Holy cow!
Rasmussen must be pissed right now. Getting kicked out of the Tour after just winning the last mountain stage.
This is like the Festina Affair, with so many people and teams leaving the Tour.
So Alberto Contador gets the Yellow then, eh?
Unbelievable!
So now Discovery has #1 and #3, only 2 1/2 minutes apart. Is Contador now the team leader? What happens if Leipheimer gets to within 30 seconds or so, whether he passes Evans or not? Free for all?
Probably not relevant at this stage. There are two flat road stages left. Both Leipheimer and Contador will just finish in the main bunch, there’s no need for either to attack, so they’ll just get the same time each. Then there’s the ITT on Saturday. No way would either be given team orders to go anything other than as hard as possible because doing so might just result in Evans winning. Either Leipheimer overtakes Contador or he doesn’t: unlikely. Then there’s the final doddle into Paris, but no one ever attacks the yellow then anyway.
I am so pissed off at this. I was enjoying the race this year like I haven’t for ages - so many thrilling stages. I managed to still enjoy it when Vino went cos, well, he was no longer a contender. I was willing to give Ras the benefit of the doubt - though I think mainly because I so wanted to just believe. Now he has been caught in a big fucking lie I can’t see that he can be considered clean even without any failed tests - a clean rider in the current climate should be proud to be clean and wanting to take very opportunity to be open and demonstrate he’s clean, not play silly buggers like he has.
I can’t decide if the fact that top riders are getting caught is a good sign that the testing is catching the cheats, or if it is a bad sign that they are willing to take the risk, indicating that they must have a reasonable expectation of fooling the system which means many others probably are.
Did I mention how pissed off I am?
Assuming no one else gets kicked out, of course.
Quite the turn of events, and there isn’t much opportunity to make up that time. You never can tell, though…this tour has a surprise or two left. Go Levi!
So the present gaps are:
Contador 0:00:00
Evans 0:01:53
Leipheimer 0:00:56
Sastre 0:03:13
If you just assume that no contender will break from the peloton on the next two stages (highly likely) and then everyone TT’s precisely in accordance with what they did at Albi, you get this:
Contador
Evans 0:00:49
Leipheimer 0:02:21
Sastre 0:04:35
The Albi time trial was about the same length as the next one, but hillier which perhaps suited Contador a bit more. Rain also affected some more than others. My tentative predicition: too close to call between Contador and Evans, and Evans should hold Leipheimer off. Sastre’s no threat.
Now watch my predictions go all to hell (he says, in a transparent attempt to have it both ways) 
Well, I just came back from my Wednesday night club ride. I cracked like Vino did on Stage 14. I lasted halfway with the group on the hilly ride, then there was an acceleration and I couldn’t do anything. My legs were just dead flat for some reason. Maybe I need some of that Vino magic.
Oh, while I was limping home I thought that we should call Armstrong out of retirement for the next Tour so that we can get a more sane race.
Skip let me post this for the Amgen Tour of California, so I don’t think he’ll mind me doing it now. You can follow along at:
We had difficulty getting buy-in from the ASO so we are only tracking our team (team CSC) but you will be able to see where the peloton is.
I’m a bit deflated about this race. Meh.
So as domestique does Contador have any duty to drop back and let Levi win?
Nice cite. You however forgot to include reference to the scientific study that says that a 6 year old urine sample is still viable for the test preformed. Furthermore, as we don’t know under what conditions the samples were stored. Lastly the the USA Today article does not say which test was done, and exactly what the result was (more on this in a bit) When this story broke we had a thread about it. I recall one poster who worked in a lab has serious doubts about the storage of the samples.
Look I support clean cycling. I support drug testing. I think that the sport needs to be clean to survive. However with that said, I think that both the riders and fans need absolute reassurance that the drug testing is done within the scope of the rules, and as is accurate as science allows. In the case of the fans this assures them that if someone pops a positive test, that it is in fact a positive test. In the case of the riders, this is their livelihood, and reputation we are talking about. Anything less than 100% accuracy is just flat not acceptable.
Which brings us to the strange case of Floyd Landis. Unlike any other doping case I am aware of, you can read the entire report from the French lab online as Floyd has posted it. Now right off the top of your head, you have to think that if Landis is guilty to do this is crazy. OTOH if he is innocent this is a pretty smart move. What Floyd and his defense team say is keep an open mind, read the facts and make up your own mind. If you take the link, you can download the entire case against Landis, an audio or video of Dr. Arnie Becker MD (Floyd’s trainer) PowerPoint presentation as well as a PDF of his PowerPoint presentation outlining numerous serious problems with the tests on Floyd’s sample. (The file name for the .PPT is Folyd Landis SS_final.PDF)
I will try and summarize some of the bigger errors.
Who’s sample was it, anyway? No not the name of Drew Cary’s new TV show. The sample is misidentified in the report. Floyd’s sample number was 995474. In the official test results the same is identified as 995474, 995475, and 995476. :dubious:
Furthermore the WADA rules are clear* “Any forensic corrections that need to be made to the comment should be
done with a single line through and the change should be initialed and
dated by the individual making the change. No white out or erasure that
obliterates the original entry is acceptable.”
