Sometime today, or maybe tomorrow, Floyd Landis will find out the results on his B sample to determine if there was any artificial testosterone in his system. Again, I will repeat the same points that the rest of the endurance athletics world has been stressing: steroids would have no effect on performance in one day. Even if the results are positive, I won't believe that Landis knowingly ingested testosterone. Again, here are some points made in many other places: he'd been tested many times before and during the tour, in competition and out, with no positive hits for the T/E ratio; the motivation to dope during this particular Tour de France would have been sorely mitigated by the intense scrutiny due to the Operacion Puerto scandal which dismissed an entire team, nine other riders, and disqualified another team because they did not have enough riders to start. Incidently, those five riders on Astana-Wurth have been cleared of any wrongdoing. Lance Armstrong has some choice words about the lab that did the testing on Landis' A sample:
[...] I can’t help but be aware the lab that found this suspicious reading is the same one that was at the center of the ’L’Equipe affair. When an independent investigator contacted the lab, they wouldn’t answer the simplest of questions, wouldn’t go into their testing ethics, who did the tests, etc., etc. [...] I don’t personally have a ton of faith in that lab. I think they should lose their authorization and the report pretty much supports that.
Others are offering more medical theories on other things that could affect the T/E ratio (Thanks to DrunkCyclist for the link). According to Dr Simon Davis, "It has been reported that ethanol consumption can increase urinary T/E ratios by 30% - 277% in healthy individuals. Observed changes in plasma T/E ratios can occur with the consumption of less than 2 pints of lager." So, it really was the beer! And we still don't know which brand name it was either. I really do hope Floyd Landis is cleared, because if we can't trust the cyclists, or even the doping controls, these circumstances just make all of endurance sports pointless.
Update: Floyd Landis' legal team officially requested testing of the B sample after reviewing the full report on the results of the A sample. No official word on the scheduling of the testing. Team Landis expects the results of the B sample to be exactly the same as the A sample, because, they argue, that Landis' body chemistry was the origin of the high T/E ratio.
Update 2: Please check here for the latest thoughts on this developing situation.
There's no way a modest amount of alcohol causes the rumoured T/E Ratio of 11:1. That effect occurs largely in women because they have so little testorone that a small increase means quite a big difference to their T/E Ratio.
ReplyDeleteHey Bill,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. In the link to this Dr. Davis comment thread, he makes mention of individuals with naturally low epitestosterone, but he doesn't specifically mention women. Have you seen somewhere else where studies have been done on the effects on T/E ratio vis-a-vis women athletes? I'd like to see that if you have a link or if there's a journal report out there.
There so much speculation on this one test, it's like watching a train wreck, so whenever there's something new, I just have to take a look. If you read my latest post, even the Swiss labs are airing their difficulties with the lack of international standards for testing protocols.