It's all over- Landis' B-Sample +

[Plakespear]

All I can say is that I'm really dissapointed. Thanks for killing the sport in the USA, asshole.

VeloNews article

[L7]

Which assholes are you talking about, the ones at the drug lab who don't even follow their own protocol but expect athletes to follow their rules?

Granted the evidence as it stands (some by innuendo and the most damning not officially released) looks bad but I'd be a lot more on board if the sports bodies handling it weren't being so inept. It just makes me wonder what else they've been totally inept about, like coming up with a conclusive test for example.

This quote sums it up for me and it seems more likely rules would be followed if the rule setters weren't selective about which rules they bother with.

"I call on the UCI to start following its own rules and to allow this process to proceed without the further taint of public comment by UCI officials," said Jacobs. "The anti-doping process must be free from the perception that sports federations and anti-doping authorities, who hold great political and financial sway over sport, are attempting to influence the outcome of a pending case by issuing inappropriate public comments."

[MTT]

I hope he makes a shit pile of money on the talk show circut.

Where ever there is $$$$$ for winning some will always do whatever it takes to win.

Winning the TdF with a blown hip was a nice story while it lasted. I hope he can profit from it somehow. I'd have a beer whith him.

PS: Did they test the guy who came in second? What was his name?

[TeleAl]

Well, I said it about the Spanish bust at the beginning of the TDF,
It's a sad start for the TDF.

Seems it's a sad ending too.

[Spats]

I have no respect left for WADA at this point. "I have received a text message"? What is this, high school girls gossiping between classes?

They conduct themselves like amateur witch hunters who don't even have a procedure, let alone a consistent set of rules, to decide who gets to compete at the highest levels of sport.

"Woohoo! We get to bust in on people at 2 in the morning and make them pee in a jar! We get to ban people based on hearsay and unban them after the race, but only after they've all been fired from their team and their careers ruined! We get to leak rumors to the French press, so that riders are convicted by public opinion even before any results come back! Most importantly, we get to never, ever send our results to a second lab for confirmation, even when they affect the winner of the biggest race of the year, and we can never, ever have our interpretation of these results questioned, even when any laboratory chemist can tell you that even something as simple and routine as a employment drug screening is anything but black-and-white and depends on so many different variables that it's really only good for detecting blatant abuse."

I don't know enough about the actual results to have an opinion on Floyd. We never will, because WADA needs to maintain their aura of infallibility, and releasing details of how they arrived at the result would open them to criticism from actual scientists who do lab work for a living.

[sfotex]

Say it Ain't so Floyd ...

I love riding my bike, but between this and the Tyler thing, I really don't think I have much interest in watching the pros anymore.... Don't let the door hit you on the way out. (and it's not just the athletes, it's the whole damn pro cycling industry....)

[cj001f]

If Floyds clean, then OJ must not have killed Nicole. Crooked cops, bad evidence procedures.

Where's the outrage over the riders - who continually protest "being treated like animals" and continually betray their fans trust by doping?

[BLOOD SWEAT STEEL]

Sportsmanship? Silly fans, there's money to be made here. Professional sports isn't about who dopes. EVERYBODY uses. It's about who dopes best. You don't have to agree agree with it, but it's just the way it is. - And cycling is no exception.

You guys trust that the UCI, IOC, etc... are really the all-righteous father figure tee ball coaches here? Who watches the watchmen?

[Phatstix]

A fe comments:

1. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Don't even say that the test 'proves' he's guilty.

2. Did he have abnormally high levels of testosterone or low levels of epitestosterone? It's all about the ratio and science knows little about this.

3. Testosterone is a 20 year old cycling drug. It's way old fashioned. Why wouldn't he use some of the other 'udetectable' drugs?

4. FL is an American, the test was done in France.

[sfotex]

A fe comments:

1. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Don't even say that the test 'proves' he's guilty.

2. Did he have abnormally high levels of testosterone or low levels of epitestosterone? It's all about the ratio and science knows little about this.

3. Testosterone is a 20 year old cycling drug. It's way old fashioned. Why wouldn't he use some of the other 'udetectable' drugs?

4. FL is an American, the test was done in France.

I think it's a moot point if he doped or not, because we really won't ever really know. I'm just tired of all the finger pointing and BS. If doping is such a huge deal then I want the UCI and other govering bodies to clean it up. If they can't do that (and I don't think they can) they need to shut the fuck up and stop the witch hunts....

[c_moose]

He has done nothing to ruin the sport. Anybody who likes to ride bikes will still like to ride bikes. That is what the sport is about. Some are better than others and the very best get to ride professional. When you get to the higher echelons of amateur sports or get to professional level sports, it matters when you win or not. For 99.5% of sportsmen, it doesn't matter. 0.5% of sportsmen cannot ruin a sport.

