"all the other accusations and evidence against Lance"

i know four things: that i don't know if lance doped; that you don't know that lance doped; that nobody else on this board knows whether lance doped; and that anybody who claims otherwise is a fool.

the evidence you have is that a former rider's wife says that she heard lance say he doped; and that a WADA lab, employing confidentiality procedures that seem to me antithetical to its own rules and protocols, and using an unapproved (for anti-doping purposes), scantily-proven test, allegedly demonstrated that lance doped back in the 90s.

if you search slowtwitch, you'll find that one of the first features i ever wrote, 11 years ago, was about spencer smith's doping positive for nandrolone. the forces lined up against spencer were entirely convinced that you either took nandrolone or you didn't, there was no threshold for that drug. in the intervening decade, we now know that the nandrolone tests had all sorts of problems attached, that threshold levels are now part of the adjudication process, and that chain-of-custody conditions may well alter the properties of the sample.

so, i give scant credence to the french lab's tests. this does not mean lance didn't dope, but you should remember that WADA labs do have skin in the game. when a lab comes up with a test protocol, it's very embarrassing if that protocol is found to be defective. that's intellectual property they're defending and its property that can be monetized by the lab.

again, i don't know who doped and who didn't. but here's what i do know: that winning 3, or 5, or 7 tours de france does not prove doping; that being an exceptional athlete does not prove you doped; that the french lab's results far from proved anybody doped; so what you really have is mrs. andreu.

you can believe her or not, but, i don't think it's unreasonable for me to remain an agnostic about lance's pharmacological habits.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"What can WADA do if the UCI tells them to go pound sand: the UCI determined no sanction was to be issued and that is the end of it? What follow-up is available to the lab or to WADA?"

this is precisely why WADA, and subsequently the anti-doping agencies that report to WADA, were formed: to take drug testing away from the NFs and IFs. the UCI has no power, and has not had any power, since the formation of WADA, to ignore positives.

what the IF can do, i believe (i'd have to go back and do a little research on this), is participate in the process of granting TUEs, and also in the holding of hearings on judgment call positives (testosterone:epitestosterone ratios).

but this is all moot. WADA has the power now to go back and look at floyd's accusations and follow the paper trail. the IOC will absolutely back WADA, and will in no way allow the UCI to tell WADA to pound sand. even if WADA's power was not as great in 2002 as it is now, again, WADA and its labs can simply go back and look at the chain of evidence and see of landis' accusations hold water.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

That's what I've been trying to say all along as well and it just so happens that Big Lance is the one who is that athlete. All of what you have said on this thread *(but not all of your actions (-;) do I highly approve of and agree with and wish I could put into words the way you have.

*hey, a cover up is still a cover up, just saying. Please give Miss Chrissie a big old southern bear hug for me if you get the chance.

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_________________
Anything is Possible.

... And in other news, 10 riders suspended/banned for drug use:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...o-for-drug-positives

Never mind his association with Ferrari and a number of other people who by mere association shed a poor light on him...

But I have a question for you - do you believe Barry Bonds doped?

What a world-class tool.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I dont remember the name but didn't Lance during the early accusations ride for a big pharmacutical company? Anyone else remember who it was ? It would not be hard or unfeasable that they would devolped something to hide whatever he was taking. They might even be the ones who devolped the test to test for drugs. I am just saying ...
I for one believe that he was clean and hope he won fair and square.

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__________________________________________________
Official Polar Ambassador
http://www.google.com/...P7RiWyEVwpunlsc2JtQQ

Landis should try Triathlons.

Slowman... you are right, nobody here knows either way. BUT if you had to place a $10,000 bet on his innocence or guilt you are telling me you would bet that he was innocent of any doping??

Sure we can all poke holes in arguments (OJ got off right...) but at the end of the day will all your knowledge and reasoning you still come up with the opinion that he was probably clean??

But there in lies the problem, how many people throughout that financial lifeline would be willing to back up that there was never anything going on such as you suggested let alone forever? Lance can't buy the world off.

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_________________
Anything is Possible.

The majority - if not the entirety - of WADA's tests, which they absolutely defend as 100% accurate and infallible are, according to many reports, flawed, immature, and/or much less reliable than stated. The nandrolone test has gotten the most press because it's the oldest and also one of the easiest to debunk. It's quite easy to show how unstable urine causes the test to throw a false positive. WADA's problem is that the reasonable doubt that does accompany the tests could - and likely would - totally undermine what they do if it was truly made public how potentially erroneous their tests are.

