Austin Town Hall Drops Hints about Retest

Frequent commenter A-town sends the following report...

Floyd Fairness Fundraiser in Austin Monday

If Floyd comes to your city I strongly urge you if you haven’t had a chance to hear the information first hand, in person, go and listen. In Austin, It was an intimate setting, the crowd probably about 50-60 people split between cyclists and Surgeons. There was some good banter between Michael and Will in the beginning as they went over the recent request and how un-American they have been treated by an organization funded by Congress. There wasn’t much new on the slides that I haven’t seen before on the online version. Dr. Baker does a great job presenting. However, he may need to be careful not to go to fast through the info because he is so familiar with it. Sorry no photos of the fundraiser and presentation, my wife needed the camera and all I had was the cell phone cam and the few photos I have are very low rez.

After the presentation the Q & A started and there were a lot of people who were hearing about the errors for the first time, it appeared to be a lot of the Surgeons that were invited by Smith & Nephews. They were surprised they hadn’t been hearing about these errors in the main stream media. Michael Henson was quick to point out that there were a few such as Mr. Hiltzik with the LA times that is providing great coverage. Mr. Henson also felt that they were starting to gain some steam in the main press. Also mentioning a bump in donations over $250 after it was released that USADA has requested the name of these donors, it seems to be the “A” list to be on. I’m sure the team would have liked USADA to have set the bar at $500, but I digress.

Some of the questions were some we’ve heard before related to the case and some were how’s the family holding up, etc. All of which were fielded well. Floyd was also asked to recount the discussion with the riders the morning before stage 17 and the strategy the whole “grab a coke because we are going on the first hill.” Evidently Floyd believes it was some of the Spanish team mates that spilled the beans on the strategy for the stage by telling their friends on other teams. It was truly great to hear that story live and have a better understanding of the pack mentality after 16 days on the bike in the grand tour.

When the mic got around to me I asked a couple of questions, related to the testing of the other “B” samples. However the answer to the second stood out so far from the first, I can’t remember what the first question was. My second question was simply this, was there going to be any blinding of the B samples they are now testing, where they going to test 14 samples instead of 7 so they wouldn’t know which was Floyds? Judging by Floyd’s and Dr. Bakers looks, I think I caught them a little off guard, Floyds eyes got big and Baker immediately got a smirk on his face. Then Dr. Baker reply’s with, “Yes, there were three random samples that were sent over from the UCLA lab to be tested with Floyds samples. However the 3 samples that were sent over had the lids taped on, apposed to Floyds samples that were not sealed the same way. So it was obvious which samples were not Floyds.” [EMPHISIS ADDED] There was this collective jaw drop and audible group sigh.

HMMM, So lets think about this, they were given 3 samples to supposedly help blind the study of Floyds samples but yet it was obvious these three samples were different than the others. Reminds me of the old Sesame Street tune and game, “which one of these is not like the other,” to which the answer was obvious to anyone that was over the age of 2. This isn’t rocket science guys, its simply trying to make Floyds samples undistinguishable from the other samples to help reduce chance of tampering and yet they’ve botched it.

After the Q & A, I spent some time talking mingling with the fans and members of the team while Floyd was signing autographs. While no one on Floyds team would elaborate beyond the non-blind/blind sample snafu the word coming back from across the pond is that after the first day LNDD has already horribly botched their do over.

Who knows the reasons for the mistakes but they know who’s samples they are testing and everyone is watching their every move, every type on the key pad every T they don’t cross and every I they forget to dot. Well let me tell you because of the mistakes and junk science at LNDD, Floyd is ready to cross Travis’ T’s and dot some eyes.

While the team is getting polished and ready to fight. I’m concerned that because Floyd is fighting an unjust war that is rigged so the house will always win, he will become a martyr similar to that of the Texas forefathers Crockett, W.B. Travis, and Bowie and the others at the Alamo. A battle you know you can’t win but you fight the good fight because that’s all you know and all you can do.

A-Town, Tx.