As for the clown who implies that the French made Landis fail the test .... you're barely worth a reply.

[Cyber Cop]

He has done nothing to ruin the sport. Anybody who likes to ride bikes will still like to ride bikes. That is what the sport is about. Some are better than others and the very best get to ride professional. When you get to the higher echelons of amateur sports or get to professional level sports, it matters when you win or not. For 99.5% of sportsmen, it doesn't matter. 0.5% of sportsmen cannot ruin a sport.

As for the clown who implies that the French made Landis fail the test .... you're barely worth a reply.

He sure ruined it for us fat bastard fans that like to ride slow and dream where at the front of the peloton. Now I have to imagine a series of painful injections before I spint away to the finish. And since when do they have bicycles in Lithuania anyway chachi?

[L7]

I have no respect left for WADA at this point. "I have received a text message"? What is this, high school girls gossiping between classes?

They conduct themselves like amateur witch hunters who don't even have a procedure, let alone a consistent set of rules, to decide who gets to compete at the highest levels of sport.

"Woohoo! We get to bust in on people at 2 in the morning and make them pee in a jar! We get to ban people based on hearsay and unban them after the race, but only after they've all been fired from their team and their careers ruined! We get to leak rumors to the French press, so that riders are convicted by public opinion even before any results come back! Most importantly, we get to never, ever send our results to a second lab for confirmation, even when they affect the winner of the biggest race of the year, and we can never, ever have our interpretation of these results questioned, even when any laboratory chemist can tell you that even something as simple and routine as a employment drug screening is anything but black-and-white and depends on so many different variables that it's really only good for detecting blatant abuse."

I don't know enough about the actual results to have an opinion on Floyd. We never will, because WADA needs to maintain their aura of infallibility, and releasing details of how they arrived at the result would open them to criticism from actual scientists who do lab work for a living.

Once again I think there is a good chance Landis doped along with a great deal of the rest of the peloton. I also think nothing has been proven and he may be innocent.

Who to trust a simple mennonite lad who rode his guts out in a heroic ride and has tested clean dozens of times before or a bunch of self righteous witch hunters who completely disregard their own rules and have already been proven in court to maniputate procedures and tests to their own ends?

I certainly don't hold anything against Landis at this point but my own countryman Dick Pound and his buddies sure make me very ashamed. Even if they are proven right they have once again behaved like amateur manipulative school bitches.

[burny]

i really can't understand, why americans can't admit one of their fellow citizen has done something wrong? It always happens like this, of course the french are guilty, Landis for sure didnt do anything wrong, of course the wada screw up the tests … denying everything works really good for the USA, doesnt damage the national feeling of superiority !!
Hello, we have telephones and computers in Europe as well, and we dont ride mules to go to work. Ah yea, and the war is over, nobody talks about it around here anymore …

ok, you may now proceed discussing Landis guilt

ps: i do like the american lifestyle, i do know americans and love them

[L7]

i really can't understand, why americans can't admit one of their fellow citizen has done something wrong? It always happens like this, of course the french are guilty, Landis for sure didnt do anything wrong, of course the wada screw up the tests … denying everything works really good for the USA, doesnt damage the national feeling of superiority !!
Hello, we have telephones and computers in Europe as well, and we dont ride mules to go to work. Ah yea, and the war is over, nobody talks about it around here anymore …

ok, you may now proceed discussing Landis guilt

ps: i do like the american lifestyle, i do know americans and love them

For the record I'm not American and feel similarly about Ullrich and Basso being punted from the tour on a witch hunt of innuendo and unsupported accusations. I think Basso would have wiped the floor with Landis and Ullrich's presence would have altered the tactics and race. That doesn't change the fact that the drug police are breaking all their own rules and the rules of most country's concerning due process and guilt. As I stated my greatest shame is in fellow Canadian Dick Pound leading this brigade of high school cheerleaders. My logic is not based on national pride, why can you not accept the repeated proof that these guys are manipulating events at every turn? The outcome of the race is now more controlled by drug police and who they choose to exclude or persecute then they ever have or could be by pharmeceuticals and they don't even wait for the race to start.

[Spats]

I'm a lot more pissed about what they did to Vinokourov and his team than whatever may or may not have happened with Floyd.

WADA were working on a long-term, ongoing investigation, which wasn't even close to conclusive results -- but they decided to announce a bunch of bans based on hearsay and half-baked speculation THE DAY BEFORE THE TOUR. Some of these bans were so tenuous that WADA themselves overturned them right afterward, but only after ruining the careers of Vinokourov and his entire team.

