Tuesday, September 9, 2008

On another cycling topic... really read this.

I'm not one to spend much time on stuff like this and being an armchair cyclists doesn't hold much interest to me. But with the recent Lance announcement of coming back to professional road cycling, it triggered my curiosity of what the other biggest "L" name in cycling has been up to -- Landis. Mr. Floyd Landis.

Being the armchair cyclist unfortunately provides the position of judge, jury & executioner. As such probably alot of people have already dropped their hammer in a way the doesn't favor Floyd. I found the entire ordeal rather strange -- two things stuck out to me -- one, is why the heck would you do some form of doping and win a big stage knowing you automatically get tested. Two, the guy in everything I ever saw, looked so bewildered by what had happened. Call me gullible but his doping story & persona never seemed to make sense to me. So why the heck am I bringing this up. Because of this recent article published last month. What follows is a snippet with links to the full article. I'm not putting it above other motives, other facts and evidence -- just read it for what it's worth ..... and as I read in another article you might wonder if Floyd got Richard Kimbled (reference... Harrision Ford, The Fugitive) in this one.

A study published last month highlights just how variable testosterone test results can be from one individual to the next.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm gave a single dose of testosterone to three groups of men who had either one, two or zero copies of a particular gene, known as UGT2B17. More than 40 percent of the men missing the gene went undetected by the doping test, while those with two copies of the gene showed testosterone levels 20 times higher.
Once statistical adjustments were made for the genotypes, the differences disappeared.Berry also pointed to the need for careful sample handling, advanced technician training, and precise instrument calibration during the lab analysis of the urine samples upon which the doping tests are based."The process in unlikely to be error free," he said, pointing out that the American Arbitration Association that ultimately ruled against Landis initially threw out the result of the French lab screening due to improper procedures.


http://www.velonews.com/article/81414/scientist-anti-doping-tests-don-t-pass-statistical-muster

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