Prediction about Landis

[MikeWaters]

After 11:1 ratio and evidence of exogenous testosterone, B sample comes back with normal ratio....sparking furor in the sports world.

Sort of like a criminal that gets let go on a "technicality".

This is the best Landis can hope for. To be a disgraced non-suspended cyclist. Rather than a disgraced never-cycle-again cyclist.

[SteelBlue]

I predict the sample comes back with the same ratio and Landis will claim (ala Gatlin) that he was set-up.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

I predict the sample comes back with the same ratio and Landis will claim (ala Gatlin) that he was set-up.

It's like Morgan Freeman said in Shawshank:

"I'm the only guilty man in Shawshank."

If B sample comes back positive, I think we can rest comfortably that he is a doper/cheater. It breaks your heart, but he should be punished and shunned in that case.

[Archaea]

Your assertions may be correct, but testing for testosterone doesn't make sense especially after testing clean before and after. Nobody's explained that to me.

The synthetic test is only rumor at this time.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

After 11:1 ratio and evidence of exogenous testosterone, B sample comes back with normal ratio....sparking furor in the sports world.

Sort of like a criminal that gets let go on a "technicality".

This is the best Landis can hope for. To be a disgraced non-suspended cyclist. Rather than a disgraced never-cycle-again cyclist.

Exogenous test result is not confirmed, but is wdiely reported, making me think it is probably true.

IF the B sample comes back clean there should indeed be a furor, but it should be rhat they got the test wrong in the first place. What a disgrace for the lab. It iwll not be clean, however, as FLoyd's attorney has already been telling everyone that they expect the B sample to be thre same as the A sample.

The evidence is beginning to stack up that FLoyd cheated. But there are two things that bother me:

1. Wrong drug at the wrong time. How could he be so stupid to take the drug in the misdle of a race and thern win the stage knowing he would then be tested and why this drug? Apart from anecdotal evidence to the contrary, most of what I have read states that Testosterone does not give immeditae short term physical effects, although there might be a placebo-like psychological effect.

2. Why such a stupid defense? Before his press conference in Madrid Landis had retained both an attorney and a doctor that specialize in defending accused drug cheats. IF Landis had ingested synthetic testosterone he, the doctor and the lawyer knew that its presence coulod be established by fiurther testing so why wouold they paint Landis into a corner by setting up a defense ("It was naturally produced") that could be rather conclusively disproven within a matter of days? That is perhaps even more stupid than taking the drug in the first place (not more immoral, just more stupid).

Becasue of these incongruities, I will still reserve judgement, but the evidence against him is certianly mounting .

[il Padrino Ute]

It would seem that Landis has cheated. I'm curious, just as Archaea is, as to how he was clean before and after that it would be positive on the stage in which he made that remarkable move. (If I remember correctly it was that day, wasn't it?)

What is the possibility that he was set up? Are the French so determined to stop Americans from winning that they would do that? Is cycling's governing body corrupt, like it was proven the governing body of ice skaitng was during the '02 Olympics? Or is Landis just plain guilty of being a cheater?

It sure looks like he did cheat. Or did he?

[creekster]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

It would seem that Landis has cheated. I'm curious, just as Archaea is, as to how he was clean before and after that it would be positive on the stage in which he made that remarkable move. (If I remember correctly it was that day, wasn't it?)

What is the possibility that he was set up? Are the French so determined to stop Americans from winning that they would do that? Is cycling's governing body corrupt, like it was proven the governing body of ice skaitng was during the '02 Olympics? Or is Landis just plain guilty of being a cheater?

It sure looks like he did cheat. Or did he?

INO, there is very little chance that he was set up. I think he either cheated or the result can be explained as a natural anomaly. Figure skating was a subjective judigng scandal. These drug tests are objective.

If he tested positive becasue he cheated, I think it was under one of two scenarios:

1. He had used Testosterone before and beleived, whether or not it was true, that it helkped in the short term and after his spectwacuklar failure on stage 16 he figured he didn't have much to lose, what with his career perhaps being over following the season due to hip surgery , or

2. There is some regime or drug cocktail out there that riders are using that does help and which is manifested by skewed test./Epitest ratios. Athletes are always ahead of the testing protocols (think of BALCO) and it could be that there is some form of test. or some combination of drugs including testosterone that Landis took that just happened to give him a skewed ratio.

Either way it doesn't look good.

[il Padrino Ute]

Personally, I lean toward him cheating unless another test can clear him. It's pretty curious that the day he rode so well was the day that his urine contained a rather significant amount of testosterone.

If he did cheat, he has nobody to blame but himself.

[Archaea]

Perhaps, we as laymen sitting here.

If there is a cocktail out there, then maybe.

But anabolic steroids would have made his legs heavy, not storming.

None of the facts or pieces fit. Naturally you cynics believe when the pieces don't fit, it must involve cheating.

Nonetheless this is the same lab that stuck it to Lance.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Perhaps, we as laymen sitting here.

If there is a cocktail out there, then maybe.

But anabolic steroids would have made his legs heavy, not storming.

None of the facts or pieces fit. Naturally you cynics believe when the pieces don't fit, it must involve cheating.

Nonetheless this is the same lab that stuck it to Lance.

I am not a cynic. I love cycling as a sport and am very disappointed witht he possibilirty that Landis cheated. Read my posts here and on CB and you will see that on the day the news broke I defended him and criticised those who said he had cheated. Even now I don't reach a conclusion. OTOH, if he had exogenous hormone in his system on the same day that his ration was 11 to 1, then whether or not it assisted him in the race he almost certainly broke the rules. IOW, he was cheating. I hope the reports about exogenouis hormone are false. I hope Landis' hormone levels naturally vary between 4 (or less) to one and 11 to 1. When considering the evidence as reported, and assuming it is accurate, then it does not look good for Landis but it does not mean he cheated.

Their is no reported eveidence that the lab got it worng or that thye are mis-reporting the results. Aspersions on the test procedures are much more speculative than are suggestions that Landis cheated. Time will tell, but for now it does not look good. I hope for the best but am prepared for the worse.