American Floyd Landis wins 'tour de france'

I have stopped watching the Tour de France, because the doping question
remains unanswered. You only can say, "they checked and did not find
anything".

IMHO it is impossible to win something like the Tour de France without any
medical tricks, permitted or otherwise. So the winner might well be the
pharma industry, as long as the eleventh commandment is observed: "Thou
shalt not let yourself get caught!"

Turan

IMHO it is impossible to win something like the Tour de France without any
medical tricks, permitted or otherwise. So the winner might well be the
pharma industry, as long as the eleventh commandment is observed: "Thou
shalt not let yourself get caught!"

ACK.
After Jan Ullrich was fired by T-Mobile team (they did what US Postal
never had the courage to do with Lance Dopestrong) the argument is
promoted that blood doping is no doping:
Blood is removed from the body - no doping.
This blood is reduced to the oxygen tranporting red blood cells - no
doping because no forbidden substance is added, only parts are removed.
Before the race this blood is pumped back into the body, increasing
it's ability to transport oxygen and so adding endurance - no doping
because no forbidden substance is added, just own blood given back.

I think this argumentation shows how rotten the whole system is.

About 50 cyclists are on the spanish dope doctor's blood list. How many
more doctos are in this profitable business? How many professional
cyclists are on all other doctors' customer records? Only cyclists or
all endurance sports? I think mostly cyclists because it's the
endurance sport where the most TV and sponsor money is in.


Walter

wrote:
IMHO it is impossible to win something like the Tour de France without any
medical tricks, permitted or otherwise. So the winner might well be the
pharma industry, as long as the eleventh commandment is observed: "Thou
shalt not let yourself get caught!"

ACK.
After Jan Ullrich was fired by T-Mobile team (they did what US Postal
never had the courage to do with Lance Dopestrong) the argument is
promoted that blood doping is no doping:
Blood is removed from the body - no doping.
This blood is reduced to the oxygen tranporting red blood cells - no
doping because no forbidden substance is added, only parts are removed.
Before the race this blood is pumped back into the body, increasing
it's ability to transport oxygen and so adding endurance - no doping
because no forbidden substance is added, just own blood given back.

I think this argumentation shows how rotten the whole system is.

About 50 cyclists are on the spanish dope doctor's blood list. How many
more doctos are in this profitable business? How many professional
cyclists are on all other doctors' customer records? Only cyclists or
all endurance sports? I think mostly cyclists because it's the
endurance sport where the most TV and sponsor money is in.


Walter

wrote:
IMHO it is impossible to win something like the Tour de France without any
medical tricks, permitted or otherwise. So the winner might well be the
pharma industry, as long as the eleventh commandment is observed: "Thou
shalt not let yourself get caught!"

ACK.
After Jan Ullrich was fired by T-Mobile team (they did what US Postal
never had the courage to do with Lance Dopestrong) the argument is
promoted that blood doping is no doping:
Blood is removed from the body - no doping.
This blood is reduced to the oxygen tranporting red blood cells - no
doping because no forbidden substance is added, only parts are removed.
Before the race this blood is pumped back into the body, increasing
it's ability to transport oxygen and so adding endurance - no doping
because no forbidden substance is added, just own blood given back.

I think this argumentation shows how rotten the whole system is.

About 50 cyclists are on the spanish dope doctor's blood list. How many
more doctos are in this profitable business? How many professional
cyclists are on all other doctors' customer records? Only cyclists or
all endurance sports? I think mostly cyclists because it's the
endurance sport where the most TV and sponsor money is in.


Walter

what I meant to say was.....
they were doing that to Belgian footballers, except the doctor forgot
to turn the machine off for one player and his heart exploded !

~* Magda ~* wrote:

On 23 Jul 2006 09:44:33 -0700, in rec.travel.europe, "Delirium Tremens"
arranged some electrons, so they looked like this:

... Now I'm just waiting for some French newspapers to tell us about his
... drug taking.....

You won't wait long.

Here we go:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/othe...ng/5218574.stm

This article doesn´t mention Landis by name though , but I´ve seen it
mentioned elsewhere, that the Tour rider is Landis.
--
Kristian

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:44:59 +0200, Kristian wrote:

This article doesn´t mention Landis by name though , but I´ve seen it
mentioned elsewhere, that the Tour rider is Landis.

Not from any reputable journalist, you haven't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

-- Larry

pltrgyst:
On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:44:59 +0200, Kristian wrote:

This article doesn´t mention Landis by name though , but I´ve seen it
mentioned elsewhere, that the Tour rider is Landis.

Not from any reputable journalist, you haven't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

It's on the news, now.
His own sponsor has confirmed that Landis tested positively, and that he
took testosteron.

On 27/07/06 16:16, in article
, "Erick T. Barkhuis"
-o-m wrote:

pltrgyst:
On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:44:59 +0200, Kristian wrote:

This article doesn´t mention Landis by name though , but I´ve seen it
mentioned elsewhere, that the Tour rider is Landis.

Not from any reputable journalist, you haven't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

It's on the news, now.
His own sponsor has confirmed that Landis tested positively, and that he
took testosteron.

I don't think the team admitted to his taking testosterone but confirmed
that he had tested positive. The next step is confirmation with another
test. Beyond that if the next step confirms the levels he will pass
some other tests. He was taking a number of medications which were
approved because of his hip condition so further test are necessary
to make sure that these medication do not stimulate natural testosterone
release. I don't know if this is even possible. But at this point things
don't look good. Disappointing. And a shock.