I think that's one of the arguments that Floyd continually makes. I honestly believe that he *should* not have failed a test for testosterone; the big hiccup there is that I could easily see someone mis-dosing him in the panic after he lost a ton of time in that one stage before his epic Stage 17. Similar to when Hamilton and a teammate both got busted for having another person's blood in their system within a day and the obvious conclusion was that their transfusion bags got mixed up. So I could easily see a mishap where Floyd was given 100cc's instead of 10cc's of something that would have thrown a testosterone positive. These athletes are notorious for making careless mistakes. I recall Victor Conte talking about Marion Jones leaving THG in a hotel room refrigerator.

But it's also possible that they lab simply messed up and got "lucky." Floyd should have gotten busted for EPO, but he got busted for testosterone. In any case, I don't think the credibility of any of these folks is particularly sound. My own take is that cycling has had a doping a problem for many years, continues to have a doping problem, and there is not a single cyclist in the pro peloton where it would surprise me if they were accused of doping by a teammate, failed a doping test, or admitted doping for other reasons (a la Riis). When things are that bad, I think EVERYONE is at fault. So no potential tale of corruption or cover-ups is implausible anymore with a sport that has that many problems. Of course, I actually think that cycling has done a MUCH better job than almost any other sport that clearly has a drug problem - MLB, NFL, etc. At least they are chasing and prosecuting dopers. I just don't believe that there is much credibility on anyone's account - the labs, the UCI, WADA, athletes, teams, etc. They all have reasons to lie and cover up the truth, whether it's an athlete who tested positive and that was covered up or the labs who posted a positive and the test was flawed. Everyone insists they are infallible, when clearly none of them is.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Totally agree with everything you said Rapp...

"unstable urine"

should I be worried when I piss after a particularly hard work-out that it could blow up my toilet?

developing something like that would cost millions. Not sure if that ROI is worth it long term for a comapny, even such as BMS.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Depends on if you only have to #1. Sometimes the #2 after a particularly hard workout is enough to blow up a toilet... ;)

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

I think it was Bristol-Myers Squibb. Here is a list of just some of the drugs thay make now. They had the means but like you said not that many people could keep their mouth shut that long. Cancer ERBITUX®
(cetuximab)
www.erbitux.com IXEMPRA®
(ixabepilone)
www.ixempra.com SPRYCEL®
(dasatinib)
product information

Cardiovasculars and Metabolics AVALIDE®
(irbesartan-hydrochlorothiazide)
www.avalide.com AVAPRO®
(irbesartan)
www.avapro.com COUMADIN®
(warfarin sodium)
www.coumadin.com ONGLYZA™
(saxagliptin)
www.onglyza.com

PLAVIX®
(clopidogrel bisulfate)
www.plavix.com

Psychiatric Disorders ABILIFY®
(aripiprazole)
www.abilify.com

Hepatitis BARACLUDE®
(entecavir)
www.baraclude.com

HIV/AIDS ATRIPLA®
(efavirenz/
emtricitabine/
tenofovir disoproxil fumarate)
www.atripla.com REYATAZ®
(atazanavir sulfate)
www.reyataz.com SUSTIVA®
(efavirenz)
product information

Rheumatoid Arthritis ORENCIA®
(abatacept)
www.orencia.com

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__________________________________________________
Official Polar Ambassador
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So which part of these tests are fallible and how? I don't know the process of how they test so if you could explain, please. Blood, urine, breathalizer? Seriously, where within each test can it go so outlandishly wrong? Or are you saying that the people are purchasable and so in that way it can go wrong as in sabotage?

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_________________
Anything is Possible.

that's what landis takes! all of it!! ;)

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_________________
Anything is Possible.

Just go and do some reading from reputable professors of biology on the subject. Basically, there is a significant amount of SUBJECTIVITY in each test. It's not like you put the urine into a machine and a light goes off it there is a positive. There is a significant amount of work done by the lab techs to interpret the results. And even within that, there is the fundamental accuracy of the test itself.

That's why there are A & B samples - and why those samples are **supposed** to be tested by different technicians. That is designed to remove the human error. But there is still error from the machines, the collection, etc. Basically, when an athlete, for example, fails a test for EPO, WADA presents that as "this athlete 100% certainly took EPO," when the reality is that it's more like "There is an 80% chance that this athlete took synthetic EPO." That's a MASSIVE difference.

As cliched as it sounds - since EVERY athlete claims they are innocent - it's entirely plausible that they are. Not because it's likely that they didn't take drugs. Just because it's very likely that if you tested 1000 people, you'd get a LOT more false positives than WADA would ever admit to.

