Greetings Sports Fans
August 17, 2006 by Albert Bianchi
Filed under Sports, Sports Rumors
Welcome to Dejuiced, the newest site in our beloved series of tubes. Dejuiced is dedicated to talk about sports, anything vaguely resembling sports, and the events loosely associated with those sports and pseudo-sports. Now time to meet our starting lineup.
(Cue the Allen Parsons Project – Sirius.)
Your editor: Albert Bianchi…
and that’s about it. I’ll be your guide to the wide world of sports. (And no, Starked NY, as far as I know, I’m not related to Diana Bianchi.) We should have some good snarky times over here. Time for the opening tip, the kickoff, the ceremonial first pitch. So reader, come along for the ride, it should be a fun time. Comments are not only appreciated, they’re damn well encouraged. But stay clean, because we piss test randomly.
You’re not related to Diana?! Damn and I was hoping that you’d be a sweet hookup…
While I applaud your concept and to some degree agree with the contempt in which you hold athletes that cheat I have to take exception with your personification of Floyd Landis as one among that number.
As a former professional cyclist myself as well as a biochemist and reasonably well known authority on doping the ergogenic aids I feel obligated to inform you that Floyd’s “positive” result is riddled with inconsistencies, violations of WADA regulations and highly, highly questionable for many other reasons as well not the least of which is that using testosterone for a single day (recall he was tested many times previously in this same race as well as every day after his epic ride in which he propelled himself back into contention).
If you know anything about steroids than you’d know that it is chronic and not acute use that brings about the sort of benefits an endurance athlete requires. Given that Floyd was tested many times prior to the positive test, each time coming up clean as well as providing additional clean samples on the final day after being awarded the win.
There are many other issues here that bear consideration before you brand Floyd a cheater. The lab in question was the same lab that pointed the finger at Lance Armstrong the prior year and the same lab the the Union Cyclcist International( UCI ) attorney found to have had over 50 yes, fifty! procedural and technical violations in conjunction with the testing of that sample.
Seeing as how no other lab – and particularly one that was not previously tainted and also, importantly, NOT FRENCH, didn’t have the chance to validate either test it is highly circumspect that the results they claim to have been recorded were legitimately positive.
Further credence to this claim is given by virtue of the absence of any factual disclosure of the absolute AMOUNT of Testosterone in the sample. Think about it…if Floyd’s ratios are skewed but his total testosterone is 150 (less than a girl’s) then it is unlikely that he injected or ingested any steroids and certainly if he did so he didnt do so knowingly.
Further, the head of WADA, Dick Pound is as much a problem as anyone. He doesn’t even adhere to the rules for testing and the procedures that are in place to make certain that an athlete’s career isn’t damaged in the event of an error are followed.
The man is so bent on prosecuting cyclists that he has lost all credibility when it comes to his position and the sport.
While I don’t deny that cycling has its share of problems with controlled substances, the athletes must have faith in the system if the system is going to work.
Dick Pound is doing a hell of a job destroying that faith and any shred of credibility that WADA might have with athletes.
As a former professional cyclist that has raced with LeMond, Armstrong, Landis, Hamilton and many, many others, I honestly think that not one more athlete should submit to a control until Pound steps down and a sane and impartial man that is interested in the health of the athletes and the well being of the sport is found to replace this biased, angry, predator who is bent on damning athletes before they’ve even had the benefit of the process that Pound himself helped design to insure that testing was fair, accurate and very difficult to beat.
Hearing this buffoon makes me sick to my stomach. The man is the worst combination of moron and hypocrite. It makes me glad that I retired from cycling though sometimes I wish I wasn’t a biochemist since I know so much about this it makes it even harder to take.
And by the way, no one would use testosterone for an acute benefit. Either Landis was sabotaged by a competitor, fan or the f’d up lab (which is the same lab the UCI investigation last year for Lance found utterly inept- so why are THEY DOING BOTH SAMPLES???? THIS SMELLS FUNNY!!!)
Armstrong has been tested more than any athlete in history. IF he was doping he deserves another medal for being the most innovative and successful doper sport has ever seen.
And Landis…this is just bull. The man won the tour on guts. I’ve raced with enough doped up riders to know the difference.
Incidentally, (and sorry for the schizophrenic comment but it’s late/early and I’m tired) LeMond should shut the hell up. He’s the only one of the group that was racing when EPO was available but couldn’t be detected in any tests. He’d be a lot quieter if he thought a few samples of his urine from his tour victories were still in a freezer and I’d wager my income for a year that were we to get those samples and test them they’d be hotter than the temperature under Dick Pound’s collar.
Oliver Starr