Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Irregular Report 23

The Tour keeps giving...
The AP says the AFLD is doing more tests of tour samples of riders it considers "suspicious". Blood samples from riders that had abnormal but not positive urine CERA tests have been retrieved from the Lausanne lab and sent to the AFLD lab at Chatenay Malabry for analysis. We're of mixed reactions to this. Jerking folks around months after the end of the event is annoying, but this doesn't seem as bad as the lab-shopping that happened to Heras. These are still the "A" samples, and WADA world can do pretty much anything it wants with A's, and we're not opposed to testing and catching cheats -- as long as it is done correctly. Reasonable people can have quite different views of what "correct" means in that context. The AP piece also runs down other tour testing results -- we don't remember Moises Duenas, and the clearing of Jimmy Caspar should say something about Armstrong's "chamois cream" incident. We note that Piepoli's denial of the confession reported in Spanish media is missing.

Here and There

Rant writes about the dq given Canadian parathlete Jeff Adams at the Paralympics in Beijing, and refers readers to Bonnie Ford's recent article about Floyd Landis' possible post-suspension return to cycling.

The CyclingNews also refers to Bonnie Ford's article about Floyd Landis without citing the source of his quotes used in the piece.

Racejunkie feels Johan Bruyneel has some big decisions to make on team leadership, and really "comeback kid" Floyd Landis doesn't owe us anything RJ, but it's nice to be thought of by someone.

The Roid Report's Gary Gaffney covers all his possible descriptive bases when he cites the potential return of Floyd Landis and refers to him as the "2006 non Tour de France winner/loser Floyd Landis".

The Sports Complex notes with some ambivalence Landis' possible return, laughing at the Tour of Missouri.

Cornbread & Shiftin' competed at Pepper Place, and got photos with Landis. There's race photos here, too.

TKP writes about his ride with "nice guy" tdf champ Floyd Landis on Saturday, and after he describes the law profession in no uncertain terms he relates what sounds like a great ride in Birmingham. tkp went out and bravely tried to stay ahead of Landis, with the usual results:

I was caught and the sat in on Floyd's wheel again until the last hill on Ruffner, where once over the top, Floyd came past me like a G5 passing a private single-engine, and eventually I lost sight of him, for good.

Below is a shot from tkp's blog where he is pictured with a very fit looking Floyd Landis.




Velo Cadence was also on the Saturday ride, and promises more:
I took pictures of him getting ready to ride the beach cruiser race. He had a passenger on the back. I will post the picture as soon as I upload it.

which he's done, saying Landis finished mid-pack in the Cruiser race.

Sharing the ride may have been a bad tactical choice.
(Photo: Velo Cadence).

J2d has some other pictures.

Active.com's Bruce Hildenbrand sits the pot of controversy by asking how people feel about comebacks by Landis and Hamilton.




11 comments:

whareagle said...

Floyd must've borrowed that Cervelo - too many shims above the stem itself... OR MAYBE...

Naah.

Jeff said...

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/26755354/

Did I miss something? They are taking the samples from a Lab that already did the testing, to one that will give them the results that they want....

TiGirl said...

You're surprised by this, why??? After all that we've seen and read and heard, this is just par for the course.

And once again, the riders will do nothing. They will all sit back and say tsk tsk, but just be grateful it isn't them and continue on until something does happen to them.

The TdF is a closed race now. They can do whatever they want with the samples because there's no one to govern over them. (Not that the system worked when supposedly the UCI was in charge...)

Notice the French rider was cleared? Hmmmm....aren't we all surprised???????????

Jeff said...

Not surprised, really. Just thought that they would be a little less transparent now that they were on their own....

It will be interesting to see what happens and if they actually find more positive tests..

bobble said...

Does anyone know why an asthma med would make someone test positive for freakin roids? I'm a lifelong asthma sufferer and I don't see the correlation.

Sometimes docs will prescribe a corticosteroid for airway inflammation for asthmatics but I don't believe they are in the same category.

Thanks!

Bill Mc said...

Beeble,

Re: your comment about asthma meds.

Keep in mind that metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism, i.e., what's left over after substances have been processed by the body. In drug testing the presence of specific metabolites (outputs), or combinations thereof, is inferential evidence that substances (inputs) of certain types, such as steroids, have been processed by an athlete's body.

My question/concern in this process of inferring inputs by examining outputs is what kind of scientific and/or clinical evidence exists that proves, to a high degree of certainty, that the inferences being made are valid. That evidence needs to show not only that specific banned substances break down into specific metabolites, but also needs to show that there are no other reasonable causes for those metabolites.

Does anyone know just how rigorous the "scientific/clinical" evidence is in this realm?

Thomas A. Fine said...

Bill mc,

My impression from a couple of years of googling is that metabolism of most drugs and many natural compounds has not been well-studied. At least, in most cases I've been unsuccessful at finding out what some arbitrary substance will metabolise into.

tom

wschart said...

Knowledge of chemistry and biology probably will provide a pretty good idea of how any given drug is metabolized in the human body, so I don't think that it would be necessary to show that, for example, a metabolite of a steroid wouldn't be produced if someone took an aspirin.

TiGirl said...

Beeble,

Salbuterol and Salbutemol are both steriods, used for severe asthma cases, as well as Severent which is also a steroid. Corticosteriods are used more for immediate rescue, or less severe cases, such as what I have, exercise induced asthma. That includes Albuterol, which is my medication.

bobble said...

Thanks Bill although I may have to go back to school to figure what you said. On 2nd thought no way, I just paid off the first one last week!

Calfee,

Can you still actually GET albuterol? I thought I was carrying around the LAST actual albuterol inhaler! Last time I reupped they gave me something called Proair that tastes just like (gag) Primatene which brings up baaaad memories...

GMR said...

The picture from Velo Cadence is the start for a Normal Rockwell painting. Its good to see photos of Floyd again.