Ignorance is not an excuse: “All personnel should have thorough knowledge
of their responsibilities including the security of the Laboratory,
confidentiality of results, Laboratory Internal Chain of Custody protocols,
and the standard operating procedures for any method that they perform.”*
In one case it is clear that the number had been covered white out and written over. A clear violation of the rules by the French lab.
Next we get to was the sample contaminated? Again from the WADA rules: “The urine Sample is not collected under sterile conditions, and where the Circumstances are favourable, the microbes present in the Sample can cause changes to the profile of the urinary steroids.” and this one is very important: “The concentration of free testosterone and/or epitestosterone in the specimen is not to exceed 5% of the respective glucuroconjugates.”
Free 0.44
Conjugates 5.7
Ratio 7.7%
The above numbers are from the B sample. The sample should never have been tested as, according to the rules, it was contaminated. Don’t forget both the A and B sample have to positive for it to be considered a positive. If the B sample is contaminated the athlete has a get out of jail free card. Not a positive test. Nevertheless the lab went ahead and tested a contaminated sample. Nice.
But what about the test results of the A sample? Glad you asked. “By the lab’s own methods, repeated sampling of testosterone levels should
be within 20%, and repeated sampling of epitestosterone levels should be
within 30%” The A sample was tested twice, here are the results:
Test Testosterone Epitestosterone
1 61.37 5.2
2 172.23 17.59
Error 181% 238% error
If it isn’t repeatable it isn’t science. I don’t know what exactly to call results like these, maybe junk, or maybe bullshit, but you cannot call them science.
Carbon Isotope Test
The CIT is supposed to be the “gold standard” of drug testing, but is it?
the CIT looks at breakdown products. It looks at 4 testosterone breakdown products. According to the WADA all 4 numbers have to be abnormal for the test to be considered positive. The French lab on its own has decided that if one breakdown product above the level is “positive”. But wait you say, Floyd had one level that was abnormal. Yes he did. UCLA (the largest anti-doping lab in the world) did a study on medical students who had never taken any steroids, and who were not athletes. Guess what, a couple of them came back with 1 breakdown product in the positive range. If this test had been done at UCLA or Lucerne Switzerland it would have been a negative. Which brings up my next point, the playing field has to be level for the athletes. Labs all over the world have to use the same standards. Think about it, how fair would it be if you had set a world record in the 100 yard dash only to lose it to a guy that won a race that was only 90 yards long.
What was his testosterone level anyway? This is good. Dick Pound the head of the WADA has been qouted as saying
Nice sound bites. Sounds good huh? Ole Floyd must be blowing holes in the walls when he jacks off his testosterone level is so high.
Well let’s look at the lab report shall we? Floyd’s level was (according to the French lab 45.4. A high level is considered anything above 200. So Floyd’s sample was right in the normal to low normal category.
I think the quotes from Dick Pound are very telling here. IIRC it was my 8th grade world history class where I first heard the phrase “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The WADA is going way beyond it original intent of drug testing at the Olympics. This in and of itself is not a problem. The problem is that the power is going to Dick’s head. The above quotes IMHO are proof of that. It does not matter what the facts are. The only thing that matters is that Dick’s agenda gets furthered, which is to increase the WADAs power.
All of the above points were taken from Dr. Arne Becker’s PowerPoint presentation (which has images of the pages from the French lab report) with the exception of the Dick Pound quotes.
We need a clean TDF, but we also need a lab we can trust. Frankly I don’t have a lot of faith in the French lab.
Rick-- interesting stuff. I’ve been desperately hoping that Floyd is clean. I also desperately hope that Lance was clean. I hope Contador’s clean. I hope Boonen’s clean but I’m sure not holding out for that one-- I fear it’s a matter of time. I just am not sure what one can hope for anymore.
Oh what a croc of shit. Nevertheless the lab went ahead and tested a contaminated sample? As some sort of conspiracy against American riders or something? Let’s get something REALLY clear here… Tyler Hamilton was as guilty as sin in the 2004 Olympics and he got to keep his Gold Medal in the ITT because his B blood sample was accidentally thawed and refrozen. The asshole got free, and two weeks later he was busted officially without a shadow of a doubt in the Vuelta for the exact same offence of homologous blood doping. He served a two year suspension and YET managed to keep his Gold Medal, the dirtiest Gold Medal in the history of the Olympics.
Floyd Landis was dropped in the mountains. He was chewed up, spat out the back, and shat on by a 3rd of the field. The next day he rode up the first major climb so hard that not even Michael Rogers could hold his wheel - he was climbing on the big ring for crying out loud! He was bombed to his eyeballs. That was Bjarne Riis territory - the last rider I ever saw climbing in the mountains on the big ring. And stayed away, on his own, for the entire stage! He was FUCKING BOMBED TO THE EYEBALLS! And then went positive! For crying out loud, that sort of shit just doesn’t happen without massive jabs of some sort taking place. Vinokourov did the same thing this year. Whacks in a truckload of red blood cells before the ITT, rides a monster, loses 28 minutes the next day in the Alps, and then rides away the next day after that, again in the Alps for a stage win and surprise! He got busted!
