Tour de France: another American

[Dr Mordrid]

Floyd Landis;

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/specials/tour_de_france/2006/07/23/final.stage.ap/index.html

PARIS (AP) -- The highs and lows of Floyd Landis' nail-biter of a bike race ended without a hitch Sunday as he won the Tour de France and kept cycling's most prestigious title in American hands for the eighth straight year.

The 30-year-old Landis, pedaling with an injured hip, cruised to victory on the cobblestones of the Champs-ElysÄees, a day after regaining the leader's yellow jersey and building an insurmountable lead in the final time trial.

"I kept fighting, never stopped believing," Landis said, shortly after he received the winner's yellow jersey on the podium, joined by his daughter, Ryan.

Landis picked up where another American left off last year, when Lance Armstrong completed his seventh and final Tour triumph. With the victory, Landis becomes the third American -- joining Armstrong and three-time winner Greg LeMond -- to win the Tour.

[dZeus]

the French will love this. Armstrong finally disappears from tour dominance, and another American takes over

[Nowhere]

Depending how the drug tests will ultimately turn out...

[Dr Mordrid]

We'll see. Testosterone levels can vary widely even in the same person.

[KeiFront]

Landis testosterone levels are "unusually high" but we'll have to wait for the results of the second doping test, but it sure doesn't look good for him.

[Dr Mordrid]

No, it doesn't. The only proof in my mind will be for him to have several tests at different activity levels and plot the graph. IMO if he's shown to be unusually variable with the peak within 50% of that level then they should back off.

[KeiFront]

I agree, but the normal ratio is 1 to 1, Landis was measured at 11 to 1.

[Dr Mordrid]

Ran into this today;

Natural variation in college varsity-level team sport athletes:

All analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) v. 13.0.

Baseline testosterone levels for the male participants in this sample ranged from 41.27 to 321.70 pg/mL. The latter value was judged to be an outlier as it was more than three standard deviation units above the mean and was thus excluded from all analyses. Without this data point, the upper limit of the range was 252.08 pg/mL.

The mean testosterone levels for the male participants per sport were: wrestling 120.56 pg/mL (SD = 34.75), swimming 92.88 pg/mL (SD = 12.23), basketball 87.53 pg/mL (SD = 29.09), soccer 105.59 pg/mL (SD = 53.90) respectively.

Baseline testosterone levels for the female participants in this sample ranged from 6.49 to 46.82 pg/mL. The mean testosterone levels for the female participants per sport were: wrestling 23.68 pg/mL (SD = 10.35), swimming 10.99 pg/mL (SD = 3.17), basketball 21.12 pg/mL (SD = 6.62), softball 20.32 pg/mL (SD = 12.38) respectively.

other stuff

It is well established that circulating concentrations of testosterone in (Sports and Testosterone 22) all forms (total, bioavailable and free) are characterized by a diurnal rhythm, with highest levels occurring in the morning (Cooke, McIntosh, & McIntosh, 1993).....

[Wombat]

No, it doesn't. The only proof in my mind will be for him to have several tests at different activity levels and plot the graph. IMO if he's shown to be unusually variable with the peak within 50% of that level then they should back off.

I'm curious about the rest of his samples. They've said his 17th stage test failed, but they should have 15th & 19th as well. He was tested as yellow-jersey and stage-winner for those.

[Dr Mordrid]

Exactly.

There is a similar case with sprinter Justin Gatlin, whose B sample also turned up 'high'. He had a stimulant test come back positive a while back, but discipline was overturned because it was his ADHD meds. You think the testing agency would know these things ahead of making them public.

There's something that smells wrong with this whole thing. Perhaps a peer review of the whole testing procedure is in order.

[Gurm]

Well c'mon. They test Americans - especially if they win. And that's pretty much it...

[Rakido]

Exactly.
There is a similar case with sprinter Justin Gatlin, whose B sample also turned up 'high'. He had a stimulant test come back positive a while back, but discipline was overturned because it was his ADHD meds. You think the testing agency would know these things ahead of making them public.

yeah, he's forced to take the meds since he's 10 years old and then he "forgets" to tell about it before the test? Very plausible.

And now it's a conspiracy as a masseur used a creme containing the testosterone just before the sprint race, where he was tested positively afterwards. Very plausible.
That's the statement of his coach Trevor Graham. I'm sure it's only coincidence, that at least six athlets that were coached by Graham before, were tested positively for doping too...

[Dr Mordrid]

The latter two are iffy, but if he's been taking it since age 10 how plausible is it that it never showed on his previous tests? Given that I find it a lame excuse for them to say 'oops' as regards the ADHD meds.

You can bet the rest will be evaluated in court

[KeiFront]

Floyd Landis' 'B' sample confirmed the high levels of testosterone

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/08/05/cycling.landis.ap/

[Tomasz]

Testosterone level fluctuations are common, but the urinary ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is usually relatively stable for a given individual. As a result, it is used a screening test for doping. Interestingly, a subset of the population (50% or more of asians and less than 10% of caucasians) naturally have a very low urinary testosterone to epitestosterone ratio. This occurs because the are deficient in a liver enzyme that glucuronidates testosterone and makes it water soluble. Therefore, they do not excrete much testosterone in urine and their T/E ratio does not change much even while doping.

Back to Landis:
The most damning evidence against Landis is the fact that, if reports are correct, his 13C/12C testosterone isotope ratio was low, implying exogenous supplementation of plant sterol derived testosterone... assuming that his sample was collected properly and not tampered with, this kind of a result makes me 99.999999% sure that he took testosterone.

Here's a link to an article by Dr. Catlin from UCLA medical, describing the isotope test:

http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/content/full/47/2/292