Matthias Kessler’s B-sample has also tested positive for testosterone, with an equally “exorbitantly high value” as the A-sample, according to the Sueedeutsche Zeitung, leading the newspaper to say that he had “obviously been caught in flagranti.”
Kessler, who has denied doping, also gave an explanation for the positive tests. He told his attorney, Michael Lehner, that shortly before the Fleche Wallone, when he was tested positive, he swallowed the contents of four packages “with Chinese writing on them.” He had received the packages from his alternative health practitioner, and assumed they were food supplements.
The German rider tested positive on April 24, and the test showed a testosterone value of 85:1, while a normal value is 4:1. Professor Wilhelm Schaenzer, leader of the Biochemistry Institute at the Sports School in Cologne, Germany, said that a natural value of over 15 to 20 is “not possible.” His is currently suspended by his Astana team.
On a “positive” note of another kind though, this has given me a fantastic idea.
From now on, I’m gonna do all my long rides/runs consuming nothing but those packets of soy sauce and duck sauce from Chinese take-out. I think you could get all the simple carbs and salt you would need just from alternating between the two.
"the Italian cycling federation (FCI), which cleared Gilberto Simoni after he tested positive for cocaine on two separate occasions in April and May. Although there was no doubt about the positive test, it was shown that Simoni had inadvertently consumed cocaine in the form of Peruvian candies given to him by his aunt. The FCI’s disciplinary committee accepted this explanation and he was cleared, and returned to racing in early August. "
You know, I was in the middle of writting a long rant defending Kessler, but then I ate some of these tasty brownies my girl friend made for me and now I’m just feeling mellow and relaxed.
Does anyone have an idea of the highest T/E ratio ever recorded by an athlete in a drug test?
85:1 is one of the highest I have ever read about.
Go big, or go home.
From the medical committee chair of USA Powerlifting (I hope you are sitting down) for 2001 (scroll down and see some of the offenses):
Last year I had reported that the T/E ratios that had been reported were quite large for a few of the tests. In 2001 the highest we saw was 126 to 1, with the next one at 74 to 1. This contrasts with the year prior when we had levels as high as 411 to 1.