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5031. iiibbb - 7/27/2006 9:50:32 PM I will say that I love cycling... especially the tour de france... and I want to believe Floyd too. 5032. alistairConnor - 7/27/2006 11:06:20 PM Excellent article. I want to believe Floyd too.
"You put a standard testosterone patch that is used for male hormone-replacement therapy on your scrotum and leave it there for about six hours. The small dose is not sufficient to produce a positive urine result in the doping test, but the body actually recovers faster."
Hmm... Must try that. 5033. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 12:01:42 AM Cap'n Dirty sez, "He probably ran into one a them French ladies the night before the test. They'll raise yer testtosterone every time." 5034. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 2:32:02 AM More from Floyd plus other tidbits.
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Under World Anti-Doping Agency regulations, a ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone greater than 4:1 is considered a positive result and subject to investigation. The threshold was recently lowered from 6:1. The most likely natural ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in humans is 1:1.
Testosterone is included as an anabolic steroid on WADA’s list of banned substances, and its use can be punished by a two-year ban.
Testosterone can build muscle and improve recovery time when used over a period of several weeks, said Dr. Gary Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine. But if Landis had been a user, his earlier urine tests during the tour would have been affected, he said.
“So something’s missing here,” Wadler said. “It just doesn’t add up.” 5035. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 2:56:14 AM Boulder Report
This guy wrote a bunch of stuff on doping after Tyler Hamilton. 5036. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 3:08:19 AM 1 - from Tim Church: The volume of testing itself on such an elite segment of the population can and will skew the quantity of false-positives. So if the chances for a false positive are 1 in 100 for the gen. pop., the chances for this specific segment would arguably be much higher, like 15 to 20%. However, no one has actually studied these riders, their hormones, the down-to-the-minute blood variations that can occur over the course of 3 weeks to the extent that is necessary to come up with adequate values and determinations. Summary: the test validity can be questioned, the method of test application can be questioned, and there are more times than the testers would like to admit where they'll get a result and won't have a clue about how that result occurred. When questioned, they get defensive....
2) Dr. Conrad Earnest - It's physically impossible, even with doping or masking methods, to read "Low, low, low, low, low, HIGH, low, low, low" for T/E ratios over a course of days and be guilty of a patch, a cream, or an injection... We can assume Floyd was tested daily, by the UCI as well as Phonak's own doctors (can't trust the NGB - see TH). Floyd would have had to have shown at least two or three values above the threshold for two or three days for more questions to arise. He's only allegedly tested positive for one sample on one day...
3) Dr. Ben Levine, MD - Dick Pound is NOT the person to be leading the charge against doping in this or any sport. Granted, it's a thankless job, but going on NPR to announce your disappointment in a rider without all the facts (ed. think Hamilton), is another example of several ethical lapses for which he is guilty. Testosterone application on THAT stage would have been pointless, so the rider and his consultants need to point out the trend and highlight any spike or dip-anomalies. 5037. alistairconnor - 7/28/2006 9:46:35 AM The defensive stuff you have posted contains a number of strawmen.
Firstly, the idea that testosterone can only be effective over the long term, from this guy Wadler in the ESPN article, is contradicted by the practice of some cyclists (why would they do it if it didn't work?) and by the opinion of other docs : From the
Sports Illustrated article you posted just before;
"You can do a hard Alpine stage without doping. But after that, the muscles are exhausted. You need -- depending on your training conditions -- up to three days in order to regenerate."
To help recover, testosterone and human growth hormone can be used. "Both are made by the body and are therefore natural substances," he said. "They help to build muscle as well as in muscle recovery." Dr. Moosburger explained how it was done. "You put a standard testosterone patch that is used for male hormone-replacement therapy on your scrotum and leave it there for about six hours. The small dose is not sufficient to produce a positive urine result in the doping test, but the body actually recovers faster."
There is another strawman in the Boulder Report :
(However, it’s inconceivable that testosterone, even if it was taken, could alone account for Floyd’s performance on stage 17; testosterone aids in recovery and the ability to sustain higher training loads, but won’t allow a rider to ride faster simply on its own.)
No-one would suggest such a thing. Floyd's comeback was an incredible performance, whether or not he got a little hormonal help.
