I don't know if any of you guys follow the Tour but this crazy shit is stupid. I can see both sides of the issue and for me it comes down to finding a way to help the Frogs get a cyclist on the podium.

Well Basso, Ulrich, and Vinokourov are out..... AND also, 53 other people. Well, I am hoping Hincapie wins but more than likely Floyd Landis will.... who is a good guy and has all the skills to do it...as long as Team Discovery doesn't overpower him.

Cycling is dirtier than baseball, that's a heckuva accomplishment.

And Soccer is dirtier than Cycling.

The TdF has started to get really interesting.... A breakaway was caught within 50 meters of the finish line (which is impressive as the stage was 200+ Kilometers) AND a breakaway WORKED and stole a win from the peloton.!!!

Several high profile named peeps got hurt in a few wrecks which shakes up the field even more.

I picked Floyd Landis to win the race but I am secretly (well not so secretly) pulling for George Hincapie.... he escorted Armstrong to those 7 wins and now he is due a shot.

I love TiVo!

The tour has been surprisingly fun to watch. Watching stage 17 was by far the best stage to watch ever... well in a long time. Floyd Landis pulls withing striking distance of winning the whole thing after bonking on stage 16 and losing 8+ minutes (that is alot for all you non-cycling folk).

On a side note, OLN (outdoor living network) is changing their name to "Versus" in sept.... why? I dont know

Oh and that stage win by Landis is his first ever stage win in the TdF.... truely impressive.

Team Discovery (Lance Armstrongs old team) is pretty much sucking. I guess Lance was really that good.

Landis did great on the Time Trial today and thus regained the lead, yellow jersey, and he will ultimately win the tour... excellent riding for someone who is getting a hip replacement after the tour.

Landis did great on the Time Trial today and thus regained the lead, yellow jersey, and he will ultimately win the tour... excellent riding for someone who is getting a hip replacement after the tour.

Watched a short news piece on him, and it is astounding the mental discipline he must have to endure the kind of pain he is in constantly, let alone excel as he is at cycling.

Oh well...

Team Says Landis Tested Positive for High Levels of Testosterone (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072700753.html)

Quotes from Mama Landis:

"If it's something worse than that, then he doesn't deserve to win"


"I'm keeping things even keel until I know what the facts are," she said. "I know that this is a temptation to every rider but I'm not going to jump to conclusions. . . . It disappoints me."

Thanks Ma!! :confused:

This has been huge around here probably b/c I'm very close to Lancaster County....in fact I used to live there until about 2 years ago. Him or his family has been on the local news every night since he got the first yellow shirt.

It's weird his family (mennonites) weren't even home to see him win the race they were at church and found out after the fact. And were like, oh cool he won. Either they are that down to Earth or just don't really care lol.

It's a shame really, his success brought the news crews and cameras to Lancaster County and now it doesn't look so good.

I would like to see what "elevated" testosterone level they have. I see patients frequently with elevated Test levels... women included.

Lets see what happens although we should/could have predicted something like this since it was an American who won.

. . .we should/could have predicted something like this since it was an American who won.

Bingo! Rather pathetic actually. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. What's the over/under on how many days it will be until Lance pipes up? I'll take the under, whatever it is.

I heard on ESPN today that every athlete that's ever protested a testoserone test result has had their results overturned because the test is inherantly inaccurate. I hope it's a false positive, most certainly, but from what I've heard he could be guilty of this and get away with it.

Christ hes a tooth pick, not sure how much an elevated level of Test would do for him anyways. I would have been more concerned if they found some sort of amphetemine in his system. "Maybe" the higher level of test would help him recover faster after each race, but highly unlikely. I'll go with the inaccurate tests = worthless.

Someone brought this up on another forum....his hip..would cortizone elevate those levels? Is cortizone even allowed in atheletes competing in events like this?

I'm hoping for the best but jesus anymore more and more people are getting busted for drugs it's sad :(

I'm not even sure how much of it's illegal substances anymore either. Consider all the shit at GNC or even at the pill counter in a truck stop that would cause someone to fail a test. I sure as hell see the need to keep sports clean, but why have even the most legal of products banned? If someone fails a test, it creates just about the same stigma if they test positive for ephedra or cocaine anymore. In the NFL for your first offense they dont' say what you are guilty of taking, could be heroin, could be a mini thin.

I heard on ESPN today that every athlete that's ever protested a testoserone test result has had their results overturned because the test is inherantly inaccurate. I hope it's a false positive, most certainly, but from what I've heard he could be guilty of this and get away with it.

Yeppers!

I heard the same stuff. They have never been able to prove this charge against athletes in Bicycle racing. It seems more to me to be the same old sour grapes crap, from the same sources.

If he was taking cortizone injections for his hip, I don't think that can translate into a positive test for Testosterone.... Test is an anabolic roid. Cortizone is all together something different.

Although cortisone is a steroid, I don't believe it is banned. The IOC does consider corisol a banned substance but it differs in molecular structure than cortisone.

