Monday Roundup

News
CyclingPost gives their monthly roundup; Landis still the #1 topic.

VeloNews reviews the course, says Landis would be the favorite if he is able to return.

Letters to VeloNews:

I'm in the U.S. Military, which has been conducting drug testing for years, and I'm amazed at the possibility that Floyd Landis' allegations could have merit- such sloppy record-keeping is a total disgrace if it's true. Although the truth appears far from certain in the Landis case, the ambiguity on both sides has caused this long-time ardent fan to falter in my support of what was for years quite literally only one of two sporting events I'd watch without fail, if not the only things I even watched on television all year.

CyclingNews reports on Phonak goodbyes; here's a link to the team site.

Forums
At DPF, Floyd gives a little lesson on economics. (Queue a replay of "There is Power in a Union"), also a little earlier wondering at what point the underpaid riders might start questioning their commitment to the world as it now is:

I have the support and sponsors to promote a one day race in June or July of next year for which the prize money will be 1,000,000 dollars for first and another mil split for the next few places. What are your ideas on that. Do you think it is a good start in providing some competition to the grand tours so that they improve things or do you have a reason why it is self serving? Keep in mind that for winning the vuelta you get 30,000 euros, and for winning the tour you receive 400,000 euros.

Later in the afternoon, in post #58, Will drops what he believes to be a bomb, in the 2006 Prohibited list, as adopted on Jan 1 2006, wherein the key passage reads:

a Sample will be deemed to contain such Prohibited Substance where the concentration of such Prohibited Substance or its metabolites or markers and/or any other relevant ratio(s) in the Athlete’s Sample so deviates from the range of values normally found in humans that it is unlikely to be consistent with normal endogenous production.

(Also, original from WADA which says the same thing.)

Which gets rid of the parentheses around the trailing 's' in metabolites, making it vastly more likely to mean the 'all' reading rather than the 'any' reading as used by LNDD. Still, there is confusion:

the above paragraph is about concentrations of metabolites, not about IRMS measurements of metabolites. To the extent that it might apply to IRMS, it says "and/or any other relevant ratio(s) in the Athlete’s Sample". In that case, any is clearly not all. If that applies, of course.

I've read this thing a couple of times, and, honestly, I'm not sure why Will posted it.

and then back:

This is not TD2004EAAS, however, it is a later WADA document which clearly spells out the determination of whether a prohibitied substance is in a sample.

This gives us more to chew on for a while. For discussion, the explanatory note of the 2006 edition says at 1.b says,

The explanatory note in Section 1b: "Endogenous AAS" have been reworded and expanded in order to further clarify the procedures and/or tests to follow whan an Advers Analytical Finding is reported for this category of anabolic androgenic steroids or for a T/E ratio.

But it is not clear if this clarfication is intended to encompass an IRMS determination of exogenous origin.

Blogs
Dugard says Landis will be in NYC later this week doing media, and may run into Lance.

Bicycling's Boulder Report summarizes recent DPF discussions with Landis, especially the financial ones, and his remarks about the UCI. There's the heavy implication that Boulder thinks Floyd has drunk his own Kool-Aid.

Boulder also plugs the Wiki and TBV, so we're happy about that at least, especially saying we're only slightly biased as a result of getting most information from Landis and Jacobs. It would be nice if any of the Lab Directors or Doping Agencies would return my inquiries that are not specific to the Landis case. There is information they ought to be willing to share with the public and perhaps we'd be informed in a more balanced way. (For example, this fruitless exchange with USADA).

OuchProCyling has more on the Canine Companions for Independance appearance.

Podcasts
CompetitorRadio talks to Michael Ashendon, involved in the Hamilton case and engaged in an exchange of barbs with Howard Jacobs over a previous show. An emailer listened, and says that

• Ashendon complains that the ADA side can't speak out now and that is unfair;
• He doesn't talk directly about Landis, but says smoke implies fire.
• He thinks "metabolite(s)" is perfectly clear.
• Elite cyclists have to be doping.
• Athletes should submit to DNA testing to resolve Puerto.

Which sounds pretty much like the standard ADA position -- all cyclists are dirty, anything the ADA side does is fair, indisputable, and no errors can be made.

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