I personally believe LA is guilty but that is not the point here. I am curious how he would be able to pass 6 surprise out of competition tests throughout the year without testing positive. Does anyone know how this is possible? Is it a situation of the doctors/trainers being one step ahead of the testers?
Ask David Millar ;-).
Easy. Don’t dope.
I bet David Millar would be a wealth of information on the LA issue right now. LA comes across by saying “Look, I am the most tested athlete, therefore I must be innocent”. Obviously it is possible to pass the tests and be doping.
same ? bump
http://www.usatf.org/groups/Elite/newsletter/2004-04.asp
Well from this it’s implied you can miss two out of competition tests in an 18 month period before they call you out. So if you have taken EPO within three days of when they call you, you manage to be unavailable. Don’t take EPO when your whereabouts are published. Microdose EPO after your large dosages for maintenance.
I’m out of it…what can you tell me about David Millar?
http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/6353.0.html
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cycling/story/0,10482,1265606,00.html
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That’s the information I was interested in. Thanks.
Not sure either, he was rarely tested, and had a positive. With the French year after year trying to hang lance, it’s amazing they didn’t plant a positive, who’d know and then we’d all say “see I told you so”.
Wild conspiracy theory:
LA had a second ‘bladder’ installed where his testicle was removed. Fills it with ‘clean’ urine. At random test time, gives his ‘nut’ a little squeeze, out comes the ‘clean’ urine.
Crazy? Hmmm… 
While I was being a smart-ass, I too would like to see what Millar has to say. I know others said at the time of Millar’s positive that it would be great for WADA or other anti-doping agencies to use him for info on how he avoided. There was a Spanish (or Italian) pro recently that was giving out info on how he used to get around having positive tests. If I remember correctly, one method they used was to drink massive quantities of water to dilute levels in urine.
As for the skipping a test, I’m not sure how “allowable” this is. There was a Canadian female pro last year that skipped a test and got in to all sorts of crap for it.
Also, never underestimate the power of money. Unless Dick Pound was there collecting the sample personally, you never know. Yes, far flung theory, but hey, this whole situation is a little surreal.
Chris
Take something that is not tested for OR regularly take a masking agent
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Is there a masking agent for EPO?
Another common practice is to train where the testers can’t find you. Yes you have to notify your governing body of every address where you’ll be staying for 3 days or more (this is true for USATF not sure for UCI) but if you decide to take a training trip to the mountains of westen China for 2 months you can bet your ass you won’t get tested.
Masking agents are the most common, then there’s the piss switch…we’ve all heard the story of the guy coming up clean on his drug test but testing positive on his pregnancy test. You can actuall buy clean urine on the internet. Go google it.
Then there’s the stupid people like Irish swimmer Michelle Smyth who poured a 5th of Jamesons into her urine sample in the hope of hiding the roids she’d been taking.
Random out of competition testing is the best way to catch cheats. Anyone who gets caught at the Olympics or the Tour is stupid.
I get it… as long as kids don’t start cheating just to get scholarships, I am not going to get upset as pros doing PEDs. I’ll just have to try to explain/show to my kids that it’s not all about winning.
I am surprised that you have not figured this out yet. No one ever passes any drug test. We get negative test results because everyone in endurance sports knows more about PEDs than the stupid testers. No one has ever passed a test … they cheated the test. Of course, occasionally one of these brilliant biochemist/athletes makes a mistake and that biochemist/athlete gets caught. But the rest are brilliant dirty little cheats. But we still like the sport anyway.
I think that the athletes/chemists are one step ahead of the tests that have been created to detect PEDs.
As an example look at the fallout of Balco. Bonds used to be a skinny guy, even when he first came over to the Giants. Then as he approaches his athletic prime of 40 he looks more like the Stay Puff Marshallow Man. Everyone knew he was on something but it wasn’t detected or tested for at the time.
And all it took was an unhappy person to send an empty, used syringe to a lab which brought down the Balco house of cards. Remember that track stars were caught up in it too.
-Darrell
Dunno, I think this one is tougher since it occurs naturally in the body. They do look at what the EPO is trying to affect - blood hematocrit level, and that can’t be masked.