At this level, nobody, absolutely nobody has such wild variances in capacbility from day to day without something dirty going on in the background. It just doesn’t happen. If you’re clean, when you crack your losses are consistent and predictable. You do NOT lose minutes one day and then ride off into the dust the next day, gain those minutes back, then test positive and then claim your B sample was contaminated. Bottom line - if Landis wasn’t American nobody from the United States would even waste one breath of fresh air trying to defend the guy.
Yes.
It is one thing to be a skeptic, it is quite another thing to maintain willful ignorance.
I used to believe Armstrong was just a freak, but I am now sure he was just a better doper than the others. Now that his career is over and the money is banked, his teammates are starting to come clean - see From Laqnce to Landis, by David Walsh.
I read an article that decried the scandals, arrests, and dismissals, while suggesting that the race be canceled. While I understand the sentiment, there are more than a few riders that played fair–they deserve that last day in Paris. And I’ll be watching.
Rick, I don’t have time today to go through all the background info to your above post. I may over the w/e although it’s not looking good. One thing that might help so I can understand what you’re saying before I start is if you can explain one point.
You refer to the rules on contamination, and say the B sample was contaminated but you don’t say why/how it was contaminated. What happened there?
Princhester Besides contamination you can also referrer to what happened to it as degradation or spoilage. Who knows what happened to the sample? After the stage a urine sample is collected. It is split into 2 halves A and B. the A is tested, the B is stored. If the A is positive, then the B sample is tested. Both tests must agree for the positive to be valid. All we know for sure is that the B sample should not have been tested due to contamination.
What is important to note is that both samples are in the care, custody and control of the testing lab the entire time. It is not like Floyd got to keep the B sample and pour bleach into it.
Sorry, I’m not following. Is it suggested that it was contaminated or not? If so, when/how/with what? If it is suggested that it was degraded or spoiled, when/how why etc?
Or are you just saying that there is no evidence that it wasn’t contaminated?
I’m not arguing with you here, I’m just not sure what you’re saying and what the basis of it is.
::: sigh::: This is probably like trying to teach pigs to sing*, nevertheless:
First off we are not discussing Tyler. He is the owner of the luckiest gold medal ever awarded at the Olympics. Of this there is no doubt. About the lab going ahead with the test, This is fact, they did go ahead, when they were in clear violation of the WADA rules. Take the link. Go read the text for yourself. You know the rules as well as anyone, if they had not tested the sample (as the rules state) Floyd Landis would probably be in France today, and possibly in a yellow jersey.
OK, let’s look at the numbers shall we? Floyd Landis and Phonak were the first team to use a Cyclops PowerTap on their race bikes not just their training bikes. This gives us a real good look at just what really happened during stage 17.
Here is an article by Allen Lim detailing just what Floyd did during stage 17.
[ul]
[li]Average power output 281 watts ove the entire ride[/li][li]Average power for the last two hours 318[/li][/ul]
for a comparison I found a thread at the Daily Peloton describing a ride Floyd did just post hip replacement, when we can safely assume he was not doping.
in light of this post, Floyd’s performance in stage 17 does not look super human to me.
Further down the same thread you find this post (#50)
for the record here is what stage 17 looked like.
Look here is the deal, the peloton thought Floyd was out of it when he attacked on the very first climb of the day. Why bother to chase him, he is 8 minutes + down. (the very same attitude the peloton had the other day when Vino attacked). When the peloton finally pulled it collective head out of its ass, it was too late to reel Floyd in. Then gained about 3 minutes on the relatively flat part before the last climb, but it was too little too late.
Well in this years tour, Levi has had some serious swings of performance. from getting dropped on an alpine climb to attacking Rassmussen on the final climb. Floyd’s biggest advantage is that no one in the peloton thought he could do what he did. They let him get away. once he was clear, he had a team car right next to him for food and water. he used something like 70 water bottles that day. He dumped most of them over his head to keep himself cool. Call it an unfair advantage if you wish, but he was water cooled while the rest of the peloton was air cooled.
*There are three problems with trying to teach pigs to sing
[ol]
[li]It is extremely frustrating for the teacher[/li][li]It is very difficult to get good results[/li][li]It tends to annoy the pig.[/li][/ol] 
Sorry I didn’t see this before I posted my reply to Boo
Degraded, contaminated, spoiled, does it really matter which?
If the sample was degraded to the point where there was >5% free testosterone the sample should not have been tested. This is per the WADA rules.
If the sample was contaminated to the point where there was >5% free testosterone the sample should not have been tested.
If the sample was spoiled to the point where there was >5% free testosterone the sample should not have been tested.
the rules are clear if the there is >5% free testosterone in the sample it is not to be tested. The WADA does not require a lab to test why the sample is not usable.
For further information watch the video with Dr. Arne Becker where he talks about this.
ETA: here is a rather interesting article from the LA times about doping and what happens if an athlete tries to fight it.