July 29, 2006

Flandis

So I dunno who heard but Floyd Landis has been accused of taking performance enhancing drugs. I'm gonna tell you why this witch hunt is ridiculous. . . while I drink some tequila :)

First off, the French are making the claim. This fact alone should raise some serious flags. The french haven't won their own race since Bernard Hinault won it in 1985, and the french are constantly trying to tarnish Lance Armstrong's legacy. In fact, the same lab that conducted Floyd's tests reported that one of Lance Armstrong's tests from 1999 reported positive for EPO (doping) earlier this year. When asked to back up these claims, the lab refused and would not answer any questions regarding how/why they tested a 7 year old sample. Oh and remember those top racers that were banned from this years tour (Ivan Basso, Jan Ulrich, etc)? Shortly after the tour ended, the banned riders were cleared of any wrong doing. Kinda suspicious huh? Secondly, the test that Floyd "failed" was a testosterone test taken the day he kicked ass in the Alps. Now I've been doing some research and the effects of injecting testosterone take several weeks to kick in, so Floyd's incredible ride that day could not have been influenced by testosterone. Also, the riders know they are going to be tested during the race, so why would anyone even try and cheat? They're obviously going to get caught. Here's what Floyd's trainer had to say about the fiasco (taken from a USAToday article:

"He does not have a high level of testosterone. That's not been documented. He has a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in his urine," Landis' personal physician, Dr. Brent Kay, said Friday night on CNN's Larry King Live.

"Which could be due to an elevated testosterone level. It could be due to a low epitestosterone level. And it could be due to a variety of other factors with handling and specimen contamination and various other things."

Kay, speaking from Los Angeles, also said that using testosterone would hurt rather than help a cyclist.

"I think everybody needs to take a step back and look at what we're talking about. Because testosterone is a bodybuilding steroid that builds mass," Kay said. "It builds mass over long-term use of weeks, months, and even years.

"And it's crazy to think that a Tour de France professional cyclist would be using testosterone, particularly in the middle of a race. It's a joke. Every sports medicine expert, physician, trainer, scientist that I've talked to in the last day, have really the same opinion, 'No way. This is a joke.'"

Sadly, it's not a funny joke because more than likely Floyd's reputation is already screwed up because the media sucks ass.

Posted by mrpibb at July 29, 2006 12:28 AM | TrackBack
Comments

sorry about the screwed up css

Posted by: Jon at July 29, 2006 12:30 AM

Don't blame the media. Blame France.

Posted by: The Media at July 29, 2006 11:36 AM

My beef with the media is that the initial story makes for good headlines, but if Floyd is acquited no one will hear about it. Basically, his reputation is screwed up no matter what the outcome is.

Posted by: Jon at July 29, 2006 11:29 PM

Looks like his reputation might deserve to be screwed after all.

Floyd Landis 'B' test is positive
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/08/05/cycling.landis.ap/index.html

Posted by: Dan K at August 5, 2006 9:36 AM
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