More on Floyd. This bit really interested me, ’cause of the source, Chemical & Engineering News: Science & Technology – The Dope On Testosterone Test.
As one commentator in the press noted, Landis may now be paying for the past sins of other cyclists. Most people are probably hoping that he is innocent. Still, it’s hard to forget that cycling has proven time after time to be a drug-ridden sport, as have most professional and international sports where athletes earn large sums of money to simply play. One possible deterrent, which is starting to be used, is to force athletes to return money if they are caught doping.
This kind of gets at what I was beating around a couple of days ago – when there’s the amount of money involved that there is in pro sport, there will be people who would grind up and eat their own mothers to win, or folks who would insinuate that the winners were eating their own mothers to sell papers about it.
Landis has added another dimension to the scandal by suggesting that circumstantial evidence points to there being something sinister at work-that is, someone tampered with his sample, rigged the analysis, or altered the results. Indeed, the French drug-testing lab and officials at the international cycling federation have been under the gun before for improperly handling samples and quietly providing documentation on test results to reporters.
Adding weight to that argument is that Landis was the only rider, out of a starting field of 176 cyclists, to have a reported positive test during the Tour. Cycling officials have explained that away by saying the cheaters were excluded from the Tour de France because they had been caught up in a related Spanish doping scandal earlier in the year. That episode led to nine riders, including several favorites, being banned from this year’s race.
Is Floyd the only rider to test positive at the 2006 TdF? I’d thought there was one other…
technorati tags:doping, landis, TdF, cycling
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Yes, Landis was the only positive during the tour. I’m keeping a roundup of current news and comment about this at http://trustbut.blogspot.com.
Others have seen the CEN article as more proof of the infallibility of the tests involved.
TBV
Landis has added another dimension to the scandal by suggesting that circumstantial evidence points to there being something sinister at work-that is, someone tampered with his sample, rigged the analysis, or altered the results. Indeed, the French drug-testing lab and officials at the international cycling federation have been under the gun before for improperly handling samples and quietly providing documentation on test results to reporters.