlin's coach, Trevor Graham, said in an interview on Jamaican television that the Olympic and world champion and co-world-record holder in the 100 meters was victim of a setup. Gatlin's connection with Graham is viewed as problematic. Gatlin has long positioned himself as a champion of drug-free competition in a sport dogged by problems, while Graham is a key figure in the BALCO investigation and has coached several athletes who have tested positive for steroids.
The test on the cyclist measured the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in his system and found an imbalance. Gatlin's test was different. Called a carbon-isotope ratio test, it is essentially a test that looks only at testosterone, not epitestosterone, and can determine whether the testosterone in a person's system is natural or unnatural. The results of both athletes' tests point to the same type of violation of illegal-substance policy.
We should know the results of Landis' "B" test later today.
5061. wonkers2 - 7/31/2006 7:02:08 PM Just look at Gatlin. He didn't get that way on Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions). 5062. wabbit - 7/31/2006 8:17:16 PM John Eustice of ESPN is reporting that Landis's high ratio was caused by a low epitestosterone level, not a high level of testosterone. I read somewhere that this is possible if one has drunk a lot of alcohol, which might change the ration of excretion. What are the odds that Landis went on a bender the night before or the evening of that really bad day? 5063. iiibbb - 7/31/2006 8:24:32 PM The results of that carbon isotope test is the one I'm looking for. That test is supposed to be able to detect foreign testosterone. If whatever in his system was produced by his body then I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
When the press is in such a frenzy it is too difficult form a true picture. 5064. wabbit - 7/31/2006 8:39:12 PM From ESPN: [...] This month sprinter Justin Gatlin failed the carbon-isotrope test that shows whether testosterone in the body is natural or unnatural. Dr. Don Catlin, who runs a famed UCLA doping center that has developed testing protocols, thinks that test was probably already performed on Landis' sample.
"If you have a high t/e ratio in our lab, we do a carbon-isotope ratio right away," Catlin told the San Diego Union-Tribune for Saturday's edition. "We don't report a high t/e ratio without a carbon-isotope test."
The Paris lab that tested for the Tour is accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which calls for a carbon-isotope test if a urine test reveals an elevated t/e ratio... Which sounds like the carbon isotope test either has been, or should have been, done already. Why not release those results, since the "A" cat is out of the bag.5065. alistairConnor - 7/31/2006 8:46:45 PM What are the odds that Landis went on a bender the night before or the evening of that really bad day?
That is exactly what Landis claims... a couple of beers and four whiskies. In which case, the isotope test will clear him, and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief. 5066. wabbit - 7/31/2006 9:02:28 PM Aha, I hadn't heard that.
I just read that the "B" test has been officially requested by Landis. I thought that testing the "B" sample was automatic if the "A" sample was positive. 5067. wabbit - 8/1/2006 12:59:59 PM From today's NY Times: Tests performed on the cyclist Floyd Landis’s initial urine sample showed that some of the testosterone in his body had come from an external source and was not produced by his system, according to a person at the International Cycling Union with knowledge of the results.
That finding contradicts what Landis has claimed in his defense since the disclosure last week that he had tested positive for an elevated ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone during the Tour de France. [...]
The French national antidoping laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry performed a carbon isotope ratio test on the first of Landis’s two urine samples provided after Stage 17, the person, who is in the cycling union’s antidoping department, said in an interview yesterday.
That test, which differentiates between natural and synthetic testosterone, was done after Landis’s ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone was found to be more than twice what is allowed under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, the person said. Regulations limit the ratio to four to one. The range for an average person is between one to one and two to one.
Landis’s personal doctor, Dr. Brent Kay of Temecula, Calif., said he hoped that the results of Landis’s carbon isotope ratio test and of the initial T/E test were false positives. He did, however, acknowledge that the initial test found a ratio of 11 to 1 in Landis’s system. He and Landis are seeking an explanation for that high level... Not looking good.5068. iiibbb - 8/1/2006 1:30:40 PM Bummer.
Will seem an empty victory for Oscar. 5069. wabbit - 8/2/2006 11:51:45 AM 
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