Think of it in these terms. There are two ways that a test can be erroneous - they can either show a lot of false positives (AND) OR they can show a lot of false negatives (hopefully not both). A test that shows a lot of false negatives means that it does a really bad job of catching people who actually took drugs. WADA really doesn't like these tests and generally won't use a test that throws a lot of false negatives. But a test can also be flawed in that it throws a lot of false positives. WADA generally seems to be a lot less concerned about this. The nandrolone test is a prime example of this. If you took nandrolone, you failed the test. That was good, because it meant that if you cheated, you got caught. The problem with the nandrolone test is that you also might fail it even if you never took nandrolone.

Where I see WADA as lacking credibility is that if 10 out of 100 athletes dope, they want to catch all 10, even if it means that 15 athletes in total - 5 innocent athletes and the 10 guilty athletes - all get caught. What I'd - personally - like to see is something like 5 out of the 10 doped athletes get caught, and 0 athletes who are innocent. But that's my personal belief, and it doesn't seem to be the belief of WADA.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but without a reasonable doubt that there is fact in that truth we can only muster secondhand assumptions.

By near and far Slowman, with inside connections no doubt, has you beat 10/0 unless you can prove with fact that these WADA tests are fallible whereas Landis would be right and that's just not true, we all know that, even he does. All I want are the facts, Rapp.

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_________________
Anything is Possible.

"if you had to place a $10,000 bet on his innocence or guilt you are telling me you would bet that he was innocent of any doping?"

it's a bet i don't have to make, so, i prefer not to contemplate it. there's no benefit to calculating odds, since i don't have near enough solid information to generate an informed opinion (and neither do you). why not ask me how i would be as to whether you cheat on your wife or your taxes? it's up to your wife, or the government, respectively, to generate the evidence and determine your guilt. until then, i prefer not to speculate whether you comport yourself with honor. i'll just choose to believe that you do, or, i'll withhold judgment pending the evidence compiled by some entity who's charged with that duty.

i don't watch judge judy, and i don't speculate on who does or doesn't take drugs in the peloton. i watch the racing, and i trust the anti-doping agencies to do the best they can to catch the cheaters.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm sorry but that sounds like a bit of a cop-out to me. Any reasonable person can look at the entirety of the evidence (not just surrounding Lance but including cycling, and human nature, and their own knowledge of 'how the world works') and can come to a conclusion either way. Sure, it's not proof of anything, but it's still enough to base an opinion on.

If you choose not to do this, you functionally excuse yourself from the discussion. I realize that as a 'public figure' you probably don't feel comfortable taking a hard stance either way.

That said, I agree with Rappstar's take 100% and I suspect that deep down you likely agree with it too.

cofidis?

That's BS, but no matter. You don't even know what you want. I'm not sure why I really bother, since you just want whatever confirms your own biases - as with the aero OR training "argument" where you fail to recognize that it's both and that equipment can indeed make up for or (in some cases) even trump training.

But, since you want facts, here you go:
The nandrolone test - which Dan alluded to - is one of the eariliest tests that WADA - and other anti-doping organizations - conducted. If you don't know what nandrolone is, go look it up. I'm not going to educate you about the very basics. It recently - in 2005 - became apparent that the test that WADA was using on urine samples had serious flaws. A phenomenon known as unstable urine - which is relatively common - could throw a false positive. There is a way to check if urine is unstable - which WADA labs NOW do - and if you have those markers, then you cannot rely on the accuracy of the test. As a result of these findings WADA also increased the nandrolone concentration allowed from 2ng/ml to 10ng/ml. That's a 500% increase. According to estimates, as many as 70% of the positives under the old 2ng nandrolone test without the unstable urine marker check could have been FALSE POSITIVES. So WADA was using a test that was 30% reliable - based off the number of FASLE positives. 30%. That's not even half. That's absurd.

Do you think any of the athletes that got busted by that test got those two years of their life back? Got reimbursed for lost wages? They didn't.

Those are the facts.

The EPO test for urine is relatively new (since 2001) by comparison with the nandrolone test, but there is also significant concern about it's accuracy. If you'd like to read the FACTS about the flaws in that test, read here, which is a cyclingnews.com article that reprints Dr Iñigo Mujika, a respected physiologists, analysis of the flaws with that test: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/...005/epotest_problems

There is plenty more out there on the various tests for various PEDs. I'd encourage you to seek the FACTS for yourself. That way, when you speak, maybe I can start thinking it's reasonable to ask YOU to speak factually as opposed to just spouting off...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Not sure where to put this, I don't really want to start a new thread.

Adam Meyerson's take:

http://www.cycle-smart.com/.../20/pretty-boy-floyd

Interesting reading.