If the B sample gives the same result for the T/E ratio, there are a whole bunch of other tests that could show conclusively what's up. The positive test, in itself, shows an abnormally high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. That indicates clearly that the testosterone detected was not produced by the body (unless someone can show how an unnatural ratio like that can occur naturally).
Next questions :
* first, was his testosterone LEVEL (as distinct from the t/e ratio) actually abnormally high, i.e. well out of line with the level in his other daily tests? If it wasn't, that would greatly increase the chances that it's a false positive (if the testosterone level wasn't higher on that day, then there would be no recovery benefit for him anyway).
* secondly, there are apparently tests which can distinguish between natural and synthetic testosterone. So it would be possible to show conclusively whether the (presumably) abnormally high testosterone was artificial or not.
It really looks to me like Floyd, desperately needing to recover his strength after his disastrous stage, decided to take a huge risk. Gambling that it wouldn't be detected, or that it would be hushed up.
Here's some technical detail on the Spanish scandal that cleaned out the favourites (Ulrich, Botero, Basso, Sevilla etc) before the Tour. Useful background. Indicates that, as one suspected, it's the teams that have been paying for the sophisticated blood doping efforts for all the top riders. I suspect we're now back to an era where it'll be individual riders deciding to take risks or not, on their own responsibility. The sponsors will no longer cover this shit if the risk of bad publicity is high. 5038. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 1:49:52 PM Like I said I don't know enough about the endocrine system to say which dr is right about the benefits of testosterone. You obviously believe oneopinion , but not the other. I don't know how that makes a strawman. That's like saying Galileo's arguments that the earth was round was strawmen because of all the flat-eather's evidence.
Let's agree that both of us are not experts enough to discriminate who's the more believable expert.
I'm just posting news items I've found. 5039. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 2:24:47 PM Latest from velonews
If the "B" test is positive, Landis will likely undergo endocrine tests to determine his naturally occurring testosterone levels and then could challenge the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The basis of the urine test is the T/E ratio, a balance between testosterone and epitestosterone in the body. Most adults have a range between 1:1 to 2:1, but the UCI has set the threshold at 4:1 to allow for riders with naturally occurring his testosterone levels.
The T/E ratio can vary widely within individuals, and in some cases the T/E ratio may be above the 4:1 ratio without doping while others can stay below the threshold despite cheating. The ratio tends to be constant over time, but wild swings may indicate doping. Other factors can cause swings in the ratio, such as dehydration, fatigue and even alcohol.
Anything above that threshold sends a red flag for doping controls. Landis would not reveal what his T/E ratio was in the samples taken after stage 17 into Morzine, when he went on an all-day solo attack to crawl his way back into overall contention.
The T/E ratio is not a sure-fire way to measure testosterone in the body, but it's the only detection method currently used under anti-doping controls.
Other riders have been caught up in the T/E ratio web and some have been cleared after proving with endocrine testing they have naturally high occurring testosterone levels.
Most famously was ex-Phonak teammate Santiago Botero, who tested for high levels in 1999 but was eventually cleared. Botero, incidentally, is implicated in the "Operación Puerto" doping investigation in Spain and was not allowed by his team to start the 2006 Tour.
Last year's Dauphiné Libéré winner Iñigo Landaluze also tested high for testosterone. Subsequently, the Spanish federation ruled that he had normally high levels of testosterone and cleared him to race, a decision the UCI is appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Earlier this season, another Phonak rider, Sascha Urweider, was suspended from the team for revealing high levels of testosterone.
I'd tend to think that if Phonak had already busted someone for testosterone this year that Landis would've taken pause.
Besides that seems like an awful lot of people are getting busted for testosterone in general. 5040. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 2:27:31 PM Testosterone 101 - velonews
Andrew Pipe, a physician and medical and scientific adviser to the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports in Ottawa, says that synthetic testosterone is normally injected, but taking it in the middle of an athletic competition would have little effect in boosting performance.
"Anabolic steroids, of which testosterone is the granddaddy, can have a central nervous system effect," he said. "But anabolic steroids largely work by increasing the capacity for training and increasing the bulk and tolerance of muscles. That isn't going to happen in a few hours.
"The effect of the testosterone is not going to be experienced unless there's a very significant training endeavor associated with it as well."