***



STEPHEN WILSON, AP Sports Writer
July 27, 2006


AP - Jul 27, 10:57 am EDT
More Photos

LONDON (AP) -- Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high
levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its
Web site.

The statement came a day after the UCI, cycling's world governing body, said
an unidentified rider had failed a drug test during the Tour.

And the statement came just four days after Landis stood on the victory
podium on the Champs-Elysees, succeeding seven-time winner Lance Armstrong
as an American winner in Paris.

The Swiss-based Phonak team said it was notified by the UCI on Wednesday
that Landis' sample showed "an unusual level of
testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after stage 17 of the race
last Thursday.

Landis made a remarkable comeback in that Alpine stage, racing far ahead of
the field for a solo win that moved him from 11th to third in the overall
standings. He regained the leader's yellow jersey two days later.

Landis rode the Tour with a degenerative hip condition that he has said
will require surgery in the coming weeks or months.

Arlene Landis, his mother, said Thursday that she wouldn't blame her son if
he was taking medication to treat the pain in his injured hip, but "if it's
something worse than that, then he doesn't deserve to win."

"I didn't talk to him since that hit the fan, but I'm keeping things even
keel until I know what the facts are," she said in a phone interview from
her home in Farmersville, Pa. "I know that this is a temptation to every
rider but I'm not going to jump to conclusions ... It disappoints me."

Phonak said Landis would ask for an analysis of his backup "B" sample "to
prove either that this result is coming from a natural process or that this
is resulting from a mistake."

"The team management and the rider were both totally surprised of this
physiological result," the Phonak statement said.

Landis has been suspended by his team pending the results. If the second
sample confirms the initial finding, he will be fired from the team, Phonak
said.

USA Cycling spokesman Andy Lee said that organization could not comment on
Landis.

"Because it's an anti-doping matter, it's USA Cycling's policy not to
comment on that subject out of respect for the process and Floyd's rights,"
Lee said. "Right now, we have to let the process proceed and we can't
comment on it."

Landis wrapped up his Tour de France win on Sunday, keeping the title in
U.S. hands for the eighth straight year. Armstrong, long dogged by doping
whispers and allegations, won the previous seven. Armstrong never has tested
positive for drugs and vehemently has denied doping.

Speculation that Landis had tested positive spread earlier Thursday after he
failed to show up for a one-day race in Denmark on Thursday. A day earlier,
he missed a scheduled event in the Netherlands.

On the eve of the Tour's start, nine riders -- including pre-race favorites
Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso -- were ousted, implicated in a Spanish doping
investigation.

The names of Ullrich and Basso turned up on a list of 56 cyclists who
allegedly had contact with Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who's at the
center of the Spanish doping probe.

Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pa., and AP Sports
Writer Arnie Stapleton in Denver contributed to this report.

Earl Evleth wrote:
On 27/07/06 16:16, in article
, "Erick T. Barkhuis"
-o-m wrote:

pltrgyst:
On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:44:59 +0200, Kristian wrote:

This article doesn´t mention Landis by name though , but I´ve seen it
mentioned elsewhere, that the Tour rider is Landis.

Not from any reputable journalist, you haven't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

It's on the news, now.
His own sponsor has confirmed that Landis tested positively, and that he
took testosteron.

I don't think the team admitted to his taking testosterone but confirmed
that he had tested positive. The next step is confirmation with another
test. Beyond that if the next step confirms the levels he will pass
some other tests. He was taking a number of medications which were
approved because of his hip condition so further test are necessary
to make sure that these medication do not stimulate natural testosterone
release. I don't know if this is even possible. But at this point things
don't look good. Disappointing. And a shock.


Of course he tested positive for testosterone - he's male. The question
is whether he's artificially increasing his levels.

Does anyone know what level he actually tested at? Or whether the
testing labs even have a baseline for each athlete's normal
testosterone level, to rule out high natural production? This is an
elementary step to reduce the chance of false positives, which
otherwise are statistically *certain* to become more and more common as
any testing regime is used more broadly. Example: If your test has a 1%
false positive rating, and only 1 in a 1000 of your tested population
actually is using a particular substance, then of those who come back
positive, approximately *9 out of 10* of them will in fact be innocent.

Now, I'm reasonably sure that doping and drug use in the world of
professional cycling are more endemic than that, but the fact remains
that as you make any test more sensitive (lower false negative rate),
you increase the chance for false positives.

There's also the separate issue of testing for levels of natural
substances whose normal levels vary widely between individuals, and
trying to set a uniform maximum level.

For an extreme example, imagine a future in which athletes are taking
drugs that *lower* the level of a natural substance, myostatin, to
foster muscle growth. Such a drug would likely come in part from study
of the Berlin boy who was found last year to have a mutation
eliminating the myostatin protein, so that he is apparently as much as
5-6 times stronger than other children his age. If a sport is testing
for low myostatin levels, will he be allowed to compete? Should he be
banned for a natural mutation?

But at this point things
don't look good. Disappointing. And a shock.

Disappointed, maybe. Shocked: not anymore about such news.

Why am I not surprised at all? Maybe after his miraculous recovery
after his total breakdown with 10 minutes lost on one day, it was only
the question if they get him or not.


Walter