Am I a Chemist? No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

General Info:
1) http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/paindrugs/a/cortisone.htm
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisone

IOC Banned Substance List (2003): http://www.usabadminton.org/docs/Annex_A_Jan_03.doc

I know the IOC <> cycling but it is the best I could find and is probably very similar.

Well we give steroids all the time at the hospital .... but mainly to decrease swelling (like cortisone or even those inhailers you see people puffing). Anabolics increase regeneration and actually build body mass.

On a slightly lighter note there was a report that Chuck Norris took a steroid shot..... and to everyones surpize the steroids tested positive for CHUCK NORRIS baby!!!!

Normal epitest/test ratios are 1:1 or 2:1

............he was 11:1. Id say thats got guilt all over it.

the thing with his test was his testosterone was at a completely normal level. His epitestosterone was very low. I heard this morning that if he were juicing his normal T would have been higher than normal.

Wow I have no clue what any of that means. But I guess in my non-educated/tv educated way I thought most roids increased Testosterone. What the hell is epitestosterone?

And so I googled this stuff and found this study....

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8934217&dopt=Abstract

Institute of Endocrinology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.

The concentrations of the antiandrogenic endogenous steroid epitestosterone (epiT) and of testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and androstenedione in the prostate were determined in tissue samples obtained from 21 patients who underwent suprapubic prostatectomy for benign prostatic hyperplasia. Fifteen patients received no hormonal treatment before surgery and the other 6 patients were pretreated for 8 weeks before surgery with an oral dose of 5 mg/day finasteride. The steroids were extracted and separated by high pressure liquid chromatography and determined by specific radioimmunoassays. The concentration of epiT (mean 58.4 +/- 40.4 S.D., range 14.0-144.0 fmol/mg protein) exceeded that of testosterone and was nearly as high as that of DHT. The prostatic tissue from the patients treated with finasteride for 8 weeks showed a significant decrease not only in DHT but also in androstenedione and epiT, whereas the concentration of testosterone increased significantly.

The last two lines makes it sound like someone doing steroids would have high levels of T? But somene not doing them might have high levels of epiT?

Yeah I don't understand this shit much either, was just relaying what I heard this morning to the thread where we'd been discussing it.

I heard the same thing you did Tal. They drew his blood on the day he had his huge come back. ...The day before he was down and out and lost a lot of ground.

Taking steriods..anything really to boost your Test levels do not have a "daily" effect. Its an effect over time. So one day he has a bad run on the bike, shoot yourself up with a shot of Test (injection,pills,patch, whatever) wouldn't have this miracle effect for a one day performance. I have a hard time buying into it, unless he escaped all previous testings during the competition and he just got caught with this one. But for an athlete to pass all drug tests, then fail one..looking like he just used it one day..doesn't add up.

I have been looking for the "B" test result or when it is going to be ready but I still can't find it...... I am really hoping it come back negative.

Landis was tested multiple times during this TdF. I beleive he was tested 3 times for Stage 17. Every stage winner is tested. It defies common sense that he would win the stage knowing that he would be tested, after doping with something.

A test patch on your nuts isnt going to help you the next day.

What pisses me off is the French violating their own policies on this crap all the time. Hell, last time they accused Lance, the swiss folks reviewing the test results not only cleared him, but chastized the French for how they botched it up.

Until the B sample is tested, we're not even supposed to know that he had a positive test on the A sample. If the B sample shows he's clean, we'd have never heard.

Instead, he'll carry a stigma to some folks because he is guilty in the court of public opinion thanks to the French media leaking results from the French testing lab of an American that won a French race.

I was in the mountains on vaccation and managed to see some of the end of the tour. Quite an accomplishment, specially with that hip.

His story is pretty interesting too. Seems growing up, his parents tried to discourage him from riding bikes. He wasn't allowed to ride until all his chores were done, so he was often out riding at night.

I have been looking for the "B" test result or when it is going to be ready but I still can't find it...... I am really hoping it come back negative.By this weekend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/sports/othersports/01landis.html?ei=5065&en=62f8b57a3bf5609d&ex=1155096000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

The lab agreed to conduct the tests Thursday through Saturday, McQuaid said. That means that Landis’s fate may be known by the weekend.

Initial reports from the NY Times assert that there was synthetic testosterone found in his blood. If that is true, not only will he have ruined his career, he'll throw more fuel onto the "Lance doped" fire.

Seriously, can't anybody fucking compete without drugs anymore? I say we just legalize them all and be done with it <Insert Saturday Night Live, "Steroid Olympics" skit here>

The science of those tests...

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2006/08/01/testosterone_carbon_isotopes_and_floyd_landis.php

Initial reports from the NY Times assert that there was synthetic testosterone found in his blood. If that is true, not only will he have ruined his career, he'll throw more fuel onto the "Lance doped" fire.

Grift3r..... before you jump all over Flandis..... have you ever thought of the fact that maybe his body makes more synthetic testosterone than the normal human? Have you? Well have you????











:D

Ha! Yeah, what the heck was I thinking! :)