Pipe cautioned that the initial uproar over the high levels of testosterone detected in Landis's system may prove to be premature, depending on the outcome of additional testing that will have to be carried out before a definitive judgment is made. Taken by itself, he said, an elevated testosterone finding in the rider's A urine sample is enough to raise suspicions, but it does not automatically implicate the athlete as a doping cheat. 5041. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 2:30:02 PM If no such comparable data is available, Pipe said, the rider will have to be tested again in the future. For this reason, Pipe said he was surprised that the findings from Landis's A sample have been made public. "The last thing I would want is for the suspected athlete to know that we're on to the fact that he or she may have an unusually high TE ratio and that we may have to administer further tests." 5042. alistairconnor - 7/28/2006 2:37:42 PM seems like an awful lot of people are getting busted for testosterone in general.
-- that's because testosterone use has been rife in cycling for years (the Spanish case is clear concrete evidence of this). The busts are a fairly recent thing, and the riders haven't quite got the message yet it seems.
anabolic steroids largely work by increasing the capacity for training and increasing the bulk and tolerance of muscles. That isn't going to happen in a few hours.
This is what I mean about a strawman. It's a fallacious argument :
* The MAIN reason people take steroids in sport is to build muscle.
* That doesn't work overnight.
* Therefore testosterone won't increase your performance the next day.
This ignores the fact that testosterone has a well-understood SECONDARY effect : it enhances recuperation.
Any "expert" who ignores this effect in the current case is simply being disingenuous.
Clearly, the recuperation effect is sufficient reason to take it in Floyd's circumstances, if he thought he could get away with it.
5043. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 3:04:52 PM Motive is not guilt.
I agree with the writer that it shouldn't have been made public until he were tested again in the future. 4:1 is only two standard deviations from normal... that does not exclude readings that are higher.
Just as easy as it is to say that they would gamble for that kind of glory... Landis already makes a 6-figure income leading that team. A top-10 finish in the tour is still pretty darn lucrative. I doesn't seem that cheating is an automatic reaction to a bonk.
5044. Macnas - 7/28/2006 3:09:32 PM That's interesting. The people who are writing in his defence are saying that testosterone could not make him cycle faster given the short time span.
It's not that he cycled faster, it was that he was able to cycle as fast as he could on any good day, despite the meatgrinder of a day he had before.
We had a swimmer, Michelle Smith/De Bruin, who was found to have doped on an L.A. olympics medal win. The american press tore right into her straight away, "get yourself and your junky family out of our town" were some of the words used.
I know, like us and Michelle, nobody wants to believe it could be true, but it more than probably is. 5045. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 3:14:30 PM There is plenty of American press that have already damned Landis as well. 5046. alistairconnor - 7/28/2006 3:16:44 PM The think is, iii, that we are in uncharted territory. None of the current pros were around in the days before modern, highly-effective doping started. Lance NEVER had a bad day like Floyd's in seven years (which just isn't humanly possible...) so the guys just don't know how to react.
I'm sure that Floyd's comeback was 90% guts and bravado... Then again, maybe he took other stuff which wasn't detected? 5047. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 3:24:59 PM I hope we find out a believable truth.
As it stands, I'm with his mother. If he took the stuff he doesn't deserve to win.
What really surprises me is that don't take the time to establish baselines for these athletes... particularly the leaders of teams. 5048. alistairconnor - 7/28/2006 3:38:04 PM Yes, that's where the UCI has been completely hopeless. In practice, they have been deliberately turning a blind eye for decades. When they act now, they are doing so reluctantly. In fact they have been driven to it by the justice systems of the principal cycling countries : France, Italy and Spain.
The protocols all exist. The top French riders undergo rigorous ongoing testing, government mandated, to ensure that they don't stray. 5049. iiibbb - 7/28/2006 9:08:32 PM If he cheated... he is a fool
Apparently the mass-spec test is very good.
The next step he can take when he appeals is his last resort: a test called IRNS, or mass spectrometry. Wadler says this test doesn't care about whether or not your body produces extra amounts of testosterone. It's a chemical test that tells us whether or not this testosterone was either introduced from an outside source or if it is naturally occurring. If they go to it and the testosterone is determined to be of exogenous origin, Landis is toast. This [current] test result is not a smoking gun; it's an irregularity. 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?
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