This clearly demonstrates that the aim of WADA is to get their own names in the media and cause a big controversy, not to clean up the sport of cycling.

[rideit]

Once again I think there is a good chance Lance doped along with a great deal of the rest of the peloton.
I certainly don't hold anything against Lance at this point, but my own countryman Dick Cheney and his buddies sure make me very ashamed. .

Fixed....

[burny]

in my opinion, the witchhunt is necessary to get the sport cleaner … it will probably never be completly clean but you have to at last try to get it clean. And i have no mercy with my countryman Ullrich, he is definetly guilty of havin contact with Fuente, paying him 35000 Euros for about 8 different substances that are used for doping. He denys …
Seems, at the moment any top rider can be picked and will be tested positive, because they (almost)all dope, and doping is wrong, its cheating, a sportsman should not do that, they betray their fans and their competitors, so if they do it, they must be punished. I do not want to watch and support the international pharma summergames, i want clean sport, so i support every try to get it clean.
Of course, the wada has to follow their own rules, i have no idea why they act so incredible stupid.

[TeleAl]

Spats has posted twice above,
and both hit the nail on the head!!!

Well put, both times.

[Spats]

No one can ever clean up cycling, or any other sport. There is too much money and glory involved. Everyone will spend all the money they have to gain any performance advantage they can get.

The best you can hope for is a consistent set of rules that everyone knows and has to follow, and that keeps the riders from killing themselves too quickly.

For instance, the hematocrit level. Is sleeping in a $100,000 altitude tent any more "natural", or less of a cheat, than a few shots of EPO or packing your own blood? I think anyone should be allowed to dope up to 50 using whatever technique they want, and we shouldn't have to worry about how they got there. The danger is in getting blood so thick that it won't circulate and people die, not in the EPO itself.

OK, so we ban anabolic steroids...this is good for everyone's lifespan, and no one wants to see a bunch of bald guys with man-boobs. What about aromatase inhibitors, which cause the body itself to produce more testosterone? Grape seeds are aromatase inhibitors. At what point does eating grape seeds, or an extract from them, become a "drug"?
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cg...act/66/11/5960

Even eating protein vs. eating carbohydrates affects your T levels. Is protein a drug? How about carbohydrates?
http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/...on/diet-01.htm

[train07]

once again, i stopped following the tdf, the controversy, and the related threads here. Last i recall Landis was blaming this on some alchohol. Today, I got back in the saddle (as well as last night) for my commuting after a very beer fueled weekend with concerts, wedding, beer, beer and some work. I figured this was going to effect my ride in....it is only ten miles, but the ride has it's share of hills and wind depnding on direction of travel (duh). Hey, in all seriousness, I never, ever, felt stronger.




and i really don't know anything about these tests, so forgive my ignorance

[Ripzalot]

sad news indeed. now i have to endure all my collegues at work saying "aha! told you so!" (as if they actually knew all along). guilty until proven innocent. carry on with the status quo...

[Mountain Junkie]

Not a surprise that his B sample came back positive. The real nail in the coffin was the presence of synthetic.

I'm still confused as to the circumstances surrounding the doping. It seems like there are three scenarios:

1) He really is innocent of doping and there is some other explanation. With the presence of synthetic T, this looks like it's becoming somewhat farfetched.

2) This was a one time act out of desperation. This might help explain why he was caught, but where would he get steriods in one night?

3) He's a long time doper. In which case, what went wrong? In this situation, he would be working with a doctor who would know how easily the T would show up. Did some sort of masking agent fail to work? Again, who did get the steriods from the night before the race?

In both doping scenarios, I still can't believe Landis would be naive enough to think he wouldn't get caught. Steriod testing has been around for a long time; he knew he would be tested that night. Why would he dope if he knew he was going to get caught? It doesn't make sense.

[L7]

Not a surprise that his B sample came back positive. The real nail in the coffin was the presence of synthetic.

I'm still confused as to the circumstances surrounding the doping. It seems like there are three scenarios:

1) He really is innocent of doping and there is some other explanation. With the presence of synthetic T, this looks like it's becoming somewhat farfetched.

You mean the presence of sythetic T which has supposedly been alluded to by one of the WADA high cheerleader gossip bitches but no official or solid evidence has been offered? Why do you think they are trying this whole thing in the media with little to no evidence? I think it's because they barely have a case but a strong agenda so they are trying to sway public opinion with innuendo, half truths and manipulated unproven tests. Sadly people like you go for it and make it all very effective for them instead of demanding some real evidence and judging the situation on those FACTS.

[Cornholio]

Not that it's any less tragic, but WADA didn't ban the riders before the tour. The Directors Sportif did. They also un-banned them ex-post-facto.

I'm not really defending WADA, but this is an important distinction.